Search results matching tags 'classroom management' and 'lesson plans'

On the one hand, spending a morning with preschoolers can be lovely and simple. Read stories, play, follow routines, talk, play outside, learn about interesting things.

On the other hand, spending a morning with preschoolers can be made frustrating and complicated. And that can be from outside forces, or it can come from me.

I had my second data meeting today, and the main idea was to meet with our teams and talk about how we can plan for small group instruction to work with children on their areas of need. I talked with the afternoon teacher (how rare is that opportunity!) and one of our literacy coaches about how to do it in our short period of time. With their help, I have a tentative plan to do a short small group time every day after morning meeting, starting on Monday.

Here are some of the many things I am thinking about — so that they are crowding my head and I can’t think straight, let alone prioritize and figure out how to get it all done:

How can I get the breakfast kids (14 out of 19 kids) to eat faster and get back to the room sooner, so I can start morning meeting earlier, so we have time for small groups?
When will I (and how will I) place the kids into 4 groups? I need to find the time to look at the data I have so far….
How are we going to manage the Americorps volunteer getting all of her IGDIs (Individual Growth and Development Indicators) done? Especially when I keep needing her in the classroom? Especially when the kindergartner from across the hall spends a good part of his day out in the hallway, sobbing loudly, so that she can’t get our kids to pay attention to her, let alone hear what she is asking them?
How are we going to manage my assistant getting all the portfolios done, especially when she is gone for 45 min of the morning on her morning and lunch breaks?
Story time is going badly, for the first time in ages. I need to back up and stick with short, funny, engaging books. That means more Mo Willems, more Pete the Cat, and that also means abandoning richer, more challenging texts that have content and vocabulary related to our themes.
Which is more important: teaching content via themes, working on basic skills like letters and colors, or working on classroom skills like taking turns, listening to teachers, and cutting with scissors? I can’t do all of them; how do I choose?
When am I going to look at the teaching rubric, figure out what I want to focus on, notify my observer, and plan for my first formal observation?
How will I plan for my daily small groups? How will I manage materials? When will I do the planning/organizing?
Should I come back to school one evening to work? Make my family order a pizza for dinner, since I won’t be there? Maybe then I could get caught up?
Why am I having to come so early every day? This hasn’t happened in years. Why is this year so much harder?
What is the right thing to do for the kids?!

I am disappointed in myself, and feeling internal pressure to do better. I also have very tense neck and shoulders, and am worried that I am basically going to give myself another migraine.

this looks awesome: customizable lesson plans

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:08:51 GMT

Through the magic and wonder that is Pinterest, I found this website, Dragonflies in First. The blog author has made lesson plans for the computer that she is selling on Teachers Paying Teachers that look extremely cool. I have tried and failed to come up with my own; my tech skills are just not that good. I love this year long plan she made, and also the weekly plans (you can pick cool colors and change the font). I’m definitely going to be buying both.

Teaching Tips

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Recently I have found a website with great teacher tips for teaching. http://www.nea.org/tools/BrowseAllTips.html some of my favorite tips that I saw are:

Park Your Questions: I have a poster-sized piece of paper decorated with yellow parking stripes. The poster is labeled "Parking Lot." There are usually a short stack of sticky notes near the poster. When those random questions come up, I (and sometimes other students) just say, "Parking Lot." Students know to bring up their pencil, jot the question down, and we'll address it when there's time.

Stocking Your Class Library: It was only in the last few years of my teaching career that I truly felt I had enough variety in ability and interest level for my classroom library, thanks to the Reading a-z Web site.

The website also has Teaching Strategies: http://www.nea.org/tools/TeachingStrategies.html
School life: http://www.nea.org/tools/SchoolLife.html
Classroom Management: http://www.nea.org/tools/ClassroomManagement.html
Lesson Plans: http://www.nea.org/tools/LessonPlans.html

At the National Education Association, they put the best ideas and strategies for students and their master teachers are the ones that are putting lessons out for upcoming teachers. The site only offers about 57 different lessons for mathematics, though.

thinking big

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:08:08 GMT

Our children are away at camp, so last night my husband and I had a Wednesday date for dinner and a movie (“Crazy, Stupid, Love” — highly recommended). At dinner, he said, “Do you have any goals for this coming school year?”

And with that, I was off.

I want to have a clean desk. Every day. I’m going to have to rethink a lot of things about storage and daily routines, but it would be so great to have a clean desk.
I want to reduce clutter in the classroom.
I want to have a class binder that has all my important info in one place, including…
…my lesson plans, which I still want to figure out how to do on the computer. I want to come up with a sort of spreadsheet/chart that blocks off the hours in the day, where I can write what we will be doing each chunk of time.
I want to be better at teaching rhyming and alliteration.
I want to write more repeated interactive readaloud lesson plans.
I want to make time to do the RIRA discussions every week.
I want to do water science with the water table. I planned on doing it last year, but didn’t get around to it.
I want to work on teaching vocabulary, and continue working on creating my own set of vocabulary cards.

“So, resting on your laurels, right?” he joked.

It’s August, and my time at home is slowly vanishing, but I am starting to get in the right mindset. I think I will be happy to go back, when the time comes.