Sometimes you just have to jump!

For the past 5, maybe 6 years I have gone back and forth about whether to pursue further education to be an administrator. I have had many people tell me over the years that they think I would make a good principal. Now maybe they just wanted to make me feel good, but who knows. So numerous times in those past 6 years I have researched what the certification requirements are and where I can take the classes and each time I have chickened out. I think partly because I worked so hard to get my Master's degree and become a teacher in the first place. I didn't want it to seem like I didn't want to be a teacher. Just for the record, I love teaching and love my students!!! I love that my students know my favorite color is purple and that I would like to be a princess. One student this year asked me several times why I wanted to be a princess. Each time I told her that I wouldn't have to cook or clean so why wouldn't I want to be a princess. Sorry I digress. The fact of the matter is I have always felt inside like I might be able to use all that I have learned as a teacher to have a direct impact on more students and teachers. So why did I keep dragging my feet.....one simple word....fear.

Fear of what people would think. Would they laugh and say who does she think she is. Why does she think she should be an administrator.

Fear of making the wrong choice.

Fear of people thinking that I don't like teaching or my students. Or thinking that I should just be happy and content being a teacher.

Fear that I will fail. What happens if I try and I really can't do it? THIS IS THE BIGGEST ONE FOR ME!!

This summer something clicked. One day my wonderfully supportive husband said just the right words I needed to hear (I am sure he has said it before, but the timing was right this time). "I think you would make a great administrator." From that moment on I decided not to let my fear win. I applied and got accepted back at UNE. I have a plan to take 5 classes (while teaching full time of course) between August 30, 2017 and August 19, 2018 which should make be eligible to be an Assistant Building Administrator. Now of course at some point in the future I will need to actually get hired as an Assistant Principal, but these steps that I am taking feel good. They make me not afraid, okay who am I kidding I am still extremely afraid I will be terrible as an administrator, but I am happy that I am at least trying. 

Today while I was filling out paperwork for school and looking at certification requirements I received a text message from a friend. This is what it was. 

                                       

This could not have been more perfect. I do not know where my journey will lead me, but what I hope is that those people around me will see that I tried even if I was afraid. 

~Erica

Just realized I haven't posted since August. Hmmm

Hello Blog Readers (let's hope some people are still reading my blog), 
   
      It has been many months since I last blogged about my classroom experiences. This has been an interesting year. Thankfully I have wonderful students who make me smile every day. This year has been a significant learning curve for me as it is my first year teaching first grade. First grade is significantly different than other grades I have taught. I think part of that is due to the age and developmental level of the students versus the high standards and curriculum demands. It is also the year in which students get the most (in my opinion) interventions outside of the classroom. This is the part that makes it complicated as students really need the interventions, but that means they are missing instruction in the classroom. The balance of trying to get students access to everything they miss when out of the room is one that I struggled with. In the end, I worked to do the best that I could with the time those students were with me. 
     What I have learned this year as a professional is that being flexible and creative in thinking about how to organize and plan for instruction is the key to success in the future. I think that as we move towards more standards-based instruction teachers will need to be flexible in how they think about grade levels and how they group students (and maybe mix their students with another class). It will involve some people getting out of their comfort zones. I think even though it can be stressful that it's also exciting. 

     Do you do any end of the year "fun" activities? I have a plan for this year that involves this book. 

Our two first grades are currently one happy family at some parts of the day (I told you it was an interesting year) so now I need 27 large boxes for my end of the year project. Wish me luck in finding this many boxes. Just thinking about this project makes me smile. 

   So hopefully I will remember to blog again before seven more months have passed. I thank you for reading this. Have a great day!
~Erica

     

The letters must go out and school products that I LOVE!!

   I had to go to school yesterday to print and send out my welcome letters to my new first graders. I hope they are getting excited about school. 

    I send home a parent survey so that when the students come to me I have some information about their child. Do you ask parents to provide any information about their child at the beginning of the year? 

   Here is a little peak into one thing I got started in my room after I mailed my letters. This is a sad curtain that I made out of a sheet. I need to either get a steamer or take them down to iron them. The picture doesn't show the right side that I still need to finish. I have decided that my bulletin boards will be black background and these large shelves will have grey curtains. 

   I read another blog recently where they shared their favorite back to school supplies (for teachers) so I decided to share mine. 

Last year I was introduced to Flair pens! I had a variety pack of colors, but there was only one purple in it. So I went on Amazon and found a box with just purple!! LOVE!! 

