Organizing the New Year.

New Year Organization

You have read that correctly. I am thinking about the New Year already. As most of my readers know I have been off on Maternity leave for the past ten months. (Canada is a great place to live!)

After Winter Break I am back to work. My schedule looks a bit different this time. I not only have the grade eights but the grade one french immersion for their English Literacy. I also have the little kinder tots for one period! I will have the youngest and oldest students in our school!

I have just started to officially wrap my brain around it all. I am so excited as you know how much I love teaching (see post here) but I have rather enjoyed being a stay at home mama. I look forward to working with my coworkers again and the challenges we will conquer, the creative collaboration shared and the small iinappropriate  hilarious moments.

I always have a goal to be more digital then the previous teaching year.  I have been tossing around a few ideas in my mind.

1. D2L: Online learning platform. I have used it very briefly before and I found that I was limited. A few years have passed and I see lots of improvements. However, I am also unsure of how much access my students have to the internet at home. I think I will put this one on hold until September of 2015. I am looking forward to hearing what @gr1and2bkwrms  will share!

@MariaVerwey1 I have a blog. Going to transfer to using elearning d2L
— Mrs. S's class (@gr1and2bkwrms) December 2, 2014

2. First Class: I currently use my First Class website. This platform is the one that my school board uses. I like it....but I find that it is "basic". I am limited to what I can do. You can check it out here. Be wary the site has cobwebs as I am still dusting it off.

3. Class Blog: I think I would like to start a class blog. It could keep track of our daily learning. It would be a good reflection tool to look back upon. There are a couple of great examples that I will use to model:

Check out Miss Dunsiger's class blog here. My favourite part is her Daily Shoot.

Check out The Graffiti Bench here. She has not updated this year as I believe she is not in the classroom right now but you can see so many great ideas there.

I have yet to find a great intermediate class blog......so I haven't found a "model".

I have started to build the "bones of the blog". No posts yet but you can check it out and get ready to follow if you are interested.

BLOG: http://78phoenix.blogspot.ca

4. Class Twitter and Instagram: I am excited about these ones as well. Since I teach mostly intermediate it is not only for the parents but for the students as well. The students tweet/post pictures of things that are important to them. Including their lunch pics! I want them to know that I feel what we do in the classroom is important. I want to share it with the world but they and their learning means that much to me. Posts will begin early January.
Follow us here:

Twitter: @Pheonix7_8


  Instagram: pre78

5. Day Book: I have started to build my day book. In September this is another goal for the next school year to be digital for my day planning...however there is something therapeutic about writing my plans down and it helps me remember.

I have created my calendars for January-June of 2014. I have included the day rotation in the calendar as it helps with my planning.

Two pages so it lays out in my day book and I can see a month view with the cycle days better.

Do you want a copy of it for yourself?

Help yourself!
Here it is here:
This is an open office file. You can download and edit.

A pdf version is available here.








What do you use for organisation?

One Big Accomplishment

Day 9: One Big Accomplishment

There are many accomplishments! As an educator I like to keep learning and keep reaching for that next goal.  

I think one of my biggest accomplishments is organization. 

If you met me five years ago teaching you would have seen a desk covered in piles of paper.

You would have found student marks/grades on sticky notes, duo tangs and binders. 

You would have opened up my cupboard to find my resources away, but not in any order.

An administrator that I had in the past challenged me on it.  I honestly thought...

"It's an organized mess. I can find what I want when I need it so it doesn't matter".

He challenged me on this. He told me that some students can not learn with mess around them. It is too distracting.  He said he is one of them.  When he came into my room he was often distracted by the piles on my desk and wanted to organize them. He often lost his train of thought while there because of it.

This stopped me in my tracks!  I had never thought that my mess could be impacting the way a student is learning.  I vowed to make organization my goal that year and every year since then. I have days where I fall off the waggon and you might find a binder or two on my guided reading table but overall my whole day to day has changed.

How?

1. I started using tools online to help me record my grades/anecdotal notes.  I have a new goal to use google docs more effectively.  

2. I tried a new system of storing my own papers. I used drop box. Instead of creating binders of units I started files on dropbox for my subjects. 

3. I have two sets of three drawers bins on my counter. Each drawer has a label for the day of the week. My plans, resources,materials or anything I need for the day goes in that bin. Extra bin for "other". The other usually houses extra materials, the following weeks materials or activities for our tribes. 

4. I did away with my desk. No desk means no spot to put my things.  

I am still working on it every day but I noticed a huge difference. One area especially different was report card writing. Everything in one spot! No more flipping between duo tangs, notebooks, sticky notes etc.  Ahhhhh!

Thanks to the admin who took the time to challenge me and pushed me forward in a way that might not be noticeable to others around me.

How do you organize in your classroom?