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

The year is winding down.

I cannot believe that there are only 15 days left of school. This year has been a huge transition for me and I am just now reflecting on it. I am at a new school and have a new teaching role. Here are my thoughts on all of the changes:

       I love my new school and the idea of k-5 being under one roof. There is something about seeing the progression of students within one building that I really like. The staff here has been very welcoming to me and I hope that I have become part of their RES family. I will always love my FFP family, but I think this move was the right one for me.

       I love my students and love watching them gain confidence and make progress. It has been interesting to learn my new role (from classroom teacher to resource room teacher). I feel like just now in May I am starting to get a grasp on most things. The one thing I have decided that I don’t care for is the paperwork. There is a lot of it and since I am with students most of the day there isn’t any time to get it done.  I am hoping next year to work out a way to get everything done without feeling like I am always behind.

       The last thing that I have realized is that I love and miss being a classroom teacher. I miss the performance of teaching whole group lessons. I miss read alouds. I miss The Very Hungry Caterpillar reader’s theater that I have done for many years as a kindergarten teacher. I miss the idea that I am someone’s teacher and they are my kids (yes I know that I am still a teacher and my students are still my kids, but there is something different about it). I miss science experiments with excited 5 and 6 year olds. I miss teaching kindergarteners to read and seeing how excited they are when they can take a book home to read to their family.

       When I decided to make this change last year I really needed a change. I wanted to be a resource room teacher so I could teach students in small groups with goals that were specific to them. What I didn’t realize is that teaching in a resource room really isn’t the same as being a classroom teacher. I LOVE the students that I work with now and when they make progress I still get teary eyed, but there is something special about having the same students all day long and them being your family.

      

      I think I am really am actor and my classroom is my stage.

I am so thankful to be at RES and to be teaching some amazing students. I look forward to watching them grow and learn even more next year. Maybe if I am creative I can find a way to do some of those things that I am missing. For now I must focus on the 4 IEPs I still have to write plus a long list of other things that have to be done in the next 15 days. I am going to focusing on enjoying every minute of the remainder of the school year with my new RES family and my awesome students!

~Erica

It's been awhile..... help if you can and get a free item from my TPT store.

It’s been awhile since I have blogged. My new position keeps me busy and to be honest my role is so different I don’t know what to blog about that might be helpful. Today I am actually blogging to ask for some help.

On Wednesday of this week my little sister Lindsey (she’s 21) and her boyfriend of six years Jared lost all of their belongings in a fire. They were renting the home from his parents and Lindsey and Jared did not have renters insurance. The insurance on the home itself does not cover their belongings.

My sister is a full time nursing student while still working a full time job. She is a smart, caring, and kind person who would help anyone she can. Sadly now she is the one that needs help. I started a GoFundme campaign to raise money to help them start over. If you could help by donating it would be greatly appreciated. Here is the link to the site : http://www.gofundme.com/Lindsey-and-Jared

If you donate $10 or more I will give you one free item from my TPT store (if you want one). Once you have donated email me at egower77@gmail.com to let me know you have made a donation (I will be able to see it on the site) and I will send you one item of your choice. 

Thank you for any help you can give them.

~Erica

What I have been up to? and a sale this weekend in my TPT store.

Well it seems that I haven’t blogged in awhile. I have been working to get acclimated to my new school and teaching position. Everyone at my new school has been very kind and helpful. I am thankful that this environment makes me feel good. My new position has been a bit more challenging than I anticipated. That is mostly due to the fact that I have kids at varying levels with many different goals. So my challenge has been trying to collect enough resources across 1-4 grade Common Core standards. Just this morning I have spent 3 hours pinning stuff on Pinterest, downloading stuff from blogs and Teacherspayteachers and putting stuff on my TPT wishlist. I am having to learn how to teach some of the upper grade math standards as I am not use to teaching upper elementary grades. It also seems that math is taught a lot different than I learn in high school or college.

I have had two IEP meetings and have much to learn about writing IEPs and PWN’s in the correct manner. There is so much to learn everywhere.

So I do like a challenge, but I am hoping that by January I don’t feel like I am still treading water.

The good news is that I am enjoying getting to know my students.

I have no new items that I have made as I have been too busy gathering resources that other people have made. Since I have nothing new to show you I decided to have a sale this weekend in my TPT store. So today (Sat. Sept. 27th) and tomorrow (Sunday Sept.28th) all the products in my store will be 20% off. Here is the link to my store http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Erica-Gower  Enjoy!!

~Erica

Back to School Linky 2014- Where

So today’s back to school topic is where do I teach. So a few things to know first. This is my first year as a resource room teacher and my first year at this new school. I share a room with another special education teacher and our room is separated by a very tall room divider. Here are a few pictures of my room with captions below the pics. The rectangular table in the front of the picture is my working table and will be replaced with a horseshoes table as soon as it arrives.  

The rectangular table in the front of the picture is my working table and will be replaced with a horseshoes table as soon as it arrives.  

Behind the blue sheet is lots of games and resources. Too much stuff so it needs to be hidden. I wanted a carpet for my reading area, but didn't have the money so I brought these foam tiles from home. 

This is my focus wall. The green, yellow, and purple posters will have the standard that the students are working on.  

I wanted a superhero table cloth for the round table so I found one at a party store and then put a plastic protector over it so hopefully it lasts longer. 

In this picture you can see the big divider. There is also this yucky file cabinet with alphabet stickers on it. I don't want/need the cabinet and can't stand stickers on things so something has to change with that. I have two ball chairs for my students to use when needed. The purple bulletin board is my word wall. The blue sheet that is not ironed is covering a shelf with all my math stuff in it. Behind that is a small table for individual work.  

Here are my rules which I modified with superheroes to go with the theme. 

My room still needs a little work, but for now it will be okay. I will have to see how things work when my students start and then will make changes as needed. ~Erica