Today's topic: bullying. This is so important. Teachers must be vigilant to keep students safe. As a first grade teacher it is challenging to sort through the incessant tattling and make sure to recognize any real bullying threats. I am lucky that I did not have to witness any serious bullying as a child. I have a very low tolerance for cruelty. If I feel like anyone is crossing the line with me or someone else, I will speak up. In addition to the tattling, I unfortunately have dishonest students. Someone will accuse someone, and they will deny it. What to do? Teaching involves so many judgement calls. It is difficult to navigate these situations. I haven't had to do it yet, but if serious accusations went flying, I would request a meeting with the principal. In the meantime, I am diffusing minor personality conflicts and attempting to help students take ownership of their actions.

I'm Baaaack! Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I'm back at it as the new and improved first grade teacher in training. Our adapted year round schedule is very nice. I had a three week Winter Break. I spent the first week refusing to think about work. The second week I thought about it a little bit and only did stuff because I wanted to. The third week was busy busy busy getting a jump start on the semester with lots of exciting new plans and activities. Three things I focused on improving this semester were lesson planning for large group, stronger focus on small group instruction, and differentiation. So far I'm seeing some big improvements. I spend a lot of time getting into my curricula and mapping things out to get a handle on the big picture of where we need to go academically for the rest of the year. I got some activities put together for eBackpack. I got vocabulary together for the word wall and grammar mats. I mapped out our social studies curriculum. So far we are enjoying the fruits of my labor. Good lesson planning makes a difference in keeping the kids engaged and under control. Our small group time has increased. I started with a heavy focus on the daily 5 activities and expectations. We did some practicing with a stamina chart for reading to ourselves and reading with partners. I am still working with the PTA to get headphones for all the kids and with our tech team to get Epic going on all the iPads for an awesome "listening to reading" library. I'm offering 3 activity stations and a small group to round out each component of the rotation. Throughout the week I meet with each group for reading time now at least once. I also meet with students individually for Dibels progress monitoring every third week. Math rotations are still a work in progress. I'm pulling small groups at least a few times a week, but we still need to get a good rotation going. I am open to suggestions! Differentiation drove me to the daily 5 reading schedule. It is a great way to give kids the individual focus they need. I have three teams. Each group has a color according to their level. The books are sorted into their color bin. In our word sort activities, I have color coded notecards for the words, which vary in difficulty according to group level. I am definitely making progress.