Ms. M's Tales of a Teacher: My Personal Teacher Blog

 Recently I've been thinking about my anchor charts for Reading Workshop as we near the end of the school year. I confess, I am not an expert on making anchor charts. I don't have the neatest handwriting, and for sure I cannot draw (and my students let me know it!) but what I do know is that having anchor charts that are meaningful and helpful are essential to the workshop model, since students use them as reference as they read and write.  What I did the past two years was create small charts on regular printer paper (8.5 x 11) first, and then transfer it over to larger poster paper in class. It helped me with my planning to make them while my mini-lesson was fresh in my mind. Along the way I encountered a few things:  I color coded certain parts of the chart for different pieces of information  I started to use second person "you" and then transferred over to first-person "I" midway. This led me to go back and recreate the anchor charts to match the first...

After every presentation or podcast I do I always like to pause and reflect on how I did and how I can improve for next time. Two examples come to mind when I think of this. Firstly, my presentation in March on Demystifying Teaching Reading, and secondly, my most recent podcast discussion for the New Teacher Talk podcast in which I spoke about family communication.  Right after I presented for the pre-serve and early educators for my chapter of KDP on reading, I asked two of my colleagues for feedback (since they too wanted to attend!) I was grateful to have a meaningful conversation with my co-teacher on my presentation. True to character, he made a "great let's repeat" and "let's change it up" list for me, which I value when reflecting on how I can be better. It wasn't until this past week however, when I watched an outstanding webinar by Dr. Terrie Noland titled " How to Stop the 'I'm Just a Teacher' Mantra That Fuels Burnout." ...

 Has anyone else been noticing lately that as the spring settles in it's been more difficult to focus on work? I know I am definitely "hitting my wall" and so are my students. March is a long stretch without breaks, and as the time passed on through the month, I noticed their focusing levels were decreasing. I know this time every year it's even more important to include "brain breaks" throughout the day.  As teachers, we rarely sit- let's face it, I don't think we ever do! But for students, most of their day consists of sitting, even if they are on the carpet for a read aloud or working in small groups. I always feel the days where they have related arts such as music, they need more breaks because even that class asks them to sit for a lesson. Physical Ed. is the only class students get to move around besides their short recess periods.  What makes a good brain break? I like to think first of movement- anything that gets them out of their seats and...

 Those that know me well know that I enjoy reading about the Science of Reading (SoR) and the structured approaches to teaching reading. It is my firm belief that students need explicit, systematic and multi-sensory instruction in grades Pre-K- 2 in order to establish a foundation of reading. This helps them to "crack the code" and therefore learn to read independently. It is also my hope that because students feel confident in their skills from learning strategies to decode words and understand their meanings, they establish a love for reading. One of the texts I am enjoying right now is Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates. This book has been a great support so far to me, since we use the Workshop model in our school. I've used this "deep dive" opportunity to learn strategies to integrate into the model we have to deliver effective instructional practices.  Having a foc...

If you've read some of my other blog posts before, you probably know by now I have a co-teacher. He and I have worked together for the past three years, and we hope to continue to work together in the future.  We've done presentations on co-teaching during virtual learning, co-teaching in both in-person and virtual environments, and shared our experiences how we work together to establish a relationship as well as plan for instruction. Our mythical twist, Ferny the Dragon has inspired us to continue to be creative, and I must say I am excited for some things we are going to try and work on in the summer.  As both teachers and reading specialists/ literacy coaches, teaching reading to our students is high up on the priority list.  One thing that we often talk about is our literacy blocks during the school day. We work together to organize small groups for phonics, vocabulary, fluency, guided reading, strategy groups and independent conferring. It's...

 Today my blog comes from a personal place in my heart. As a special education teacher, differentiating instruction for my students with learning diversities has been something I've prided myself on for most of my career. I pride myself on the ability to differentiate the same homework assignment up to five different ways so all students have access. I spend a considerable amount of time reviewing assessments for the math curriculum to make sure it reflects exact skills taught from the lesson.  Then I sit back and think to myself, "what more can I do?" I know I am doing my best, and please believe me for all my new(er) teachers out there, learning how to differentiate and thinking creatively does not come quickly or easily. I myself am still learning how to improve this part of my craft and include new ideas and technologies to help. For me, the most common group I neglect are my above-level students.  As I shared before I do offer challenge level work to students who wou...

 Happy New Year fellow educators! I know what you must be thinking... here is another "inspirational fad blog post" to get me going for the new year that I'll skim through and see the same thing as I did in all the other blogs I visit.  Maybe for some of you, my blog might slip into that category, but I can promise that is not my intention. My goal here is to give you a few brief thinking points to bring with you in your "teacher bag" as the new year starts.  Technically, it is NOT a new year for us. Our academic year is about mid-way through, and for us, September is when we get our fresh start. So what to do with resolutions? Here are my thoughts; if you want to make one great! If not, guess what?!? That's OK TOO! As teachers we reflect daily on our practice, review data, and make informed decisions when it comes to instruction. Then we think creatively and put our ideas into action in order to achieve a certain goal, provide more support, and increase ove...