Prayers Needed!

We had a tragedy strike our small little community today that directly affected both the middle and high school. We had a house fire last night that took the lives of an 8th grader on my campus, and her 10th grade brother who attended the local high school.

KSAT News Story

Two Fredericksburg teenagers died and their father was seriously burned overnight in a residential fire at 623 Deer View Drive. Perishing in the 4:30 a.m. fire were Brian Cantu, 14, and Justine Cantu, 15. Their father, Armando Cantu, is being treated in Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio for burns he received trying to save his family. Other family members were able to escape without injury or with minor injuries, which were treated at the scene. Funeral arrangements for the two youths are pending at Schaetter’s Funeral Home in Fredericksburg.Cause of the fire is undetermined and remains under investigation.

The whole campus is in shock. Justine, who was the 8th grader, was such a sweet girl and always had a smile on her face. It has really made me realize that I never know when might be the last time I see my students. I have to cherish each and every day with them.

Two teens perish in Fredericksburg fire: kxan.com

Exhausted!

I am beyond exhausted after our first full week back this semester! Maybe it was because I started grad school back up last Saturday, or the fact that we had our parent informational meeting for cheerleading on Wednesday, or the fact that I had 12 of my 54 kids absent yesterday. At least I had a sick day today because I had to get blood drawn, go to the dentist, and get a physical. Having the whole day was nice, but I am dreading going up to school on Sunday to see what my room looks like. 

I am really excited for my grad classes this semester. I am taking 12 hours and most people think I am crazy when I say that, but it is the only way my university offers their grad semesters. It really isn't too bad because we only have to go to the university one Saturday a month, and everything else is online. This semester I am taking PPR, Curriculum and Instruction, my research class, and Advanced Content Reading. The texts for all of my classes are really great and I am actually excited about the research class because we will be doing Action Research. Any good ideas for my research? I am currently torn between doing something with collaboration between teachers or the use of small groups in the middle school classroom. I know that both would be a big help to me. 

I am also hosting an online Stella and Dot party right now that you should go and check out! Click here to shop. All you have to do to order from my party is to make sure that you pick my name at checkout, Katie Klohn. It is through the 3rd of February. 

I also came across a new blogger tonight and you should go and share some love over there. The blog is called Fumbling in Fifth Grade and she is about to take over a 5th grade classroom in February. Her story reminds me a lot of my adventure of finishing my student teaching in 6th grade and then taking over for the rest of the year. I cannot wait to hear how her first day goes this coming week! 

Also get excited because I am going to be posting a giveaway sometime this coming week. I am going to be giving away one of my absolute favorite teaching products! Trust me, you won't want to miss it! 

Here is to a productive weekend for all of us!

Daily 5 Stations

Today was the first day that we did our Daily 5 stations in class and I am so pleased with how it went! I am currently using 5 stations (read to self, read to someone, work on writing, work on words, and meet with the teacher). I will be sharing more about this later this week with you all. 

Sorry about the poor quality of pictures, but you've got to love the iPhone! :)

When students are meeting with me this week, we are doing an activity that goes along with out persuasive unit that we are currently doing. We read a short article together about the driving age and whether teenagers should drive at 16 or 18 years old. While reading, we highlighted and marked on it when we found techniques that the author used to try and persuade us. 

When we finished, this is what our article looked like. 

We did some things on the article like...

Once we finished reading and marking the article, we then worked together to write a persuasive paragraph together using the OREO technique. OREO stands for Opinion, Reason, Explanation, and Opinion. I even had some Oreos that we used for this activity and the students loved eating them! Later this week, students will be responsible for writing their own persuasive paragraphs using the same strategy. The article they will use for that is about bullies. 

My librarian actually gave me this article and it was from an old Scholastic Scope magazine. I am really wanting to budget for it next year. Do you use any of the Scholastic magazines in your classroom? There are 3 of them in my opinion that would be great for my 6th graders. If you don't use Scholastic magazines, but use something else, what is it?

We have also been making lots of anchor charts together in class too. Here are the two that we made last week. 

Hope everyone has a terrific Tuesday!

Yes, I got to meet them!

So glad that I decided to make the hour and a half drive last night to SA to meet up with some other central Texas teacher bloggers! 

