Groovy Educator

This summer, I am taking all kinds of new risks.  I just started my first Facebook Group called Groovy Teaching Ideas.  Any advice is welcome.  It is a place to share, learn, and grow.  You can find the link on my Groovy Educator Facebook Page.  Please feel free to share with friends and family. https://www.facebook.com/GroovyEducatorFL/

  clip art courtesy of mycutegraphics.com TeachersPayTeachers Store Every Monday I have a quick circle time share session.  This is when the children can choose one thing they want to share about after being away for the weekend.  It takes about fifteen minutes but it saves so much time later in the day.  It is also an inspiration for writing stories/journals and can be used for classroom management.  When you are having a lesson and a student wants to share something off topic you can simply say, "I can't wait to hear more about that at our next share session." Usually I have a cute object we pass around the circle as we share.  The rule is that we should only hear the person holding the object.  This exercise is excellent in developing listening skills.  It also allows me to review our 5 Star Listening rules briefly after every weekend. Some of the items I have had children pass around in the past are as follows an old microphone...

  When one of my students has a birthday I give them a cute birthday hat to wear.  The class sings an adorable Happy Birthday song.  It even includes singing Happy Birthday like a cat! Meow, meow, meow...  I ask the student to share his/her plans for his/her special day and then the class takes turns asking questions and giving the birthday kid compliments.  Having the children ask questions is harder than in sounds.  Most of the kids want to share about their own birthday.  There are a multitude of teachable moments on birthday share days!   Last year I had my student of the week bring in show and tell and we write letters to him/her and staple them in a book.  I usually took a grade on this activity since it was purposeful and I could grade different elements of writing:  spacing, spelling, capitalization, format, originality/creativity, etc. Since our district will be implementing Lucy Calkins, I would like to only d...

Here you can see my office nook a little better.  Please note that i am not finished setting up for the year.  On my desk I have two pink baskets to file student work.  One basket is graded work to pass back and one is work to save.  The other baskets are where I store work to be completed. You can see the edge of my smartboard in the picture.  On the light blue filing cabinet I will set up the projector.  The document camera will be on the edge of my reading table. The white rack is where my plan book and teaching manuals will go.  The brown basket will have my small group activities. Again you can see I like having everything within an arm's reach.  It helps with time management when you don't have to keep walking back and forth across the room to get supplies.  I placed the Winnie the Pooh poster right beside the smartboard so that students have a visual when learning to stand to the side of the board.  I'm going ...