A New Linky: Management Minute

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to do another linky party about Classroom Management. At first I was thinking that I would do something on a weekly basis, but I think I am going to do one once a month. Be sure to grab the button and share it on your blog if you are interested in playing along. All I ask is that you link my blog to the image because I am not tech savvy enough to do it.

Right now the plan is for the post to go up on April 1st, and then you can link up to share your management tip on whatever the topic is for the month. You will simply write your post about the topic and then come back and link up. 

Our topic for the month of April will be about managing student use of the restroom. What sort of things to do you do to make this as small of a distraction as possible in your own classroom? This is a big problem that I have to deal with on a daily basis in my own classroom. 

I hope you will link up and share your knowledge!

What are you learning?

Main Idea. That is what we are learning about in room 117 this week. Luckily, my 6th graders have been covering Main Idea for several years now, so we did a little review about it and took some notes in our Interactive Notebooks. I of course made them into Anchor Charts so I wanted to link them up with Ladybug's Teacher Files too for her Anchor Chart Linky Party. 

There is absolutely no way that I would be able to function in my classroom if it was not for large sticky notes and Sharpie Anchor Chart Markers! 

 If you have not see the story Desert Rose, you must check it out! My kids absolutely loved the story!

We also created a chart to help us remember the 5 steps that will help us to identify the Main Idea of a passage. After we finished all of our notes and our mentor text activity, students then worked with a partner to identify the main idea in 12 short paragraphs. I was so proud of how the students did! 

Tomorrow we are going to be presenting Power Points that students did for their Book Reports this past 6 weeks. I cannot wait to see how all of them finished up and I am also hoping to get some new book titles that I need to add to my classroom library.

I finally got to see The Hunger Games tonight and it so did not disappoint. I will be sporting my Team Peeta shirt to school tomorrow in honor of finally seeing the movie too. I am sure that my 6th graders will give me a hard time about it, but that's okay! The only thing I wish is that I could teach the novel at least to my Pre AP class, but they teach it in 10th grade here in my district. Such a bummer! 

The Teacher of the Year was announced today and it was not me, but I could not be happier for the person who won! The best part is that he is a 6th grade teacher too!

Last but not least, I am also sending out Good Luck wishes to all of the Texas teachers whose students will be taking STAAR tests this week! I know you have prepared them well and they are so going to be RockSTAARs!

What a Surprise!

Today I was greeted by several excited 6th graders who had not seen me in almost 2 weeks! They were so excited to see me and I got so many hugs today! It is nice to know that they really do enjoy having me as their teacher. 

While I was in Ireland, I purchased several children's books to add to my classroom library of mentor texts. We had so much fun using on of them today to review internal and external conflict. We also did some characterization activities with it too. I wish I would have taken a picture of the leprechauns that I drew! They were so good... NOT! Tomorrow we are going to do some more things with poetry and write a color poem and a concrete poem. I cannot wait to see what the kids come up with. 

I also got some very surprising news today. I found out that I was one of our campus nominees for Teacher of the Year. I still cannot believe it. Never would I have imagined that I would even be nominated for this honor in my first year of teaching. We find out who wins the honor tomorrow. I am just honored that my colleagues think I am deserving of this. I was amazed at how many of them told me today that they had nominated me. It made me feel good inside. 

I do not want to see any Hunger Games spoilers. I will not get to see it until next week sometime. :(

I'm Back!

Oh my goodness, Ireland was absolutely amazing! I am still a tad jet lagged and am hoping that next week gets much easier for me. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from my week I got to spend over there. 

Even though school started back up on Monday, my kids have not seen me since before Spring Break! Monday I was still traveling back from the break and yesterday and today I helped with a STAAR Camp for our 8th grade students. We had 16 different sessions, 8 math and 8 reading, that the kids rotated through over the course of 2 days. I was leading the Author's Purpose and Point of View Workshop. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I think it is a great thing for our at risk and below level students, but our gifted and above level students were bored because the material was more geared towards the bubble kids. 

