Culture Shock and Donors Choose

I've been at my new school so far for 5 whole days! Three days were designated as unofficial set up days, and 2 days were official meetings and set up days. Everyone warned me that switching to this school would be a change... and they were 100% right, but the changes are in unexpected and surprising places!

Lets start with my room - it's HUGE!! I have two double door coat closets for the kids. Then I have two single door teacher closets. One with shelves and the other is more of a coat closet. I also have cabinets about my sink. I have a teacher desk (WOW! Haven't had one in years!) and a small 2 drawer file cabinet. I also have more book shelves than I know what to do with (no I'm not complaining because I am certain by the end of the year they will be filled to capacity!) I have 6 kiddie tables in the room and theres room to spare! I have a small round table for conferencing and a small extra desk for my computer. Did I mention that I have 12, yes 12 bulletin boards!?!?! Oh and 2 more in the hallway! Do you know how hard it was to cover all of those boards and figure out what to put on them? I still have one blank board and I have no idea what I'm going to put on it!!! The stores are all out of sets I like so that board will have to wait another week or two.

Another huge change - the atmosphere. Everyone seems so relaxed and happy at this school. Yes I realize the kids haven't come in yet and that feeling may change but for now... it's a warm, inviting, relaxed atmosphere. Even the administration have been warm, welcoming and helpful! One of our AP's actually helped me hang bulletin board paper on my hallway boards! I don't think in a million years I would have ever expected that! This same AP has made it a point to remind me that in this school I wont have to walk on egg shells or look over my shoulder wondering if I'm going to make a mistake. He has reminded me over and over again, make a mistake, so what! Learn from it, move on (and never make that same mistake again! HA!) I'm loving this philosophy! They also believe that the weekends, holidays, etc. should be family time... leave your work at the door and go enjoy your family. What an opposite feeling than my other school where the admins would have loved for teachers to stay at least 2 hours extra every day to do work every day of the week! I can feel the tension and stress starting to slip away, the uneasy feelings I used to have of being afraid to try new things slowly disappearing. The eagerness and excitement of a new year is gradually sinking. I'm actually looking forward to a new school year!

The last big change has been a bit of a shock for me. At my old school we were spoiled (I didn't realize this until the last few days). Anything we wanted for our classrooms we got - you need chart paper, no problem, scissors, pencils, markers, pens, computer paper, construction paper, copies, colored copies, books for your library, math manipulatives... we even had laptops to bring home and use for work as well as classroom printers. I spent very little money on my own supplies for my old school - the philosophy was anything in the building should belong to the school not the teachers. Don't get me wrong I bought bins and posters and rewards and fun stuff.... but the necessities were always given to us. Not so much now... I've already spent a couple hundred dollars and I'm no where near ready for Monday! I've had to buy every single supply that you can imagine - chart paper, teacher scissors, staples, tape dispenser, I even have to purchase notebooks for my kids! (Insert shocked face!) This weekend alone to get ready for the kids coming in Monday I need to go buy at least 10 (probably more) baskets from the dollar store for my library which is unleveled and all stacked in piles (did I mention I have to level the entire library on my own time! What a job that is going to be!) I also need to locate a ones, tens, hundreds pocket chart for counting the days in school, I need bins to organize pencils, crayons, scissors, glue, table top bins.... then I need to purchase a ton of ink for my home printer as I will be printing like a mad woman this weekend so I can finish my bulletin boards and have my first day of school papers ready! We can't get everything copied so I'll be paying for copies this year.... which leads me to a question - Donors Choice... has anyone every requested anything? How does it work? Could I request help for the basic supplies I need for my kids (you know like the notebooks, a classroom sharpening, etc?)

I may be spending a LOT more money than I ever intended to for my classroom - but I'm hoping the payoff of working in a nurturing, caring, loving, fun environment is what I will get! I'm excited to see what the year brings and can't wait to meet all my kiddies on Monday!

Collecting and Organizing

We started our second and final Math In The City unit this past week. In my school this unit is typically held for the first graders but our math coach encouraged us to modify it and give it a whirl. I was really excited to try this new unit. I like the Math In The City units. I like that the kids learn through exploration and that it isn't a teacher direct lesson. 

Anyway after reading over the plans I had to find a way to organize 12 bags of stuff in such a way that the items wouldn't get mixed up. Did you ever have one of those DUH type moments where something so simple hits you right in the head and you wonder why you never thought of it before? Well for the past few years now we have been using Math Investigations one of the centers that's comes up frequently is inventory bags. This center drives me nuts! We use brown paper bags and put items in the bags and without fail by the time the first group is done with the center all the bags are mixed up and the centers is a complete mess! I can safely says I hated doing inventory bags. Well the other day I had my AHA/DUH moments and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of the idea sooner. I went into my supply closet and pulled out gallon sized baggies and a permanent marker. I then thought of 12 different items, one item for each bag. Here are the items I chose:

1. Index cards
2. Pencils (not sharpened)
3. Black pens
4. Blue pens
5. Binder clips (large ones)
6. Binder rings
7. Large paper clips
8. Snap cubes
9. Popsicle sticks
10. Small glue sticks
11. Pencil top erasers
12. Gh

On each bag I wrote the name of the item that was in the bag. Then I made an organization sheet for them to use. It had two columns. The first column listed the name of the item and the second column said Amount. This was the simplest fix to inventory bags and yet it took me years to think if it. The kids did and amazing job with the bags - we only lost two Popsicle sticks over the course of two days!

On the first day the kids were divided into partnerships and each group got one bag. They had to work together to count the items in their bag and record it on their sheet. The best part - my students who struggle with reading could match the word on the Baggie with the word in their paper and fill in the sheet without any support! I let the kids get up and swap bags with one another on their own, which between you and me I thought was going to be a complete mess and what have you, but yet again my kiddies surprised me. They shared and took turns without any problems. They did a really great job with this activity. I did find that they needed extra time for this so we ended up doing it over two days but they had fun and were enjoying it so it worked out perfect. I had my fast finishers help the groups that were workings slower by organizing and getting the bags they needed. So the slower groups didn't waste time walking around to get the supplies they needed. Oh I should add in that when I made the baggies I picked specific numbers for each item. With 12 bags of items I focused in the teen numbers and then threw in three bags that were whole numbers, 20, 30, 40. I printed an extra copy of the student recording sheet I made and I wrote down exactly how many of each item was supposed to be in each bag. This was very helpful because as I circulated I could quickly see if any group counted incorrectly and work with them.

The next lesson was a bit different. I again made a sheet but this one had four columns: item (which I had filled in), total amount, how many bundles if ten, how many singles. This part of the lesson worked on getting the students to think about making groups of ten to organize their inventory and count it. I have to say almost all of my kiddies did a great job with this activity. I had a few kids struggle with it but most of them got it. They enjoyed counting the objects and then I showed them that since we can't physically bundle some of the objects we could make piles of ten.

I'm really enjoying this unit. I think it's working on their counting skills and organizing skills. I think I would consider trying this unit in the fall. Not necessarily the counting out and making piles of ten but the simple idea of counting the objects and recording them! I know I will be using baggies and an organization sheet for inventory bags in the fall! Such a quick and simple fix I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner!!!!!!


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