My Dream STEAM Room

Tables and Chairs: Smaller and movable so floor space can easily be made available. Storage: Shelves with labeled bins that can easily be removed and returned. Pegboard: For tools and materials students should not have instant access to. Whiteboard: To the floor so students can easily write ideas or problems on it. Also magnetic so it can be used for materials such as marble runs. Sand/Sensory Table: For messier projects but a bonus if there is a projector that can turn a sand table into a topographic map. Green Screen Wall: Painted wall with green stools and other green materials for student use. Unfinished Project Table: Storage for works in progress as well as materials in need of electrical outlets like CriCuts or 3D Printers.

Makers Space Specific Materials 3D Printer Dash and Dot Makedo MakeyMakey Cubetto Rigamajig Cricut Bloxels Snap Circuts Ozobot Poraxy Motors Keva Planks

There are so many great learning websites out there that allow students at home learning,
but many of them require logins or for you to begin a trial. Some teachers may already
have logins, but for parents this may mean adding a credit card to the site during your
trial or just receiving a large amount of emails. If you are trying to avoid this, I created
a list of sites that students can use without logging in and organized them by subject.
These sites are great but remember to get offline and spend some time going outside,
playing board games, reading paper books and spending time away from a screen. 

Reading

Scholastic Learn at Home- Created to help with this new online learning with free online,
cross-curricular reading lessons.

Storyline Online- Another great resource for young kids that has actors reading storybooks
out loud.

ABCYa- K-12 games games for reading skills, as well as math games and other fun skills. 

Math

Funbrain-Math games for different concepts. 

Math Playground- More Math games.

Education Worksheets- Free downloadable and printable sheets for PreK-5

***Prodigy- Incredibly fun interactive RPG game that allows students to answer math questions
at their learning level.

(Prodigy does require students to sign up but I am keeping it because it is easy to sign up for
and so fun for kids. The emails are worth it).

Writing

My Story Book- Create an easy and fun interactive story book.

Storyboardthat- Create a 3 panel comic.

Education Games- Games that teach the fundamental aspects of writing.

Handwriting Heroes- Step-by-Step videos on letter formation, great from young students.

Science/Social Studies

Mystery Science- Created for closed schools, with lessons on many science concepts from
K-5 years old.

Kids National Geographic- Great games, videos and resources on animals, space, states,
landmasses and many other interests.

Exploratorium- Videos, articles and activities on history, chemistry, biology and many more.
Best for older students.

Kid Citizen- Interactive episodes that explore civics and government concepts.

Art
Art for Kids- Step-by-Step videos, mostly drawing but some painting, sculpting and even origami.

Mr. Printables- Free printable craft projects.

Cassie Stephens- Art teacher who creates online lessons.

Sculpey- Clay sculpting step-by-step.

Arts and Culture Museum- Virtual exploration of the Washington D.C. Art Museum.

Music
Chrome Music Lab- Learn music through experimenting with notes, tempo, different instruments
while creating your own music.

NyPhil Kids- Fun music games on instruments and composers.

Classics for kids- Listen to classical music and learn about the composers.

PBS kids Music Games- Fun music games for young kids.

Gym/Health

GoNoodle- Fun movement games and songs.

Cosmic Kids Yoga- Videos that walk students through fun Yoga moves (this is also an app). 

Active kids- Articles and advice on ways to stay active at home.

Health Powered Kids- Lessons with all directions and print outs for kids of all ages.

Technology

Tynker- Coding games for students from beginner to advanced.

Scratch- More advanced coding for older students but ScratchJr is available as an easy to use,
free app.

Hour of code- Practice creating codes with characters you love like Minecraft and Disney.

Typing Games- Keyboarding practice that helps students with faster typing skills.

The Back to School Basics

As someone who is still fairly new to the whole classroom teacher thing, I would never consider myself an expert on the return to school and the establishing of classroom rules and procedures or the meeting of new children and their loving parents. This does not mean that I have not learned a lot from the three previous years I have spent in second grade. I have developed what I feel is a welcoming and well planned routine that I have continued to tweak each year. 