Another thing I was introduced to last year (thanks Cassie) was Planbook online.  I love having my lesson plan book online. You can easily add standards to a specific lesson or move a lesson from one day to the next. I use to use google docs to do my lesson planning, but I will be using Planbook.com again this year as I love it. Oh and did I mention it's only $12 a year. 

I will never be without my own laminator again. A few years ago I bought this laminator at Walmart for $19.96 (it's even less expensive now). I use it a lot and it is worth every penny. You can get the laminating pouches at Sams Club or Amazon (which is where I have found the best prices). 

This year I decided to order twistable crayons for all of my students as I realized that regular crayons have so much waste. Basically, the kids use them until the tip is dull and then they don't want to use them. Hoping these new crayons, although more expensive, will end up being worth it. 

   These are a few of the things that I can't start the school year without. Feel free to comment about the things that you can't be without. I love hearing what other products people like to use. 

~Erica

A work in progress

So yesterday I worked in my room for a few hours and realized it is certainly a work in progress. I have a lot to do! In 11 years of teaching, I have switched rooms 8 times so I am used to having to redo my room. I know teaching is not about the room, but I can’t focus on instruction until my room is organized and inviting. Today I also put my son to work taking the plastic off new clipboards and whiteboards. Not his favorite task, but he did it. Below are some pictures of my room (before and after of my few hours of work).

Before

After

 

 Before

  

                 After

Not sure if you can tell from the pictures, but this year I am going to have three tables with different types of seating. I am hoping to allow for student choice with this, but not sure yet if first graders will be able to appropriate select their seats. Time will tell. One table will have regular chairs, on will have stools (some regular stools and some woobly stools), and then a table lowered so students can sit on cushions.  I am hoping this will help to keep kids engaged and stay focused.

I will post more pictures of my classroom once it looks a little less like a bunch of piles of stuff. 

For now, I will leave you with this Kid President video. Now please remember he is a kid so some of the things are rather silly, but number 4 and 1 are my favorites. 

One more thing! Here is the link to my Amazon wishlist for my classroom.  https://amzn.com/w/3HUMBSO67XGSY

Just in case anyone wants to help out my classroom. 

~Erica

I think I have been in denial.

So yesterday I went to my classroom and realized I have a TON of work to do before it will be ready for students. Now I know I still have time, but I have a feeling I will need to be there at least once a week if not more in order to be ready and that's just the time needed to organize the space the way that I want it. I still have some things to buy as well (like black sheets for the bulletin boards). I will post pictures once my room is a little more presentable, right now there are lots of piles. 

I have been in denial about having to switch grades again. It's a bummer when I look at all the TPT stuff I bought last year for second grade and now I get to buy more stuff this year for first grade. I am sure I will love my first grade students, but I don't really love the idea of learning a whole different grade level again. Oh well I guess the magic student fairy didn't bring more second graders to our school so first grade here I come. Now to go TPT shopping for first grade stuff. 

~Erica

Another year ends and a new one approaches (okay so I still have almost two months of summer).

So this school year came to a weird end. The last couple weeks of school we had a bad stomach virus go through our school and there was one day we had only about 1/3 of the students and even less of the teachers (I was one of those absent that day). Then four days before school ended we had an issue with the water pump and the students ended up having no school one day. The teachers had to be there which was amusing as all I could thinking about when driving in that day was how I had to drive somewhere to get to the bathroom. The good news was that after only about 2 hours the water was back to working (temporarily as the fix needed to be completed during the summer). 

The last day of school my students had "fancy" day and we all dressed up some and ate in our classroom with table clothes and flowers on the tables. It was fun and I think the kids really liked it. Perhaps fancy day on the last day of school will have to be a transition. I also realized that I need to find a new meaningful book to read on the last day. For years I have read, "Oh the places you'll go", but I realized it's not something the kids really understand as there are too many weird words and big ideas that they just aren't ready for. So now I am on the hunt for a book that tell my kids how awesome I think they are and that I will miss them. Let me know if you know of one. 

Next year I will be teaching a new grade (yes again) one that I have never taught before. I will be teaching first grade. Although I would have loved to stay in second the numbers just weren't there for me to stay so to first grade I will go. I am also moving classrooms (YES AGAIN, LOL) and today my summer friend Claire (my friend's daughter who I am hanging out with this summer) and I went to my new classroom and starting making it look nice. I still have a lot to do, but I got the basic layout figure out today. I have plans for some different types of seating next year in hope of allowing kids so freedom to pick a seat that will work for them. 

