Pinspiration: Classroom Pins I Can't Wait to Try

  

   As promised, it's time to follow up on my "Favorite Things: Pinterest" post with some of my favorite pins right now.  I get ideas from Pinterest constantly, so these are just the ones I'm currently most excited to implement when school starts back.

- This pin links to a color-coded, chunked system of planning for block schedules.  This year will be my first year working with a block, so I'm happy for any colorful help I can get! It even comes with downloads for Microsoft Word to get you started.  

- A Teacher's Plan Book ($8.50 for download at TeachersPayTeachers) is going to help me get and keep my act together this year!  It doesn't hurt that it's really cute, and can be printed in black and white so that I don't have to buy a color ink cartridge.  It's even editable, so I can adapt some parts to better suit my high school block schedule.

Credit: The Teacher Wife

- This poster would help me fight a never-ending battle against a word I call "the R word."

- I want to meet this teacher, who uses memes to help go over rules on Day 1.  Totally stealing this idea.  Sometimes my freshmen look so small and frightened while I'm detailing expectations and syllabi and rules . .. this could definitely lighten the mood.

- This pin from Secondary Solutions links to a detailed plan for using Literature Circles in a high school English classroom-- complete with free downloadable Word documents!  I've been intrigued by Literature Circles for a while, but I've only used them in single-class activities for short pieces.  I think I'm finally going to take the plunge into Novel Circles this year!

- I just took a class at my alma mater on Modern Grammar, and these grammar journals might just be the coolest thing ever.  It's an idea from Scholastic, and is listed for grades 3-8, but I can definitely adapt it for use in high school.  What a way for kids to finally use grammar in context and in a meaningful way!

- More memes!  I love that these allow me to take something from pop culture, and something the kids identify with, and put it to use in the classroom.  This pin links to Hunger Games lessons in which students create memes to discuss serious topics.  This could easily work for any novel.

- This Push-Pin Poetry board would cost basically nothing, and would be an awesome interactive board for my kids.  So excited about this one!  

What are some of your favorite pins right now?

Favorite Things #5: The First Days of School by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong

Now that I've found some motivation again, it's time to move on with my Favorite Things series.  I'm not doing this series in any particular order, but- if I were?  This book- The First Days of School- would definitely top the list.  

Quite literally, this book walks you, step-by-step, through the first days of school.  I don't know about you, but my first day of school as a new teacher was on the terror scale somewhere between an encounter with a king cobra and falling off a 20-story building.  This book gave me tips, tricks, and the confidence to get through it.  I still reference it every year before school begins.  

The First Days is broken up into five "units":

1. Basic Understandings- The Teacher

2. First Characteristic- Positive Expectations

3. Second Characteristic- Classroom Management

4. Third Characteristic- Lesson Mastery

5. Future Understandings- The Professional

My favorite units are those in the middle, which really deal with the day-to-day functions of  a classroom.  Wong and Wong cover a lot of that "stuff" no one teaches in college-- how to introduce yourself, best practices to keep your classroom running smoothly and how to implement them, etc.  There's a large focus on "the first days of school" because they're so crucial in laying the groundwork for the rest of the year.

My favorite thing about The First Days is that it reminds us of the importance of positivity with our students.  This book is a classroom management and lesson-planning Bible.  No wonder it's one of my Favorite Things!  

Linking up with Tales of a Teacherista- click the button for more "teacher book" recommendations!  

   

Favorite Things #2: Pinterest

Here's to the second post in my Favorite Things series-- Pinterest!  

Pinterest is really one of my favorite resources as a teacher.  It's absolutely full of new ideas for lesson plans, organization, and stress and time management.  I'm borderline obsessed.  

I'll never forget when a favorite student approached me and said, "Umm, I saw your Pinterest boards.  There are people who have to go to rehab for Pinterest addiction.  Do you think you have a problem?"  Haha!  Probably.  I have boards dedicated to both main subject areas I teach, one for my new newspaper class, one for blogging, one for interactive notebooks, and one for general classroom ideas.  I also contribute to a few group boards dedicated to teaching.

a screen shot of part of one of my eight classroom-related boards:

I could probably write for days on this topic, so I'll limit myself.  Here are my Top 10 Favorite School-Related Pins that are tried-and-true in my room:

1. Black-Out Poetry, in which kids black out everything on a book page except the words they choose for their poem.  It's very visually appealing, and gets even the most anti-poetic kids writing beautifully.

2. Boggle for the SmartBoard-- I adapted this to an old-school bulletin board and used it for extra credit all year.  The kids LOVED it!