Classroom Prep

While this is something all teachers must do and I would say many quite enjoy (I see all your Facebook and Instagram posts) it can be quite a lot of things to do each year. I like to find people to help such as my husband and grandmother but a great person to recruit is someone you know who is an aspiring teacher. They are usually excited and interested in the process and they might learn something along the way. I also tend to bring my dog with me for emotional support. He is supper cute but kind of the opposite of helpful. 

Since these classroom prep days are already long enough, here are three tips to help things go a little faster.

1. Box things based on where they go in the room at the end of the year.

I use the bins my students have throughout the year for supplies to organize the materials I will use in my classroom. Each area of my room gets its own bin. My desk, each bulletin boards, each shelf. They are all placed together so I can pull them out, take them to their section of the room and set up without looking for each thing I needed.

2. Number instead of label.

Making labels for each student takes a lot of time. There is a lot of writing or printing and laminating, taping or velcroing. I'm not saying it isn't important to make nameplates for each student or cute little die cuts with names for the job board, but not everything needs to be labeled. I give each student in my class a number. That number is theirs and they can use it to get in line order or find their paper but it also works for labels. I label things I will reuse in the classroom each year with numbers. Headphones, mailboxes, clipboards, book bins. I keep cheat sheets with the students number printed next to their name all over the room in case someone else needs it. This saves me a lot of time not having to label things or scrape the names off at the end of the year.
3. Have the students help.

This is a suggestion I use often. Kids love to be part of things and the room is theirs too. Letting them help decorate and create materials makes it feel more like their space. Save a few things they can help with, like bulletin boards or deciding what posters and decorations to put up.

Meet The Teacher

Meet the teacher day is new for our school. My first year we did not meet students until the first day and I did not meet most of the parents until November for our conference day. I was very excited when we were told we were adding this holiday-like meeting day to our calendar. Luckily it is easy enough now-a-days to find the most amazing materials created by other teachers online so I never felt worried about the change. My walk through with each student and parent goes as follows-

1. Take a brochure about the class and myself. I found these through the amazing  on Teachers-Pay-Teachers. 

2. Sign in and sign up to be a volunteer or classroom reader. This idea was stolen from . I loved it so much and I have a volunteer come to read each month (sometimes a parent or grandparents and sometimes a figure from the school like the principal) to the kids to promote literacy and practice manners. They can also trade some sweetness for sweetness by taking a cupcake and donating to our room. The cupcake toppers were also made from.

3. Hand in papers and find the students CLASSDOJO signin sheet. I plan on talking more about Class-Dojo in the future but just know I love it. I then show students and parents how Class-dojo works and how we use it in our classroom. This is important because it is both my behavior management and parent communication. 

4. Lastly I have them select a spot they would like to sit in the room and put whatever supplies they have in their desk. I know I probably just made a few of your heads spin. Now you are probably looking back to make sure you read that right. You let them pick their own spot? Why yes. As I said in the classroom set up section, I think letting them help with the classroom is important and I don't know them yet so I like to see where they feel they will learn best. It also gives them a chance to look around and see what friends they have in the class. These seats are not always the best for them and often are moved later on but I feel it is still important that they have that choice.

After these steps I allow both parents and students to ask any questions they like, explore the room and take a picture in front of our goals board that will soon be used to track each students goals and progress towards them, but for now makes a great photo-booth background. 

First Few Days

The first day of school is always the most exciting day, mostly for parents taking photos of their kids for Facebook, but also for kids and teachers. My students come in ready to be razzled and dazzled by their new teacher and find out just how many buttons they can push while still leaving a good impression. The first few days of school are critical for teaching rules and routines but also for establishing relationships with students. There is plenty of materials out there about how to deal with being effective in your first few days. Each year I prefer to review the book The First Days Of School: How To Be An Effective Teacher by Harry and Rosemary Wong. The biggest things I use from this book is that spending time at the beginning of the school year, teaching class procedures instead of content will actually maximize instructional time for the rest of the year and the importance of telling students why they are learning something or why they are doing a particular activity.

