What I Wish I Knew My First Year of Teaching {with Core Inspiration}

My first year of teaching is what I like to refer to as my golden year. I had an amazing group of students, supportive and flexible parents, and a team that made me feel like I was way more proficient in my new profession than I really was. The school year was filled with fun and excitement and by the last day of school, I was completely in love with my new career. I was a rock star. I was unstoppable. I was on top of the world.

In reality, I was blinded by excitement and didn’t know what I didn’t know… soooo many things I didn’t know.

One of those many things was the world of of Google +. Also known as the best and easiest way to keep classroom parents in the loop. Here’s the scoop.

At the beginning of the year, create a private Google+ community.

Double check the community settings to ensure the privacy settings are secure so you can post class photos.

Brainstorm what you want to post in the community. Pictures with descriptions of what students did in class each day/week, classroom newsletters, parent polls, updates about upcoming classroom events, questions to spark dinner time discussion, parent volunteer reminders and needs, etc.

Invite every parent in your class to join your community.

At back to school night, show parents how to turn on alerts for your community posts. This ensures they will receive a notification each time you post an update.   

Set parameters for community postings. Decide if you want to be the sole poster or if you want to give parents permission to create posts as well.

Create a schedule for when you will post to hold yourself accountable. I don’t recommend sharing this schedule with parents because life happens and you don’t want them emailing you when they don’t see your post published at 3:00 on Thursday.

At the end of the year, don’t delete the community. This serves as an awesome memory book for the families in your class.

Although Google+ wasn't thought of as a classroom tool when I first started teaching, it has certainly become one of my favorite parent communication tools. Do you have any recommendations or favorite ways to use Google+ in your classroom? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Making the Most of your Small Group Instruction {with PeppyZestyTeacherista}

Hey, Friends!
First off I know you're reading this thinking, 'who on EARTH has time for so many small groups'? I agree that is IS tough to manage small groups effectively every week. We do what we can and if we can't meet with everyone so many times a week, we're human, it's not like we're not working hard to try.

Before I even begin with how I run my small groups, I want to chat about the logistics of what everyone else is doing. 

If I am going to be effective with the group that I am working with, I need to be able to actually work with them with minimal distractions. This means creating a self-sufficient classroom environment. 

While I am with a group, the kids have a series of tasks that they have to get done by the end of the week. They must do everything on the left hand column and if they have time they can do the extras on the right. OR they can mix and match the left and right columns but must know that everything on the left column must be completed.

If you would like this template for FREE

{CLICK HERE}

Let's say that time gets away from me and I don't have time to gather my centers together (it happens we can't do all million tasks let's be real). If I have a series of tasks that the kids started but haven't completed, I type it up on a Powerpoint and the kids just complete down the line. 

To snag this Powerpoint
{CLICK HERE}

If you would like to get my entire reading bundle: 

Click {HERE} or the image below!

I hope this was a PeppyZesty idea for you! 

New Year, New Procedures (With The Kindergarten Smorgasboard)

There is just something so new and fresh and exciting about a new year!   It's about improving and starting new and making changes.  The classroom is no different!  Every January, I make changes in my classroom whether it's something big or just some small tweaks!   

This year I decided to go big!

Go big or go home, right?!

I've always been a believer of homework.  I believe it builds responsibility for our kids.

I have never believed in grading homework or penalizing students for not having or doing their homework.

Then I started reading some recent articles and research about homework.  More and more research is supporting not giving our kids homework because there is no benefit!    This article from Alfie Kohn has some great points!

So....my new procedure is no more homework!

Instead of daily homework, I am encouraging parents to do 3 things:

1.  Ask their child about what we learned at school.  I use the Remind app to communicate with parents.  Each day I sent out a Remind notification and tell parents one or two things we learned or worked on at school.  I then ask the parents to talk to their child about those things!

2.  Read with their child daily.  And have them listen to their child daily.  We send home books weekly so our students have emergent readers they can read.  They can also read their library books!

3.  Practice sight words.

My principal is supportive of my plan and we're going to monitor data for 2 months to see if there is a noticeable effect in the positive or negative!

My other new procedure is more music!

During writer's workshop I play music from Rock A Bye Baby while the kids are writing.  It adds such a relaxing, refreshing atmosphere to my classroom.

So...now we're playing the music anytime we're working!   During centers/workstations, writing and anytime we're working independently the music is on!

I started this last week and found that the kids loved it and it made a difference in our focus and made for a much for comfortable work environment!

You can find Rock A Bye Baby on iTunes and Pandora!

An InLinkz Link-up

How to master it in the New Year

Happy New Year friends! I don't necessarily have a new classroom procedure, but it is new to my class this year. Every January, my kids are CRAZY sauce. It's like they forget every single thing we've ever talked about.

How does that happen in two weeks? Well, a few years ago I started what I call The Master Class. I tell them that over Christmas Santa left me a note and there is now a competition. You don't have to use the Santa idea, but it works for my kinders. I tell them that the note says that every kindergarten class is having to compete for the Master Class. Who can master their name? Who can master their sight words?

Then, I show them the area in the room where I've added all of the cards. I already have their pictures cut out and ready to add a few of them. I make sure that everyone has their name in at least ONE place when I first add it. You know that child that just REALLY struggles at everything? Well, I usually add them to Clean Machine because they're usually that child that won't do any work or listen, but cleans like I'm paying them.

After, we talk about how we can work on each area. Every few days, I highlight just one part until I've covered all of them. My job is done after this. They start asking to be tested to show me that they know all their sight words or sounds or writing sentences.

SERIOUSLY! They eat it UP! I'm so excited to do this with my class this year because we have had a rough go so far. Maybe this can help some of you out. If you have any ideas of other things I can add, just send me an email at brownk1125@gmail.com. I don't get notifications of comments on here so I can't promise that I'll see it immediately.

Grabs yours free here!

An InLinkz Link-up