Update, Finally!

Well, clearly much has been happening in the classroom! I haven't had a chance to blog in ages, and you can thank a snow day and being mostly prepared (as much as I could...student work isn't as ready, but again, thank the snow day!) for Parent Conferences tomorrow.
Things have been zooming along! Kids have been writing and reading like mad! Some hilarious highlights:

- Exasperated at a student who regularly has a lack impulse-control (read - shouts out often), I told him he owed me ten minutes of his recess time the next day. Another student pipes up, "I'll stay in for him instead." I stop in my tracks and turn, "Did you just volunteer to take make up his recess time. DID YOU JUST VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE?!" A dead silence for a second, and then (as most of the class has seen or read Hunger Games) giggles ensued.

- While talking about a sentence where the character was dragging her feet into a school, I asked for students to give reasons why she might be doing so. I got all kinds of responses, and then one adorably quiet boy says, "she might have kneecaps". I heard "Kneecaps" and responded, that yes, she might have something wrong with her leg, or her knees hurt. He let me go on, and then said, "No, NECAPS". I bust into laughter, as I realized that he meant the standardized test - not a person's knees.

- During NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), my students rose to the challenge and wrote over 150,000 words!! (ok, that's not funny, that just plain AWESOME and had to be shared).

- When given the choice between a read aloud that was a fantastic book and we could skype with the author about, or one that made be bawl my eyes out, the 6th graders picked the one I cried during. They keep asking when I am going to cry! Silly children. Oh trust me, it will be soon. (BTW - the first book is The Water Castle by Megan Frazier Blakemore and the second is Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordon Sonnenblick). Also - I tweeted about the second, and the author tweeted back and is willing to skype with the class! Shhh, they don't know yet, I am telling them on Friday!

- FYI - indoor recess in winter is VERY preferable to outdoor recess duty except for the cabin fever thing the kids all have. Outdoor recess consists of lots of bored, sneaker wearing students (about 40 out of 70) wandering for a half hour with nothing to do, while the handful (15 -20) who came fully prepared with winter clothes so they could do sledding on the hill have to be watched for collisions, and the remaining try to play basketball on an icy court. Indoor recess is 20 students in my room, where I can entertain them with 7-up games or allowing them to walk laps in the hallway (with supervision).

It's certainly not all kicks and giggles and its SO much work. Most days, I am at school by 7 or 7:15am and my average time leaving the building is 5pm (any day I am NOT the last one in the building is a good evening, some days its as late as 7 or 8pm.) And then there are those days that I come home and make a wine smoothie. But, the people I work with are amazing and a fantastic support system, so even those days pass quickly and are forgotten for better days.

Starting Friday is our Winter Olympics week (leading up to vacation, which EVERYONE is excited for), so I will try to blog again soon to share the stories of the Olympics, and tell of the Sounds of Learning, a take on the Sound of Music. My class is Austria and OF COURSE, we are doing a couple Sound of Music activities! :)
Love to all, and read a book!!!
Kelly

Day One with Staff

Hi All,

So my classroom LOOKS all ready for the students, and that is certainly half the battle! I have been planning activities and lessons for the first few days as a time to build our classroom community, with the hard hitting curriculum starting after Labor Day. Today was the first day - a welcome back to school with the whole district (my Super and Asst Super are Amazing, relaxed with a great sense of humor.) I am more excited than ever to work in this fantastic place! Humanities work completed the day, and I am feeling fairly prepared for the students to arrive Wednesday. Tomorrow is the welcome day for staff at my school, and I know it will continue the greatness. I have phenomenal teachers to work with, and two other newbies in my school to commiserate with about new teacher trials and woes.
Fun things in my room, I can't wait to share with the students - Hogwarts Houses based on personality inventory that the students will be "sorted" into to work towards rewards - Reading and Writing time daily - Book and Author Share Fridays.
I have a few more things to do - including the set up of a webpage to keep parents informed of the goings on in the room - a birthday chart - locker tags - and the conversations with my 5th and 6th grade teams tomorrow.
Happy learning folks! Keep reading and writing :)
Ms. Kenney

Fundraising and planning

Hello again!

