The First Day is Here!

The summer is over and our rooms are once again transformed into a new and exciting place to learn. We had a great orientation on Friday with many parents and children showing up. The kids are excited and nervous of course. Tomorrow we will have a busy day as we get to know one another, practice all those expectations for class, work on fire/tornado drills, and are treated to a performance from a band. The first day at Chets Creek is always a great beginning for teachers and students.

Here are some pictures of our classroom this year. I hope that you stay in touch with our blog as we journey through another year.

Back to Work

The start of school is always an exciting time. This year our theme is a Orchestrating a Symphony of Success. Each grade level is a different genre of music with Kindergarten as Country Music. As I go into school this week (even though we don't officially start until the 17th) you can tell that the teachers at our school are motivated and ready to transform our school into a magical place. Some of them having been working prior to this week getting their rooms in order. Some, such as myself, have tried to squeeze every last minute of summer in with the kids.

Each year we are welcomed back from our principal with a letter. I am always excited to see what the presentation of the letter will look like and how it will be based around the direction and theme of our school for the year. Yesterday we received our welcome back in the form of an invitation to a new wiki. Our principal has set up a school based wiki that has a video clip to welcome us along with all the important paperwork that is usually given to us on the first day (this falls right into line with our school trying to decrease the amount of paper and keep as much as possible electronic). What a fabulous way to house all important information for the year. I am already excited to think about how easy it will be to find and access important links, schedules, faculty info, etc.

This year I am back to being a single teacher. Although I love co-teaching it is nice to be by myself again. I look forward to an great year with a new group of children. I hope you enjoy our new journey with us this year.

What happened to the time ???

After a month of not posting I found myself questioning what happened the last couple weeks of school that kept me too busy to be writing. I am sure your last month of school is just like ours. So much paperwork! Getting the kids every last minute of teaching time possible. Making sure cum folders are all set. Putting together portfolios. Grades, grades, and final grades. Flag retirement (check out our class blog to see our own Julia singing the National Anthem). Sometime in there we also want to find those last moments to share with them and build memories. This year, our awards ceremony was great. We sang Celene Dion's song "Because you Loved Me" in sign language to our parents. We also sang a fun song about summer. We had our great awards where everyone in our class earned their Reader's to Leaders pin for the first time this year. Our ceremony ended with a movie that highlighted our year (oh yeah...that is where a lot of my time went!) Our afternoon was filled with a great field day hosted by our PE teachers with support from many parent volunteers and other staff. It was hot but it was fun.

Now the year is complete. The room is cleaned and packed up - ready for summer school. This year our school will be hosting summer school and many classrooms throughout the building are being used. Of course, there is still always work to be done over the break. Cleaning out files, professional reading, and getting ready for the next school year.

As far as our theme next year - it is always a surprise until the last day of school. You can check it out at the Chets Creek Travel Guide.

A Time for Reflection

Every year as we approach the end of the school year, we are asked to reflect on ourselves and our teaching practices. This may not seem important to some people but for myself it is an important part of who I am. When I was a younger teacher I would try to keep a journal and write reflections in it once a week. I always tried to keep one positive and one negative about what happened. Of course my life became busier as my children became older and the journal slowly slipped away. About that time I was going through my National Board Certification. WOW - now that is really a time for reflection. Since then, I have taken on many more responsibilities through the years along with teaching full time. One of my favorite roles is coaching. I love to mentor and coach science. This time of year we are making reflections about our coaching strengths and weaknesses. Those answers don't come as easily for me as do my individual teaching reflections since coaching impacts others than myself. How have I helped teachers find effective ways to teach science? What impact am I making to each grade level I coach? What do my teammates need from me to become stronger in science content? What do I need to do to strengthen our K-5 team? What am I going to do to make the work deeper next year? Today I may not know all the answers to these questions but I know that they will be the center of my goals as we begin to think about next year. I know that being a teacher truly is about continuing to be a life long learner- isn't that is what reflections are all about!

A Visit from Leslie Helakoski

Each year we are blessed to have a guest author visit our school. This year it was Leslie Helakoski. Lucky for us, we were able to celebrate two of her books in the last couple months.

In March we had Big Chickens as our Book of the Month. What a great story about these four chickens that are scared of everything until the end of the story when they become four brave chickens once they had chased off the wolf. This is a story that many children can relate to since they too may feel like a big chicken when they are doing something new. You can see our class conclusion of this story in Big Chickens - the Untold Story. In April our principal chose the book Woolbur. This is a story about a sheep who is not like any other sheep. Woolbur has his own way of doing things! His parents worry even though grandpa continues to tell them not to. By the end of the story, Woolbur is leading the flock and therefore not so different. This is a great book for anyone who has never fit into the "flock" and has his/her own way of doing things.

Throughout the day, Leslie talked to each grade level about her life as an author. The first graders learned about the struggles and triumphs she has had as an author and an illustrator. She discussed how the first publishers loved her work but hated her illustrations but she has never given up. She continues to write, edit, and learn through each book. She also engaged all the children as she read both of our Book of the Months aloud. At the end of the day, kids were allowed to have personal books signed by Leslie herself.

We hope that Ms. Helakoski enjoyed our school as much as we enjoyed her!

As the end approaches...

At Chets Creek the end of the year is crazy as I am sure it is for all teachers. There are many things we do to help us and our children prepare for the last couple weeks and get ready for the next year. Recently our first grade team met with a group of second grade teachers to review what they do at the beginning of the year. This helps us make sure that our kids are as prepared for the upcoming year as much as possible. We look at things like assessment practices, skills block, math strategies, etc. We are also required to complete a Work over Time Standards Board. This board contains at least one students' work from August to April that shows his/her growth in an academic area. This year we chose to put up two students work that reflects their writing growth. It always amazes me to see how much they have grown (Especially when I have had them since Kindergarten)! Over the next couple weeks we will be reviewing and completing portfolios, finishing our academic goals, and assessing the students on our end of the year diagnostic for reading and math. Only 34 more days....

First Grader's Reader's Theatre

Last week our class finished our Kevin Henkes celebration with a Reader's Theatre for our parents. We hope you enjoy some of the highlights.


Untitled from dayle timmons on Vimeo.