Life Update!

Hey there!

The school year is over and summer is in full swing!

I was just looking back through my drafts on this blog (it's where I start posts and keep ideas) and pretty much all of them were time sensitive so I couldn't post any of them... :( Well, that's what I get!

However, I figured that it is time for a much needed update! A lot has changed! If you don't know it already, I'm headed to Australia next week! NEXT WEEK PEOPLE! I am by no means an adventurous person. Frankly, I am the most annoyingly predictable person, but I've decided to use this trip to conquer a lot of fears and just have fun! My mom and I will be zip-lining, bridge climbing, sand boarding, and caffeinating our way through three major cities. And don't worry. There will definitely be a post about the trip once I get back. Be sure to follow my Instagram for all the pictures of kangaroos, koalas, and me falling when sand boarding.

In other super exciting news, I'M A GRAD STUDENT!!! I was officially accepted into an Educational Leadership and Principal Certification program last week. I was so excited that I legitimately read the word "Congratulations" and then closed the envelop and called everyone. My roommate then read through the material for me while I ate ice cream later. She's a keeper. So, I start my program this fall and have a phone conference with the head honcho at my grad school to set up a plan. It's all so exciting, scary, and wonderful!

Another piece of news that I've kind of announced but not really, is that I'm changing grade levels. Second grade Kati is finally graduating to 5th grade! I even get some of my students from my first year teaching! The move to 5th grade was one that I requested. Going into administration and ultimately being an assistant principal/principal means working with teachers at every grade level. I really didn't want to be the principal that "knows everything" but only taught one grade level. Once I am done teaching 5th grade, I'll have worked in K, 1st, 2nd, 5th and will have a decent enough understanding of 3rd and 4th because of working in the grades above and below. I spent a lot of time working with a 3rd grade teacher this year to gain some understanding there, so next year is all about 5th and partnering up with 4th grade! I just can't stop learning!

Of course, with a grade change, that meant a classroom makeover! I'm keeping my polka dots. I just love them too much, but I am making it a bit more "grown up" for my mini adults. I posted a sneak peek of my bulletin board headers on my Instragram yesterday, but the theme is polka dots, chalkboard, and burlap. It's kind of cool and trendy without being overwhelming. I like my classroom to be calm and consistent, so that's my goal. Our school will be at a temporary site this year while our other school is rebuilt. Even though its just one year in our less than lovely location, I plan on setting up a full classroom with all the fixin's! I want those 5th graders to have a great final year of elementary school, especially since they don't get to enjoy the new beautiful school!

That's it for now! I have a crazy, busy day. I hope all you teachers are enjoying your well deserved break and all you non-teachers are having a great Friday!

~Kati

Vo-bac-ulary!

Learning vocabulary can be boring and monotonous. Some weeks, it's the lesson I avoid until the last minute. Well, in the spirit of entertaining myself the kids, because we all know that we remember and learn more from fun things, we played "vo-bac-ulary" today! If you're a fan of "The Office" you may know where this is heading.




Vo-bac-ulary is really easy! First, I teach the kiddos our words. In my curriculum, we have a short story that uses the words in context. I ask the kiddos "If that word went missing, what's another word that would fit well there?" Synonyms are a great way to make connections. Once they are familiar with the words, I demonstrate how to play the game.

1) Each kiddo gets a card taped to their back that has a vocabulary word on it.
2) Kids will find a partner who will give them a definition or example of the word on their backs. 
3) The student will try to guess what the word is.
4) If it's right, they help their partner guess theirs. If it's not right, they keep trying!
5) When both partners have guessed correctly, they come back to me to get a new word taped to their backs. Then they find a new partner.
6) Go until you're out of words or the controlled chaos become just chaos. :)
7) For a competitive edge, the kiddo with the most cards at the end wins!

To make the cards, just quickly type them up on a word document and make copies. A quick slice with the paper cutter and you're good to go! This only took me 5 minutes to make and prep for the lesson and the impact is huge!

Teaching Kati Lesson: Have the tape ready. Once they start getting the definitions down, the game goes fast! :) Also, make sure to post the word list up somewhere so they can reference it throughout the game.

~Kati

Where have I been?!

I'm apparently really great at having both an attention issue and a memory issue. I both forgot I had this blog and whenever I remembered, I would write half of a post and then have a "SQUIRREL!" moment.