This year I have battled feeling like I wasn't a great teacher as things were super overwhelming and to be honest I wondered if I just wasn't meant to be a teacher. What I have realized is that when I stop stressing about all the mandates, assessments, paperwork, etc I am a pretty good teacher. My goal is to focus on my strengths and the wonderful students that I get to work with and enjoy myself. Maybe someday I will become a princess, but for now I think I will enjoy being a teacher.  ~Erica

Oh what a year it has been. It's all about perspective.

Well I can honestly say this was probably the second most challenging year in my career as a teacher. What got me through? Without a doubt it was my amazing students. What made this year so challenging? This was my first year in a classroom in this new district and let me tell you the requirements for students and teachers are significantly greater than what I was used to. Don't get me wrong I like high standards for both students and teachers, but what I learned this year is that sometimes the goals we set are very difficult to reach. It's like that one big bright red apple at the top of the apple tree. Let's face it there is only a certain amount of time in the day. So I spent the first 3/4 of the year feeling like a failure as I just couldn't fit in everything during the day that I needed to and the amount of time I needed outside of the classroom was about triple what I had needed for the last 10 years. I don't mind doing some work outside of school (we all know right or wrong that it's part of the job), but I really like my time with my family and I need time to relax. My personality is such that I want to be perfect (or as close as possible). So this idea that I was working very hard and still feeling like I stink was not good for making me feel awesome. I was faced with the fact that maybe I couldn't really do this thing I loved so much. Maybe I wasn't able to keep up with the changes and requirements. Let me just tell you that when you have changed careers and gone back to school to be a teacher and you are faced with the fact that maybe you aren't good enough, well let's just say it was/is heartbreaking. I had wanted to be a teacher since I was five!

Then one day I stepped back looked at my students and my teaching history and realized that what I was doing WAS enough and had been for 10 years. My students had always made progress and were as well behaved as they needed to be. So maybe I can't do every little thing that people outside of the classroom want me to do, but in the end I know I am doing right by my students. 

So with this new perspective I am at peace with who I am as a teacher. I might not be perfect, but I am doing my best for my students. 

  Writing Haiku poems on a beautiful day. 

~Erica

There's no place like home! Yes it is vacation!

   It is Christmas vacation and I must say that I think for all the teachers that I know, it is well timed. It's perfect timing for me since my body decided to be sick for vacation. I guess it's better now than when school is in session and I would have to make sub plans. So I sit at home with lots of school work to do and no motivation right now to do any of it. Hoping to get my mojo back once I feel better. 
  Here are some pictures from my Christmas:                                  
                                  Our dog Krypto (my son doesn't like his picture taken anymore so the dog it is)
              
                     
                                              My sad looking gingerbread house
                                               that I made Christmas Eve at my
                                                   family Christmas party.

                 
                                        The beautiful China Lake on Christmas day!

  
    Now let's talk about my classroom. Have I mentioned that I LOVE teaching second grade. This age is great. They still like me (which I wasn't sure they would) and they are fairly independent. My students are wonderful and I would like to keep them forever. Right before vacation they earned a class reward. They voted to have a PJ and movie party. So the day before vacation we wore our pjs and then watched Santa Paws. It was great. They deserve to have some down time since they have been working VERY HARD since September. I only wish I could give them more frequent class rewards like this, but there just isn't time. We ate treats and then after, my wonderful students cleaned up our room since they know that part of having fun is cleaning up. 
   When we get back we will begin new units in math, writing, reading, and science. It will be a new year with lots of new learning. I can't wait to see all of the progress that my students make for the remainder of the year. I am thinking about having students create a goal (New Year's Resolution if you will) for themselves for the rest of the year. 
   My goal is to take it easy on myself and focus on all the great things going on in my classroom. What's your goal for the new year?

Sorry it's been so long.

  So it has been awhile since I have posted and the reasons are many. I was recently reminded about the amount of excitement and anticipation I started the year off with. Since then the year has been what I affectionately call a roller coaster. I have been reading a lot of blogs and talking to a lot of teachers who seem to be having the same experiences. Here is what I know right now: being a teacher is harder now than at any point in my last ten years of teaching. 
  
   My goal for myself is to focus on those moments during the day (when the door is closed, no one is watching or evaluating, no one is coming in to tell you another thing you have to do) when you have that group of students and are doing a lesson, they are engaged, they are learning, smiling, and I am reminded of why I worked hard to go back to school to become a teacher. I love teaching! I love my students! I love myself when I get to have those moments and remember that I am good at what I do. I just have to work harder now to make those moments happen and that is my goal. I don't want the changes, standards, evaluations, assessments, and challenging situations, to win. I want to win for myself and my students!