I had such a blast with Farley, Reagan, and Kristina (who needs to start a blog pronto!!!). It was so great to just relax, eat some chips and salsa, and talk about our crazy lives as teachers! 

 Farley, I borrowed the picture from you, I hope you do not mind. I don't know why I didn't snap one! :(

I cannot wait until we do it again!

Reading and Writing Notebook Update

One of the best things that I did in my classroom was start using a Reading and Writing Notebook. Each of my students has a composition book that they use for this. In the fall we used just a regular spiral notebook that I got for each student, but I asked them to bring a new composition book for the spring semester. 

After all of my students brought one to class, we finally got them all put together. I actually changed them up quite a bit from last semester. I gave all of my students a label to put on their cover, but forgot to get a picture of it. It is real simple and nothing special.

The first thing that is in our notebooks is a Table of Contents. To be honest, we did a crummy job of keeping ours updated in the fall, but I am glad to say that we have done 100x better with it this semester. We are now up to page 20 on it as of today, and know we will have to add another page on top sooner rather than later. We use both the front and back of pages in the notebook too. 

Behind our table of contents you will find our "Word Collector". This idea comes from The Daily 5 and the The CAFE Book. When my students find an interesting word that they may not know, they add it to their list and can figure out what it means when they are at their Work on Words or Work on Writing station at a later time. 

Even though I teach 6th grade, I still feel that it is so important for my students to track their reading. I do not require them to read for a set amount of time each evening or anything, but they do have 15 minutes here, or 5 minutes there to read in class. When we start stations next week, they will also be required to go to the read to self station every day.

In the fall we took some very detailed notes on genres, so I decided to type it up for my friends. Boy were they glad I did that for them!

Each week my students are responsible for writing a Reading Response letter to me about the book that they are reading. This is a list of some ideas that they could write about in their notebook.

My district has spent a lot of money on Shelter Instruction training. We have to do things such as write content and language objectives each day, encourage students to speak in complete sentences, have word walls, etc. I personally do not mind it, but maybe that is because I am a new teacher. I almost always give my students (especially in my Inclusion and Regular class) a sentence stem to help them put their thinking into a complete sentence. This is a list of stems that they could use to help them write their reading response letters. 

This is something new that I started for the 2nd semester. We are doing DLR (Daily Language Review). Each day for their warm up, my 6th graders have 2 sentences to correct and a few questions about some skills we have learned. It has been the perfect way to get them focused first thing, and we are also able to review the skills that we have already learned. 

I knew my post could not be complete without a foldable in it. We use them all of the time in our notebooks. It really is such a great way to chunk the information together for my students. This is one that we did on Persuasive Techniques that we will be using throughout the 6 weeks while we are doing our persuasive unit.

Being that we are beginning Daily 5 stations in class on Monday, we have taken notes for each station this past week. This is what our notes page looked like for the Read to Self station. 

That is just a preview of what is in our notebooks so far this semester. I am hoping to do a weekly post on what we did in them that week. If you have any questions about them, please leave a question in the comments and I promise to answer them!

I have a dream and Humor

That my students would magically listen to me 100% of the time. I guess I can dream it at least because it is never going to happen! 

We did talk about Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream today though in class. It was actually an impromptu lesson that turned out better than I even expected. I have a huge collection of picture books and I knew that I had several on MLK. This morning when I got to school, I picked one out. I ended up choosing March On!

His sister actually wrote this book and it captivated my kids! I was shocked at how closely they were paying attention. 

After we read the book, we then filled out a 3-2-1 foldable. 

Underneath the flaps, they wrote 3 things they learned from reading the book, 2 things that shocked or surprised them, and 1 question that they still had. Tomorrow we are going to share the questions that they still have and see if we can find answers for some of them using our available resources. The bottom part of the page where it says, "I have a dream just like MLK Jr.!", that was the freebie that A Teacher's Treasure shared today with us. This is my lame example, I wish I had taken some pictures of the kids' writing because it was so good.

I had one of those, "You know you teach middle school when" moments today in my 7th period class.I had some students draw the picture below on my board during the last few minutes of advisory. 

I walk in after the tardy bell rang for 7th period and one of my boys is raising his hand. I call on him, and he shares with me, "Miss Klohn, that picture on the board looks like an atomic fart!" I was not too sure what to say to that, and then he continued to explain why to me. That is when the class erupted in laughter. It took a good 10 minutes before we were able to even do anything productive after that little comment. Got to love being a middle school teacher though! 