The remainder of the week in my classroom went fairly well. I feel that the room is nearly looking ready for students, as you can see in the picture below. This week's time will be spent on planning the activities and lessons the students will be undertaking as school begins in a week and a half! (Yikes, so soon!!) I'm not feeling a hundred percent ready yet, but there is still time and I keep being told by the lovely ladies I work with that they are no where near ready either. :) The commiserating helps my stress level!
As I prepare, I was lucky enough to make it to Ruth's Reusables opening day today! That place is amazing, and I can not be more thankful to have places and people who support teachers, particularly as my school district is not wealthy in the least. I got some great needs (paper, folders, sheet protectors and a new teacher chair, a desperate need as mine broke on Friday).
One thing that my classroom, and school in general, is technology. As you might have noticed, I have blackboards in my room. There are no Smart Boards, no class sets of ipads, no laptop cart. There is one computer lab for school-wide use, and I have 4 ipads (I think, I have yet to see them), for my room to use. So I have joined Adopt-a-Classroom.org, in the hopes that people (maybe you?) would be willing to help fund some technology for my classroom. If you are interested in adopting my room and give a little or a moderate amount (I hardly expect a lot!), then please travel over here: http://www.adoptaclassroom.org/poom/index.aspx?teacherid=186922
You will have to register, but you will get regular updates on anything purchased for my students. Every penny goes directly to them!
Thank you if you do donate, and your support either way, it means so much to me.
Love and learning -
Ms. Kenney

Hi all,

So two days in my classroom and I equally have a lot done, and SO much left to do! I have my Twitter Board for student use (to-be laminated Sentence strips for each student to write on with dry-erase markers) ready to go up on the wall tomorrow. Most everything is put away and tidy, except all the paper, glue and markers I have been using to decorate the bulletin boards. I put up some artwork and if I do say so myself, it looks pretty cute so far.
Although there is a lot decorated, I had a bit of a panic moment (ok, longer than a moment) today realizing that I have no print outs ready as of yet. I don't get my official school laptop until next Wednesday, and as such have no access to the printer at school, which would make life a tad easier, but adapt and overcome, right?
As the majority of decorating is done or nearly so, tomorrow and the rest of the week will be spent planning lessons and creating the things needed for the activities I have planned. Eeek! I did get out my summer letters to students with their back-to-school supply checklists today, so its pretty official that I will be their teacher :)
Best accomplishment of the day was definitely the Chalkboard Boggle game for students to challenge themselves when they have completed a task. Teehee.
Love and Learning,
Ms. Kenney

New Teacher, New Blog

Okay all you friends, family, acquaintances  Teacher Friends, and general people checking out this blog. I am a new teacher in the lakes region of Maine, teaching 5th and 6th grade Humanities and this is my attempt at keeping people up to date on the goings on of my teaching, fun stories from the classroom and connecting with professionals. 

Tomorrow I start in my classroom, getting things ready for the students to arrive on the 28th. I am super excited to get in the room and get things set up. I have, so far, sketched out my curriculum for the year, and planned the first couple days for community building/expectations/routines. I just signed up for an awesome (I Hope) classroom Library app, called Classroom Organization by Booksource, with which I can scan all the ISBN barcodes with my phone. The books are automatically entered into an online database in my account of my library. Students can access the app and check out/return books and add reviews when they have done so. Hoping to utilize the entirety of the program, but it might just be my database for book ordering also.

Oh, and because being a brand new teacher, with two grade levels of curriculum to plan and assess, I volunteered to take on an after school club starting the end of September, which will be an Arts and Craft club meeting once a week. Excited to share my love for all things crafty (with some extra ideas modified/stolen from Pinterest. 

For those on twitter, follow me @22kellyk for day-to-day (or at least more nearly so) updates. 

Till next time, stay Dorky -Ms. Kenney