It's the little things....

Sometimes I think I became a teacher because of the office supplies.

Case in point:  today, I put a brand-new chart-paper pad on my easel.  So fresh.  So open for possibility.  I am a nerd, so I took a picture and Tweeted it.

The problem is: what to do with the old one?  There's good stuff on that chart pad.  I don't have room to hang every single chart we make as a class, and honestly, not all of them are worthy of hanging or need to be hung.  But there are some charts-in-progress that I need to refer back to or add to.  For right now, I stashed it next to a closet until I can tear out the pages I still need.

Other office supplies make me happy, too.

• A freshly-sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga pencil is one of my favorite things in the world.  I've tried other pencils, both traditional and mechanical, and I always go back to the tried-and-true.  The feeling of this pencil on paper is so smooth.  The eraser actually works.  I buy these puppies in the jumbo pack at Costco.  I get mad if one of my students picks up my pencil when I leave it on the back table.
• Mr. Sketch scented markers have a permanent place in my classroom.  I love their vibrant colors and the fact that they don't bleed through thin chart paper.  The chisel tip allows me to do fancy lettering when I feel like it.  When the tips get mushy, I put them out for the kids to use since they don't care about mushy markers.  
• Staedler Mars Plastic erasers.  By golly, these things are expensive.  But I don't care.  I pay the price because they erase COMPLETELY without tearing a hole in the paper.  I hide these from the kids because a few of them have seen me use my "cool white eraser" and they want one, too.  If they would like one, they should ask Mom or Dad to buy one, because my classroom budget does not have enough money in it for a class set of fancy erasers.

I know my love of office supplies sounds a bit ridiculous, but maybe not.  I know LOTS of colleagues whose second-favorite store is Office Max (second only to the book store) because they love good pens and a fresh notebook as much as I do.

And here's the thing... being surrounded by good tools makes me feel good.  Using a good pen to write notes to my students or a great marker to co-create anchor charts makes me happy, which in turn makes me a good teacher.  So yeah... I could buy cheaper supplies for myself, but I wouldn't be happy with the way things turned out.  I wouldn't get that little bit of joy and in fact might get frustrated, which wouldn't be good for anyone.

So if you're looking for me, you can find me in the pen aisle at Office Max.

Longest.Monday.Ever.

When the alarm went off at 5am, I really, really wanted to turn it off, roll over, and go back to sleep.  I didn't, though.  I got up, put on my sneakers, and trekked to the basement to do my 30-minute walk on the treadmill.  I knew that if I didn't get that workout in first thing, it wouldn't happen.

From there, though, my day was decidedly blah.  My breakfast was uninspired.  I was hungry all day, even though I made sure to have protein at every meal.  It snowed.

Even my students were out of it on this Monday after the time change.  At least four of them went to the nurse with headaches.  One was falling asleep at her desk during the moment of silence before the pledge.  The noise level stayed to a low hum the whole day.

I know it doesn't help to watch the clock on days like this, but I couldn't help it.  I kept glancing at the wall or down at my fitbit, willing time to pass so that I could leave and put this day behind me.

Of course, once school's out, I do my other job.  I'm Mom... driving to and from dance classes, cooking dinner, helping with homework, then doing my own.

Here's hoping I go to bed early tonight so I can have a terrific Tuesday!

Playing Hooky

I took the day off today.  It's not something I do on a whim, as I know it's better for my students if I am at school.  And honestly, writing sub plans is a drag.  I'm lucky that my teaching assistant subs for me whenever I am out, so I don't have to write as detailed a plan as I would if a stranger were subbing.  I knew my class was in good hands.

I decided to take the day because I wanted to spend some time with my guy.  Dan was off this week since he's starting a new job on Monday, and I thought it would be nice to do something just the two of us.  We don't get to do this often, since we are, after all, parents.

We are nerds, so we decided to go to the Chicago History Museum.  Neither of us had ever been before, and it is a great little museum (if you ignore the swarms of kids there on field trips).  My favorite exhibit took me through Chicago's history from Fort Dearborn to modern day - though they have yet to update the section on the Chicago Cubs to reflect the World Series win.  The exhibits don't gloss over the grittier parts of Chicago's history, either, such as the Haymarket bombing or the race riot of 1919.  It was thought-provoking, and I learned so much.

This is Chicago's very first L car!  The real thing!

We wandered the museum, talking about the things that we found interesting or intriguing, and then strolled leisurely to a nearby restaurant for lunch.  We talked about stuff.  We ate.  We just enjoyed being together without rushing to drive a kid somewhere.

