9 Days Done...171 to Go!

The first 2 weeks are completed.
Back to School Night is completed.
Sitting with my 4th grade team through 8 meetings is completed (1 hour each, Tue-Fri).
Now I have Saturday to reflect and rest and make my plans for the next 5 days...

Reflection: What is going well? What do I need to do better?

Good Stuff:
* If you walk into my room, you can tell what we are learning thanks to the anchor charts hanging.
* You can tell reading is important because of the central library location and abundance of books.
* I assessed writing doing an on-demand
* I started them drafting yesterday so we can get a story published and then do one more unit like this to fine tune. I decided this after reading and seeing that they have the ability to write a paragraph essay of their big ideas but cannot naturally write a story about themselves. They need help with this!
* I created and gave a great reading comprehension assessment - lots of data to drive my instruction.
* I was able to meet with 3 groups and then 2 groups over 2 days to do a short character lesson on how to write a post-it about a character. (I need to make that lesson visible in the room - the character picture, the words, and then a posting! - I'll do that on Monday! And I want to move all the examples to the window in library so it stays visible.
*I met with Mimi to learn how to teach math
* I naturally use collaborative learning to do social studies and math. On the fly yesterday, we used the SS newspaper and then did a jigsaw of the 5 regions. It worked great!
* LOTS of parents came to BTSN and it went really well.
* I am understanding the feel of the schedule, sticking to the time, and no matter what, teaching reading and writing daily. For instance, on Friday we have FLES in afternoon so I made sure they read Tumblebooks in AM and recorded it on the log. Then I insured we had an hour after FLES for writing and then still independent reading time. I am trying not to waste any minutes!
* I love my physical school and I love being in a pretty school that has gardens and is a good stewart of the environment.
* I tweeted daily for the 9 school days and have a total of 51 tweets! I like adding a sentence out to our followers and I like posting some pictures. (I wonder what our readers think? I wonder if our followers are reading?)
* I think I know "stuff" about every student. I call them by name and I am beginning to understand how they
learn: strengths and weaknesses.
* I need to get these 27 kids focused. They are so chatty. Once I have their focus, they are attentive. But once I lose it, it is so frustrating.
* I try to wait. I need to be even more patient. I need to stay calm. (I'll admit, I yelled during quiet writing time and quickly realized it did NOTHING and I guess, on reflecting now, I was modeling what they WERE doing!!)
* I hate the idea of PBIS...why do we need to give a CHEER to get us to respond in the appropriate manner? (I wonder if this overall management style will become a deal breaker)
*I don't have set procedures for WHERE to be sitting in the room.

WHAT TO DO BETTER NEXT WEEK:
*I want to give out positives constantly!
* I want to not let Matt, Abian, Amr, and Henry to drive my actions. I need to keep all safe but maybe I try to calm them down by standing close to them and by also picking new seats
* I want to add 2 rugs (Home Depot this weekend!) and need to add a table.
* I want to assign spots - should it be for reading and writing. I think so now. It is too confusing otherwise. But who will partner with these 4 boys mentioned?? I definitely have the room space so I need to make it happen!! I brought home an anchor chart to make for room seats so I'll get that made and it can be for the rest of this month...then the 1st wk of Oct, I'll let them tell me where they want to be and who they want to be with.
*Complete the word study assessment; start TC assessments; work on revising writing.