2 Types of Readers

When I reflect on my years as a classroom teacher, I think about my students as individual learners. I spent a lot of time reflecting about teaching and learning this summer. It became clear to me that 2 types of readers have passed through my life.

The 2 types include those who get lost in books and those who read until the timer goes off.  In fact, the two different types of readers are represented in my own house as well.

My daughter read over 100 books in 6th grade last year.  Big books.  She has her nose in a book while she walks around the house.  I frequently find her reading under the covers with a flashlight long after her bedtime.  She has stacks and stacks of books waiting to be read in her room and frequently runs out of things to read.

My 9 year old son is a good reader, but he reads approximately 25 - 30 pages a day with a timer in his hand. When the timer goes off, he happily drops the book.  He won't pick up another book until I remind him about what research says about summer lag the next day.

This summer, I'm collaborating with some of our 5th and 6th grade teachers and our Instructional Support Team to re-read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.  I have read this book six times and each time it leaves me reflecting on different ways to reach our young readers.

The first step for me (although I'll admit that it is painful) is accepting the fact that not all readers are born with a natural love for books.  The second step as a teacher (and a mom) is to let what we know about the reader and the books they choose "whisper" (as Donalyn Miller says) to us so we can support them as readers.  The third step is to never give up hope.

I'm hopeful that my son will soon fall in love with a series or genre so much so that he no longer feels the need to read for only 20 or 30 minutes. Until then, I'll keep modeling a love for reading.  I'll keep exposing him to different authors, genres and series.  Most importantly, I'll let the choices he makes whisper to me so I can support him even if it is for only 25 - 30 pages a day (for now).

Finding the Good in Assessment

With the temperature at -26 degrees (and a windchill even lower) my district had "cold" weather days for the past two days.  Our instructional support team (which I am now part of as an instructional coach) braved the cold to attend the annual Michigan Assessment Conference.  The conference covered the changing face of state assessments, common assessments, formative assessments and growth models.

A new teacher in one of the sessions I attended told me that she was shocked to learn that assessment can be useful to teachers.  I was shocked by that statement, at first.  Then came the realization that in general the majority of our new teachers are coming out of teacher prep programs with a negative feeling about assessment.

Since I doubt our state governments or the federal government are going to ease up on testing anytime soon, I choose to accept whatever useful information the results give me to improve instruction and ignore the negativity.

It would be sad to me if the negative press around testing prevented our teachers from opening their minds to using formative assessments in their classrooms.  The information we gather about student learning from formative assessments can and should be used to guide our instruction.  As teachers we need to do everything we can to work smarter. Working smarter maximizes student progress and that progress is faster when we've developed clear learning targets based on assessment.

 As a teacher, I often thought about why the nuns always gave me a pre-test and a post-test in elementary school.  Turns out that even "back in the day" they were working toward specific learning targets.   I sure wish they would have told me what the learning targets were...but that is another post.

By comparing formative assessment results and summative assessment results, we can identify student learning trends and adjust our instruction in ways that address the real student learning problems.

There are two purposes of assessment: enhancing student learning (ex. formative assessments) and verifying achievement (summative assessments).  In my mind, this kind of eases some of the negativity.  The tests that are being required by so many states are simply a snapshot in time that help us identify student learning trends.  Based on those trends, we can do additional assessments to help us identify the student learning problems and adjust our instruction accordingly.

from Improve Assessment Literacy Outside of Schools Too  by Rick Stiggins

If you look hard enough, you can find the good in anything.  Assessment can be powerful and so can the way we use it to improve our instruction and student learning.

5 for Friday!

Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for 5 for Friday!

Winner! Winner!

A few months ago, I won a custom Erin Condren spiral notebook!

I won it by simply leaving a comment on their facebook page.  Yippee!

I'm a loyal fan of the Erin Condren Life Planners for 3 million reasons.

So, having a chance to try the spiral notebook this year was an exciting surprise!

