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:

Teaching Doesn't Always Go As Planned

I taught 3 lessons this week! On Friday I went to Mr. Erickson's 3rd grade classroom and planned to compare numbers with the students. However, after a quick formative assessment I realized we still needed a little more practice on reading whole numbers to the hundred thousands. Since I had to change my lesson on the spot all I had was a white board, a marker, my mean rhythm skills, and Mr. Erickson's students.



 The students could recite the place value chart correctly, but once we put numbers in the place value chart the students struggled reading the numbers. We couldn't move on to comparing numbers if they were struggling reading them. This is actually a common misunderstanding 3rd grade students have but is a very easy fix.  I simply put a number on the board and grouped it by their families as shown below.

I then had the students give me a beat. My active students especially loved coming up with their own beat. As soon as the beat was established we began reading the numbers together.  I wish I had a video of all of us doing this together. Since I wasn't able to do so, I created a film on my couch, no makeup, and wild hair. It's all for the kids. Enjoy!

As you can see it wasn't anything fancy, and it was a lot more upbeat when the students did it with me. They even created some pretty creative beats when they started doing it on their own. Before I left the classroom the students were able to read the numbers with ease.

Sometimes lessons don't always go as planned. That's ok though! It's all about the students and meeting them where they are at.  I hope you have a great week teaching your amazing students!

Building Teacher Leadership

I am still here! My first post was a month ago and I have been waiting to post until school started back up. Well...it has started and it has been fast and furious. Just the way I like it. We welcomed our fabulous teachers on August 10 and it was great to see their smiling faces. They worked so hard getting their rooms together and preparing for the new school year.



As you know I am very passionate about teaching and believe all administrators should continue to teach so we stay connected on what's going on in the classroom. I also believe that as an administrator it is important that we build leadership among our teachers. My  principal and I are giving our teachers more opportunities this year to do just that! The first set of teachers that led a professional development for our campus were Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Roberson. Their professional development was over Super Improver Boards and Practice Boards. Here is a GREAT post about the Super Improver board from 3rd Grade Thoughts.

Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Roberson did a fabulous job and we learned so much from their expertise. It is important to build leadership within our schools. These teachers are in the trenches every day and have valuable knowledge and expertise to share. Having teacher led professional development encourages collaboration not only with teachers but with the administrators as well.

As an assistant principal I learn so much from my teachers on how I can become a better teacher. I walked into a 1st grade classroom this week and saw the students paying the game below. They call it Wacka Word. The students LOVED the activity and so did I! This activity can be used for phonics, spelling, and so much more!



Seeing this activity and other great activities inspired me to do an Activity Trade-Show with our teachers. Basically, our teacher leaders will pick one of their favorite activities and will set up a table in the cafeteria. They will provide handouts to the teachers on the materials needed for the activity and the directions. As each teacher goes from table to table the teacher will demonstrate the activity in 5 minutes or less.  This event will take place October 10 so stay tuned! (I will be having a table set up too!)

I hope you are having a fantastic week. I am off to TEACH a first grade lesson!





Monday Mini-Trainings

Principal Teacher is all about administrators being more involved in the classroom but we have to walk a fine line. We never want our teachers to think we are in the classroom because we are spying on them, suggesting they are not doing things right, or suggesting we know how to do it better. It is simply about administrators getting in the classroom to teach or actively involved in the lessons so we do not become disconnected. It is VERY easy to get caught up in the everyday demands of a principal and before you know it you haven't been in a classroom for 2 weeks. How are teachers going to take us seriously when we lead staff developments if we don't walk the walk and talk the talk?
  As a first year assistant principal on a new campus I had to work really hard to earn credibility. They didn't know who I was, what kind of teacher I was, or what my motives were. They didn't know that at my previous school I was actively involved in developing math and reading strategies, I conducted professional developments on best practice strategies weekly, I was part of a national program that promoted teacher growth, or that my students showed the most growth in the entire district on their state assessment.  They had no clue what kind of teacher I was or the passion I had for teaching; therefore, it was hard for several teachers to trust me and understandably so. I wanted to show the teachers I was there to help them and I had so many things I wanted to share.          
      After a particulary stressful day I went home and spent the weekend brainstorming how I could share with our teachers new and effective strategies and build credibility not just as an administrator but as a teacher as well. Again, principals should never stop being a teacher. I finally developed the idea Monday Mini Trainings. Below are the SIMPLE steps. When we try to make professional development too complex is when we lose our teachers. They are already overwhelmed with everything they have going on and just want us to get to the bottom line.

                                                      Monday Mini Training
1. Mini Trainings last 30 minutes. At our campus we were dismissed at 3:05 and started the training promptly at 3:15. Since our teachers made sure to be there on time, I made sure to end on time.

2. Ask you teachers what their needs are. First, this encourages our teachers to be self- reflective and second we are providing them with PD that will be useful for them.

3. Pick ONE skill to focus on and create a professional development over the skill. Keep it specific and relevant.  Our Monday Mini Trainings were successful because we provided all of the materials our teachers needed to be able implement the new skill or strategy the next day. We knew that if our teachers had what they needed when they left, they would more likely implement the strategy.

4 The teachers have until the next Monday Mini Training to implement the strategy into their classroom. It was understood the teacher could tweak and add their own creativity to match their student's needs.

5. The next Monday the teachers met with their Mixed Block groups. During that time they discussed what work, what didn't work, how they tweaked it, and how they would continue to implement the strategy.

6. The next Monday we started the process over.

*A Mixed Block group include teachers from other grade levels, interventionist, and enrichment teachers.

Monday Mini- Trainings were so successful that our teachers from the intermediate campus began to attend the trainings. They help our teachers to grow and collaborate with other teachers.  Last year my principal, Tiffany Bietz, and I led the Monday Min-Trainings. This year we are working towards having our teachers led some of the trainings to build campus leadership. We are also going to offer to come into the classroom and c0-teach the new skill to the class if a teacher is willing.

If you have any questions on how we were able to implement Monday Mini-Trainings please feel free to ask under the comment section below! Have a great Thursday!

What is Principal Teacher?

     Am I teacher or am I a principal? I am both! I am actually an assistant principal for a 1st-3rd grade campus. I will be starting my second year and I have LOVED it! I will have to be honest though, I really began to miss teaching about a month into my first year as an assistant principal. I had a pit in my stomach because I missed it so much. I missed the joys of teaching and helping student's succeed. I was the teacher who stood on top of desks, transformed my classroom depending on the lesson, created silly songs, dressed up, and more importantly believed my student's were capable of great things. I had spent the last 10 years teaching and all of a sudden felt like a part of me was missing. This feeling never went away and I didn't know what to do. I loved my job as an assistant principal but also wanted to teach. I didn't know how I could possibly do both.
     Fast forward to June. I went to the TEKS resource conference in San Antonio and Ron Clark was our keynote speaker. Talk about a guy who knows what he is doing! I really respect his leadership style. He says it like it is, but in a kind way. He does this because his ultimate priority are his students, and he expects excellence from anyone who is going to teach his students. While he was talking there was one thing which really stood out to me. He talked about one of the classes he taught. Now wait a minute! He is a man who teaches a class and runs the greatest school in the world! If he has enough time to still teach, why can't I? The bottom line is he makes it a priority and I plan on doing the same thing this year. Not only does he make it a priority but so does Co-founder of the Ron Clark Academy, Kim Bearden. Again, she helps run the best school in the world and is an ELA teacher. Talk about rockstars!  They both inspired me to create the blog Principal Teacher. I am not only a principal but a teacher as well.
     As the new school year approaches I have been brainstorming how to make this happen. How do I build trust with my teachers so they know I am not spying on them or assuming I think they are doing something wrong? If I was a teacher in the classroom and my assistant principal said they wanted to teach a class this would be my first thought. Why? Because this is not a common practice among principals and assistant principals. It's not because we don't want to. Ask any principal what they feel like they need to work on and I would bet most of them would say they wish they could be in classrooms more. Being a principal or an assistant principal is tough and there are a lot of things we do behind the scenes. However, I know we can get into classrooms more if we make it a priority. 
     What will this all look like? Will I be teaching lessons, doing read alouds, or just simply being engaged during the lesson and not just sitting in a corner taking notes? I don't know quite yet. I do know there will be some things I do that will turn out great and there will be other things I will need to work on. This is a journey we can all walk together. Here's to a great year!