I'm so glad I decided to take today off.  Between being a mom and being a teacher, my emotions and energy are often completely tapped out.  Days like today remind me that I need to slow down, take a break, and just spend time with my husband, since one day in the not-too-distant future, we'll be on our own again.  We need to still like each other when that day comes.  We need to still feel connected, to remember who we are.  As we were walking back to our car after lunch, Dan mentioned that he thinks he should schedule a week of vacation where he can just do a bunch of nothing too taxing every year.  I think he's right.  I also think when he takes that week, I'll take a personal day so we can do a bunch of nothing together.

Because sometimes, a bunch of nothing is really something.

There's a Reason I'm Not an Art Teacher

As a teacher, I'm pretty good at many things.  I have great relationships with the kids in my class.  I can talk books like nobody's business.  I can look at student writing and see what lessons need to happen next.

But I am not an art teacher.

Behold:

My "confused" person looks drunk.  For real.  I'm kind of surprised no adult in my school has commented on it.  If you enlarge the picture, his eyes are spirals.  Why on earth did I choose to draw that picture that way?

These were my drawings during today's introduction to measurement.  What the heck?  If I hadn't taught the lesson, I wouldn't know what these things were supposed to be!









These are just two of my sad attempts at drawing in my classroom.  I am very comfortable admitting that I can't draw to save my life.  I'm okay with it.  I own it.

And I think it's important for my students to see that.  So many of them are caught up with getting it "right" or always being perfect.  It's important for them to see that sometimes, a quick draft or sketch is all that's necessary, and those will be far from perfect.  It's important for them to see an adult being vulnerable and doing something outside his/her comfort zone.

How can I expect my kids to take risks if I am unable to take them myself?

Teacher AND Learner

Today, kids across Illinois had the day off of school to commemorate Casimir Pulaski.  Don't know who he is?  You can read about this Revolutionary War general here.  In my school district, the kids are off, but the teachers have an inservice day.  This year, we started the day with a whole-district presentation about supporting students with anxiety disorders in the classroom.  It was interesting and informative, but it certainly wasn't interactive.  The presenters left about two minutes for questions.

Following that presentation, the elementary teachers left and went to another building to have EdCamp D28.  I was on the committee that organized this day, and I was a bit nervous going in.  I don't know of many of my colleagues who have attended an EdCamp, and I wasn't sure how the day would go.  As a committee, we made the decision to pre-fill part of the schedule by asking teachers ahead of time for session ideas.  We had about 18 different options, which was great!

Our district places a high value on student voice and choice in our classrooms, and it was awesome to see that value reflected in our PD day.  As I moved through sessions, it seemed some teachers were more comfortable with the "unconference" aspect of EdCamp than others, which is to be expected for the first time.  I hope our district will do more days like this, so that teachers will feel empowered to make choices about their own professional learning.

I plan on wearing my "Team 28" tee shirt with pride throughout the rest of this school year.  I think it sends an important message about who I am.  I am a teacher AND a learner.  I think that is one of the things that keeps teaching fresh for me after 23 years.  I seek to learn something new every.single.day.  People who know me know I own almost every literacy-based book in both the Heinemann and Stenhouse catalogs (and I'm making a dent on the math ones).  I love going to conferences to learn from not only the big guns in the ed world but also everyday classroom teachers.  I love participating in Twitter chats to get new ideas and challenge my own thinking about what I do in my classroom every day. I love participating in labs that take me into colleagues classrooms.

Maybe that's part of the reason I became a teacher.  If I teach, I never have to leave school!  I can continue to be surrounded by books and pencils and markers and kids and other adults who are just as nerdy as I am.

I am a teacher and a learner.
And I hope that never changes.

Friday in Third

Friday afternoon in third grade is a world away from Monday. Today my kids were super chatty all day, and not in that good "I'm excited about my learning" way.  They couldn't keep their hands to themselves.  As we walked through the hallways, our line looked more like a giant anaconda than the straight quiet line our hallway expectations posters ask for.  They kept falling off of their chairs; it didn't matter if the chair was a regular chair, a wobble stool, or a yoga ball.  We all know that once one kid slipped off the chair at least five more were sure to follow.  It's funny.

I didn't think it was funny.  I was annoyed.  As the day went on, I could feel my patience slipping away.  I could feel the sarcasm creeping into my brain, and I had to actively stop my mouth from letting sarcastic, zinging words past my lips.  During my afternoon prep, I didn't make myself work.  Instead, I sat in my classroom and just let myself BE.  I scrolled through my Twitter feed.  I read a National Geographic Kids magazine.

On Mondays, I am energized, ready to go for the week, my head full of plans.
On Fridays, I am spent, energy exerted, my head full of wishes for a weekend of quiet and relaxation.