I love it!  It's larger than the Life Planner, but perfect for taking notes at the 3 million meetings I'm attending for my new job.

fancy cover

custom dividers (with super heavy duty laminate just like the cover)

I'm super excited to have the opportunity to conduct a research study about writer's workshop this year.  I'll be working with a professor from a local university to help guide me through the research process.  I'll be sharing some freebies from my presentations soon.

I'm grateful for author,  Maria Dismondy!  I've known Maria for a few years now and her books are empowering children (and teachers) across the country.  

You can visit her site to check out her books and read more about her work. 

 mariadismondy.com 

Life is good when your kids go to a school that allows teachers 

to provide alternative seating to motivate students to learn.  

I'm proud to share that this is my husband's middle school classroom.

Most of the furniture is made by his students!

When you are person who sets goals for everything and loves a good competition, 

change is exciting!

That's me.

And this is the my motto for my new job.

Change makes great things even better!

Happy Friday Saturday!

Reflective Teaching - Day 4

I'm survived day 3 of school.  That part was easy.  I love my kids.  It's the packing that is pushing me over the edge.  Packing up all of your teaching possessions in Rubbermaid containers at night during the first week of school, while you try not to make the room look empty, after you just spent the entire summer changing classrooms, preparing for a new grade level and setting up your new room is absolutely not fun.  When the packing is over, the class will have a new teacher and I will be off to my new job. I'm excited about having a new adventure and excited to be done with the packing/moving!

Here is what I learned this week...
I probably qualify for the Hoarders show simply because of the number of plastic bins I own.  It's kind of embarrassing and handy at the same time.

Dt. Dew is necessary during major life transitions.  I don't care what it has in it.  It's my coffee.

Focusing on kids is always a good idea.  I'm enjoying every single minute with my class.  It is an amazing feeling to have the same group of kids (even if it will only be for a couple weeks).  They are just ready to jump right in and get rollin'.

 I'm participating in the 30 Day Challenge for Teachers hosted by Teach Thought.  Reflecting on my own work is important to me.

Day 4 - What do you love most about teaching?

Kids, of course!

 My next favorite thing about teaching is planning.  Not the hours of busy work that you have to do on Sundays... Ha!  I love long term planning, data collection and reflection, curriculum mapping, planning to scaffold learning and planning using the RTI model to improve instruction and support student learning. 

I have two goldendoodles who are pushing my hands away from the keyboard for some attention.  

Hope you had a great week!

Goal for New Technology (Reflective Teaching Day 2)

If you read my post from yesterday, you know that I am starting a new adventure.  You can read about it here.

Even though the first week of school is crazy... I'm going to try really hard to complete the 30 Day Challenge for Teachers hosted by Teach Thought.  Reflecting on my own work is important to me.

Day 2 - Write about one piece of technology that you'd like to use this year.

Since I'll be working in the role of an instructional coach, one of my tech goals is to use a variety of presentation sites/apps.  The first ones that I'm going to focus on using more are Pear Deck (which was recently modeled by our Instructional Technology Coach and Prezi.  I like the features that each has to offer and using them more will hopefully enhance any presentations I need to share with staff.

Today is the first day of school for public school students in Michigan. I love the first day of school!  I have big plans to enjoy the day with my students (even though they'll get a new teacher in a couple weeks). I want them to have a happy first week of 2nd grade!

Happy first day!

Classroom Photos and Big Fat Change of Plans

My school has open house (kind of like meet the teacher night) before school starts.  The Michigan public schools don't officially start until September 2.  Our open house was last week on Wednesday.

Twas the day before open house and my room was unpacked (I moved to a new room this summer), set up for 2nd grade (to loop with my class from last year) and finally finished.   

All the book bins were labeled and put on the shelves.

I was ready for open house.  I'll leave you in suspense until the end 

about the big fat change of plans.

Welcome to my new 2nd grade classroom!

This is my family photo board.  

Since I had these students last year, I kept their family photos and hung them up for open house.

I use this board for anchor charts related to writer's workshop.

