Wonderland Book Tasting

I did a Wonderland Book Tasting with one of our first grade teachers. I originally got the idea from Hope King and you can find her original blog post here. She has such amazing ideas! I had to do some tweaking since I was doing this activity with 1st graders. I spent some time brainstorming different ways the 1st graders could communicate with each other on whether or not they liked the book. That's when I came up with the Love It and Leave It cards as shown below. The students read the book with their partner for about 3 minutes. Remember we are just getting a taste of the book.  During this time the students are reading the words, looking at the pictures, and deciding whether or not the book is something they are interested in. They then discuss with their partner whether they LOVE the book or would rather LEAVE the book. However, the students cannot just simply say they love the book or would leave it. They have to explain WHY. This can be difficult for 1st graders at first because they have a hard time expressing their thoughts and feelings. However, after just a couple of rounds the 1st graders were improving in this area greatly. Having students justifying their thinking is vital at this age. If we teach our students at an early age to do this it will help them to develop into independent thinkers.

Download these cards for free here.

Here are some pictures from our book tasting. We had such a blast! I started this activity with the intention of just doing it with one class. It was such a hit we ended up doing it with 14 different classrooms! I was so thrilled so many teachers wanted their students to participate.

So how exactly did we choose our books? For first and second grade we did it by authors and the teachers decided on the authors. Below are some of the authors the teachers picked for their book tasting.

1st grade:

2nd Grade:

At the end of the book tasting many of the students were asking when they could go to the library to check out these books. We had such a great time and I am grateful I was able to do this with so many students! If you are wondering where you can get the cool hats, I bought them from Amazon. They are little pricey for paper hats, but I had about 280 students come through this book tasting and the hats are still in great shape!

A book tasting can be done with any age and they are super easy and fun to do. Anyone can do one, including an administrator! :)

                                                                

Fight For Your Students

    I had a student that challenged me in every way possible. I saw greatness in him that he did not see. He was just waiting for me to give up on him and I refused. I fought for him because he wouldn't fight for himself. I pushed him to realize his full potential and he resisted me often, but I never gave up on him. At the time, I didn't know his parents were going through a divorce. His parents put on a pretty good show and he never shared with me what was going on. It wasn't until 2 years later that I found out. He wrote me a letter telling me that I was the only one that fought for him and it helped him get through his parents divorce. He also told me he was doing great in school and it was because I never let him quit. If I had known about his parents divorce, would I have gone easier on him? Absolutely not! I love all my students and my heart hurts for them when they go through difficult situations. However, we can meet students physical and emotional needs without making  excuses for them.  Excuses will only weaken your students, not make them stronger. 

   Why did I share this story with you? Its simple really. We must remember to never give up on our students even when they resist us every step of the way. Take your students where they are and work with them to discover their greatness. Stop wishing they will change and do something about it. Wishing only creates disappointment, because you aren't actually doing anything. Every one of our students deserves someone that will fight for them. I often hear the phrase, "The students should be more tired then the teacher at the end of the day". However shouldn't students and teacher both be exhausted? The students should be exhausted from thinking all day at a higher level then ever before. The teacher should be exhausted because they are constantly working to make sure that each and every one of their students are reaching their full potential in everything they do. It can be a straight up exhausting battle to get through to students the importance of  taking ownership for their own learning and to build up some grit. Grit is pushing through even when it seems impossible. For some students, this battle is a short one and they learn very quickly the importance of fighting through challenges. They know it will make them stronger and smarter.  For other students, it isn't just a battle but a war with some losses and some victories throughout the entire year. However, if the teacher is relentless and will continue to fight for these students, the teacher and student will come out victorious.

   Fighting for your students doesn't mean making excuses for them. Fighting for your students means setting high expectations for every single one of them and pushing them to work hard to meet those expectations. It isn't easy because you will meet resistance. We live in trophy giving, everyone is special without working for it, kind of world. The truth is we have to teach our students the value of hard work and GRIT so the real world is a little bit easier to handle when it is their turn to conquer it!