   So now onto how much I love second grade!!! No seriously it wasn't until I watched a little line of kindergarten students recently, by the way I love kindergarten and taught it for 7 years, that I realized how much I love my second graders. They have a higher independence, more skills, a different sense of humor, and all these things are reasons why I love them. I am still trying to learn the second grade curriculum which is vast. In my school we do Lucy Calkins writing, Handwriting without tears, Words Their Way, Daily 5/Cafe, Math Daily 3 (utilizing lessons from Engage NY, Georgia Units, Illustrative math, Howard County), and then of course Guided reading, science and social studies. That is a lot to learn for both the teacher and the student! I keep reminding myself that it's my first year in this grade level so I can't know everything or do everything perfectly, but I am doing my best. 
   
   I put up a classroom timeline in my room, but so far I haven't taken any pictures to put up on it. This is one of my many "fails" from the first two months of school. Which also means I have no pictures to post here of what we have been doing. Once things settle down I will working on getting some pictures of all the great things we are doing. 

   For now I leave you with this:

~Erica

I know my room is done when......

I know my room is done when....I walk into it and smile. That happened yesterday so I know that my room is ready for my students. I want them to smile when they enter the room. Now don't get me wrong after I smiled I noticed three things that still need to be done (labeling my math bins, organizing the writing center stuff, and organizing my math tasks/games), but probably no one else would notice those things but me. 
Here are some final pictures of my room (please note that I was able to scrounge together three tables so I no longer have all desks, YAY).

Not sure if you can see the sign on my door, but it says, "There's no place like Mrs.Gower's room." My Secret Santa made it for me last year.  Love it!

The view from my door.

View from my door.

View from my door. There is a large door behind the curtain, but it's just too hot to have the shades open right now. 

The area at the front of my room will be for whole group meetings. 

Whiteboard with learning targets on the left and our classroom timeline (got the idea for a timeline from this blog http://carolinakteacher.blogspot.com/2013/06/ten-pin-linky-party-classroom-decor.html )

Math board, chalkboard word wall, and daily 5 board

Take a break corner. This feels like it still needs some work to me. There is a bean bag, and a bucket of fidget type toys. 

Focus wall and Cafe board. 

These are dark :( but it is my library area.

Another picture (still dark) of my library area. 

My small group area and my table (I don't actually have a desk so I use the table with the green fabric for my laptop and other items that I need. 

This area is for our schedule, calendar, math morning work, and the empty space on the right will be where our rules go. The table will be used to sign in each morning. The blue bucket is my bathroom bucket (another great idea I got from a blog several years ago). 

In between working on my room, at home I have been studying our district curriculum and planning the first day of school. The first few days are all about getting to know each other and establishing rules and routines. I found this great blog post about setting the stage when the students return to school. I am going to try out the finish the picture activity.I will let you know how it goes. Here is the link to the blogpost: http://whoswhoandnew.blogspot.com/2014/07/setting-tone-in-first-10-minutes-of.html

I have also been scouring TPT for great resources for second grade. I have found lots of great free items and lots of great items that I have paid for and have on my wishlist. As usual TPT didn't let me down. Here are some of my favorite TPT sellers store's that I have found great resources: 
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Amy-Lemons

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Surfin-Through-Second

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Teaching-With-A-Mountain-View

Seriously there are like a million and probably a lot more great resources on TPT both free and paid. 

There is always my store too, but I need to make some second grade resources to add. That is my TPT goal for this school year to make some great resources for my classroom and for others to use in their classrooms.  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Erica-Gower

I almost forgot to talk about this. SO this summer I decided to put together an Amazon Wishlist for my classroom and share it on my FB page for people who wanted to help my classroom. There are always things that we need or would make the classroom go smoother, but there just isn't money in the budget for everything. So I decided it can't hurt to put together a wishlist. I have done Donorschoose in the past and was going to put one together if the wishlist didn't work out. So far my mother-in-law has bought me a small rug for my library area, my school team got me a purple beanbag for hosting a cookout, and yesterday was like Christmas when this stuff (see picture below) showed up from my sister. I'm not going to lie I am super excited about all of these things. My theory on asking people is that sometimes if a lot of people help a little then you end up with a lot. I am so thankful to everyone who supports me as a teacher whether it's buying me pencil boxes or other school supplies like my mother and sister-in-law have in the past, purchasing something from my wishlist, or just just giving me positive feedback. I am truly very fortunate. Here is the link to my wishlist: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3HUMBSO67XGSY/ref=cm_wl_list_o_3?