(My alphabet cards are from Marsha McGuire - A Differeniated Kindergarten.)

The bins on the top are for chapter book series. The bins on the shelves below are for single copies at each level.  This shelf has a "twin" with different level bins on it.

You can find my book bin labels here. I also use them on my word wall.

You can find my schedule cards here.

This is just a piece of fabric that I found that has a map on it. 

I hang it on the wall, so kids can refer to it and touch it throughout the year.

This is what my room looked like the day before open house. 

Then I received a phone call from one of the administrators in my district 

offering me a position as an Instructional Coach.

A

Big

Fat

Change

of 

Plans

Luckily, I am flexible and good at packing.

Seriously... 

As you can imagine, this kind of change of plans

 is a sensitive issue when you were planning to loop with a class. 

I'm not going to go into the details of how that went down.

Tears were shed by me, by many of the parents and again by me.

Parents talked to their children at home, 

but I will talk to them again on the first day of school next week.

I'll be teaching the class for two weeks until they hire another teacher.

I will be brave and keep things positive.

I am confident that the children will take the news just how I present it...in a positive way.

Children cope better than an adults in so many ways.

And, I'll cry on the way home because I absolutely love these kids and all of their parents. 

As for the new job...

I truly am excited for this new adventure!

It is an incredible opportunity to learn and grow as an educator.

I couldn't pass it up...even though the timing is not great.

In my new job, I'll be partnering up with teachers to help them reflect on their teaching.

I'll be doing lots of reflecting on my own work as a coach as well.

In the spirit of reflecting, 

I'm going to start by trying really hard to participate in the 

30 Day Blogging Challenge for Teachers hosted by Teach Thought.

Day 1 - My Goals for the School Year

(and a few of the most important things for me to focus on in my new role)

I'll still be blogging here...since something has to stay the same in my life. Ha!

Funky First Grade Fun almost turned into Funky 2nd grade Fun at the beginning of the summer.

Thank goodness I didn't change the name then.

Funky Instructional Coaching just doesn't sound quite right. Funny though...

All this moving, setting up, packing up and moving again (to an office in our high school) business caused me to order another Stitch Fix. Ha! I seriously love Stitch Fix.  You can read about it here.

 Oh...and it caused me to return to my Dt. Dew habit

 after completing 3 weeks with no Dt. Dew cheats.  

Don't judge...it's my coffee.

Holy longest post ever... Happy Labor Day!

Michigan Teachers - Happy Back to School Eve!

Are You Wondering about Stitch Fix?

Earlier in the summer, I was curious about Stitch Fix.  I kept seeing pictures on Instagram of people posting of their most recent "fix".  I did a little research, but I was still hoping to find someone I knew who had tried it.  Not too long after, my friend Erin (from Kleinspiration), posted about using Stitch Fix.

Stitch Fix is an online styling service that puts together a "fix", which is a box of clothing and accessories for you and delivers it to your door in a package.  Based on your personal style preferences, a stylist chooses the clothing and accessories for you.  There is a $20 styling fee. That $20 fee is applied to your order if you purchase any of the items in your fix. You try the clothes on at home.  If you like them, you can keep them.  If you don't like something in the box, you have a few days to return it in a bag that they include in the box.  Each fix comes with 5 items.  If you keep and purchase all 5 items, you receive 25% off your entire purchase.

I scheduled my first fix this summer.  You choose the date that you want your fix delivered.  You can also choose to have them delivered automatically on a schedule (once a month, every other month,etc.) I chose to just go in an schedule my own dates if and when I want a fix.

I'm so glad I tried Stitch Fix! It was so much fun!  

This girl who likes to shop at TJ Maxx and thrift stores has a stylist!

Her name is Grace and she left me a cute little note in my box.

The whole experience is just plain impressive!

I started by creating a style profile by answering questions on the Stitch Fix site.  There are lots of questions, so they can really get to know your preferences.  It took about 20 minutes for me to finish my profile. They even let me leave a link to a style board on my Pinterest account, so they could see what I've been pinning there.

