Wanting to Procrastinate, But Not

I waffle between procrastinator and overachiever. Depending on the task, I'll either get right on it or I'll let it slide a ways down the line. Sometimes I'll do a combination of both- start uber early before ultimately letting the task wither on the vine a bit. School prep is one of those combination items. I do a little bit before school gets out, since the information is so fresh and I often have ideas for how to revise my practice heading into the following year. But I want to take a break, and typically take a few weeks- depends on myriad of factors, but 3-5 weeks where I do little school work.

All of that said, once August hits I start to get restless. As much as I say I'd like to never work- running, reading, playing everyday instead- I end up starting to want to work. In the past 5 days I've gone into school for about 5 hours in order to do some room setup. I prefer to do that stuff without the hammer of the start of school hanging over me- many will do all setup during their first week back. I tend to need more space to get it done, freedom from folks interrupting or planning for the year. The planning tends to be my first week back stuff, a chance to really dig in without stressing about classroom environment.

This year I move out to a portable. I'm excited about the move, since previously I was in a shared space. This gives me more more wall space, as well as a lower ceiling and the ability to hang things from it (student work, etc). I think it is roughly the same square footage, if not slightly larger. In the end it will be nice. I'm unconcerned about the fact that it is outside of the building, therefore meaning we will lose a little bit of instructional time. Assuming I plan for it with my teammates, it shouldn't be a huge issue. Some of our swapping of kids could be challenging since that means lugging binders and notebooks around. But I think it will work out just fine after some initial adjustment.

Below are a few pictures of the room. It is what you'd see looking in from the door, panning left to right. This is before getting things put away, but is a rough idea of what the space looks like. Lots of table space! There is a gap by the circle table in the first picture because that is where our netbook cart will be going (cart of 16- the other cart will be in the other portable). I am also relatively sure that my 3 groups of 6 will be trimmed since I likely won't have 30+ kids, and we don't have spare desks. Let me know what you think.

Sorting Through the Rubble

Today was as good a day as any to organize my classroom. My wife was in literacy trainings, and the clouds looked (although weren't) threatening. I want to dig into curriculum work, but really want to get through some clutter first. The goal was to take my classroom from assortment of miscellaneous furniture to being an organized assortment of miscellaneous furniture that looks like a classroom. I think I accomplished that goal.

Above are two images of what my classroom looked like post-school year, and post-cleaning. There are a few issues I wanted to resolve. The first I resolved a few weeks before, and can be seen in the first image: put the computers against the wall. When the tables are perpindicular to the wall they jut out, and allow for kids to play with the cords. Who doesn't like to pull out a mouse cord, or unplug a monitor?! The second thing I needed to do was create a space for my student "mailboxes." Perhaps that deserves a second post entirely, but I really struggled with take home mail routines. Kids get returned work or some announcements (usually the latter is once a week) put in their mailboxes, but rarely take them home. My thought was that it was due to the clunky tall blue mailboxes (kinda blurry in the picture on the left) that were positioned away from the door. I needed to rectify that situation!

Above are three shots, from left to right of my classroom (while standing on my desk!). You can see a few things: first is that I created a space by the door for my student take home mail. It is on a rectangular table that used to have two computers on it. In a game called "Musical Table Swap" I took the table in the first image up top (with nothing on it) and put two computers on it, thereby allowing me to move that to the door, and the table by the door to the center table group. I am not sure I'll keep that table there, but I might. I also was able to create space for an extra bookshelf (the far right side of the last picture) by moving it right by the door.

My three big organizational think-abouts for the next few days are: 1) How do I want to execute my student returned work, and mail process? 2) How do I want to use my wallspace effectively this year? and 3) Where can I create more space for new books in my classroom?

Organizing My Week

I have yet to find an order to my week that is to my liking. That statement was true until earlier today. To digress, one area I have been looking to hone in is how I organize my reading instruction. Previously it has been a hodgepodge of social studies instruction, literature circles, and word study.

I've used the non-fiction in social studies as my vehicle for reading strategies, and it has worked out ok. Literature circles came about as I said "oh goodness (perhaps another nasty word substituted there) fiction is a gaping hole! how can that be?!" The literature circles were an attempt to get kids reading fiction in a more holistic manner, as the 5th grade reader only presents part of books... and how do you really understand what an author is doing when you don't see the beginning, middle, and end? Word study was another "oh goodness..." sort of remark, since word derivations are a 5th grade standard (get it, derived?! word study joke!).

Looking at Guiding Readers today, I came to the realization that I have a basic structure already in place. My challenge is sticking to it, and picking out the most important pieces. What does that structure look like?

• Monday: Reader's Workshop- 5 to 10 minute mini-lesson; 50 minutes with guided reading groups, and including some reading response work towards the end.


• Tuesday: Social Studies- content and strategy work; critical thinking and response; writing with some use of Units of Study


• Wednesday: Word Work Wednesday- depends on the focus, but it has largely amounted to work with prefixes, suffixes, latin/greek roots, that sort of thing.


• Thursday: Social Studies- content and strategy work; critical thinking and response; writing with some use of Units of Study


• Friday: Social Studies- content and strategy work; critical thinking and response; writing with some use of Units of Study

Now in the Social Studies time the overall breakdown is 15 minutes of Independent/Guided Reading, and 40-45 minutes of content. That allows me to continue to work with readers and give them specific instruction tailored to their reading needs.

A few other things have become apparent. First is that I need to have kids organize their Social Studies journal. My plan is to use is as a reading/social studies journal, with kids keeping track of their work in a table of contents. This is already done in science, so it will be a continuation of that practice. I'll also be able to track their progress with kids leaving their journals for me to check periodically. The second piece is that I will need to be flexible in my use of that Friday time, allowing for kids to meet face to face with their literature circle group. I hope to pair this with the online component where they'll be blogging and message boarding. Organization will be key, particularly for me. The earlier I hone my process for the kids, the smoother this will go. The end should be more strategic instruction, and increased learning... or so I hope.

What to do?

Yesterday I needed to drive over to my district office. Since I was making the commute I figured I should stop by school to assess where my classroom is at. I stayed for about 40 minutes, and resisted the urge to start arranging furniture.

There are some furniture issues I want to take care of in the coming weeks. I have a cabinet, one that has a TV on it that I don't really want, which is difficult to organize. I'm considering building shelving for the inside of it, at least on the right side. The left side of it is my construction paper area. That is one issue. Another issue is that I need to make some changes to my book shelving. I have a few bookcases, two which are stacked, to hold most of my classroom library. The problem is that I have book sets that I need to better organize, and I buy books regularly (necessitating the purchase of another bookcase).

What else needs to happen? Physically I need to move some computers around to give greater access to my whiteboard (which is largely blocked). I need to clean out some leftover things that have accumulated, and which I don't want! That can be added onto the curricular pieces I want to work on. Alas, shutting down work for a few days before really pushing once August hits.