What's Different? LINK-UP!

Every teacher has that "I'm doing this again!" or "I'm not going to do _____ this way again". It's part of the natural process of reflection, which I believe is critical in developing into a stronger teacher. I'd love to hear what you're doing differently this year versus last year! I'll get it started!

1. Daily Behavior Rubric

I loved my clip chart last year, it functioned well, it was cute and my students knew the expectations surrounding it. I've read all the hype on clip chart or no clip chart and it's important for me to say that these ideas didn't influence me. I'm not judging anyone with a clip chart or without one, this is just what works best for me and what I desire my classroom climate to be like. 

Here's what's new this year: 

What I love about the rubric is that students must self reflect each day before I sign. I love too that I can attach reflection sheets for students who needed to complete one that day. I can't wait to see how this runs in my classroom this year!

2. Literacy Centers

Yes, I LOVE literacy centers just like the majority of teachers. I love the drawer of task cards, I love the organization of the rotation groups. I love that just after one day of practice, students can rotate and know exactly where they are going! But, it is SO much work to keep up with updating centers each week, and it's a lot of $$$ because I purchase task cards a lot. Also, I worry that too much of it turns into busy work because it's so time consuming to prepare...maybe, just maybe...

So I decided I wasn't for it this year, but don't worry, I have a plan for what students will do while I pull Guided Reading groups - Student lead book clubs! Here's how I hope it will go: I create groups (based on reading level), each group is assigned to a book (five copies per group). I choose students to be the Book Captains. These captions are responsible for guiding their group through the book. I also purchased these Tri-Fold Novel Studies to help them out. What's great is while the group is with me for guided reading, the captains will have planning time - just like teachers...expect we don't get in school planning time ;)! The captains will use post-its to mark up their book, write questions for their chapters and even get time to conference with me to go over vocabulary, questions or concerns about their group! I'll blog more about this later!

3. Changed up Morning Work

I consider the morning to be one of the most critical times of the day (and right after lunch!) because it sets the stage for the rest of the day. When my students enter the classroom it's vital for them to know exactly what to do and for this to be consistent EVERY day! Last year I used grammar morning work and I loved the product, however, I longed for my students to have deeper morning work. So I purchased this for students to complete each day AND I'm going to create a Math booklet of morning work as well using this!

I'd love to hear from you! What are you doing different this year?
Here's your blank copy - get started!