   Thank you to all of the teachers that fight for their students on a daily basis. Your hard work and dedication does not go unnoticed. You are making a difference!

Student Led PD- MIssion Technology

A flipped staff meeting traditionally includes the administrators sharing in advance with the staff  the purpose of the meeting. Often times the teachers will receive the agenda, articles, or other documents ahead of time. We were a little more secretive for this flipped staff meeting.  We wanted to build up the excitement for the teachers. Below is the invitation we sent the teachers before the staff meeting.

 

The purpose of a flipped staff meeting is to allow teachers more time to collaborate and make the meeting relevant and worthwhile. Before the meeting we gave the teachers the sheet below and gave a quick explanation of what they were about to learn.

To make the training extra special we had our students be the teachers. We brought the students together after school one day and gave them all the coding toys we had purchased. We explained each toy to the students and simply let them play with them. Tiffany and I were amazed how much faster the students figured out the coding toys compared to us. They absolutely LOVED it!

 We also had them practice their presentation skills. To assist our students on this, I created the sheet below. It is a quick and simple reference guide on how to present.

                                           

As we were training the students, we made them promise they would not say a word to the teachers about what we were doing. They were our Top Secret Agents and we depended on them to keep our secret. The students actually kept it a secret! They had me and Tiffany, my principal, cracking up. Even my own child fussed at me when I almost let it slip. They definitely took their job very seriously.

I was so proud of our students! They presented their coding "toy" and were so well spoken. The ages of students presenting ranged from 6-9 years old.  They were able to explain to the teachers what coding was and how to operate their product. The students showed the teachers how to use Ozobot, Osmo Coding, Robot Mouse, Dot, and CodeApillar. We had 5 different stations set up and the teachers rotated through each station.

  After the training I created a sign-out sheet station for teachers to check out these fun new toys. For now we have one of each coding toy and will purchase more based on how often teachers use them. I have learned that it is also important to follow-up with teachers after you do trainings like this. Encourage them to take this new learning back into their classroom.

Overall, the flipped staff meeting was a success. If I were to do one thing differently, I would make sure to do this type of training in a larger space so that the teachers had more room to spread out. I can't wait for our next flipped staff meeting! Our hope is our teachers will look forward to staff meetings and walk away with new learning that they can implement into their classroom immediately.

Ron Clark Academy Visit- AMAZING

Our shirts say "Essential #56- Attend Ron Clark Academy. That's right! My dream came true and I was able to attend the RCA with my awesome principal Tiffany.  Thank you Tiffany for making this happen! Excited does even begin to describe how I felt about being able to attend RCA, as you can tell from the picture below. Ha!

This my friends is me FREAKING OUT because we are headed into the Ron Clark Academy. The AMAZING Ron Clark was at the door greeting us and I pretty much attacked him. I was jumping up and down and hugged him. As soon as I let go I looked at him and then hugged him again. I couldn't contain my excitement! As soon as we enter I see all of my EduHeros. There they were in real life! And y'all they are just as nice in person as you would expect them to be. 

I was so happy to meet Hope King. Y'all she knew who I was. She knew I was Principal Teacher! How cool is that? I was shaking too much to take this selfie because I was freaking out inside! She was gracious enough to take my phone and take the pic. I wanted to talk with her more but wasn't able to. So Hope I want you to know that you are an inspiration to so many! Thank you for all you do! See you in Orlando!

I also saw Kim Bearden! Y'all seriously one of the nicest ladies. I sat in awe just listening to her speak. When I had the chance to finally talk to her I could hardly get the words out. Y'all I was so excited! I need to learn to calm myself down and "be cool". But it wasn't happening on this particular day. Don't let the pic below fool you. I was tripping over all my words because I was just...you guessed it EXCITED!!! I should learn some new adjectives but I got nothing right now. Oh and this post is to express my true and raw feelings so you will find errors everywhere. Sorry english peeps!

Ok as I was saying..Kim. AMAZING! I felt like I couldn't stop grinning listening to her. I also had urges to yell AMEN in response to pretty much EVERYTHING she said. She is the real deal! 