I am still working on going through all of the links and am hoping to finish that up tomorrow. I also am going to be sharing some more about our reading and writing notebooks tomorrow, so stay tuned!

It is going to be a great week!

Well, that is what I am hoping for! 

Today we had inservice and the kiddos had a holiday. I would have loved to have the whole day to plan, but we had to do some housekeeping in the morning together as a campus. We did not meet AYP last year, so we have all sorts of peeps in our pockets as my wonderful principal likes to refer to them as. We got two new ones today. I think we are up to 4 that will now be coming on a regular basis. Hopefully we will meet AYP and we can get rid of them all. :)

In the afternoon, I was able to get quite a bit planned with one of my teammates. We are beginning to use C-SCOPE even though we are not required to yet because we do not have a real scope and sequence to follow. I know, it is crazy and I am still trying to wrap my mind around it. I think a big reason for this is because the Reading and Writing scores on the state test have never been the problem for my district. One year it is math, the next science, and then social studies. We know that we are going to be using C-SCOPE in the next three years so my thinking is that we might as well get used to it. I personally do not think the LA portion of it is that bad, but maybe it is just me. 

I am so excited by the response that I have had with my linky party. 

I am still in the process of reading all of your posts. If I haven't made it to your blog yet, it will happen I promise. 

I am planning on sharing some new things that we have been doing in our Reading and Writing notebooks lately with you all tomorrow with pictures!

Link Up for a Day In My Shoes!

I had this post written and posted earlier, but for some reason it disappeared! Sometimes I love technology, but other times I really dislike it! Thanks so much to Kate for finding it in her reader and e-mailing it me! You are a lifesaver!!!

Thanks to sweet Betsy  for writing the code for my button and sending it to me! If you visit her blog, it is on her sidebar!

I am so excited to be hosting my first linky party and I cannot wait
to read about what a day is like in your classroom!

Here is how it works...
1. Right click and save the button above to put in your post. I
suggest also making the picture a link when you add it so others can
easily find the linky party. (I wish I knew how to write the HTML code
to make it a button)
2. Tell us about a typical day in your classroom. You can share as
little or as much as you would like.
3. Come back to my blog and link up.
4. Visit the other links to see what a day is like in their class!

I am sure many of you are wondering what a day in a 6th grade
classroom is like. It is crazy, but luckily I do not have to deal with
restroom accidents too often! :)

This is what my Thursday looked like yesterday.

6:15a.m.- My alarm went off, but I chose to stay in bed.

6:40a.m.- I finally made myself get out of bed and hop in the shower.

7:15a.m.- I took my bagel with Nutella and a Diet Coke in the car to
head to school.

7:50a.m.- My 1st period kiddos made their way to my classroom and got
started on their DLR warm-up that we do each day in their reading and
writing notebooks. They also picked up any papers on the long table
where their crates are.

8:00a.m.- We had our morning announcements and then I gave them a talk
about appropriate behavior for the assembly that we had. I was just
hoping and praying that they were actually listening to me because I
did not want one of them to get in trouble by the principal or AP at
the assembly. :)

8:00-8:45a.m.- We had our Fall Semester Awards Assembly in the
cafeteria and I am glad to report that my kiddos were so well behaved!

8:45a.m.- We came back to the classroom and checked our DLR. We had
about 25 minutes left in class, so we played some Language Arts games.
I knew that I was not going to have enough time to get the lesson in
that I had planned.

9:20a.m.- My 3rd and 4th period kiddos came to my class late from
Pre-Athletics. At least one of them is tardy every single day. This
group did their DLR and we checked it and then we played games too.

10:40a.m.- My 5th period class came to me. I normally have them after
lunch, but yesterday was an early release day because of the county
stock show. You've got to love living in a small town. :) This class
is small, only 15, but they are chatty. Today was no different. All
they wanted to do was complain about being hungry because we usually
eat lunch at 11a.m. on a regular day.

11:20a.m.- The lunch bell finally rang and this was also the beginning
of my nice and long lunch break that I had with one of the other ELA
teachers. Our conference happened to be connected to our lunch for a
change. We got to go eat out together which was nice.

