Winner and A Great Book...

First of all, congratulations to Jen Jenkins Vukosic on winning Michelle's awesome Dental Health Craftivity!  Jen - you should have an e-mail already!  :)

A couple weeks ago I received this book in my Amazon order.

Let me just tell you, it has REALLY made me reflect a lot on my classroom.  I am SO excited about the things I'm learning.  I read just a few pages a night, which helps with trying to apply it.  Every single day, I think about what I read and implement some of the techniques she mentions.  For example, last night I read about how to respond when kids give silly answers to questions.  Today when some of my kiddos gave silly responses just to get attention and laughs from the class, I went with it.  Just like Debbie said, if you show them you're serious, they'll be serious as well!  It was pretty funny neat to see their faces just drop as I turned the tables on them.  ;)  Here's an example of the conversation we had:

Me: "What do you think might be something scary about moving to a new place?"

Class Clown Student:  "All the creepy, scary spiders!" (It wasn't a for real answer...he had a goofy grin on his face and started laughing...then the other kids STARTED to laugh, BUT....)

Me (without missing a beat or giving him a look): "What makes you think your new house would have spiders?  Why would that be something that would scare you?"

TOTAL change.  My kids just stopped.  And he tried to continue thinking, trying to justify his answer. This happened a couple of times throughout the day.  My normal reaction would've been to say something like, "Ok, it's not time to be silly," and then give them the death stare.  But usually they just keep cracking the jokes here and there.  You probably know that your class clowns will always be class clowns.  And for some reason, your stare-downs and "stop it" comments only seem to fuel the fire.  Oh sure, they might back off for a minute, but these students thrive off the negative attention sometimes.  So if you let them know you're serious and turn it around on them, you might just notice that it really does put an end to it!  And then they're roped into a serious discussion about books and therefore LEARNING!  Amazing how that works.  ;)

Anyways, I hope you all had a great Hump Day!  Only 2 days left before a long weekend!

P.S. Stay tuned for my first big solo giveaway!  I have some FUN plans for this, friends!!!!  Coming this weekend.... ;)  You won't want to miss it!

Resolutions: Professional

Here I am with this last post to complete my New Year's Resolutions!

First of all, I'm a lover of reading.  I mean, it's kinda crazy how much I love to read.  So this year I'm going to up my intake of some good ole professional literature!  I have 3 books in my Amazon cart and 1 should arrive tomorrow!  I actually have another book on my nightstand right now ("Strategies That Work").  Can we say "book nerd"?  Have any of you read any of these books?  I'm pretty excited!  :)

With the new teacher evaluation system in Ohio, next year we have to have MUCH more detailed plans.  I put together a general overview of my week, but we're talking the kind of lesson plans you had to write in college!  Remember how we all used to say, "Oh, we'll NEVER have to write REAL plans like this when we're real teachers!"  Actually, I think I definitely might have told a former student teacher that recently...  Well, next year we have to write them like that!  Yeah!  Objectives, resources and materials, differentiated components for EACH LESSON, assessments for EACH LESSON, standards for each lesson...I'm *hoping* I can put a day's worth on one page!  Right now I can lay out a whole WEEK in 2 pages.  EEK!  Our principal is encouraging the use of using Excel to write plans.  Um...I never did like Excel.  If any of you have any easy-to-comprehend tutorials on creating lesson plans (or any tutorial, really...I'm dumb when it comes to Excel), please pass them my way!  The start of my new lesson plans is just frustrating me to no end!

And finally...GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!  That's right, folks.  I'm going back to get my Reading Endorsement.  I already have my Masters, but this allows me to add a reading endorsement to my current teaching license.  I'll be certified to teach reading (Title I, Reading Coach, Reading Recovery, etc., etc., etc.) in the state of Ohio, K-12.  Class starts NEXT THURSDAY and I am BEYOND pumped!  A fellow co-worker and I are doing it together and we are so GIDDY!  It'll be great.  I even told her today, "I'm just excited to go get a fun notebook and some new pens!"  Yeah, like I said: NERD!  But I would be a professional student if I could.  I'm REALLY looking forward to what I'll be learning and what I can bring back into my own classroom!  And to be honest, I kind of hope to one day teach reading intervention to older kids (like 2nd and 3rd)...IF it's ever available.  I LOVE the comprehension side of reading and have taken a huge interest in it as of late.  Of course we do comprehension in 1st grade, but the curriculum is MUCH more phonics-based.  Truth be told, my dream job would be a curriculum director!  But that's WAY in the future and who knows if I'll actually ever pursue it.  But for now, a reading endorsement it is!  I LOVE teaching reading, so this is right up my alley!

I will be back later this week with some progress on my organization resolutions!  :)