When it comes to the relationship making part my biggest suggestion is to give each student some real time with you to talk. I spend the first few weeks eating lunch with one or two students every day. They tell me their interests and what they want to learn but really it is just a time where they feel like they are actually listened to. I also like to ask them who they think is the smartest, nicest, fastest, funniest, etc. kids in the class. I think it gives me a lot of information about them and the other students they know. It shows me who lacks confidence, who has plenty to go around, who is considered the smart kid or the nice kid and who is friends with who. I think eating lunch with each kid is a much better way to find out about your students then just having them fill out a pre-made poster. 

First Day of School Outfit

Why I Changed My Blog Name

Teacher With No Class

In 2014 I created a blog called Teacher With No Class, with every intention of keeping it up and recording my adventures with looking for a teaching position and all the helpful things I learned along the way. I had plenty of ideas and hopes for the blog but it just didn't really go where I wanted. I liked having a space to save and share things I loved and used in education. It has been five years since I began the original blog and since there has been way too many things to share about my journey. The biggest of these is that I am no longer a teacher with No Class. I began teaching 2nd Grade in 2016 in a lovely, little, rural school. I am about to start my fourth year and I feel like I am ready to begin again with a new name (Both for me and my blog since I was married this summer) and some new ambition with what I plan to accomplish with this blog. I am a girl with a lot of creativity, a lot of plans and a little bit of time to keep up with a commitment like a blog so lets give it a try!

Acorns

So what is with the acorns? Well acorns are not something I had a particularly found interesting or exciting less than a week ago. I mean, they are just acorns right? In my area they are everywhere. But that was one of the things that endeared them to me recently. 

A few days ago we had our Teacher Orientation Day to get ready for a sparkly new year. We sat through hours of PowerPoints full of cute memes and tear provoking ted talks. Around the time I would normally wake up on a day off, but halfway through the PD Day*, we had an elementary faculty meeting.

Our principal started the meeting off in a normal fashion, explaining why our new math materials wouldn't be arriving until after the school year began and the several new procedures we needed to add our large to do lists. Everything we had seen many times before, but then he put up a slide that was covered in acorns. He proceeded to tell us a story of his brother and himself as children going on a walk and finding acorns. They were so excited and interested in these magical little nuts wearing fancy little hats that they filled their pockets with them and ran home to show their parents. He used this story as an example of the magic children see in the world. How they explore and how they are passionate in all their actions. He explained that this is what he wanted us to remember when working with our students and use it to enhance their abilities and understand their interests. While the story was a silly anecdote that showed how children can see even the most basic of things as magical, I started to think about how magical they really are and how similar my students are to them. Acorns are small and susceptible but have mighty oaks inside of them. They also are heavy seeds and do not blow easily in the wind so they often need help with seed dispersal so they can get the resources they need. This is true with my students as well. They each have the ability and potential to touch the sky but may need a little help to get where they need to be. 

That evening I went for a walk in the park with my (new) husband. We hiked down a long trail into a large gorge, then we hiked back up. The hike up was a lot more difficult for me. I struggled a few times and took a couple breaks. When I reached the top I found that I was much more focused on my feet and where I was placing them and all around me there were acorns. I filled my own pockets with several of the adorable seeds, enough to share with each of my students because their joy, creativity, interest and passion is what I love most about being a teacher.

Let's Get Educated

After my sparked appreciation for acorns and my trunk full I did what I do best-played on the internet. But honestly I did a little research and found that acorns were even cooler than I thought. So here are some interesting things I learned about acorns.

• One tall mature oak tree can produce almost one-thousand pounds of acorns in one growing season during normal weather conditions. 
• Acorns are  a symbol of patience and long hard labor.
• An old British tradition says that if a woman carries an acorn on her person it will delay the aging process and keep her forever young.
• In Norse mythology it is said that the god Thor was once sheltered from a storm by staying under an oak tree. This lead to the belief that putting a acorn on your windowsill would keep your house from being struck by lightning.
• The Roman goddess of the Hunt, Nature and Birth in Roman tradition is Diana who is frequently depicted wearing a necklace of acorns.
• Dotorimuk is a jelly made in Korea using acorn starch.
• Native American tribes such as the Cherokee, Pima and Apache used acorns as a primary staple food.