Well next Monday is the day! I get to meet 17 new students. I am pretty excited to get to know them and to start this great second grade journey with them. 
~Erica

My new classroom is done....well almost.

So if you read my previous post you know that I am moving from a resource room teacher to a second grade teacher. With that comes another room change (this is my third in the last calendar year). So I have been working on getting my new room ready so that I can next work on curriculum. Well today I finished my room. Well sort of. I still need to get a shelf for the corner (you will see in the picture that it's needs work) and one for under my table (need more space to organize). I also need to purchase a few more things (pencil boxes and plastic basket type things). For the most part my room is done so I thought I would post some pictures. 

                            

This will be the sign in area. The green pocket chart will hold a number of the day that the students will work on first thing in the morning. The blue pocket chart will either hold the schedule or something for calendar?? I have not decided yet. The big blue pail on top of the table is the bathroom bucket (I got the idea from another teacher/blog several years ago and I love it).

Here is my whiteboard and the area in front of it will be my group meeting area. An easel is on it's way and I have to find a chair. Thinking that I might find one at a yard sale and paint it. 

This is the corner that needs some help. Pay no attention to the mess in the corner. Here is my word wall. I am now realizing these are not the best pics. Hopefully you can see that this is a chalkboard. I bought chalk markers to use for my word wall. The other board will soon have my daily 5 rotation stuff. I guess I still have a little work to do.

This bulletin board will be our Math focus board with anything math related that we need. 

These pictures don't look as blurry on my phone. The shelf hold my math manipulative which need a little organization. The pile in front of it is the stuff I was taking home. As you can see the little whiteboard still needs to be installed. 

Here is my small group table and behind it is a table with all my stuff. There is also a great big window which lets in natural light.The only problem with it is that nothing can be very close to it as it is an emergency exit. 

This picture shows the only closet/storage space in the room. Above it is the CAFE board. The left side may be used for student work, but I am not exactly sure about that. 

Here is my library area. The shade is pulled for the summer so that my books don't get faded. I hope to add a rug or something to this area. 

Another view of the library area. 

                            

These three pictures are the view when you enter the door to my room. 

I am now ready to start diving into the second grade curriculum. Reading some daily 5 lessons plans right now actually. 

Oh one more thing...if you have any interest in helping buy something for my classroom (no pressure, sometimes I have people ask what I need so thought I would do this) I made an Amazon wishlist for some seating items that would be great for my students. Here is the link.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3HUMBSO67XGSY/ref=cm_wl_list_o_3?

Thanks for reading and I hope the rest of your summer is relaxing and energizing. 

~Erica

Bon Jour from France and changes!!

Bon Jour!! I write this blog post from Vannes, France where my husband is the chaperone of a school exchange. My son Josh and I were able to pay our own way to come to this beautiful place as well. We spent the first three days in Paris seeing all the sights we could see. It was great, but a bit more fast paced than I like. 

We are now in the city Vannes with about 55,000 people and it seems just right. This is an old city and looks nothing like we have at home. I think I could wander the cobble stone streets forever. It feels so very different here. We have been in France for one week today and still have 10 more days. It will be nice to go home after that, but it has been an amazing experience. 

On to school related stuff. So the week before school ended our school had a few changes. One amazing teacher decided to become an interventionist within the district. One awesome teacher within the building moved from second grade to third to take that position. So this left a second grade position open. There had been other openings within our district and even building, but none had seemed just right. I knew I wanted to stay in the same building and teach K-2. Well, well a second grade position was now open, but I hated the idea of leaving the resource room. I really love working with my students. However, I knew that my heart is really in the classroom and I decided to go for it (expecting that someone else would swoop in and take it). Right before I got on the plane for France I checked my email and there it was....an email from my principal offering me the second grade position. 

You want to talk about feeling like things are crazy well the last week of school had been crazy busy. School had ended on June 16 for Shane and I and Josh was done on June 17. Then on June 18 we are sitting in an airport getting ready to fly to another country for 19 days and I am being offered what I wanted, which is to go back into the classroom. I felt like my head was swimming and I took about 3 minutes to think about it and then I responded and told the principal that I would love to accept the second grade position. Yay me!! 

So while I have been enjoying everything about France I have also been planning in my head how I am going to make my classroom and the year awesome!! So much to do when I get back, clean out my stuff from my resource room and get my new room ready, but I am going to enjoy every liter of France I can while I am here. 

Oh and that reminds me....I now need a new name for my blog. I have had one suggestion so far, "There's no place like Mrs.Gower's room" which I like, but I am looking for a few more suggestions before I change it. Thanks and au revoir!!

~Erica