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