AllStudentsLearn.com

Pencils, pencils, pencils!

9/18/2014

This school year has started out in a sprint!!! I am teaching 3rd-4th grade this year and I have a wonderful group of 30 students to meet me each morning! They are funny and eager to learn and I know that this year will be great! One thing I have done differently this year is the way I organize the pencils!

Every year I struggled to keep sharp pencils in the hands of my students! I have tried pencil cans on each table, using a pencil sharpening assistant and, in the upper grades, making each student be responsible for getting his or her own pencils ready for the day....but all of those strategies have failed and left me feeling frustrated and annoyed because, without fail, someone was always left without a sharp pencil right when they needed it!!

Well, this year, I have a new system!!! And so far I LOVE it!!!!

I bought a straw dispenser online, decorated it with cute paper and...voila!

One turn of the little crank and a sharp pencil appears! I also added a cute eraser jar....

And the pencil sharpening system is complete!

I told each student to keep 2-3 pencils in their pencil box. When a pencil breaks, they have extras at their desk. When all the pencils are ready to be sharpened, they exchange however many they need with new sharp ones! At the end of the day, I have all the need-to-be-sharpened pencils in the pink can right next to my high-powered sharpener (not for student use) so I can get them all sharpened in about 5 minutes!

A few kinks to work out:
1. Sometimes the pencils get stuck in the dispenser. To unstick them, just push up from the bottom. Or turn the crank the other way to dislodge the jam. Also the rule is that the students must remove the cute erasers from the pencils that need to be sharpened. (This also helped solve the problem of students getting into that eraser jar 10 times a day--they treated that eraser jar like a candy jar!)

2. Do I have to sharpen those pencils ALL YEAR?? The answer is no. This year all the teachers at my school got a high-powered sharpener as a gift from our principal (Yay!!! Thank you!!!!) Soon I will teach some responsible students to take over that job for me!

So far, we are 11 days into the school year and it is working like a charm! After a few days of training and daily reminders about being responsible, I finally have a pencil system that works!!! And it only took 14 years to figure it out!

Thanks for reading!
Happy Teaching!
--Stephanie Griffith

2 Comments

August Musings.....

8/13/2014

3 Comments

Summer is almost over! I know some of my friends are already back to school (California started so early!!) but many of us are still enjoying the lazy days of summer. I have taken this summer to recharge my batteries so I can fully enjoy the new group of students that I will meet in exactly 3 weeks. I have done some traveling, camping, hiking, biking, reading, cleaning and gardening...All the things that I think I don't have time for once school gets started again.

I hope that during this school year I am able to maintain some balance. Instead of thinking that summer is over and so is all the fun, I have to continue doing the things that have made me so happy this summer: hanging out with friends, exploring the city, experiencing nature, sitting with my thoughts. By not letting school stress overwhelm me, I should be able to maintain high energy levels and enthusiasm all year--both of which are important elements of my classroom environment.

To all my friends who have already returned to school and to all my friends who soon will, I hope you will keep some 'summer' in your spirit. After all...don't we have the best job in the world?

Happy Teaching!
Steph

PS....Check out my June blog about all the changes I made to my website this summer!!

Sheep Rock Unit at John Day Fossil Beds in Central Oregon

View from the top of the Fremont Bridge at the Portland Bridge Pedal

3 Comments

Welcome back to the new AllStudentsLearn.com!

6/21/2014

1 Comment

It has been a long time since I have published something on my blog. After a rough school year that left me feeling depleted and discouraged, I decided that it was time to start fresh. This summer will revitalize me and I will be ready to go back to school with new vigor and excitement! So I decided that I also had to clean up my website and give it a fresh look too!

Here are some of the new things you should check out!

1. I cleaned up my Home, Classroom and Classroom Library pages and made them easier to navigate.

2. I deleted some personal things about me....mostly because there are weirdos out there that might use that information in a less than desireable way.

3. The Character Education page is also cleaned up a bit. This summer I will add the rest of the skits for purchase, so if you are interested in creating a Character Ed program in your school, this is the page to look at!

4. I added a page!! My mom has been hard at work creating the I Speak English board game for her adult ESL students to learn and practice English! If you work with ESL students or adults, then check out this page for more information!

I am excited for this fresh start and look forward to sharing ideas and creating new products that will help other teachers in their classrooms and schools! Have a Happy Summer and I can't wait to share more with you!!

--Stephanie

1 Comment

Summer Wrap Up

8/21/2013

0 Comments

Wow! Time sure flies during the summer! One minute it was the last day of school and now....I am looking forward to school starting again in a few weeks. Here is what I have been doing over the summer.....

It has been a fun-filled, exciting summer and I feel rejuvenated as I get ready to start this next school year. But, since summer isn't OFFICIALLY over......I think I'll have time for one last hurrah before I have to go back to school!!

Cheers!!!