Whats in my Subbing Bag

(Designed) Clipboard- This is an essential tool for the substitute teacher. Lesson plans are very important and need to be with you the whole day. Get a clipboard that stands out so if you set your plans somewhere you can find it or ask a student, “do you know where I put that cool clipboard I had?”
Planner- Keep record of your subbing days with the name of the teacher you subbed for so you can make sure you are being paid correctly and can keep track of how many years you have to put towards getting your professional certification (180 days subbing = 1 year). You may also get asked to take days in advance and you will want to know what you have available.
Colored Pens- Grading papers. Also stands out when leaving notes on plans.
Folder/Binder- Put all important subbing papers in one spot (school calendar, phone numbers, computer passwords, etc.).
Accordion file folder- Keep materials for different grades in each section in case the teachers plans aren't long enough or not their at all.
Whistle or bell- A whistle is great for calling the kids to go back inside and a bell really gets their attention in a classroom. I prefer to use clap patterns with elementary classes but I have used the bell in middle and high school and it usually works.
Candy/Stickers/Prizes- Rewards are a great way to get students to stay on task. Many teachers already have a reward system but if they don't put how it is used in their plans then resort to using your own. Elementary students respond well to stickers and pencils/toys but middle/highschool are usually all about the candy.
Sticky Notes- Some things other than the plans will need notes (example: Finished and Unfinished math papers or “A student brought me this book that is missing pages”)
(High School) Referrals, Attendance Forms, Passes- Ask the office if you can get copies of these. Sometimes it is easier just to carry your own then to try and find where the teacher keeps them.
Ball/Card Games- Let the students toss a ball in a circle while waiting for the bus (make sure it is soft and can't break anything) or give the kids in your study hall cards to play with. They like new things to do, it will keep them occupied and make you look cool.
(Elementary) Read Aloud Books- If you have extra time between subjects you can fill time with reading. My favorites are The Book With no Pictures by B. J. Novak and Ish by Peter Reynolds and pretty much any children's poetry book for the older ones.
(Elementary)Labels- Not knowing students names makes it very hard to have good classroom management. Some students sit at desks with their names but they wont always be in that seat. Plain All Purpose Labels can be used to give students name tags and are much cheaper than "Hello my name is..." stickers.
USB- Keep extra lessons or brain break videos on a USB that you can plug in and use on a smart board.
Book/Magazines- You will have planning periods and down times where there wont be much to do. Bring a book to read so you wont be bored but you still look professional when someone walks in.

Subbing Tips and Tricks

Dress like a Teacher- Wear professional looking clothes that are easy to move around in. You may have to do a lot of squatting, bending and even hustling around. Pockets are also good for carrying important things like your classroom key. Never wear jeans.

Show up early- Try to get there at least 5 or so minutes earlier than required. Many schools have you show up right before the students arrive but you will need time to read through the lesson plans and find the materials needed for the lessons. Another important thing you can do is find the emergency/fire exit plan and make sure you know what you should be doing in case of a drill. If you are only working an afternoon come in early so you can ask the teacher any questions before they leave.

Write your name on the board- The Students will forget it and call you teacher or hey you.
Greet the students- Try to learn names if possible and keep the attendance on hand. I like to bring sticker labels to make name tags for elementary.

Follow the plans- Aside from keeping the children safe, this is the main task of a substitute teacher. Try to stay on task the whole day and cover what you can. Try to follow plans exactly how they are written and don't skip to other things unless you know for sure it is okay. If a lesson has many steps, write it on the board so the students can follow and you can remember.
I like to read the plans to the students at the beginning of class so they know just what is expected and don't ask me a million questions about the day.
If the plans don't say what to do with finished papers, keep them and let the teacher let them take them home when they want. Many times, especially in lower grades; teachers will leave extra things to do so don't panic if you don't cover everything. (If for some reason there is no plans, call the office or ask another teacher nearby who may know what you are doing. Sometimes the teachers don't know they will be out and have to email the plans to the school. You can also keep extra plans in your bag if needed or find out what was covered the day before a have a review day but always ask first.)

