Acceptance

I have come to the realization that I work three jobs. And if it was possible to be fired from two of them for doing a sub-par job, I'm certain that would be the case. I'll let you decide which three.

I am a full-time mom of 2 young children, a full-time elementary school teacher, and a somewhat-part-time/I-really-suck-at-this blogger/seller-on-TpT. Obviously I'm neither the first nor the only one to hold all of these positions, but that doesn't make it any easier!

When I ventured into this business known as teacher blogging and selling, it was summer time and I had a bit more free time on my hands. But once school kicked up full force -- for both my kindergartner daughter and myself -- I found my product creating time to dwindle down to... oh.. about 0. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about it, but it's difficult when so many amazing teacher bloggers out there are both multi-faceted and majorly talented! Holy cow, how do you do it all?!?

Someone once told me when I was returning from my first maternity leave to not expect myself to be 100% at being a mom and being a teacher. That way, I won't beat myself up over feelings of inefficiency or guilt. I remind myself of this almost daily!

Every day or so, I get a few new likes on my little facebook page, which really boosts my morale (hey thanks likers out there!) But I can't stop the question of "WHY!?!?" from popping up into my head.

Self-doubt. Check.

Sigh.

Vent over.

So now that I have a minute to blog (ie. I'm procrastinating my lesson planning, my little guy went down for a nap, and little lady and the hubs are hitting the golf course), here's what's going on in my crazy, fast-paced, how-the-heck-is-it-almost-November life.

1. Do you guys own the Rooted in Reading: October product from Katie King and Amy Lemons?? Seriously, it is the best thing I've ever purchased. At first, I struggled a bit on how to incorporate it into my lesson plans while still maintaining our reading program (we use California Treasures). But then, I added it to my Guided Reading time at the end of each day and let me tell you, my kids LOVE the activities. I wish I had time to do all of them, but we really spend time on some of the bigger activities in the pack. I may also use it to bribe  motivate my students to complete their work. This past week, I had a huge number of students who had unfinished assignments, and about 12 littles who were done with everything, so those 12 littles and I formed a small group to work on a Stellaluna weak verbs/strong verbs activity and WOW you should have seen how fast the rest of the kids completed their work! I had a handful of students on my rug the next day who were finished and begging me to make their bats! :D

Crankenstein adjectives from Katie and Amy. Flowers and Starbucks from my wonderful room moms who knew I was having a tough week. 

2. Halloween is coming up and can we just take a minute to celebrate the fact that the actual day is on Saturday?? With leap year coming up in 2016, next year's Halloween is going to be on a MONDAY (insert sobbing emoji here), so let's enjoy it while we can! My two co-workers and friends at work and I are going to be dressing up with matching costumes, which super top secret (mostly because we haven't made our costumes yet but also because I don't want to spill the beans). Then on Saturday, my little lady wants to be Elsa, which means little man is going to be Olaf. By default, mom and dad will be Anna and Kristoff, though I really pushed for the hubs to be Sven.

Seriously, though. I want my husband to wear this:

Fall means it's time to start making progress on ordering Christmas cards. This is a huge task for someone as indecisive as I am. I just started the process of designing cards and of course I'm having a hard time decided if I want to go with Tiny Prints or Minted... Here's a little sample of what I've been toying with, but probably won't choose this layout or these photos, because, well, that's just how I roll.

Do you do lessons on Halloween safety?? I've never really thought about it (we live in a bubble in our neighborhood) until I was emailed with this great graphic by Norm Reeves Honda Superstore in Huntington Beach. Isn't it great?? I plan on posting to my interactive whiteboard and talking about safety tips with my students this year. It's really important for them to know what's safe and not safe on such a crazy, emotional night. I remember learning about this from my parents and my own teachers growing up.  Feel free to use the infographic in your own classrooms with your own kids! (Link up to Norm Reeves Honda if you use the graphic on your blog).

3. It's my favorite time of year -- FALL! Although, you'd never know it's Fall in California. We've been dealing with record breaking heat, awful humidity (sorry east coasters, we're not used to that here) and a pending, destructive El Nino season coming up. I'm eagerly anticipating the crisp Fall days where I can wear pants and scarves and light sweaters and maybe even my boots! Or a coat! I have a coat obsession and a major #firstworldproblem of not living in a climate that warrants coat-wearing.  In any case, with fall and harvest come my Ancestry Social Studies unit where we study Life Long Ago. I love this unit because my students study their heritages and work alongside their parents to complete my "Where in the World?" project. We use the information gathered at home to complete activities like graphs and timelines and comparing/contrasting our traditions in the classroom. I love hearing them celebrate their heritages and discussing their differences! At the end of our unit, we have a Multicultural Thanksgiving Feast where each student bring a sample of a cultural dish for their classmates to eat. Parents come, too, and it's so much fun to celebrate our families together during this perfect time of year!