0 Comments

Camp Stepping Stones

8/14/2013

0 Comments

Camp Stepping Stones is a Reading, Writing and Art Camp that I created last year for Lamb students going into 4th and 5th grade. This summer was our second year and, again, it was a huge success! Although the camp was originally meant for 4th and 5th graders, there was so much interest this year that we opened the doors to 2nd and 3rd graders as well. Here is a quick snapshot of what our summer was like:

Week One Theme: Birthday Celebrations
Students started and ended each day with Campfire where we sang songs and talked about the day. Then students went to small groups for Reading and Writing. In Reading students read about different Birthday Celebrations around the world. In Writing students wrote fictional stories with a birthday party as the setting. We all came together for Snack and Art. This week's art projects were The Princess and the Pea and Robots. On Friday our special snack was roasting marshmallows to make S'mores!! Yummy!!!

Week Two Theme: Dinosaurs
Week Two followed the same format as Week One but with the theme of Dinosaurs. Students started and ended each day with Campfire. In Reading students learned about extinction theories, extreme dinosaur features and the life of a paleontologist. In Writing students wrote non-fiction reports about a fictional dinosaur. This week's art projects were One Point Perspective: Then and Now and Dinosaur Chalk Art. On Friday we made S'mores again! Double yummy!!!

I was so fortunate to have such a dedicated work force that made this camp possible: Lupe and Rosa were my camp partners--they handled Reading while I focused on Writing.

We had eight high school volunteers who gave up part of their summer to support our students. And we had three moms (mine included!) who came to help with snack and clean up.

Thank you to everyone who made this camp possible! See you next year!!

**For more information about Camp Stepping Stones, visit www.campsteppingstones.com

0 Comments

Life in Perspective

5/23/2013

0 Comments

Today was not one of my better days. It started out ok but then a series of events made me feel like going to bed and waiting for Friday. But then I read a blog post from a high school friend of mine that helped me breathe a little easier. After replying to her post, I decided to share my experience here:

Your post had perfect timing. I had a mini-meltdown when I got home from school today due to:
*my morning sub gave me a bad behavior report
*my oil pastels were missing (which I had bought with my own money, then loaned out to someone who didn't return them, then found in the school art supply room in a state of disaster) and I wasn't able to do the art I wanted to do today
*rain+traffic+lame drivers=seriously, slower traffic move right!!!!!
*accidents on the carpet due to dogs locked up because they bark during the day (which we recently discovered through a mean letter sent by a neighbor after they complained to one another but not to us so that we had no idea this was happening because we WORK ALL DAY!!!!!)
*my phone freezing up just when I wanted to text someone so I could rant out my frustrations!!

...and then I read your post.

*My students will be better behaved tomorrow. Subs make for a weird day.
*The oil pastels were found and can be re-organized by my students when we use them tomorrow.
*I should have slowed down and practiced a little bit of patience while driving. It was raining pretty hard.
*Our dogs are awesome and it's only carpet. Plus they were really happy to see me even when I was a jerk.
*My phone un-froze and I could text successfully. Ranting was unnecessary.

Life has been put into perspective. Thank you.

I guess sometimes we all need a little perspective. This one came to me just when I needed it most!! Happy day everyone!!

0 Comments

Sing with Me

5/21/2013

0 Comments

I strongly believe that teaching the character traits is just as important as teaching reading, writing and math. I have been so fortunate this year to have a class that has really engaged in the character education curriculum with me. As we approach the end of the school year, I have been looking for ways to continue to teach character education in a fun and memorable way.

One activity that we have really enjoyed is singing the monthly character trait songs from my website. This month we are focused on Perseverance. Every morning after announcements, we pull up the music and the lyrics and we sing along with the song. Afterwards, we have conversations about how to use the character trait in our daily life. The students usually request that we sing it twice, and on Fridays, we review the songs from the past months.

It is a very simple addition to our morning routine but it is one that we all look forward to. During this calm activity, we are connected to one another as we sing the words. We each have our favorite lines and we laugh together when someone sings the wrong words or off key. It has become a lovely way to start the morning and a great reminder of how we should treat others since we will spend the next six hours together.

I really enjoy this time with my students. It makes me feel good that they like singing the character trait songs and it supports my philosophy of providing character education to my students. With only fifteen day left in this school year, this will be one of the activities that I will miss most during the summer.

--To listen to the Character Trait songs, click here. Then send me a message--let me know what you think!

0 Comments

Goal Setting Challenge

5/6/2013

0 Comments

I love having goals. Goals give me something to work toward and they give purpose to whatever it is I am doing. However, I am not so good at writing them down. I have good intentions, but then I get busy or I forget to do it. As I continue reading The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, I am reminded that writing down goals is much more important than I had thought:

Unsuccessful people carry their goals around in their head like marbles rattling around in a can...
--Darren Hardy
The Compound Effect, page 71

Yikes! Does that describe me? I decided that I was going to do something to change my bad habit of not writing down my goals!

A few months ago, some friends and I discussed goal-setting and the different ways that we go about doing it. One friend suggested an acronym that might help us organize our goal setting system: CO-FISHES. The letters stand for:

C--Career
O--Organization
F--Family
I--Intelligence
S--Social
H--Health
E--Economics
S--Spiritual

These represent the different areas of your life that need to be developed and nurtured. If one part of your life is out of balance, then eventually all the other areas will be affected as well. This seemed like a good system to start with and, since Career is something that I spend so much time doing, I decided to focus on that area first.