Of course, as a mom of a teenager and an almost teenager, a wife, and a homemaker, my weekends are rarely full of quiet and relaxation.  Tonight I will begin to tackle my weekend to-do list:  menu plan for next week, make the grocery list, tidy, vacuum, laundry, lesson planning.  There's always a list, and there's always at least one thing that doesn't get done.  And I'm ok with that.

Because I will take some time for me this weekend.  That might look like binge-watching some episodes of Downton Abbey.  It might be a nap on Saturday afternoon.  It might be finding a book to lose myself in.  It will definitely involve conversation, laughter, and at least one glass of wine.

Because I have to recharge.

Because I have to be energized, ready for the week, my head full of plans on Monday.

Working Smarter... And Harder

Here I am... my fifth go at the Slice of Life Story Challenge.  Every year I look forward to the arrival of the SOLSC, because it means warmer weather and spring are just around the corner.  Every year I think maybe THIS will be the year the writing habit will stick.  So far, no dice.

Earlier this week, I was looking through my Twitter feed (no surprise there), and quoted a tweet that struck me.  It led to this exchange:

When I read Dana's response, my first thought was "That would be a great Slice of Life entry!"  So here goes... how my school life is different as a third grade teacher than it was as a literacy coach or even as a 7th grade teacher.

I look at this work load as two separate entities:  things I do at school and the work I bring home.

In some respects, the work I bring home is not that much more than what I brought home as a coach.  In my life before literacy coaching, I was a seventh grade language arts teacher.  My home workload for those 18 years was CRAZY!  It was not uncommon for me to spend a good 6 hours on Sunday afternoons/evenings grading and planning.  As a coach, my homework was mostly reading professional books and journals, doing data analysis after our fall and spring benchmarking, and planning for PD workshops and book studies.  Most of my other planning I could do during the school day when I wasn't in classrooms or meeting with teachers.  As a third grade teacher, I spend about 45 minutes or less in the evening looking over student work from the day, and on Sundays I spend an hour or two planning and getting ready for the week ahead.  I don't mind doing this work at home, because by the end of the school day, I am beat.  I need some decompression time!

It's during the school day that I notice a HUGE change in the work load.  It's true that I see far fewer students (18 versus the 60 or so I saw daily at the junior high) and I have a paraprofessional with me daily for my literacy and math blocks.  However, I am with kids more total minutes each day now as a third grade teacher than I used to be as a JH teacher and definitely as a coach.  Teaching elementary school is a full-contact job!  My specials periods are 30 minutes each, so after walking the kids to PE or art and then going to pick them up and walk them back after, I lose about 10 minutes.  That gives me 20 minutes to make calls, grade, answer emails, check my mailbox, and do all the other things that teachers do during their planning periods.  There are days when I think back on my daily 40 to 80 minutes of plan time with great longing.  I won't lie.

The mental work of teaching elementary school is also more exhausting.  As a middle school teacher, I taught the same lesson multiple times.  I could make adjustments to make a lesson go better, but I wasn't teaching something new each period.  Now, I teach all subjects, so I NEVER repeat a lesson.  Add that to the fact that I am teaching math and science for the first time EVER, and you can see why my brain is exhausted at the end of the day.

That being said, I LOVE my new gig.  I find learning the new curriculum and working with my grade level team to be invigorating.  Third graders are sponges that soak up everything.  They are excited about learning.  They laugh when I'm goofy - and I can BE goofy with them in ways I never could be with older kids.  I have learned this year that I NEED to be in the company of children daily.  I might get tired, but it's the good kind of tired.

So there you go, Dana.  My long answer to your short question!

Now.. who has a question for me to answer tomorrow?

Thinking About a Job Well Done

Today my classes finished their study of feature articles.  We spent a couple of weeks reading and analyzing feature articles from various magazines and talking about what qualities separated a good feature article from a not-so-good one.  We examined text features and how they help the reader make sense of information.  We explored introductions and conclusions.  Finally, my students thought about topics they were interested in learning more about, researched those topics, and wrote their own feature articles.

I love this genre study.  It's fairly short, easy to find mentor texts, and it's a genre that most of my students have not explored before.  Another bonus?  I get to read articles about 60 different topics!  Nothing boring or tedious about that.  Today as students were reflecting on their learning over the course of the unit, I walked around the room and peeked at their finished products.  They look fabulous, and I know that there's lots of great writing in that pile papers, since I had conversations with the kids as they wrote. 

The best part of today?  Seeing the proud smiles of my seventh graders as they said to me, "Mrs. Rench... look at this!  Isn't it great?"

And I think to myself, Yes, dear students, it is.  But for more reasons than you think.