Five for Friday

Good Morning!

This morning I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party.

So this was a big week in our house. My sweet 1 year old daughter has been sleeping in our room since March. She was sick every few days the last three months of school so we just kept her in our room since her room is on the other side of the house. Well that changed this past weekend. Our sweet girl is finally back in her crib sleeping the nights away. Now if I can just get the fur baby (90 lb golden retriever) out of the bed we will be sleeping peacefully again.

I was able to completely redo one of my favorite units. I have so much more clip art now that it was really fun to go back and make my Johnny Appleseed product look nicer. It also motivated me to go back and start updating the products that I put on TpT preclipart and boy do those products need a little TLC. I am excited to see how different and more professional they look when I am finished.

I had the privilege of spending the afternoon with some amazing Arizona teachers at the AZ Teachers Brunch and Bubbly. It is humbling to be a part of a group with so many creative and talented women. I am learning so much from them and I look forward to all the things they will be able to teach me about TpT and blogging.

I got to spend another week at home with my sweet girl. My favorite part of summer vacation has been being a stay at home mommy. I love spending time with her even on those challenging tantrum filled days. I will definitely have a hard time going back in August. I love my job, but I also love being a stay at home mommy.

I love music and I love Christian music. My sweet girl and I jam to Air 1 whenever we are in the car. This is another one of my recent favorites. Enjoy!

Ashley

Learn Like a Pirate: Chapter 4

Hello!

This afternoon I am linking up with The Primary Gal for chapter 4 of Learn Like a Pirate.

I love the focus of this chapter: improvement focus vs. grade focus. My teaching partner and I have been trying to move away from the heavy focus on grades. We teach first grade and it is hard to see our kiddos getting letter grades and OSN's. We would love to send something different home to parents (more skills based) since we know that something has to go home. We just haven't quite figured out what that is yet. Hopefully we will be able to come up with something that we can get approved so that we can eliminate extrinsic forces like those Solarz states below.

I work in an affluent area so I hear students talk about rewards or punishments that they receive based on their grades. For starters, I still can't believe that I hear it from my little firsties. They should not be paying attention at all to their grades. They should only be focused on learning and having fun. When a reward or a consequence is applied to their grades then they are only working hard to receive the reward or avoid the consequence. I want them to work hard because they want to learn and because they are having fun learning.

To ensure that our students are learning we need to be present. We need to make sure that we are walking around listening and observing so that we know what our students are thinking. It enables us to give them the feedback they need to understand better and make their learning more effective. This is so important no matter what grade level we teach. Being present will also help us guide students through conflicts or observe as they use a strategy that we have taught them to solve a conflict. Either way observation, being present, is important for us as teachers. 

These were my two most prominent thoughts from this chapter. Solarz also discussed a really fabulous idea called ePortfolios, but unfortunately I don't see that as being something my little firsties could handle at their age. I think its a brilliant idea for older grades though. Having students write their assignments and reflections on a blog so that peers, teachers, etc. can read it is fabulous. Although as I watch my one year old figure out how to unlock my iPhone and play music (who would have thought) I can't help but wonder if sometime in the future my firsties will be doing something like an ePortfolio. Either way coming up with some form of reflection for my class will be something I look into for this next year. I like how it gets them to think more about what they are learning. 

Thank you for letting me share my thoughts. Have a wonderful evening!

Ashley

TpT Seller Challenge: Week 2

Good Morning!

This morning I am finally linking up with Sparkling in Second, Third in Hollywood, Teach Create Motivate, and Peppy Zesty Teacherista for the TpT Seller's Week 2 challenge. This week's challenge is about what our dreams are for the money we make from TpT. I definitely do not make much on TpT but in my dream world this is what I would do with more money earned.

 Family: My husband, daughter, and pup are my world. We are on our own, aside from amazing friends, here in AZ so we are always together. Budgets are tight given that both my hubby and I work in education so it would be amazing to be able to use money for nights out to dinner, movies, parks and events for the little one, more grooming days for the fur baby and much more. I would love to be able to spoil my little family, even just a little.

Savings: This last year has been quite the demonstration of how nice it is to have a savings when things come up. I would love to build it up more and create a larger cushion for any more expensive life moments. It would just be nice to have that beautiful peace of mind.

Travel: Both my family and my husband's family live in California. We don't get to travel there as often as we would like, especially now that we have our daughter. We would love to have money set aside to be able to just decide to head out to SoCal for a three day weekend or for special events. Right now we typically only travel for major holidays and the really large special events like weddings and such. Traveling more would allow for our daughter to know her amazing grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. We really would love to be able to give that to her since both of us grew up with all of that craziness.

Help: I would love to be able to provide products that help other teachers the way I have been helped. I am only in my eighth year of teaching but the blogs that I follow and the products that I have purchased from TpT have helped me so much on my teaching journey that I would love to be able to help others in their journey. It would mean so much to me to be able to give to others what they have given to me.

This is a tall order for my little store but in a dream world anything is possible. We will see throughout my journey how much comes true. Have a wonderful day and thanks for reading my thoughts.

Ashley

Teaching with Intention: Chapter 4

Hi Everyone!

Tonight I am linking up with Schroeder Shenanigans in Second , Positively Learning, and Kindergarten Smorgasboard for chapter 4 of Teaching with Intention. Our wonderful hosts gave us two questions to help guide our thoughts on this chapter.