Ok then there is this thing. It's in the gym and I ran towards it when I saw it. I mean how COOL is this. There were things like this all over the building. Even the bathrooms were decked out! 

I also got to see Ron Clark teach his students. I CRIED! That's right the excitement was so much and so overwhelming I cried! All he had was a promethean board, pen, and music and he had the students more engaged then I have ever seen any other teacher. He also doesn't mess around when he teaches. He doesn't allow for a single student to get off task. If they do there are consequences. They are so discreet and quick you hardly know what just happened. I was just like "Rock on sir! Rock on!" This is the very reason why his 5th graders can do work well above their expected grade level. 

Ok let's talk about this guy right here. Junior Bernadin. I just want to kick myself for not getting a picture with him. So I just stole one off of google. He is one of a kind. At one point we had a question and answer session and after the session he talked to me one on one about student discipline. I NEEDED to have that conversation with him. He and I are doing very similar things with our students and regards to discipline.  I am only a second year AP and still have a lot to learn, but it was reassuring to hear that I was on the right track with what I was doing. 

Oh and did I mention I meet Dwayne Reed. You know who he is. Think of the song "Welcome to 4th grade. I'm happy to meet you...." If you haven't heard this song you are living under a rock. I also met  Brandon Fleming. Such a nice guy and look at that smile! Keep being awesome Brandon! 

Ok so this is the time where I met Ron Clark again and didn't attack him. I was much calmer and overwhelmed with all I learned. I was processing everything and this was the only time I couldn't find my words. There are so many things I wish I would have said to him. I hope and pray that one day our paths cross again and I am able to tell him the impact he has made on me as an educator. Mr. Clark I did write you a letter. I hope you get it! This man has a true heart for education and loves his students, staff, and even strangers fiercely. He has a true gift. 

I did not post any pictures of the students our of respect for their families. They amazed me. They are able to hold onto a conversation better than any other student I have met. They are polite, look at you in the eye, and work hard. This is a result of the adults in their lives having high expectations for them and demanding the best. These students are the future leaders of our country and I couldn't be more proud of them. 

If you have never been to the RCA you need to go. It is a life changing experience and is how schools should be. I want to go back to the 2 day training and take as many teachers as possible. Thank you RCA for allowing us to visit!

Pokemon Go!

When I was a classroom teacher, my friend Julie Rogers and I developed the strategy RIJ. It is a thinking strategy students use when they are trying to understand a question.

R- Read

I- Interpret
J- Justify

It seems pretty simple to teach, right? A student READS the question and rereads it if necessary. Then the student INTERPRETS the question, or puts it into their own words. Finally, the student JUSTIFYS their thinking, or provides evidence of their thinking. Here's the deal. This is a really hard skill for students to master. Most of the time the students will just reread the question when they are interpreting the question. They have a very difficult time putting the question into their own words.

I have been working with some 2nd grade teachers in implementing RIJ into their math problem solving. I introduced RIJ to the students and we went over several examples. However, the students just weren't understanding how to interpret the question and justify their thinking. I knew that if I wanted students to grasp this difficult concepts then I was going to have to take a different approach in teaching RIJ.

I started brainstorming different activities I could do with the students that connected to their interests. That's when I thought of Pokémon Go! It seems to be the only game the students are talking about these days. I told the students we would use Pokémon Go to review RIJ and they were really excited.

(The West Texas wind kept trying to blow down the sign but it held strong.)

I put a question card and Pokémon chips into each container. The students raced to a Poke ball, opened it, and used RIJ to interpret the question of each math problem solving card. Once they felt like they could interpret the question and justify their thinking, they raised their had and one of the teachers ran over to them. At that point, the teacher decided if the students correctly interpreted the questions and justified their thinking. If they did, then the students grabbed a chip from their ball, placed it in their bag, and then raced to the next ball.

The students had a BLAST! I was amazed how much they improved using RIJ. By the end of the activity they were interpreting the questions and justifying their thinking like pros!