I'm going to change. I swear I can! :)

So what have I been up to this year? Here is the year so far in photos!

October:

Kiddos made their own compare story problems and then made them into a solve and check flip game! We posted them in the halls and passerby's could try and figure it out!

Throughout October, I also spent time reading this amazing book, "Freeing Your Child from Anxiety" by Tamar E. Chansky. I found some really powerful ideas and tips in this book. it was great to recommend to parents as well! Really puts things into perspective. 

November:

November brought lots of fun! One amazing reading strategy that we used was using highlighter tape! We used highlighter tape to pre-read our stories. Pink for words we couldn't pronounce and blue for words we didn't know the meanings of. It made the kiddos help each other out more than me stepping in. 

Later in the month, we became surgeons! I printed a bunch of words that could be turned into contractions. The kiddos wore surgery masks and had to cut out the words, make an "incision" where the apostrophe would go, and the use a band-aid as the apostrophe! They were so engaged and definitely know their contractions!

December:

December always feels short and fast with our winter break. One thing I did to prepare us for break was making these amazing take home science kits! The kids loved them and parents even emailed me to let me know how nice it was to have something to do on those boring days! You can find the directions for this project (made by the TPT-er Teach-A-Roo) here!

One amazing thing that we did get done before we headed off to break was our Children's Hospital drive! Every year the kiddos in 2nd grade that donate toys for our Children's Hospital Toy Drive blow me away. My car was packed! And all was paid with their allowance! Selfless, amazing kids.

January:

We got back from break and hit the ground running! First, we spent some time working on our New Year's resolution. We made this adorable foldable, added some glitter, and hung them up for all to see! You can find this FREE TPT find from Rachel Lamb here!

Later in the month, we spent some time working on MLK Jr. We had such an inspiring and beautiful week learning all about MLK Jr. I just love how the students embraced his words and were appalled at what was such a sad time in our history. I love even more that they will continue to carry on his legacy and treat every person with kindness, compassion, and love. "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." 

February: 

Ah, the month of love. Always fun with the itty bittys. The 100th day of school landed the same week as Valentines. It was BUSY. The kiddos came into our room through this super fun door, we made crowns, and they each got a gift from me to celebrate them being "o'fish'ally" 100 days smarter! :)

When Valentine's Day rolled around that week, the kiddos got this fun little Valentine from me. I love puns, glitter, and light up things. 

March:

In March, we started learning about geographical features. I wanted something that could later correlate with our rock/earth science unit. This foldable did a nice job of just touching on rocks ad formations, while keeping with our social studies work.

St. Patricks Day rolled around and I found myself both sick (really sick) but motivated to celebrate like the true Irish person I am! (Or at least I tell myself I'm Irtish in March each year...) The crayon paper is a note to kiddos that I slip into their report cards. The report cards are hard to read so this is something just for them. The next picture is Lucky Charms graphing! So much fun incorporating St. Patrick's Day fun into our math unit! Bottom left is Lucky Charms Treats! I couldn't taste then but I heard they were great! Finally, that's wasabi. It's one of the many things I tried to use to heal myself that week from what I was told was a cold and ended up being a killer sinus infection.

One major learning project I took on in March was a study on Navajo rugs, Our literacy story was all about goat hair being turned into a Navajo rug. First, we brainstormed what we already know about rugs and then we compared our literacy story to a YouTube clip about Navajo rug making. Next, we talked about symmetry in the designs, designed our own rugs, and read an article about the Navajo Indians. Finally, we took a yuca root and mashed it up to make the soap that the Navajo Indians use to wash the wool! It was a lot of messy fun. 

As a finale to the rug week, we learned that crushed up bugs can make dye (upper left), we wrapped wool around a spindle (upper right), then carded and stretched wool (lower left), and finally felt what straight, carded wool feels like! It was a super fun, hands-on experience that the kids loved! 

PHEW! And now, it's April! My goal is to be a bit more consistent with blogging and to FINALLY get my TPT set up for selling. Right now, everything is FREE...so you should go get at it now.

I also have to laugh for a second because at the end of my last blog entry, I said this: "Teaching Kati Lesson: I'm not setting blogging deadlines for myself anymore. Totally pointless. I would rather devote my time to my kiddos and only blog when I have something really great to share. Trying to come up with things to blog about it too much of a full-time job when I already have a full-time job!" Good to know I stuck to it! hahaha

Teaching Kati Lesson: You should all just look at my more consistently used Instagram. CLICK HERE FOR IT!