I just spruced up my Where in the World Project and posted it on TpT. Let me know what you think by leaving feedback in my little shop! :D

I'm also working on a Ten Commandments thing (surprisingly my Baptism Lap book has been one of my biggest sellers on TpT!) and I am hoping to have that posted by tomorrow. Translation: check back in about a month to see my 10 commandments product. Ha!

I think that's about all the time I have for today -- still have stacks of grading, 6 hours of lesson planning, and a growing list of housework to complete in the hour left of little man's nap!

Until my next post...3 weeks from  now.... ;)

Reading Response Pages

In my ten years of teaching, I always scratched my head whenever it came to implementing a successful reading homework program. I wanted my kids to read, but more than that, I wanted them to continue to build their love of reading, which we work on extensively in the classroom. I've tried all sorts of reading logs, reading homework, reading pages, summary sheets, book reports... you name it, I've tried it. And it always boiled down to the worst two words you could possibly use when describing homework -- BUSY WORK. (gasp!)

So after researching, tweaking, rewriting, and tweaking again, I finally came up with something that I think works really well in my classroom.

Introducing: READING RESPONSES! 

(In the words of my 2nd graders: "Ooooooh! Ahhhhh!")

What is it?

Reading Response sheets allow my students to record, or respond to, their nightly reading. Each night, they are assigned to one particular prompt. The prompts directly coincide with the reading strategies I am teaching in the classroom (character, setting, main idea, details, summarizing, etc.).  Throughout the first months of the school year, as we work on these strategies,  my students are also reinforcing the skills at home by writing a few sentences each night.

As the year progresses, the responses change and become more challenging. The first trimester responses include a space for drawing and illustrating, along with some writing ledgers to help keep my students' sentences neat.

The second trimester takes the skills built upon in the first trimester and takes it a step further. Now, students are expected to explain their answers using detailed writing. The ledger lines are still there, but the space for drawing a picture is gone. At the bottom of each nightly entry are  boxes where students will need to check off that they used correct punctuation, capitalization, best guess spelling (I never take off points for spelling) and writing detailed sentences.

After building on these skills all year, the last trimester takes it one step above. Last year, I was amazed by how much my students grew. They completely took what was taught in the classroom and applied it to their work at home. The writing prompts became more challenging, and the ledger lines and checklists were removed. I noticed a tremendous change in my students' writing, both on their homework responses and in the classroom.

As a side note, I'm not a huge homework proponent. I assign a little math and some reading and this, and that's pretty much it (unless we're working on projects, in which case, I send home a little bit at a time and give plenty of time). I've made major adjustments to this homework for students who were spending so much time on it at home. For the first month or so, it usually takes some kids about 20 minutes to complete. You'll always have kids who are fighting their parents with homework, in which case, homework becomes an hour long struggle. In this case, I usually work with them on it in the classroom one-on-one or in small groups until they get the hang of it and I set my timer while they work. They can usually complete it within 15 minutes -- and in better quality than they were doing at home -- and then I tell them that I expect the same type of work habit at home. It works like a charm 99% of the time.

Look at this gorgeous, reading-bead worthy work!

I'm also not opposed to some students dictating their responses to parents. I just make sure to explain to parents that they are to write exactly what their child says, and then they need to read it over together. Usually, in 2nd grade, they tend to move out of that dictation phase as their writing skills improve (Thank you, writer's workshop!!)

As an added bonus, I always include an *optional* response for the weekend. I never take points away from my students if they don't complete the weekend response. But, for those who do, and who do it very well (with effort and detail), I reward them with a Reading Bead. I have a bulletin board display in my classroom that holds their necklaces so they can see the beads grow throughout the year. When they reach certain milestones, they earn a brag tag! Last year, I had 10 students make it to 40 beads!!!  Every week is a new color or different type of bead. (I buy the bead kids from Michael's), and I note which one they have earned right on their Reading Response page by coloring in the circle with whatever color bead we are on.

You can find both of these products -- my Reading Response homework and Brag Tag Reward system -- in my TpT shop on sale throughout the weekend!  The Reading Response sheets come in 2 versions -- trimester/beads and leveled/no beads [by leveled, I mean that the trimesters are not labeled on the form]. There are 22 different brag tags included in the pack!

Reading Response Homework

Superhero Brag Tags

I hope these products help your students build their love of reading as much as it has with mine! And please leave feedback for me so I can hear all about it! :)