I also got great news on Tuesday! I had a contract waiting in my box for the 2012-2013 school year!!! Yeah for getting to stay on my campus and work for my amazing principal. I was not too worried, but I was not going to relax until I had seen it and signed it. Now I just have to wait and see what exactly I will be teaching next year. Fingers crossed that I will get to stay in 6th grade! 

Over the break I also finally joined the Hunger Games craze and read the first 2 on the plane. I am about halfway finished with Mockingjay, but I do not want the series to end. What am I going to read next when it is all finished??? Any good suggestions?

I have a few literacy games in the works and cannot wait to share them with you all! Be on the lookout for them early next week.

SB 2012

That's right. I am officially on Spring Break since 3:35 p.m. yesterday afternoon. It feels so good. My sweet 6th graders and I were in desperate need of a break from each other.

The best part might be though that I am going to be spending the coming week in Ireland! Yes, that's right...I said Ireland. That also includes St. Patrick's Day in Dublin. Due to this fact, I am going to be MIA for the next week or a little longer. 

I hope that everyone has a fabulous week!

Thanks Ladies!

I am so glad that there is only one more day standing between Spring Break and me! This week my kiddos have been absolutely bonkers. I had 11 of them that had to stay in for lunch detention with me today during lunch. So not my idea of a fun lunch break, but it was necessary. I am so thankful that I will only have 3 kiddos in my last period class tomorrow because of a band field trip. I need to do some serious cleaning in my classroom and I am going to get those 3 to help me. 

I have had several sweet bloggers award me with some awards this past week, but I am just now getting around to blogging about it. 

Thanks to...

The Superlative Six

Ms. O'Brien from Fearless in 5th

Jennifer from Teaching With a Smile

for awarding me with the One Lovely Blog Award!

and

The Superlative Six

for the 

You girls are all so sweet! I truly believe that the teacher blogging community has made me a stronger teacher! I am not sure what I would do without all of you. 

I am going to cheat and award both of these awards to all of my followers! You all have shared so much wonderful advice with me, encouraged me when I am down, and cheered me on during my first year! Thanks a million!!!

Currently, Anchor Charts, and More!

Is it just me, or has this week been a crazy one? Maybe it is the whole Spring Break is almost here vibe that all of my kiddos currently have along with most of the teachers too.Here is what you've missed in the life of Miss Klohn in the past week. 

one. I survived middle school cheer tryouts. Did I mention that I am the cheer coach? :)

two. I had my midterms for grad school and failed one of them. Luckily, my professor made a mistake while grading it and I ended up getting a 70. I am just not a fan of having to memorize APA formatting when I have a resource book that I can use when writing my paper. 

three. I got asked to be in charge of Tadpole Camp which is like 6th grade orientation in August. This also means that I will be getting a contract for next school year! Yeah for getting to stay in my current position for another year.

four. I survived our incoming 6th grade parent orientation last night and it was so great to see many of the kids that I had when I student taught in 4th grade last year. Hopefully I will get to have several of them in class.

five. I am also presenting tomorrow at our faculty meeting about Class Dojo! I am obsessed with it and my kids love it too!

I am also so sick of TELPAS writing. We had to do 3 prompts and we got our last one finished today. Before we wrote, I did an example compare/contrast with them. I think it turned out pretty great. 

First we did a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast my co-teacher in my inclusion class and me. 

Then we wrote the essay together. 

I haven't read all of their essays yet, but hopefully they did a good job of completing the prompt. 

This is how I spent my evening today, cutting out lamination for 2 hours. I did some serious shopping and got some great literacy center games from Teachers Pay Teachers during the sale on Leap Day. We were out of laminator film at school last week, so I finally got to get it all laminated today. I cannot wait to play these games with my kiddos because I think they are going to love them. 

I also wanted to link up with Farley for her Currently March party! Go check it out and link up yourself too!

Several of you have also awarded me with some blog awards and I promise that post is coming sometime this week. I have a 7 a.m. faculty meeting tomorrow so I am hitting the sack!