Don't believe everything the kids say- They can be awful little liars. If there is something you really need to know about ask another teacher or call the office- sometimes threatening that can just work.

Find the students that will help- This is usually easier to pick out in the younger grades and some teachers will actually tell you in the plans who the tougher kids are and who to let help you. With older kids ask the whole class. Most of the time the majority will go along with something that is untrue but there is usually someone who will give in.

Be fun- No one wants a mean substitute so as long as you are still getting through what the teacher wants and following the rules, its okay to have a little fun and be lenient. Tell them they can talk and use cell phones if they get through what they need to before the bell rings or play Simon Says with the extra time you have waiting for art. Let them ask you questions (Is that your real hair color? How old are you? How do you feel about Miley Cyrus?). Joke around with them, be careful using sarcasm in the younger grades though, some of them haven't got it yet.

Be professional- Just because you are having fun doesn't mean you can be inappropriate. Use language you would if the principal was standing in the room and don't allow the students to talk about inappropriate things either.

Be Flexible- The teacher may have forgotten there was a assembly that day or the school may need you to switch from one class to the next for testing. Just go with the flow and try to make things as smooth as possible for everyone involved.

Write down everything- Tell the teacher both the good and bad of the day. Make sure they know about every note that comes in, every student that leaves early and every problem a kid may have. Also tell them what you accomplished or did not get to, if there is something you didn't understand in the plans you should tell them that too. I write my notes right on the plans that are left for me it's easy, simple and the teachers can follow right along with our day. You are better off giving them all the information they might need, even if they don't need it; then not giving them enough, when they do need it.

Leave your information- Some substitutes leave business cards on teachers desk or write thank you notes. These are nice touches but not necessary. I just end my notes with a nice little summary of how the kids were, a thank you and my information (name, number, email) in case they need to contact me.

Before I start teaching as a sub I always go over some quick expectations with the students as a reminder.

Same rules apply
-Don't ask to do things you know your teacher wouldn't let you do.
-Do things the way you normally would if your regular teacher was here.
Things will be different
-I can't/don't do things the same as your teacher.
-I follow the rules and procedures your teacher left me.
Help me, don't yell at me
-If I am doing something different or wrong, raise your hand and politely explain.
-If you don't know exactly where something is, don't go through the teachers stuff to find it.
I also give this Warning: Your teacher will find out everything, good and bad. Even if you get away with it today you will regret it tomorrow. If you are good I will tell your teacher how great you are and how much I want to come back next time she needs a sub.

Know any tips you think I should add? Have any great subbing stories? Please Share!

Stitch Fix

I got my first Stitch Fix box this month.
Stitch Fix is a personal styling service that sends individually picked clothing and accessories items for a one-time styling fee of $20. You tell them your sizes and take a quiz that helps your stylist figure out your style. You can also connect your stylist with a pinterest page that shows them really what your style is about and they send you a box of clothes and accessories to match your style. The best part is, that $20 fee goes towards any items you choose to buy.
A lot of my teacher friends and teachers on the blogs I follow use Stitch Fix because it is a great way to find cute, appropriate and well fitting clothes for work. Please feel free to use my referral  to get your own Stitch Fix submission.

 I thought Stitch Fix did a great job hitting my style for my first box. The bright colors, patterns and prints are perfect for me. I also thought everything I tried on fit perfectly. The only thing that kept me from buying them all is cost. As someone who waits to buy her clothes half off from thrift shops, Stitch Fix's only downfall for me is I don't really have the ability to continue buying the clothes I like from them.
If you are a stylish girl with a reasonable income Stitch Fix is for you.

I did end up keeping this adorable Karolina Spaghetti Strap Polka Dot Dress though. It was too perfect to give up and is exactly my style. I'm sure I can find plenty of reasons to wear it that will more than make up for the cost.