My first Stitch Fix arrived last week.

Everything was wrapped so nicely in my box and my stylist left me instructions for how to give her feedback for next time. The box also included instructions for how to return anything that I didn't want to keep and suggestions for how to mix and match the things in my fix.  

Honestly, I was shocked how well the things in my box fit.  My box included a pair of black pants, a black/white striped dress, a blue long sleeve shirt, a green silky blouse and a pair of silver earrings.

I don't normally post selfies on my blog, especially not modeling any clothing for goodness sake. But, when you're 4'11" and a complete stranger picks out a box full of clothes that you would not normally wear and they mysteriously fit way better than anything you normally pick for yourself...I decided it was worth you seeing my toes.

After I decided that I loved everything in my fix, I was able to go online and leave feedback for my stylist about what I liked and did not like about each item.  For example, I LOVED the pants.  They are super comfortable and very well made.  So, I left feedback saying that I loved them so much that I would buy another pair.  I have only purchased about 3 pairs of pants that did not need to be altered to fit my not so tall body in my whole life.  And that is because those 3 pairs were capri pants and they just happened to look like normal length pants for me.  Every other pair of pants that I purchase has to be altered.  Yes, even the petites.  But not these pants...THEY FIT! And I love them!

I'm definitely scheduling another Stitch Fix soon.  If you'd like to try it yourself, I'm sharing my referral code below.  If you use my referral code, I get a credit towards my next fix.  The real reason that I'm writing this post is because so many of my friends and family members were curious about how I liked Stitch Fix.  So if I end up getting a credit, it will be an extra bonus for me and I'll be able to schedule a few more fixes.  Ha!

Just click on the image below and you can get started by filling out your style profile.

Here is the referral code in case you want to share it with someone else: 

http://www.stitchfix.com/referral/3940981

Dear Grace, 

I loved my first fix!

Thanks for being my stylist. 

This customer is definitely impressed.

XOXO, (that's how she signed the card in my box) 

Kimberly

Favorite Back to School Purchases Linky Party

Even when I was a student, back to school purchases were extremely exciting!  I remember packing and unpacking my school backpack over and over and over during the weeks before school started. I still love buying things for school!  Just wish I had a larger budget. Ha!

I'd like to invite you to linky up with your favorite back to school  purchases!  

Please grab the linky images from my post and add them to your post.

Here are some of my favorite back to school purchases this year.

My Erin Condren Life Planner...

Oh, how I love my Erin Condren Life Planner!

It's my 2nd year with one of her planners.  

This year, I chose to add family pictures.

The front...

The back...

And because I am a tiny bit of a freak about wanting the pages of my planner to look nice, even when my schedule is BONKERS.  I searched the whole first half of the summer for a way to write in my planner with something colorful, but erasable.  I hate whiteout.  It's bumpy.

Thanks to Jennifer, from First Grade Blue Skies, I discovered a solution.

Frixion Erasable Markers 

The colors are beautiful.

They write just the way I wanted them to.

They really do erase - perfectly.

They also have erasable highlighters.

I seriously love these markers!  

I assigned a color to each family member 

+ red for the whole family activities 

+ blue for school/work events

I use the  purple highlighter for planning/recording my exercise.

I originally planned to use another one of the highlighters for meal planning, 

but since I barely know how to cook anything I decided to junk that plan.

I also purchased new book bins for my classroom.

This summer, I've been on a mission to reorganize my classroom library for 2nd grade. 

I bought these amazing chapter book bins from Really Good Stuff.

Each bin has dividers to make 3 sections.

I'm going to keep a different series in each section.  

The 3 different series in each bin will be the same level.

My Ticonderoga pencil jar was the best deal of the summer.

I bought this adorable straw pencil jar for 50¢ at a thrift store.

I made the label with my Silhouette.
It might earn a bow before school starts.

I hope you'll link up with your favorite back to school purchases!
I can't wait to see what you bought for your classroom this summer!

An InLinkz Link-up