3. Remind101 (See my post on Remind101 here.)

4. After-School Routine Checklist, which I used this year and it made my life so much easier and more organized.

5. New-Student Welcome Kits:  I got so many new students mid-year this year, and these kits made it quick and easy for me to get them started.

6. SuperTeacherTools, a website which allows teachers to make class lists, random name generators, interactive games, seating chart makers, countdowns, etc.

7. What Teachers Make, an incredible video in response to that question, "So what do teachers make?"  Seriously-- teacher power.  Watch it.

8. This pin, which inspired my current (and favorite ever) classroom layout.

9. Turning Teacher Distress into Eustress.  This made my crazy-difficult last year a bit easier.

10. Visual Writing Prompts from Tumblr.  Too cool!

Stay tuned in a few weeks for another top 10-- the Top 10 Pins I'm Most Excited About for Next Year.

And follow me!  http://pinterest.com/meganfpatrick/

Seven End-of-Year Tips to Prepare for Next Year

My school district has only 2 days of school left for teachers.  Our kids finished Friday. Tomorrow we have some curriculum development meetings, and Wednesday we wrap it all up for the year. Summer is so close I can taste it . . . and I don't think I've ever wanted it more!

This is the best time I can think of to prepare for next year. Exam week and the work days to follow provide for lots of "down time."  Yes, there are exams to grade, but aside from that?  Not much.  Right now, this school year is fresh in my mind.  Why wait until August to decide to reflect on it?  I know, I know-- I am a huge nerd awesome at reflective teaching.  So, I am taking good notes about what I want to repeat / do differently / never-do-again-for-the-love-of-God next year. 

Seven Steps I Take During the Final Week to Prepare for Next Year:   

•  Purge the paperwork.

I do a lot of throwing away this time of year.  This year I have thrown more away than probably ever before-- with the advent of file storage technology like Google Drive and Dropbox, I have no need to have file cabinets full of papers, nor do I need to even carry a jump drive around.  Take it from me; it's liberating to empty those brimming file cabinets of everything but the essentials.  When you've got it down to just what's absolutely necessary, organizing it becomes much less daunting.

•  Make some sense of the insanity.

I don't know about you guys, but my end-of-year classroom, in spite of the valiant efforts of our wonderful custodial staff,  starts to look like it has been through a simultaneous tsunami/mudslide/volcanic eruption/earthquake.  Last week, there was a sock in the floor.  A cake pan on the table (not mine).  Five mechanical pencils, all broken.  A textbook belonging to a student no one has ever heard of.  Clean it up.  I, for one, put the kids to work when they all finish their exams.  They love to help, and it gets spic-n-span super quickly!  

Before . . .

Disgusting, right?

and after!

•  Make a summer to-do list.

I'm at the point in my career that I don't have a massive amount of summer planning to do, but this is a list of some things that will make the new school year easier for me.   On my list:

general lesson plans for two new "preps" I'll be teaching, writing practice questions for my academic team, putting together a presentation on educational technology I'm presenting in August, and catching up on some school-related reading I haven't had time for. To keep up with all of this, I use Evernote, a free app that saves my notes and lists and makes them available to all computers and mobile devices.

•  Make a list of ideas for back-to-school.

Here's mine. It isn't cute, or super neat, or even sensible to someone else-- but it will do the trick.  It's a place for me to jot down new ideas, a shopping list of school supplies, and reminders about where some files are saved.  I've even copied and pasted the text of a few relevant emails.  I will add to this all summer long, and lean heavily on it when work days begin in August.  

•  Write a "Dear Me" letter to find in August.

This is way too nerdy for me to share . . . but basically, it is what it sounds like.  I write myself a letter, welcoming myself back to school.  In it, I give myself five or six tasks (read-- SMALL tasks) that need doing right away to be ready for the kids to return.  This list shouldn't be so long that it's overwhelming.  I also try to add some words of encouragement-- back to school time is scary, y'all!

•  Plan a summer schedule.

I have also designed a summer schedule to ascertain that I don't lie around like a slug all summer keep me on track.  I'm not saying you need a military-style round-the-clock schedule, but it helps to dedicate a few hours per day or a day a week to school work.  I'm a serial procrastinator  so without planning a set time for work, I will find myself in August having done nothing.  Believe me, you'll feel a lot better when you return to school if you've gotten on top of the workload this summer.

•  Pack a box of take-home stuff.

Really, there's no need to pack your entire classroom and lug it home, only to lug it back again in the fall, not having touched it.  Take a close look at your summer to-do list, and take only the necessities.  A box or two should do it.  I brought home a textbook for a new (to me) class I'll be teaching, along with some basic lesson planning materials.