Of course I had to dress up as Ash Ketchum. The students got a kick out of this.

Even my sweet little boys wanted in on the fun in creating the Pokemon characters :)

This activity is really easy to put together. Below are a list of resources you can use to help you get started. Remember GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL!

Poke Chips- Click Here

Poke Balls-  Click Here

Ash Hat  -    Click Here

* You can buy a blue hoodie vest and green gloves on Amazon.







Classroom Transformation Takeover: Book Tasting!

For those of you new to the blog, I am an assistant principal who has a passion for teaching. This week I was able to do a Book Tasting for a 3rd grade reading classroom. I call this Classroom Transformation Takeover because the students had no idea it was coming. The students went to music and PE and when they came back their room was transformed into a restaurant! Shout out to my awesome principal, Tiffany, who helped me decorate in 15 minutes!

Next time I am going to put up more plastic table cloths on the wall to make it more of a dramatic difference. Lesson learned for next time! :) 

Here are some more pictures of the decorations!

I used the Book Tasting activity from Joanne Miller of Head Over Heels for Teaching. You can grab this resource here at TPT for $6. It was worth EVERY penny. It saved me so much planning and prep time. You can also visit her blog here for other great ideas! 

All of these resources are included plus more! 

A special shout out to Sheila Barnes, one of our 3rd grade teachers for helping me gather the books for each genre. She is the book queen! 

I LOVED getting to teach again. I love the connection that is made with students when teaching. The students enjoyed the book tasting and got a kick out of their assistant principal standing on furniture while teaching. 

Thank you Mrs. Unruh's class for letting me come into your class. I really enjoyed it and I hope you did too! 

Enrichment World Tour!

LEARNING ABOUT OTHER CULTURES!

First, what is Enrichment? It is a time where the  teachers have an extra conference so they can plan together, and it is from 2:45- 3:30 once a week.  The RTI teachers, ESL teachers, a Special Ed teacher,  Dyslexia teachers, paras, myself, and the counselor go in during this time and teach an enrichment activity. We also have our PE teacher and music teacher who volunteered to be subs if someone was absent. Did I mention they volunteered to fill in even though this is their conference time? We have some rock star teachers at our school.

So you might be wondering what we teach during this time. Since we have so many great teachers teaching during enrichment time we had a plethora of ideas. But one of our goals was to make this easy for teachers who were teaching enrichment. We didn't want this to take anymore of their prescious planning time for their own classes. One night I couldn't sleep and was wondering how we could make the planning process easier for everyone. I began to think about our students and what we could do to broaden their learning experience, and then it hit me. How cool would it be to learn about other cultures? 

We live in a small rural town and we don't have as much exposure to different cultures compared to students who live in larger cities. Originally I was thinking of calling this time Where in the World are the Principals? Kind of like Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?  But when I presented the idea to my principal she suggested Enrichment World Tour since our school theme this year is Rock N' Roll. I thought it was a great idea and that's how the name Enrichment World Tour was born. 

Side Note: I have to give a shout out to my principal, Tiffany Bietz. I come into her office on a frequent basis and I always start off with, " Ok, don't think I am crazy but I have an idea....". She never does and always supports me in my crazy adventures.  She runs with me and makes the crazy idea even stronger! I am grateful for her support!

Back to Enrichment World Tour. Our students will  have a month to learn about a new country. We will teach the students about the people, language, and the different things that make the country unique. 

One thing that did concern me was how we were going to keep the students interested. We were only going to be having a lesson once a week. How could we keep it exciting and interesting for the other 4 days a week? That's when I came up with the idea for a hall way transformation or more like a nook transformation. I found the signs in the picture below and thought it would be perfect. My husband David , who is also a 3rd grade teacher at my school, created the stage. We then added artifacts, information, student work (not pictured), and pictures that are all about Australia. 

I will be posting about each country we tour at the end of the 4 weeks. Our first stop is Australia! Next stop will be Brazil! Stay tuned!

Special Thanks To: