Self-Directed Learning

Growing up I loved the idea of school, but I hated actually going to school. I hated getting up early, and I spent a lot of my school day waiting. Waiting for kids to finish reading, waiting for the teacher to give instructions, waiting for the day to be over.

Now I was by no means good at everything in school, but one area that was easy for me was reading. I loved reading and read all the time at home (and I mean, all the time). At school we would all learn reading together - 30 kids at once. I remember listening to kids struggle to sound out words from a book we were all reading together. It was torture - all I wanted to do was race ahead to see what happened next, but I couldn't because I could get called on to read at any time. It was painful.

This is the image I always hold in my head when I am planning my own lessons. I literally ask myself, Will this be painful for anyone?

Lately, I have felt the need to take this belief even further. I started reading about a school called Acton Academy based out of Austin. They do a lot of independent learning using technology. One of the many things I admire about this school is that kids are working at their own pace, and on things that they care about. People always work much harder when they have chosen their task.

I began working on ways to implement these ideas into my own classroom even though we are not yet a 1-1 school.

I started by organizing the resources in my room, so kids could have access to anything they needed to learn. That included games in plastic shoe boxes, office supplies in a central location, and a file cabinet organized for student use.

Finally, I turned one of our bulletin boards into our "Hero's Quest Board". The idea of the student as a hero is something I borrowed from Acton. We study cultures in third grade, so I put up paper continents and then printed out a picture of a famous place from each continent. I labeled each picture with one of the seven most important things we would be learning this trimester - writing paragraphs, information writing, answering questions about what we read, reading fluently, fractions, and two more I can't think of right now. I will post a picture of the board when I get back to school. As kids master concepts their names are put up on that part of the quest. By the end of the trimester, every name should be up on the board.

My room was ready for students to make choices and get learning, but were my students ready? After all, these are eight year old who had always been in a traditional classroom where the teacher tells you what to do, and you do it.

I needed one more piece to keep students accountable. I decided on the standards that we would be working on during the winter trimester and typed them up in kid friendly language.

Next, I made student planning sheets. Students pick the standard they are working toward meeting and right it in the learning target column. Then, they decide what they will do to work on that standard and write it in the activity column. After they have completed the activity, they write a reflection thinking about what they learned and how they worked.

Before I make copies of the sheet for the day I write the mini-lessons I will be teaching the entire class on each sheet. I keep it to less than four mini-lessons and try not to spend more than ten minutes talking for each mini-lesson.

After a week of using the sheets I found that I also wanted the kids to reflect on their behavior throughout the day to give mom and dad more information about what was happening at school. Also, my reminders to kids don't seem to change their behavior as fast as their own reflection on it. So, now on the back of each student planning page is a behavior page.

I am really happy with how these changes have affected my students and my classroom. I feel like I am making a difference every day because I am spending less time on classroom management and more time helping kids learn. Plus, the kids are motivated to master concepts, and that motivation is the key to success.

Talkative Classroom

Let me start this post by saying that I am incredibly lucky this year. My students are kind to each other (and me), they try their best all day long, and they say funny things that make me laugh. The downside of having such a fun class is that they love to talk. More than that, they can't seem to stop talking. Ever. Sometimes they aren't even talking to another person. They talk to themselves. Sing to themselves. Hum to themselves. All. day. long.

I have spent the last two months of school constantly saying, "Please don't talk to your neighbor right now." "No talking, please." "Zero voices." They always stop right away, but a few minutes later I have to remind them again. It was driving me bananas. And I am guessing they didn't like it either.

I remembered an app I used last year that showed our class volume on a meter, but I couldn't find it. Luckily,  found something better.

Too Noisy Pro's screen looks like this, and the meter moves as the volume of the class changes. The class earns stars when their noise level is in the green, and a warning goes off when the noise gets to the red. The meter is very sensitive, so it keeps the kids whispering which is perfect.

You, as the teacher, can set how long students have to be quiet to earn each star, at what level the warning should go off, and a bunch of other stuff. There are even different backgrounds and meters to choose from.

My students loved being able to see their volume on the meter. As I said above, they really are great kids and they want to be quiet - I just don't think they knew how loud they were. The best part of using the meter is that I don't have to remind them to be quiet. This app made Friday such a great day for all of us! I am hoping it works again next week.

If you are thinking that your kids would get tired of this little gimmick, you are probably right. I built this into our existing classroom management system. Actually, the kids suggested it. Every time the kids get all seven stars on the screen a giant star pops up. You then need to start over with the meter. Well, when a giant star pops up in my classroom, a kid jumps out of his or her seat, resets the meter and adds a smilely face to our class tally (smileys for awesome behavior, sad faces for unexpected behavior). If we have more smilelys at the end of the day we get to do something fun. More sad faces and we need to build or working stamina. The only time my kids get more sad faces is when they are having a chatty day. Friday they got five smileys and no sad faces!

Anyway, I hope this tip helps! I know that I have Googled what to do about a noisy classroom and I have had a hard time finding something I could try the next day. You can definitely try this the next day. (PS - There is a free version, but I happily paid the $3.99 for the "PRO" version.)

How to Sharpen Colored Pencils

There are few things in the classroom that drive me more crazy than colored pencils. Especially back when I used to teach middle school science. Kids go through the colored pencils like crazy. They are always breaking, and then, when you try to sharpen them, they ruin pencil sharpeners.

I bought three pencil sharpeners in one year because of colored pencils.

It got so bad that I stopped letting kids sharpen any pencils using the electric pencil sharpener. I bought some cheap handheld sharpeners and made the kids use those. Unfortunately, those get dull really fast when a bunch of kids are using them. They also take way too long to use.

I had basically given up on colored pencils. I had the kids color using crayons which did not need to be sharpened. The crayons had their own issues, most importantly it was hard to get the detail kids needed using bulky crayons.

If you are reading this post you most likely googled "how to sharpen colored pencils" or something like that. I have googled that myself - many times. I couldn't find a definitive answer for that one. I kept hoping to find a special pencil sharpener designed to sharpen color pencils, but I never found anything.

Just a few weeks ago, while just messing around on the internet, I found the answer I had been looking for regarding the colored pencil situation. Someone, an artist, I think, mentioned sharpening colored pencils in an article about drawing with colored pencils.

She said that it was okay to sharpen colored pencils in an electric sharpener as long as you sharpen a graphite pencil right afterwards to clean out the pencil sharpener. Colored pencils are made using a waxy substance. When the electric pencil sharpener sharpens the colored pencils the hear causes the waxy stuff to melt a little bit. That gums up the sharpener. However, graphite acts as a lubricant and cleans the pencil sharpener, so the waxy stuff can't build up and break the sharpener.

I have been sharpening colored pencils in my electric pencil sharpener for three weeks now with no problems. I have a mid-range sharpener, it was about $30 last year, and has continued to work well in the classroom. I am teaching third grade now, so we don't have as much whole class coloring as I did when I taught science, but I still get a couple of colored pencils a day to sharpen.

When a kid asks me to sharpen a colored pencil I just make sure that I grab a couple of pencils out of our "dull pencils" jar at the same time. I sharpen the colored pencil, then two graphite pencils. It seems to be working very well.

I hope you find this post helpful. I remember how frustrated I was when I was searching to a solution to the colored pencil problem.

Five Steps to Building Positive Relationships with Your Students' Parents

We have all had those e-mails from that parent. The ones that make your stomach hurt. That can ruin your whole night. That make you question your worth as a teacher.

I would say that those e-mails are the thing I hate most about being a teacher. Even after all of the years I have been teaching, they still get to me.

I was so lucky this year to have an entire class full of helpful and positive parents. That isn't to say there weren't issues that we had to work through, but it felt like we were working together instead of against each other. These positive relationships were just one of things that made this year so incredible.

I think there are a lot of reasons for this magical year. First, I worked really hard to communicate with parents. I was also on maternity leave having an adorable baby for a couple of months in the fall. It is really hard to get mad at someone who just had a baby. Finally, I think these were just a great group of parents.

Looking forward to next year, I want to have the same kind of year with the parents of the class. I will also be working on my National Boards, and parent relationships is a big part of that.

After reading a blog post on it, I have started reading Unshakeable: 20 Ways to Enjoy Teaching Every Day by Angela Watson. She has some really good ideas about self-care and using time efficiently.

My favorite parts of the book so far are her ideas for establishing positive relationships with the parents of your students right away. Here are my top five ideas for getting on the right foot with parents:

1. As soon as you get your class list, write short post cards home to each student. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but your students (and their parents!) will love getting something from you in the mail. It will show them how much you care and how excited you are to work with them this year.

2. Call every parent after the first day of school to let them know their child had a great day. If you can, mention something specific about each child, so their parents know that you are working to get to know their child. Even when a kid has been in school for a while (like a new third grader), parents still want to know that everything is going smoothly at school. It is another way to show you care, and will build up your positive points with parents right away.

3. Pre-address good news notes with students' names, and send home a few a month. You can mail them or send them home in backpacks. By pre-addressing the notes, you know you will get something home to every kid, and it won't take much of your time. Parents think their kids are wonderful, and showing you agree will help keep you on the same team.

4. Use a class website, blog, or other page (like Edmodo) to post important class information and make sure that parents know how to access them. Believe it or not, kids are not that great at communicating information between home and school, and parents will appreciate having a place to go for information at the last minute without having to wait for you to respond.

5. Once a month, or once a quarter, have a special event for families in your class. I know this sounds like a lot of work, but if you hold it on the same night as a school special event, it really won't be much more work for you, and you will get a huge payoff! For example, have a small art show the night before a school movie night. Hold a poetry reading before Bingo Night. Another great way to bring parents in to the classroom is to having a "Reading Breakfast". Parents can come to the classroom a half an hour before school starts and read with their child while enjoying donuts and juice.

I don't know about you, but I am definitely going to try these ideas next year. I will keep you updated on how they go!

What do you do to keep positive relationships with your parents?

Rainbow Self-Monitoring Freebie!

Well, my original post on the Rainbow Self-Monitoring Clip Chart hit 20 views last night! I promised I would share it as a freebie when that happened, so here it is:

Just click on the picture to get access to the Google Drive document I created. You will be able to view/print the pages. If you want to edit it to fit your own needs you will need to...

1. Go to "File"
2. Select "Make a Copy"
3. Select a new name for the copy

Once you have made a copy, you will be able to edit the file to fit your needs (except you won't be able to change the clip art). You will not see any changes I happen to make to the file in your own copy, but if you keep the file I shared with you, then my changes will appear.

I hope you enjoy this freebie! If you like it, check out my TpT and TN stores!

Rainbow Clip Chart Update

So, today was our first day in class using the Self-Monitoring Clip Charts. I have to say, it was a success. Kids did a much better job monitoring themselves when they had the charts in front of them. Plus, I could always count down and then announce, "If you are ready, you are at a green. If you are still talking, you are at a yellow."

I sent home seven positive notes today, and I could have sent more. I had a few disappointed kids, but I explained that I only had enough time to write seven notes. They were welcome to try for a note tomorrow. I did have to send home one reminder note. This was hard, but the note was well deserved. I am hoping that this system can change the trajectory of this particular student's behavior.

I will let you know how the charts work as the weeks go on.

Student Self-Monitored Rainbow Clip Chart

Ahhhhh!! Has anyone else's class been going crazy lately? My students are having so much trouble following our classroom expectations. We have been practicing coming in from recess and sitting down quietly, working quietly, reading silently during Daily 5, etc... I hate having to constantly get on them for not following expectations. Especially the for the kids that are doing what they need to do.

We have literally gone back to the first week of Daily 5 and are timing ourselves for silent reading. To be fair, we haven't been consistently doing silent reading, so it makes sense that their stamina has slipped, but it is still frustrating that we can only read for about eight minutes some days! I am not going to let silent reading go ever again!

Anyway, I have been thinking really hard about how I can turn responsibility for their individual behavior over to them. I am way too busy to manage behavior for 22 individuals - that is just impossible for any one person to do!

I started giving tickets for good behavior last week. This has worked for some things, but it is missing teeth. Yes, kids who are behaving correctly get tickets for a drawing, but kids who aren't doing what they should do have no consequences. I haven't really needed any consequences stronger than staying in at recess for a chat with this group, so we don't have anything in place already.

I have decided to try a clip chart, but not one that hangs up in the front of the room. I am not a fan of the charts that everyone can see because I feel like it would be embarrassing for kids who are working on following classroom expectations. I never want to embarrass anyone.

Instead, I made these rainbow charts for each student in my class.

Students can keep them on their desks. It isn't 100% private, but it will allow both me and the student to quickly see how the day is going. Plus, I plan on having the students clip themselves up and down the chart. Moving yourself is way less embarrassing than having your teacher move you. Of course, if students need help accurately placing themselves on the chart, I can help them with that too.

You can see that, unlike other clip charts, I gave some broad examples of what each level would look like in the classroom. I am hoping this will help students accurately place themselves on the chart.

I did have my own students in mind when I wrote these. For most of my students their main issues are not being ready during transitions, being off-task during work time, and talking out. I do have a few students who are very distracting to others and sometimes make unsafe choices. I am hoping that these descriptions work for all of my students. For example, kids can go to red right away for making an unsafe choice (such as swinging arms around while holding scissors - yes, it has happened this year), or they can slowly move to red as they continue to talk out or be off-task.

On the flip side, students can move up at anytime. If a student is on red, but then stops distracting others, they can move up to yellow or even green. I think that this ability to move at any time will be important for my students who are still learning how to be successful in a classroom.

While I think that just being aware of their behavior will help most of my students, I still want some sort of carrot and some sort of stick. I am thinking that anytime students clip up they will get a ticket for our class prize drawings. Plus, if students end the day on a blue or purple, they will get a positive note home:

I try to send home positive notes for kids as often as possible, but when I get busy this is one of the first things to go. I am hoping that by having notes ready I will be more likely to follow through. I left room at the bottom to add specific details for each individual child.

On the other hand, kids that end the day at red (maybe orange too) will get a note home that needs to be signed. This will, hopefully, get parents checking in with their students as well.

I really hope this plan gets us through the last eight weeks of school. Plus, I need to get these kids ready for fourth grade!

If you would be interested in this set, I would be happy to share! Just leave a comment on this page, follow the blog, or share this post. As soon as I get five new followers or 20 views of this post, I will post the link to this FREE product!

I am so mad because I haven't been making good choices! I am going to rally and move back up the clip chart.

I did it! I am so happy! I can do anything! Look how much I can learn when I follow directions!