100th Day of School - 2019

Image from here.

Today we celebrated our 100th day of school!  We had so much fun!

I decided that I was going to have my name on me 100 times - because I'm pretty sure I hear my name AT LEAST 100 times a day!

 

Shout out to the Bar-T staff for helping me with my back!

I even put baby powder in my hair.....

Some of my students dressed the part today too!

During the morning and part of the afternoon, the students rotated through seven centers.

Note:  We had so much fun that I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to, but here is what I have!

Center #1: Draw a picture with the digits 1, 0, 0.  I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it was so cute!

Center #2: 100 chain links.  (I think we made more than 100!)  We were going to see how long it was and identify items that were longer / shorter / taller / smaller than our chain, but we ran out of time.

Center #3:  The students wrote what they would do if they had $100. 

Center #4: 100 hearts - students traced and cut out hearts.  Then they wrote kind things on them.  We didn't quite get to 100, but I will have the students finish them tomorrow during Valentine's Day.  

Center #5: Students collaborated to complete a 100 piece puzzle!  The puzzle didn't get finished until the last rotation - how lucky were we!

Center #6: Students created 100 Lincoln Hats.  The students are going to measure items using the Lincoln hats.

Center #7:  The students drew pictures of themselves at age 100! (Thanks to third grade for letting us borrow the mirrors!)

After the centers were finished, my teammate brought her class down.  A former teammate of ours who is retired, came in and read The Wolf's Chicken Stew.  If you've never read it, it's so cute!  The wolf is trying to fatten up a chicken so he can make a tasty stew.  He makes 100 doughnuts, 100 pancakes, and a cake that weighs 100 pounds!  I won't give away the ending - but it's fabulous!

After reading the story, we made our OWN stew!  (I found this idea here and modified it. slightly.)
We used popcorn, pretzels, Goldfish, Cheeze-its, Kix, Cheerios, Fruit Loops, Raisins, marshmallows, and M & M's. 

After mixing it up in a big bag, each student got a cup full to eat while they watched Emily's First 100 Days of School.

All in all, it was an AMAZING 100th day of school! 
Now I need to switch gears and get ready for our Valentine's Party tomorrow!

Take care!
~Stacey~

Student Led Conferences

                                                                   Image from here.

Parent - teacher conferences? How do you think people feel about them? For me, it was one of the most nerve wracking times of the year. "I hope that my parents like me!" "I hope I don't say the wrong thing!" "I hope they tell me their child likes my class!"

I would put together a list of things I had to say for each student, but I was so nervous, I rushed though everything! After answering their questions, the parents asked, "That's it?" To tell you the truth, I felt bad with how quickly I got through the conferences - I could have done better. I could have shown them more examples of their child's work...

I remember as a child, we were not allowed to attend conferences. It was ONLY for parents. While that may have been okay when we were kids, the world has changed quite a bit. When I started teaching more than 13 years ago, it was strictly parent(s) and teacher - or rather, it was supposed to be. Every year it seemed more and more parents brought their children with them - and often times it was your student along with all of their siblings!

This was *one of* the reasons my principal had us make the switch to student led conferences. Yes, every class K-5 in our school holds student led conferences! (Reminder - I teach first.)

First let me start off by telling you what I tell parents at back to school night:

"We don’t hold traditional conferences here. Instead, we hold student led conferences. There are two reasons we do this. The first reason is, if we had an issue or concern about your child, we would have contacted you well before November.

The second reason is that this gives the students a chance to share their learning with you. Think about it: How many times do you ask your child what they did at school and they say 'nothing' or 'I don't know!' Now you'll actually find out! They do an amazing job!

Since these are student led conferences, we are able to have multiple conferences going on at once."


Yes, you read that last line correctly. We have multiple conferences going on at once! I have the parents sign up on sign up genius. (I post the link on Class Dojo.) For parents who don't sign up, I send home a form for them to fill out and then I sign them up on sign up genius. Here is a preview of what my sign up genius looks like:

As you can see, for each time I have four slots available. I like to set my conference times so every half hour I can have a new batch of families. I have my first conference starting at 4:00 and my last conference ending at 7:00. What's really great about using this website is you can have the website automatically send an email reminder to parents!

To accommodate having upwards of four families in my room, I have my room set up so each family is in a different part of my classroom. Note:  There are times a family might come in early or late.  That is fine - I generally have another spot or two they can sit. 

For families who bring their other children with them, I have paper and crayons available to keep them busy. Sometimes I take out Play-Doh.

I'm sure you all are thinking, "Enough with the signing up! What does it look like? What are students supposed to present or show? What are they supposed to say?"
I've got you covered.

I have a notebook for each student. K-2 mainly uses notebooks. Grades 3-5 mainly use Chromebooks. I know of others who use the Portfolios feature on Class Dojo.

Throughout the year, I put papers in their notebooks that show a variety of their strengths and weaknesses. There are other things I have / currently put in there for students to share:

• Our school's mission statement
• Our school rules and our classroom rules
• A monthly scrapbook where students write something they did each month of school. They simply write a sentence or two and then illustrate it.
• At the end of the year they write, "In first grade I learned and in second grade I hope to learn..."
• A place for students to write out their goals for the year
• Things they can do well / things they want to be better at
• A list of sight words where the ones they know are highlighted
• A graph of their reading level for each month of school
• Their own personal report card of how they think they are doing in various subjects and with how they work
• A reflection piece at the end where the parents write how they think their child is doing and the child writes how they think they are doing

Several of those items above, I have translated into Spanish as we have a high population of Spanish speaking families.  

Here are some resources from Teachers Pay Teachers that I've used before:

First Grade Data Binder
Organizer for Data and Reading
Pre-Conference Survey

Other things my students have shared before:

• Words Their Way Journal
• Writing journal
• Math Minutes binder
• Special projects we've done in class
• A book from their guided reading group

Pick and choose what works best for you!

The next step - prepping your students!

In the week leading up to conferences, I practice with my class. I'm lucky enough to have a co-teacher so when I introduce this to my class, I'm the student and I share my data notebook (a notebook belonging to one of my students,) with my "mom," (co-teacher.) If my co-teacher isn't available, I'll pick a student to be my mom or dad. The students love seeing us act! Then I have the students practice with me (as the majority of the first pages are the same for everyone.) I will have to record this next year and upload it to this blog.

After practicing as a whole class a couple of times, I have the students pair up and practice with each other. My co-teacher and I will also pull the students and practice with them.





I even have my students whose parents speak Spanish, practice in Spanish!
 
It's kind of tiring, but it's so worth it when you see the looks of the parents as their children share with them what they have learned! They are truly so proud of their children!

I've had parents in (happy) TEARS because they had no idea what their child had learned or was capable of doing before until they saw them in action during conferences. I've had parents tell me that this type of conference really helps them understand their child's strengths and weaknesses. This opens up a very healthy conversation of "How can I help my child?" The relationship that blossoms between students, their families, and teachers is a beautiful one!

I've been holding student led conferences for over ten years - and I can't imagine doing it any other way!

I hope you all have a wonderful day!
Feel free to drop a line with questions or comments!
~Stacey~