~Kati

Classroom Tour

I'm late to the game...

I promised a tour via instagram 2 weeks ago and then things got hectic. My nephew was born 8 weeks early (he and mommy are doing great!) and then school started and man was it crazy!

So here is a picture tour of ourclassroom!

Welcome to Room 10!!

We take attendance using popsicle sticks and then one of the class jobs is to check and make sure everyone has checked in and let me know who is absent and who is buying lunch.

The class job chart! Most jobs have two workers on them now...I forgot how important buddies were in 2nd grade. Summer brain.

Back counter where I keep supplies.

Our word wall!

Computers and "Wonderful Work" Bulletin Board.

Classroom birthdays and calendar wall.

Polka dot caddies!

Horizontal and vertical examples.

Early Bird board for those speedy kiddos!

Ready for the first day!

How i organize my small group reading area.

Classroom Library! So much better this year!

Mailboxes that I jazzed up with washi tape.

The emptiest my desk will ever look...

My bookshelf to hold all my curriculum and stuff.

Rotation charts for Literacy and Math.

Star of the Week area. The poster hangs in the middle.

Writing center! I clip great examples from students up with the clothespins.

And there is my photo dump! It's super late...but it's done! 

Now, off to watch football and plan for another crazy week in 2nd!

Teaching Kati Lesson: I'm not setting blogging deadlines for myself anymore. Totally pointless. I would rather devote my time to my kiddos and only blog when I have something really great to share. Trying to come up with things to blog about it too much of a full-time job when I already have a full-time job!

Kati

Literacy Rotations Chart

Hey there!

It's been a busy day! I went into school today to help unpack all the new literacy curriculum our district purchased for the upcoming school year. It's all Common Core aligned and for our school, not too different. My curriculum advisor described it best when she said, "It's not really the what that changed but the how." That means a lot of the books are the same but how we teach it is going to be different. I'm super excited about that! I love supplementing my lessons with other stuff but it can be exhausting. I'm hoping this curriculum will be more interesting for the kiddos (and me!)


We're almost three weeks away from starting school back up and I'm so stoked! I love meeting my new kiddos! I've been working on some fun stuff for the classroom and thought I'd share!

I just finished my literacy rotations chart and it is. So. Flippin'. Cute!

I have time for four rotations a day in my class so I can't call it a true Daily Five. I use some of the methods from Daily Five but switch it up to work for my kiddos and myself. It's super easy to know where kids should be because I just follow a stair step method. In the picture I put "Read with Teacher" in the first row, first slot and then in the second row, second slot, and so on. When you get to the end, you start it in the first slot on the next row down. Does that make sense? If I confused you, you can always just copy the picture...that would have been the smart thing to say off the bat. The nice thing to is if you don't want to move all the cards, just move the groups. :)

In this next picture you see that I have "Listen to Reading" behind the "Word Work" card. I can't fit both in everyday so I alternate these two.

I've made this available to you all FOR FREE! Yipee! It may not stay free though so grab it while you can! I made some adjustments as well. I know a lot of you probably do a true daily five or have larger classes so I added another rotation card and two other color groups. I hope this helps! Because this is free I do ask that you rate it on Teachers Pay Teachers. I love to fix up my products, make better things, and also selfishly accept your praises. ;)

Click HERE to download it! 

Well that's it for today! It's way too late here so I'm off to bed. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your week!

Teaching Kati lesson: Don't volunteer to move boxes and then lift weights at the gym the night before. Ouch!

Kati

Summer! Freebie!

Hey friends! I hope your summer has been wonderful so far! I've been taking a bit of time off and now I'm getting ready to gear up for the school year! I've been working on some cool stuff and I do have a freebie for you! If you want to skip over everything else in this post, I totally won't hold it against you! The freebie is at the bottom. :)

So I have found a new love this summer. Hiking! This totally shocked me because I don't really consider myself an outdoorsy person. I have been fairly athletic the past five years but I tend to stick to the treadmill at my gym! Here are a couple pics from the hike! (P.S. I don't know why my iPhone took all my pictures in this weird filter...it may have been lighting).

