Whole Brain Teaching Book Club

One of the best parts of summer vacation for me is the time I have to read books that help me be a better teacher. Even better is if there is a summer book study on a great teacher book so I can see how others are using the ideas from the book. My blogging friends always know the must reads and I get so energized each summer.  If I missed a book study I still love to read all the posts then of course pin and print all the goodies, but I do feel bummed that I missed the chance to participate. I am so excited that my must have professional book, Whole Brain teaching for Challenging Kids, has not just a book study but an ongoing book club. Everyone can not only read all the posts but participate no matter what month it is! Everyone can join the book club and respond to the questions and prompts at their own pace, at any time of year. When you participate you have the opportunity to earn certification points toward becoming a certified WBT educator! You of course do not have to type up your responses to enjoy the book club though. Just reflecting on the prompts and reading through the replies of others will help in so many ways! 

So where do we start? Order your paper copy of the book or borrow the Kindle version for free with Prime membership. The main page for the book club is http://wbtbookclub.blogspot.com/ and you will find prompts for the entire book. Below you will find the prompts  for the beginning chapters and the chapters on the Rules and the Core 4. DO NOT try to read everything at once, no matter how tempting! I am just grouping the chapters for easier bookmarking and pinning :) In the coming weeks I will group and post the prompts for the rest of the book :) Are you going to participate in the book club? I know love to know who is going to give it a try :) Happy reading!

Getting Ready and Why Whole Brain Teaching 

The Core 4 and 5 Rules

We Love Books- The Perfect Nest & TheDaily5 Second Edition

I am late to the party but I am excited to start linking up with this great linky 

First I want to share one of my favorite children's books The Perfect Nest, by Catherine Friend 

I was given this book a few years ago as part of a package of books the school librarian bought for every class and this has been a favorite in the classroom and at home. This story is so fun and there are a lot of different ways to use this book. Here is a video of it to see for your self :) 

Now I also want to share professional books and want to start with the second edition of the life changing The Daily 5 by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser AKA The 2 Sisters

If you click on the book above it will take you to the publisher's site and you will see all the info to buy the book but also click on the Preview Online tab and you can read the WHOLE book online for FREE! 

Now many of you probably have the first edition of this book but I also have teachers in my school and district that have never heard of The Daily 5 or The 2 Sisters so maybe this is a new one to you. New or old favorite the second edition is a must read as is the blog book study. Click on the links below for the main linky for each chapter and then get ready to be blown away with freebies and wonderful insight. They are currently on Chapter 7 but I will edit to add Chapter 8 and 9 :)

I don't see Sharing Kindergarten's link for Chapter 5 & 6 so I am adding it here so it is not missed

Main Freebielicious post for Chapter 7

Be sure to click on all of the linkies for this one

Now that you are all excited for TheDaily5 be sure to request to join the Facebook group at  https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheDaily5CAFE/

Monday Meet Me

So I haven't had this blog long but realized I have been blogging since 2006, 8 years!  Thing is I have never been good about staying with blogging throughout the year. School starts up and blogging is always one of the first things to come off my plate. This year I hope to be MUCH better about blogging consistently and today's post is the beginning of that :) What better way to begin than with introductions? Here is a little about me

3 Interesting Facts

3 Things I am Thankful For 

If you are still reading you now know more about me than most people that know me in real life :) I would love to learn more about you! The cute templates are from

You can grab the templates from the links below and join in the fun Monday Meet Me then comment with the link to your Monday Meet Up picture or just comment here with something about you :) 

     

Meet other teachers at the Monday Meet Up linkies

   

 

Book Clubs and WBT Wednesday

For the third summer I have decided to be a part of summer book studies but this year I am working on 3!
I know that is crazy but I think they are all so worth it.
First is just a review of The Sisters' books on our Daily CAFE yahoo group and Facebook group. I thought it would be good to have a  refresher on these books that are the base of my literacy block.

 

Second is this year's must have teaching book

Some wonderful teacher bloggers started this book study in June and I am trying to at least keep up with the reading. Check them out by clicking their super cute book study button below.

Third is actually an ongoing book club instead of a summer book study on Chris Biffle's Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids. Of course this is also a MUST have.

I finally got the courage to type up my response to the WBT book club assignment for Chapter 1 & 2. Check it out and see links for the main book club by clicking the image below.

What are your must reads this summer? Are these on your teacher bookshelf too?

Sunshine Folder and Classroom Pics

Please excuse my blogging absence, I have been suffering from teacher perfectitis. I have started blogging about my classroom set up and first days of school several times but deleted the drafts because I didn't like how things were looking. I want the room to look perfect, the projects I shared to be projects that went perfectly with my class, everything to be perfect. Not sure why I thought things would be perfect, but somehow I got the idea in my head that it should be. Well my room is coming along but not there yet and these first 6 days of TK have been hard, really hard. Nothing is perfect and I decided finally that is ok. I'm not a perfectionist usually, just look at my house, but I have wanted to share my best at least.

After really thinking about it I realized my room is actually looking better than any other year and my class is really going pretty well. Most of the class is doing great with the Whole Brain Teaching tools I have introduced and I really only have a few friends that are going to be challenging. We have the 5 Rules, Class/Yes, Hands and Eyes, Mirrors and the Scoreboard going. We also have started Read to Self and Word Work which most of the class can do for 5 minutes each. Work on Writing, Math Stations and Creative Stations are each up to 10 minutes each which is really amazing for four year old students after only 6 days. Now if I can get a handle on my 4 challenging friends I will be able to start assessing and doing small groups since the majority of the class is rocking and rolling. So what if things are not perfect, in the words of Pete the Cat, "It is all good." I'm going to focus on the positive and share any help I find for the challenges when I find them.

