I was lucky enough to attend the Texas 1st Grade Teacher's Conference in Austin and AH-MAZING is all I have to say. We all know writing sub plans are a pain, but they were so worth it to attend this conference! I was able to attend two jam-packed days of presentations by some of my favorite bloggers. I feel like I have done well this year in 1st grade, but the past two days have inspired me to do even better!
Sunday night I got to have dinner with
Reagan and
Kristen. We had so much fun and I brought some of my teammates along too! I stole the picture from Reagan because I did not get one on my phone.
On Monday I attended four great sessions. I went to one about Comprehension Strategies, one about integrating Non-Fiction writing into the classroom on a daily basis, then I went to Deanna's session on Math MAGIC (math tubs), and I finished the day by attending one on technology in the classroom. I would hands down say that my favorite of the day was
Deanna's.
I have quickly discovered how much I love teaching math in 1st grade and this was exactly what I needed to hear. I really like how Deanna described her math block. This is something that I do not feel like I do a good job of right now. I often catch myself just teaching whole group and I would really like to implement math tubs into our math time as well. I am going to start with something small at first and I am going to add her fluency component to the beginning of my math block. During this time we will spend five minutes or so working on facts, ten frames, subtilizing, etc. I think that even though this seems so simple it will make a huge difference. This is something I definitely want to start from day one next school year. I also really liked the idea of her Think Math journal prompts. These are prompts that give students an answer and then they must come up with different combinations to make the number along with a story problem. I am thinking that this would be great as a warm-up at first for my math lessons and then eventually transition this to a rotation during our math time.
We finished Monday night with a nice little get-together at Papasito's just down from the hotel. How can you go wrong with Mexican food in Texas? It was so much fun to finally get to meet some of my favorite bloggers and catch up with old "friends" too. There were four others who went to the conference with me from my team and I was so excited to have them meet my bloggy friends. :)
Top Row:
Ari,
April,
Reagan,
Crystal,
Kristen, Stephanie (teammate of mine), and Heather (teammate of mine)
Tuesday was by far my favorite day of the conference because I got to hear both Reagan and Rachelle present all day. I probably looked like a stalker because I stayed in the same room all day and only listened to them, but they were just so good!!!
First up was
Reagan and she presented on Hands-On TEKS Aligned
Math Tubs for the Classroom. I have always loved Reagan's blog, even before I knew I would be teaching 1st grade this year. She just helped me to know it is what I had to do, not just what I wanted to do. At first I was not a big fan of teaching math. However, it has quickly become one of my favorite times of my day. Reagan did such an awesome job of explaining to us different ways that we could set up our Math Tubs. I previously tried math tubs in my classroom this school year back in November, but I got frustrated and decided that I did not want to do them anymore. With 21 kids I found it difficult to make them work. I had to have so many different tubs in order to make my groups small enough. I really like the fact that Reagan implements different rotations such as Teacher Time at the table, Math Journals, Math with Technology, and Math Tubs. This is something that I really want to make happen next year, but I think it will be key that I start it from the beginning. I think I am going to just spend the rest of the year loading up on different math tubs and getting them put together and then implement starting in the fall.
A picture of
Rachelle,
Katie, and me. We spent the whole day together. :)
Next I listened to
Rachelle present about Guided Reading. Guided Reading is something that I feel like I am pretty good at but I have always known that I could be doing more with my students. I also will go ahead and admit it that I do a sorry job of documenting what we are doing during guided reading. I am not exactly sure why it is, but I do know that it needs to change immediately. I loved some of the ideas that Rachelle shared with us. I especially liked how she organized her small group resources in a binder in clear sheet protectors. This makes it easy to pull them out for students to use. You can either have copies already made or simply hand them a dry erase marker to use on the sheet protector. I am hoping to get something similar together for my classroom in the next few weeks. Rachelle has tons of guided reading resources on her
blog that are free. Be sure and check them out!
After lunch Rachelle continued presenting, but this time it was about classroom management. She and Natalie have all sorts of
posts on their
blog about behavior too. For the most part I feel like I do a good job of managing the behavior in my classroom, but at the same time I am always looking for new ways to engage my students and keep them on their toes. Currently in my classroom we use a clip stick that has four colors on it. I also incorporate some Whole Brain Teaching strategies too like the Scoreboard as a whole class management tool. One of the things I really want to implement that Rachelle talked about were her
Fast Finisher folders that she has for her students. I hate when my students come up to me and ask what they can do now that they are finished. My answer generally is always get out a book or work on unfinished work. I am looking forward to mixing it up some and giving them different options. Another great behavior tool that she talked about was
Team Bieber vs. Team Skywalker. She has students pick which team they would like to be on. They work to earn tallies for their team. The team with the most points at the end of the day gets to listen to their song at the end of the day. My class is currently obsessed with
Frozen so I think we could have team Elsa and team Olaf. :) Just trust me, check out her blog because you will find so many great ideas!
The final session that I attended during the two days was another one of
Rachelle's, but this one was about creating independent
journal writers in your classroom. If you are looking for some journals to implement in your classroom she has a really great pack on
TpT. We have a dedicated Writer's Workshop time on my campus and we spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour doing it. Rachelle begins her day with their journals and she explained to us that they spend about 30 minutes or so on them. While sitting in the presentation I thought that this would be perfect for my class too. Rachelle mentioned to us that she conferences with each student daily when they bring their journal to her table to be checked once that have completed it. One of the things I struggle with during my writing time is conferencing with my students. I really like the idea of being able to meet with them all each and every day. She also allows for share time at the end of journals each day. I really want to start devoting my Writer's Workshop block to more mini-lessons a little less time to write since we will be doing it in the morning as well. I have so much to think about, but I have got to find the time to make some changes in my classroom.
The conference was so amazing and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to attend. I was able to take away so many new ideas that I cannot wait to implement in my classroom. Here is to hoping it will not be the last time I attend the Texas 1st Grade Teacher's Conference!
