How do you plan?

I'm really hoping that most teacher's dining room tables look like this.  Cause mine does, every summer!

And every summer I get all inspired and start planning.  And I usually end up changing those first plans a million times, but I still do it anyway!

Here's what I used to plan last year.  I know I know, it's a calendar.  And it's paper.  I'm old fashioned I guess but I like to see the whole month at once.  

I didn't write daily plans in here but a "gist" of each week, added important school and personal dates and when I had it the way I liked it, I could add it in my district's online lesson plan.  I do this because the online planner is not very friendly... AT ALL.  But it's a requirement so that's the way it goes. :)

This year I decided to try the same idea again, but I found a different calendar that I like a bit better, and it was $6.97 at Wal-Mart!!

As you can see it has the monthly at a glance, which I really liked, but it also had the days...

I thought this might be nice to kind of lay out particular lessons and have a bit more room if needed.

And... it's always in pencil :)

I'm going to try to use the notes column to remind me of all the cool things I found on Pinterest and the other blogs I follow!

And yes, I've already started the first six weeks :)

and here are my teaching resources that I'll be using all the time!

I really wish that the district planner were easy to use, but for the actually planning part I'll keep with this :)

Game Changer

I have just started following several teaching blogs and it seems as if lots of people are having to change  jobs or even schools.  I've been there, three years in a row and I know it's stressful!

While I'm actually safe this year from change (whew), we do have some big changes coming for us as well and I'm trying not to get to worried or bunched up over them...

1.  We are moving from 4 teachers to three.  A four person team was great!  It nicely divided us into two teams, one of us would teach Language Arts and Social Studies and the other would teach Math and Science.  Our schedule was great and the load of grading and children wasn't bad.

This year we're moving down to three teachers.  This means two things for me.  One, I'll be only teaching Language Arts.  I'm kind of bummed about this as I really enjoyed the Social Studies content.  The other thing it means is that we all have ALL the students which brings my student count to 75 or so.  It's a trade off, but I want to make sure I'm really reaching all my kids and with less time each day, it will be more difficult.  Plus, there will be no "flex" time from another subject where I could occasionally gain some time if needed.  We'll see how it goes.

2.  I found out yesterday, one of our teammates has gotten another job.  I'm really happy for her as she's wanted to be in admin for a while and she's getting to do some great things for our district.  I think it's a good move, but of course that means our dynamic will change too.

3.  Last year we got a new first year principal.  It was a learning year for everyone and I know this year will be even better.  However, our AP was the one who kept us together.  We found out last week that our AP has been transferred!  It wasn't something she had requested but it's done.  She's actually trading schools with another AP.  So, brand new admin team will be something we all are going to get used to. Not bad at all, but learning each other can sometimes be stressful.

Should be an interesting year, have you been through change lately?

The reason behind it...

In the past year or so, with the explosion of Pinterest, and blogging, I have found a million things that I'd like to do in my classroom.

So, I have started this blog to hopefully document things I love, things that worked, and didn't, and part of our journey on the way!

A little about me...

I currently teach 5th grade in a 'burb in Texas and really love it.  I have been in education for 15 years,  13 teaching and 2 in child care.  I have taught 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th grades.  When my oldest son was born I took a director job in a small church preschool.  Then my surprise baby came and I moved to full time child care.  After a year in full time care I realized I was meant to be in the classroom and I was lucky enough to get hired back :)

I got hired back in as a 3rd grade teacher (my first love and what I taught for nine years) but as we all know in the teaching game, when you're low man on the totem pole, nothing is certain.  So I moved the next year to first grade.  That was certainly an adventure.  It was a tough bunch of kids, weird that it happens that way isn't it?, and SO different from what I thought it would be!  And yet again, after teacher cuts, and contract weirdness I was moved AGAIN to 5th.

To be honest I never thought I would go to 5th, and I wasn't sure I would like it.  We did our first year of team teaching and I taught only Language Arts and Social Studies, my LOVES.  It ended up being a GREAT first year and I'm thrilled to say that I'm staying in 5th for the fall.  Our numbers look like we will only have three teachers, so I will strictly be Language Arts.  I'm pretty excited about that except I'm a bit disappointed about not teaching Social Studies since I really had a great time with it last year :) I'm will also have MTA students (dyslexic) and have one section for the co-teach class.

After my fist year in 5th there are a LOT of things I want to change completely, and several that I'd like to make better.  And, after spending a lot of my summer break online, there's even more that I want to add!

So, let's get going :)

Let me know what you think as we go :)

LeAnne