 The amazing Debbie from Rainbows in Reach has the most powerful post on her blog today and it is a blog hop. Be sure to hop over and read the story she shares and take a look at the amazing photos of classrooms that are sprinkled through the post. It reminded me that I even though I have been struggling, I am making a difference in the lives of my students. Teaching, especially I think the youngest students, is a mind molding, life altering, hard but rewarding work. Debbie reminded me that we all struggle at times but we are stronger together, making our students stronger too :) So with the knowledge that this is a work in process not a work of art, here are some pictures of my room and the links to the blog hop started by Debbie. Hope you like them :)

 Here are our cubbies with ocean artwork from one of my fellow teachers until student art is finished

 This is our store which is from my own parents, they bought it for my 3 children and we moved it into my classroom. Took me most of 2 days to put it together again. 

 One of 4 tables with crayon cups

 Close up of the crayon cups. I was so excited to get these on clearance for 30 cents each this summer from Walmart :)

 Our Word Wall with the green letters from my Tropical Dot Word Wall Letter sets. The book shelf on the left holds the open Word Work choices and the shelfs under the board hold the goodies that will be used later in the year.

 This is the calendar part of our front board. The monkeys are from Graphics by Ruth and yu can get them here. 

 Hung beach balls and tropical flowers :) You can see the rest of our front board which will hold PowerPix and our screen and lcd projector I use with the ELMO and WII whiteboard.

 Our class library and Wonderful Work Wall

My teacher desk and small group table next to our bathroom :)

Hope to share more soon and that you will join in the blog hop with pictures of your room :)

Daily 5 Book Study Catch Up

I have been enjoying this book study sooooooo much and have so many ideas spinning in my head but I'm not quite ready to answer all the questions for my self yet. My plan is to revisit these questions and post during the next few weeks before school. I know how I did things when I taught first grade but I don't think I did a good job with Daily 5 last year in kindergarten and I'm still planning out things for my new adventure with Transitional K. For now I wanted to share the questions so for and a few links.

Much of the information I have used for Daily 5 has come from the Daily 5 Yahoo Group I have been running for a while now. There are so many free files, links to many of the free things on the Sisters' site and wonderful threads about everything Daily 5 and CAFE. It has been a quiet summer but we would love to get some new conversations going so I hope you will join us :) We also have an extra file group here.

You can also assess most of the group files, also a Gig of goodies, from my DailyCAFE folder on Skydrive :) Most files are not my creations, I have simple gathered them all. I hope some of you find these links helpful.

Below are the questions from each chapter so far. Make sure to click on the picture for each chapter for each linky party. There is so much great information and many freebies :)

1. How do I teach new behaviors?

2. How do I teach expectations?

3. How do I monitor student behavior? whole group? small groups? Individual?

4. What do I do when a student is not exhibiting desired behavior?

5. Whose classroom is it?

6. Locus of control?

7. Where are supplies stored?

1. Do you trust your students? How do you build this trust? Are you able to trust them and allow them to be independent throughout all aspects of your day? Are you going to be able to stay out of their way?

2. How much choice do you give your students throughout the day? (would love for you to share some examples!) Do you go over your daily schedule with your students or is it just 'posted' in the room?

3. How are you going to create that sense of community where students will hold each other accountable?

4. Student ownership in learning? How do you instill this in every child?

5. Stamina! How are you going to build stamina with reading? independent work? Will you use a timer? Will you set goals? … 

1. Establish a gathering place for brain and body breaks. 

2. Developing the concept of "good fit" books 

3. Create anchor charts with students.

4. Short, repeated intervals of independent practice and setting up book boxes

What will you use for book boxes? 

What are you going to put in those book boxes on the 1st day of school?

5. Calm Signals and check in procedures (Do you already have a signal? How will you handle check ins?)

6. Using the correct model/incorrect model approach for demonstrating appropriate behaviors.

1)  How far into the school year do you think kinders need to be to be able to begin the process of Read to Self?  What is realistic?  When do you plan to begin implementation?

2) How will you make sure that each child views him/herself as a reader (whether they are reading words or not)?

3) What are some ideas you have about "Launching Read to Self" in kindergarten?  How will you go about it and what are some ways to make sure it is "kinder friendly"?  

4) How will you/do you build the children's belief that this IS important?  What can we do to encourage the ones who do not value it and create disruptions for others?

5) How valuable is Checking In and Reviewing with kindergarteners?  How often will you do it?  When will you do it? What are some different ways to "check in"?

6)What are some problems that can occur during this problem (either that you anticipate with your kinders OR that you have experienced)?  How can we be proactive about these issues?

1. How will you instill the importance (or urgency) of 'listening to reading' in your students and especially those students who have had little 'lap time' or reading done for them in their own homes?

2. What devices or strategies are you going to use to conduct listen to reading? Will you use a community recording device with one cd and several earphones, individual cd players, tape recorders, ipod-type devices or computers? 

3. What expectations will you have for your students during 'listen to reading' and how will you keep them on task and independent instead of needing your assistance when they can't manage devices?

4. Do you have enough 'listening to reading' type materials? If not, what ideas do you have for securing these materials? Where will you store them? How will your students retrieve these items? Where will they be used (will there be a designated spot in your class for listening to reading or will it be their choice?

5. How do you feel about listening response sheets? What will they look like?

6. How can this station be differentiated to meet the various learning profiles, interests and/or readiness of your students?

1. Why should students be reading to someone?

2. How can your students EEKK?

3. How can your students read to someone and how will you need to model these ways with your students?

4. What is one thing you have done with partner reading that ensures the success of your students?