Creepy but really cool swamp!

Another cool place I've been spending a lot of time at is this little family cafe near my house. The pastries are UNREAL and the coffee is ridiculous! I'm a bit of a coffee snob now! Look at how pretty it is!

One last thing before that freebie. I joined instagram! Now I am not really a huge user of social media but I realized how many picures I was sending back and forth in front of people, so why not share some of those gems? My instagram is @teachingkati and you can see my images in the upper left hand corner of the screen. :) Fancy!

Now for that freebie! I took the time (and this one didn't take much time) and made comic paper! Kiddos can write captions and thought/speech bubbles to help explain their story (a lesson on graphic features, anyone?) It's really simple but the kids love it! A longer, more complex version of this is coming for older grades or to swap out for late in the year when the kids are ready to make their stories more complex.

Use this for your writing center, as a part of your literacy centers, or for early finishers! The kids may beg you to let them write comics!

Click the picture to download! :)

That's all for now but I'll be back, hopefully more frequently! Enjoy your summers!

Teaching Kati Lesson: Instagram widgets are really easy to install. Phew!

Kati

Things I'm Glad I Do

Every school year has ups and downs. A few months back I hit a pretty hard down. I spoke with my teaching mentor who put some things in perspective. I told them I felt like the kids weren't getting as much as I wanted to give. That I wasn't having these amazing five star lessons like others in the building who have been teaching for awhile. I told them that I felt like I couldn't please everyone. It was just such a downer feeling.

My mentor stopped me and said the best thing I think I could have heard at that moment, "That's crap."

I stood there stunned before I plopped down into my chair and stared at them. "What?" I asked.

"That's crap." I won't attempt to quote them word for word for the rest but in essence they told me that it was the crappy part of winter when everyone is bummed out, including parents and kids and that veteran teachers offer a different style just like new teachers. They said that my kiddos were just getting something different, not worse.

That got me thinking. If I'm only seeing negative things, maybe it's time that I looked for somethings I love doing and that I'm glad I do. So, I sat down, made a short list, and here it is!

1) Post-it Note Journals

I try to have the kiddos write in their journals three mornings a week. When they walk in, their journals are lined up on the floor and they grab them and head to their desk to write. First let me explain why I line them up on the floor. I'm a bit lazy. I hate trying to find their desks. We switch desks once a month and I can get their placement down within a day or so but if I can save some time, why not? But back to the post-its. When I asked the kiddos to finish their last sentence for the morning, they place a post-it note at the top of their page. This makes it easier for me to find their latest entry. I then use the post-it to give them one compliment and one question or suggestion. The students sometimes go back and change things about their writing or implement the changes in their next piece. Some teachers want their students to make the changes to that piece of writing but I have a different view. If you're an author and your story is just not working out, why waste a bunch of time trying to fix it? I think you are better served taking the good parts from what you just wrote and good suggestions you've been given, and then working on something you're interested in.

I'm also glad I read each journal entry because then I get to see little gems like this one:

It reads, "P.S. I know a lot about birds."

2) Paper Subject Organization

I have a pretty organized classroom. I'm actually a little too proud of that fact. Now don't think all areas of my life are meticulously organized (don't look in my closet...) but my classroom stays clean and put together. One way I do this is to keep my own stuff organized. At the beginning of the year, I had these bins organized by day but it wasn't working. Days just change too often so instead, I started organizing handouts, tests, lessons, and papers by subject. On Monday mornings, when I do a majority of my copying, I organize all the stuff for the week. It's great because if something changes (like it always does) I have everything I need to change the plan.

3) Door Decorations

I've previously shown this door dec and my other ones. I. LOVE. DOOR. DECORATIONS. It's so much fun to put up a door dec after school and hear the cute little giggles when the kids discover it in the morning. I have so much fun doing them as well. It gives me a chance to be creative and a lot of times, I do it at home in front of the TV and it relaxes me.

I'll leave it at those three for now but it's a great reminder to myself to just be happy with the hard work I do. I hope it reminds you to think about your teaching as well! If you're feeling down, think about the good things going on in your classroom! 

Teaching Kati Lesson: You won't always be happy with how things are going but you should take a chance to appreciate the good going on in your classroom. I bet there is a lot of amazing things happening.

Byeeeeeeeeeee!

Kati