Welcome to Reflect and Refresh, a two part linky party where teacher bloggers share their reflections on the 2014-2015 school year and ways they are planning to refresh their teaching in 2015-2016.
This is my second official day of summer and I think since I still taking two grad classes, my official freedom of summer feeling will probably start closer to July! However, I am ready to reflect on school year 2014-2015 by linking up with Mrs.D'sCorner! It has been an interesting year for me because it was my first time to teach the same thing/grade two years in a row! Next year will be my third year in first grade, same room, same school! Whoooo! So I finally feel like I can focus on something besides ideas for lesson plans!
Communication: This year at meet the teacher, I had parents give their information but also had a spot for them to write their preferred phone call time. I think this helped the issue of calling and just getting the machine, somethings are best heard live than over a message. I also kept a monthly log of parents and families that I Spoke with and the reason. I have done this before but this year I took care to see which I had not spoken to in awhile and also called with updates! Next year I want to try and make some sort of calling schedule so I can make sure I keep in touch with all parents.
Organization: I LOVE to organize, especially my classroom. I try not to change things up during the year and keep it consistent for the kiddos. So during the last couple of weeks of school I tried very hard to organize all of my workstations games and materials. I filed all of my TPT centers in gallon size ziploc bags in my files cabinet by theme/month/holiday. I also have a second drawer that are filed by reading/writing/phonics TEKS/Skill. It has worked wonders when I need to clean out and switch my stations out!
Content: This year I worked very hard to make sure my students reading comprehension was on par. I did a lot of post it note activities and exit tickets too! I love using the post its towards the end of the year in first grade, it is so cute to see what they take away from a lesson as the most important. After my lesson, students typically go to round one of Daily5, this leaves me time to pull any students who may have not fully grasped the lesson in a small group to figure out if they need extra lessons, a slower explanation, or gaps filled during small group to be able to understand. After I assessed (very informally) who did not understand what, I would go right into guided reading groups.
My Big Summer Project: REorganizing my leveled library. This has been a struggle for me, I first separated my "genre library" from my "leveled library" last summer. The students liked having a basket to choose "on level" books to take AR quizzes on when they were book shopping, as well as having the freedom to choose books from the genre library based on their interests. I really liked the system, I just did not divide up the leveled baskets enough. My ranges within each basket are too large. It really affected the struggling readers who need smaller ranges to be successful on AR quizzes. So I need to go back in peel off about 1000 small dot stickers, find new baskets, make new labels and regroup! It will be worth it! :)
How will you refresh for next year?
If you want to link up to reflect & refresh, click below!
I did the same thing over the last 3 months at school. I was left with SO much stuff from the last 2-3 teachers in my class that it took me weeks to go through it all and organize. Now it's one less thing I have to do next year! & We should re-organize our classroom libraries together! LOL I am excited for it, but dreading it at the same time. It's going to take me for.ev.er.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up! We need to get together soon :)
Oh my! That leveled reading task sounds like a big one. I teach high school, so I have to level this way. It would be interesting for me to group by genre, but it might be a headache for them to find the specific book that they want. Thanks for the food for thought! Good luck with your organizing.
ReplyDeleteI am fortunate to use the Journey's series which provides leveled reading sets for our use in small groups, and my school used Title I monies to create a building leveled library that I can pull from as well. I keep my classroom library bins organized by genre, but need to make new labels. Many TpT sellers have cute sets though, so I will be doing some shopping, printing, and laminating!
ReplyDelete~Jennifer
Stories and Songs in Second