12:50p.m.- My 5th period came back to me before we got out at 1:30p.m.
They were so over school for the day, so I turned on Shrek 2 for about
20 minutes after we had gone over our DLR. I also came back after
lunch to discover that 2 of my kids had already left to go and mess
with their animals for the show, and 1 was in ISS for something he did
during lunch. Only having 12 kids was quite nice! :)

1:30p.m.- School was over! I just love early release days!!!

2:15p.m.- I was crazy enough to sign up for my 4-8 Reading and
Language Arts TExES exam, so I had to head to San Antonio which is an
hour drive. I felt really good about the test and I would be very
shocked if I get my score back and I did not pass. I should know on
Tuesday at the latest what I made. After my test, I treated myself to
an iPad and some Chick-fil-a before heading back home.

What is a day like in your classroom/life?

I heart technology!

After I took my 4th-8th grade Reading and Language Arts TExES test this afternoon, I took a little trip over to the Apple Store at the mall. I had been eying the iPad for quite sometime now. I decided to just go ahead and buy myself one, and I am so glad that I did! Our librarian is actually working on getting several purchased for us to use in our classrooms and I cannot wait to integrate them in my own classroom. For now, we will just have to play with mine. :)

I did come across a really great app today though for calling on students. It is called Stick Pick. It allows you to create sticks for each of your students and you can then sort them by class. I think it was $2.99, but so worth it. If you have Apple technology accessible to you at school through an iPad, iTouch, or iPhone, you will want it, I promise!

Speaking of apps, what are your favorite education apps or games that your students love? I am really hoping to find mostly free ones, but am willing to pay a little bit for really good ones. I cannot wait to hear what you all are using in your own classrooms. 

Assessing, PD, and a Linky

Now that I am integrating CAFE and the Daily 5 in my classroom, I have been searching for a good reading assessment to use with my students. When I was in my undergraduate classes, we took 2 reading courses where we actually worked with a student in an after school program for an entire semester. In this class we used DIBELS to monitor our student's fluency and their growth as they worked with us. I really liked DIBELS because it had a weekly progress monitoring that we were able to give our student. However, this is not geared towards my 6th graders at all. If I remember correctly, it only went up to 3rd grade. 

I have also had previous experience with the DRA while doing observations and subbing at the elementary level. I really like this assessment because it not only has students read aloud, but they also read silently, and there is then comprehension questions that follow as well. I also like that this assessment provides you with a reading level that can be transferred to a grade equivalent. Since we do not use AR at my school, I would at least love to have this ball park number to help with my grouping and instruction that takes place in my classroom. I was looking on the Pearson website, who is the company that publishes the DRA kit, and I was excited to see that they have a 4-8 kit. Have any of you all ever used the 4-8 kit? You can find more out about it here. I am pretty sure that I am going to go ahead and budget for it though. :)

I was also so excited to discover that The Sisters are going to be in San Antonio doing workshops on The Daily 5 and CAFE in April. I already emailed my principal to see if I can go. I would love this opportunity since not many people in my district even know what it is . You can find out all of the places that the Sisters are going in 2012 by clicking here. Have you ever seen them present? I know that it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I have a feeling that I would walk away with so much knowledge that will help me to implement both things in my classroom even better. 

I mentioned last week about wanting to do a linky party where we all share what it is like on a daily basis in our own classrooms. I know that I personally love finding out how others spend their time during the day. It might even provide you with a new idea for your own classroom. 

Here is how it will work. On Friday, January  13th, you will get to write a post that it is completely dedicated to telling others what a day is like in your shoes. You can share as much or as little as you would like. I will have the post go live early that morning and all you will have to do is link up. In the mean time, feel free to copy and paste the picture and tell others about the linky party by blogging about it! I hope you are as excited about this as I am!

Just Another Week...

...in 6th grade that is.It is going to be another crazy week with my 6th graders because we have an early release on Thursday and no school on Friday due to our county stock show. Yeah for living in a small town in Texas! Oh wait, did I mention that Tuesday is also our library day? Or that we have an awards assembly for the fall on Thursday morning? So much for getting a lot done at school this week! It gets even better, I was crazy enough to sign up to take my 4-8 Reading and Language Arts TExES Test Thursday at 4:30pm and I have not studied for it one bit. I have never studied for the other 3 that I have taken so I am hoping that works for me again! 