I started by organizing my notebook into the eight focus areas. Then, in the Career tab, I set my Career goals. These are the things I want to accomplish in my Career and why they are important to me. This is my WHAT and my WHY. On the second page, I wrote how I am going to achieve those goals. What steps do I need to take to be successful in this area? This is my HOW.

I only got through the C and O today but already I feel like I am closer to reaching my goals. Writing them down and articulating what I want helped me find clarity and focus. In just one day, I feel calmer and more organized in my life and, as I reflect on and continue the process of setting goals, I will be better able to monitor and adjust them. Already, the simple act of writing down my goals is making a positive difference!!

--Do you write down your goals? What challenges do you face when it comes to goal-setting? Share your experience here!

0 Comments

Owning 100 Percent

5/1/2013

0 Comments

Inspiration comes at odd times and from surprising places. Sometimes it sneaks upon you and other times it hits like a ton of bricks. For me it all started after spring break....April was a busy month. Testing has been in full-swing and the pressure is on to get everything done before the end of the school year. Unfortunately, to add to my stress, my students have not been behaving in a respectful way. I tried being nice, then I tried being mean--and finally...just when I felt myself ready to snap, I read a passage from The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy that changed my thinking entirely.

In his book, Hardy writes that even small changes to your routine or your thinking can have a huge impact on the future outcomes. In chapter 2 of his book, where he writes about choices, he says:
If I always took 100 percent responsibility for everything I experienced--
completely owning all of my choices and all the ways I responded to whatever
happened to me--I held the power. Everything was up to me. I was
responsible for everything I did, didn't do, or how I responded to what was
done to me.

This was what I needed to hear to snap me out of my funk! I was playing the victim.
I was frustrated with my class and was blaming them for their poor behavior....and yet, deep down, I knew that I was at least partly to blame--Had I been consistent? Had I followed through with consequences? Was I being a good model of positive behavior?

I decided right then that I was going to change the way I responded to my class. I would give them 100% even if they gave me nothing in return. As I reflected on the past month, I realized that I had been focusing on their negative behaviors instead of the positive. I had been telling the kids everything they were doing wrong and I was forgetting to tell them what they were doing right!!

So yesterday I walked into my classroom with a new jump in my step. I bought a roll of blue tickets (and called them Caught-ya Cards) and some small prizes for my new prize drawers. For the whole day I was going to catch my students doing the right thing!

When students walked in the door, I shared my plan with them. I apologized for finding all their faults; I intrigued them with my prize drawers; I complimented them on their wonderful behavior. And do you know what happened?

We had the BEST day!! Kids and Teacher were happy! We worked together in a way that I knew we could but hadn't seen in a while. The power of taking responsibility for my own actions and using positive reinforcement to engage my students changed the energy in my classroom almost instantly.

Today will be another new day. I look forward to seeing my students this morning and continuing what we started yesterday. Although April seemed to be the month that would never end, May looks bright and sunny. I will give 100%!

--Thank you for following my blog. I apologize for the inconsistent postings. As I get better at blogging and creating a schedule for myself, I hope to improve the consistency of my writing! Thanks for hanging with me!!

0 Comments

Pioneer Hats

4/17/2013

0 Comments

After spring break, I started the Oregon Trail Unit with my third and fourth graders. So far it has been really fun! Students have learned about who travelled west, why they moved and what they brought with them. Now we are learning about the hardships of the trail. Each morning, when we are ready to begin, I play the theme song from "Bonanza" as students grab their supplies. To clean up, I play the theme song from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". The music has really helped set the mood for the unit.

For even more fun, each student made a Pioneer Hat that they can wear during class time that identifies which wagon train he/she is travelling with. The hats were easy to make and have helped students get into character as their Oregon Trail "family" is travelling west.

Here are the steps for making a Pioneer Hat. Of course, we used them for the Oregon Trail, but I know other teachers have used them with other themes. Depending on the color and the way you roll the paper, these hats could be perfect for any occasion!

First cut a large piece of butcher paper. Place it on head with the
curl facing down.

Wrap the paper around the head.
Hold in place.

Wrap masking tape around the
head two times. Place tape
around the forehead and above
the ears.

Gently roll the edges up. Roll tightly
and close to the head for a boy hat.
Roll loosely and leave longer for a girl
hat.

Voila!!

Fun hats for any occasion!!

I modeled this activity once in front of the whole class and then let the kids work in groups to make the hats for each other. My IAs (I had 2 during this time) and I walked around and supported as needed. The only supplies you need are large sheets of paper (enough to cover the head of the child) and masking tape for each group. Have fun!!

--If you have any ideas that go along with the Oregon Trail and Pioneer Hats, share them here!! Thanks for reading!!

0 Comments

<<Previous

Pencils, pencils, pencils!

August Musings.....

Welcome back to the new AllStudentsLearn.com!

Summer Wrap Up

Camp Stepping Stones

Life in Perspective

Sing with Me

Goal Setting Challenge

Owning 100 Percent

Pioneer Hats

Author

Archives

Categories

AllStudentsLearn.com Contact me by Email