 

This has been a very eye opening book for me and this chapter is no exception. Thinking about my classroom culture was interesting. Looking back at this school year I don't feel like I displayed my thinking in all areas like I should have been. Reading and Math are the areas where I share the most and where I encourage students to share the most. We discuss stories and what we think about them as we break them apart. We talk through different ways to solve a problem or what tools we can use to solve a problem. We write things down a lot in our journals or on our desks. Most of those are not displayed so this next year I will need to make sure that more of these moments are displayed in the classroom for them. Only a few activities each month were posted in the classroom. All the other subjects will need to be improved upon when it comes to more thinking being displayed by myself and my kiddos.

To help us with displaying our thinking and our students thinking Miller gives a lot of scenario examples. I loved it. In here examples she words everything so wonderfully and she makes them think through everything and say their thoughts out loud. I also loved how she handled the attention seeker students. I have met the sweet kiddos who will be in my class already and I can see a few who have the potential to be that attention seeker who will say anything whether it is on topic or not. Asking students to provide evidence for their statements is perfect. I wish I could say that I had been smart enough in the past to do that with those attention seeker students. I believe that I responded mostly with a little frustration because they were not paying attention. That will change this year.

Throughout this next school year I will also make sure that I am present more. I walk around observing and helping pretty often. I am rarely at my desk, but there are still too many times that I can remember where the assessments, meetings, tests, technology problems, and all the other craziness distracted me from being present with my students 100% of the time. I think this will be the hardest thing for me to work on because I can be easily distracted with the tech issues that my classroom has and unfortunately there are a lot. It will be worth it in the end to make sure that I am present more. It will help me display my thoughts to my students more often when they are partnered or in groups. 

 

During our reading time we discuss the stories. We stop every couple of pages and start by discussing Who and What. From there we talk about why we think things are happening, what we think will happen next, what characters are thinking, etc. I love hearing their comments. Some are very out there and some are really in depth for such young minds. It makes the stories more interesting to me. This is probably where the most discussion happens, well here and devotion/Bible story times.

We also discuss a lot in math. I had the privilege of teaching Singapore math for a year and fell in love. It opened up a whole new way of teaching math. I loved how much it made the kids and myself think about the methods of solving and how many different ways a problem could be solved. I think it made kids more open and creative in the way they look at math. I no longer teach Singapore but I still use a lot of the strategies in my room which leads to lots of discussions on how things can be solved, number talks, etc.

Other subjects are not as open as reading and math but discussion do happen is smaller capacities. This will definitely be something to work on for this next school year. 

Thanks for reading my thoughts on chapter 4. I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Ashley

Mindsets in the Classroom: Chapter 9

Good Morning!

Today I will be sharing my thoughts on Chapter 9 of Mindsets in the Classroom over on the Hello Sunshine blog. I encourage you to head over there and link up with us. We would love to know your thoughts on Maintaining a Growth Mindset School Culture.

Ashley

Mindsets in the Classrom: Chapter 8

Good Evening!

Normally I would not be writing on a holiday but my sweet girl and her wonderful daddy are both napping so I have little free time. I am writing tonight about chapter 8 of Mindsets in the Classroom and I will be linking up with the ladies at Hello Sunshine as well.

 This was an awesome chapter. It had so many wonderful lessons and books for all grade levels that we can use in our classrooms to teach our students about the brain and growth mindsets. She gives us ideas for everything from preassessments to teaching growth mindset terminology. I thought I would share two of my favorite ideas with you that I will be using during our first week of school this year.

 She gave the example of using thread, yarn, and rope to show how neural connections grow when we continue to work at something new. Thread is the first stage of the connection. As you practice more and get better at the concept your connection grows which is represented by the yarn. Once your continue practicing and reach mastery your connection is even stronger and is now represented by the rope. She also used the thread to demonstrate how a connection can stay thin and frail or even break if we do not keep trying to learn and make that connection stronger. What a simple, engaging activity to help young elementary students understand how neurons build connections and grow stronger as we learn and practice each new concept. 

She also used a clip from Meet the Robinson's to help students understand that failure isn't the end of something; it is only the beginning. It's something to celebrate because we discovered a way that something doesn't work. Now we look at the problem again and see if we can find a new path for solving it. This is such an important lesson that I think all classes should start with at the beginning of a school year. Students need to know and understand that failing at something is not the end and they need to know that their teachers and classmates will be their to help them find another path to learning the lesson. She includes a list of discussion questions for the middle of the clip and the end of the clip to help with your discussion on failure. I think that young kids would love this and learn from it. Besides, what little kid doesn't remember a cartoon? I've included the clip below.

Remember: KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

I would love to read your thoughts on this outstanding, idea packed chapter. Link up with us at Hello Sunshine if you can.

Ashley

Five for Friday

Good Morning Everyone!

This morning I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

This week my sweet girl and I had a lot of fun shopping together. I picked up a bunch of new bins in my room colors (bright blue and green). I am really excited to put new labels on these and start organizing my classroom. 

We received an invitation to my Aunt and Uncle's 20th wedding anniversary vow renewal. We are so excited and happy for them. We are also excited that my mom will be coming for a visit that weekend to see her adorable granddaughter and watch her step sister renew her vows. It will be an awesome weekend!

I had a lot of fun beginning to makeover my old TpT products. I have quite a few that were posted before I had my large clip art collection. I have 2 completely done and am working on my third one now. They are looking so much better!!

I was blessed to have a dinner with some great friends last night. They are such amazing women and I am truly blessed to call them friends. They bring so much to my life and my daughter's life. I look forward to all the times we will share in the future. 

Every time this song came on the radio I would feel so much calmer so I thought I would share it with you all. Its a wonderful reminder that we never walk alone. It is also wonderful to see my daughter's face light up when this song comes on. 

Ashley