I am also linking up with Farley for her January Currently linky party!

If you link up with her, you also are automatically entered in her giveaway to win an amazing pencil sharpener!

The sweet Elizabeth from Fun in Room 4B was also awarded me with the Versatile Blogger Award! Thanks so much!!!

I also wanted to share with you all about a new blog that one of my co-workers just started, Teaching Junkie. Mrs. A was actually a first year teacher when I was a 7th grader and she was one of my coaches. She teaches 8th Grade Science and does some amazing things in her classroom. If you teach Science, trust me, it is going to be a great blog with lots of resources! 

Tomorrow we are putting our new reading and writing notebooks together. I will take pictures and share with you all sometime later this week. I just hope that all of my 6th graders have their notebooks at school by tomorrow!

Show Us Your Clutter

I am excited to be participating in the Clutter-Free Classroom's linky party. 

Today is when we share the before pictures of our clutter so we can help hold each other accountable in our own classrooms. I did some serious decluttering already in my classroom before the students came back on Wednesday, but I know it is never a finished project. I shared some pictures the other day about the changes I made in my room already. You can find the current pictures of what my classroom looks like here. 

I also blogged about the new locking storage cabinet that I got right before the break. This is my only locking storage that I have in my entire classroom. :( 

I was in a pretty big rush to get these things in there. I am not happy with my literature circle book organization in there, but I am not really sure how to make it better. I have also now put our Literature and Grammar books on that bottom shelf. I will take a better picture on Monday and add it to this post. The cabinet is not horrible, but it could be way better! 

The other area of focus in my classroom is going to be my classroom library. 

I love my baskets, but am not in love with the labels. I am also in the process of getting another bookshelf to replace the large table that I have as you walk into my classroom. I just think that the shelves are too crowded at the very top and out of student reach. It has potential. 

Here is to creating a clutter-free classroom!

Benchmark Rant

Today we took our district benchmarks. I have been really frustrated with them because the Language Arts ones have been Released TAKS tests which are reflective of what students have learned by testing time. I was dreading looking at the scores for this test and I was right about that. Not a single kid in my inclusion class passed it. Now, it is not modified appropriately for them because the SPED kids should be taking a TAKS-M version. It is just so frustrating. Luckily, my other two classes did much better, but I was still very upset about this. You can bet we will be going over the benchmarks together as a class tomorrow. 

I was so excited to finally get my kidney table on Monday and the kids are loving it too. If only I could find some chairs for it now. I personally like my step stool chair that I have been using. :)

Here are the poster/contracts that we created yesterday that I mentioned in my post. I remembered to snap a picture of them today. :)

Here is hoping that you have a wonderful Friday!

They're Back!!!

I might be crazy, but it was so great to see my 6th grade friends today! I had walked to the workroom this morning to make a last minute copy, and I come back to my room and am greeted by 3 of my sweet girls with giant hugs! That was such a wonderful way to start my day. 

For the most part, all of my kiddos were so excited to be at school. I had some that could barely keep their eyes open, others who were mad because they had to put real clothes on, and others who obviously had not been taking their medicine during the break which I totally agree with. It just makes the transition back to school a little more difficult. The thing I noticed first was that they were super chatty. Luckily, I had found this super cute activity on Pinterst over the weekend and knew that it would be the perfect activity to get them back in the school groove without requiring too much thinking. The best part is that it was a freebie too!

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via Katie on Pinterest

I also saw this cute idea on Miss Knight's blog the other day and I knew it would be the perfect way to remind my students of the rules. I volunteered a response first for each class and I said the exact same thing. I told them we needed to work on talking less and listening more. After we came up with our resolutions for 2012, we also all signed the paper making them a contract and I then hung them up on the wall. Hopefully we will be able to abide by them since they are no binding. Maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part. I am planning on snapping a picture of them tomorrow to share with you all. 

After we remembered our rules, I then began to introduce CAFE to them. I was amazed at how much they loved it! They also all agreed with me that they feel like they do not know enough strategies to help them be successful when they read. I was lucky enough to find the book Testing the Ice by Sharon Robinson when I was at the Scholastic Warehouse sale back in December and I knew it would be perfect for the first strategy I wanted to teach, check for understanding. It is a book about Jackie Robinson that his daughter, Sharon, actually wrote. I was able to model lots of question asking as I read it aloud. My students quickly realized what the strategy was when I asked them at the end and were even more surprised to realize that it is actually something that most of them already do when they read. I reminded them that is why I ask them to write K.I.S.S. statements when we have stories on our tests. K.I.S.S. statements stand for Keep It Short and Simple. I have them write a small statement about the paragraph that they just read. I will take a picture of one of their district benchmarks to show you what I am talking about tomorrow. I will spare you from my benchmark rant, that will need to be a post all in its own! I am really excited about using CAFE and the kids seem really excited about it too! I hope that it ends up being exactly what my kiddos need to be successful in reading!

The sweet Kate over at To The Square Inch awarded me with the Versatile blogger award!

She is a fellow middle school teacher who teachs Science and Math. Be sure that you go and check out her blog, it is super cute! 

I also wanted to join in on Teaching in Room 6's linky party where you share your favorite go to book. I am always looking for great professional resources being a first year teacher and I hope that I can find a few to add to my list. I have already collected quite a few professional books in my first year, but there are 3 that are my absolute favorite that I look at on at least a weekly basis. 

The first two have completely changed how I look at literacy and what instruction really is best for my students. If you teach literacy in any grade K-6, I highly suggest that you add them to your professional library if they are not already there. The last title is a new one to me, but I have already referenced it so many times. There are so many amazing lists in it that help tons when I do not have too many resources for my lessons yet. 

I am thinking about doing a linky next week that will have us all share a day in our classroom. What do you think? Would you join me for that?

A new look in room 117!

I finally did it. I made myself go up to school this afternoon and I ended up staying for about 5 hours. I can at least say that I was uber productive though! I left my room in a big mess before Christmas break because I knew that I wanted to do some rearranging. You can go to this post to see how my room looked back in August.

I of course have been so inspired by the Clutter-Free Classroom blog and knew that I wanted to get into my classroom and do some serious decluttering. I had done a decent job of it before leaving for the break, but I do not think a classroom can ever be completely decluttered. Here are some of the pictures I got when I walked into my room today. It was just as I had left it.

I pretty much had a blank slate which was nice. 

The first thing I tackled was the bulletin board that I had near the door that previously had my calendar on it. It was really the only spot in my room where I knew I had enough space to put up my CAFE menu. Yeah for being the only one on campus this afternoon because I got the laminator all to myself! This was one happy teacher! 

I really like how it turned out. I also just typed up all of the strategies and they are in the same polka dot pattern as the header that they go with. 

Next, I moved on to my clear drawers that now contain the contents of what used to be in my desk. I am so glad that I got rid of it! I am even more excited though for the kidney table that I will be getting later this week!

The set of drawers on the left has community supplies. I had to move them to my area because my markers kept disappearing. Who knew 6th graders would love markers that much! The one on the right is full of supplies for myself and when I am meeting with small groups. I have polka dot labels for them that I am putting on tomorrow. 

I also hit some sales at Wal-Mart over the break and restocked on some essentials like pencils, Sharpies, highlighters, glue, etc. This is what I started with before I got it all organized in the proper drawers. 

Before Christmas, I was not liking how I had my desks. I had them in rows, but it just was not working. Since I am going to be using the Daily 5 and CAFE this semester, I knew I wanted to have them in more of a table arrangement. My biggest class this semester only has 21, but I decided to go ahead and keep 22 desks. I really like how it turned out and I was amazed and how much space I still had left over. 

 This is the view from my door.

 View from the corner by my round table.

View from the classroom library bookshelf. 

I also made lots of signs to help keep me organized. I made some for my reading and writing notebooks and also my filing cabinet. 

I also got my pocket chart up for our stations. I am not 100% happy with it yet but I am excited to use the pictures of my students for it instead of their names. 

I am sure that I will go back again tomorrow to get a few more things finished and copied before we all go back on Wednesday.

I was also so excited to find out that Michelle from Making It as a Middle School Teacher gave me the Versatile Blogger Award!

Thanks again for thinking of me, Michelle! You should go check out her blog too! She has some amazing ideas, especially for the middle grades!