Perhaps I am behind the times...

UPDATE!!!  I got it fixed!!!  I have my facebook page fixed and it works like I wanted it to!!

Go over and check it out, like it and follow me please!!  I will try to get a fan freebie link on there by the weekend so if you like it, you can get access to freebies I make up, and sometimes, I just make stuff!!!

https://www.facebook.com/shearerlysadlerfourthgrade

I have been trying to set up a facebook page for Shearerly Sadler 4th Grade.  I have done so, but I have to be doing something wrong.  It looks NOTHING LIKE ANYONE ELSES...Well, anyone else that I follow anyway.  I set it up as a personal page, should I have done something different, should I have set it up as a business page?  I don't know.  If  you know something I don't, can you help a girl out?  I want it to look cool, I want for folks to be able to like my page or follow, which ever they want to do.  I want it to look like other really successful edubloggers.  I don't have a personal page and never have, so this facebook, twitter, instagram stuff is kindof daunting!  Trying to grow in the world of social media is tough and I just want to keep up :)

Here is a link to the facebook page.  Any suggestions would be awesome!!!

Thanks friends, you all are an awesome bunch!! 

A Most Awesome Giveaway!!!

I love clipart, graphics, anything that makes my schtuff look cutesy patootsey!  I hope you will wonder over to Dots of Fun and enter this giveaway if you share the same addiction to graphics :) 

Click on the picture to be taken straight there!!!  I could enter a thousand times I am so excited about this!!!

State test scores released...

This is the time of year when Kentucky releases their state test scores.  My sweet little school, Shearer Elementary, (hence the name of my blog) had a drop in scores this year.  It was hard for all of us who work at Shearer.  Looking at our RAW data, we looked good.  Really good.  Our fourth grade teachers had a group of students last year who gave us fits, but they got it, they got what those state tests mean to our school and that group rocked it out!  I was never more proud to be the teacher of a group of students.  They were a challenge, the kind of challenge that make a teacher pray summer will NEVER END!  We had girl drama to the 100th power, behavior issues, learning issues.  You name it, we had it last year...But despite all those things, the children had a desire to learn and they showed it on our K-PREP assessment.  Unfortunately, their growth was not enough to get our school to where we needed to be this year.

 Is it disheartening?  Yes.  Does it make me upset?  No.  I can only take the test data to look at my new fourth graders, analyze it and make sound instructional decisions to get my students this year moving in an upward direction.  This year, I have new challenges.  I like a challenge, but I don't LOVE THEM!!  We have talent in fourth grade, that's a solid fact!  Our students have some maturing to do. Another very solid fact!   Plus with the amount of reading and writing that is required by K-PREP, we have to increase our stamina.  I have started a reading stamina board in my room.  I took this idea from some Daily 5/Café classrooms from different blogs I have read.  I am not really familiar with Daily 5, tried a rudimentary version in my room last year.  I like the concept, but I would need to be trained like a dolphin to use it with fidelity :)  Any hoo, I digress...Stamina board...sorry the pic is so little :)

 

We have gotten to as much as 13 minutes without getting restless and off task.  It's a step.  We have got a bunch of steps to go before we get where we need to be..  

 

This drop in scores has been hard for my principal.  Last year was her first year as our principal and let me just say, she was dealing with a whole lot of healing.  Our school had been down, in so many ways.  We had an administrator which no one trusted, we were against one another (turned that way by the same untrusted administrator) we felt like we were fighting a losing battle to be professionals who make decisions to educate children.  All decisions (instructionally, behaviorally etc) were being made for us.  Shearer Elementary was a difficult place to work.  That administrator left and we had an interim, who was one of our own and she triaged us in the field and we did well the first year we took on Common Core.  When Ms. Dawson took over last year, we knew we had hired an excellent educator; skilled in curriculum and instructional practices.  But, she became Abraham Lincoln and our school was the Civil War.  She had to see us, staff and students, through a transitional period.  It was a wartime she never has been able to quite wrap her head around.  The war had ended and we were and in some ways, still are, in the Reconstruction Phase of our school life.  For the for the first time in a very long time we have been allowed to make professional instructional decisions about how to best educate our students AND we have a leader who knows how to guide us.  She is fair, honest, trustworthy and most of all, she loves us all, staff and students.  She has a genuine place in her heart for our school.

 It hurt my heart that our test scores affected her the way they did.  She took the drop in scores personally and wears the ten point drop like a Scarlet Letter on her chest.  She has cried and then cried when she said she wasn't going to.  She is owning this, weathering the storm with us and for us.  She isn't blaming us (our last administrator did this every time), she takes this as her own defeat.

 But there is no defeat in this, only a place built from which to move forward.  I tell my students to try everything I put in front of them and make as many mistakes as you can because from your mistakes you will learn. Shearer Elementary, with Ms. Dawson's guidance, will take all our data and use it to make a difference; to make instructional changes to get to the heart of the what is going on, address it and make it better.  We have great students, great educators and excellent support staff and overwhelmingly wonderful leadership at my school.  While I don't love challenges, I welcome this one and look forward to what the 2013-2014 class of Shearer Elementary Students can accomplish!!

Thank you for allowing me this time and space to share my thoughts, rants and raves.  That is what I love about blogging!!! 

Giveaway Winner!!!

Hey Hey Hey!!!!  There is a winner for my Giveaway!!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations to Bethany K!  She has won this, two other items of her choice from my TPT store and a $10 TPT gift certificate!!!!  Bethany will be receiving an email with her goodies momentarily!!!!  YEAH!!!!

Thank you to everyone who entered and followed my blog and my store and gave me shout-outs all over the place!  You all are priceless and I appreciate you so so much!!!

Five For Friday

 

 

 

TGIFFF...Thank Goodness is FIVE FOR FRIDAY!!!!!!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week.  Its been a busy one

 

I hooked up with Jameson @ Lesson With Coffee for her October SLANT box.  I am so excited about this.  I love getting mail and I love shopping for other people too.  If you have time, go over there and sign up!  It's going to be a great time!

 

 

 

So this week I CRACKED DOWN on the talking and off task behavior.  My principal and I talked the other day and we came to the conclusion that us fourth grade teachers are just too energetic for this group of kids.  Evidently their third grade teachers must have practiced great restraint when teaching, never cracked a smile, a joke or allowed them much independence.  We are just too much for them I guess so they stayed amped up all the time.  So now I am practicing more restraint than I EVER HAVE!!!!! 

I have been NO NONSENSE all week.  I use a cool chevron behavior clip chart that I got over at A Cupcake for the Teacher.  I have been moving clips down left and right.  My class just talks so much.  I had to ask them what I was doing wrong.  They told me I was giving too many warnings.  I like to keep things very real in my class, which is why I asked their opinions on the situation.  I think that was one of the most important thing I could have done.  I made them part of the solution.  I have sailed through this week and it has been great!  I feel more like a grown up teacher, that part I don't care much for, but I am getting used to it. 

 

I discovered a WONDERFUL online planning tool that will carry over year to year.  www.planbook.com

I love this tool.  It costs $12 a year, but is totally worth it  I have been able to share my plans with my students and once when I was absent, I texted the link with my username and password to my principal, she was able to pull my plans and my class ran seamlessly without me there...  I have to rework my schedule next week due to a change in our lunch schedule.  With this tool, I can go into the class and just click to change the time.  planbook.com will literally reconfigure the schedule and BA-BAM!!!  I am back in business and no throwing out blank plan pages because my brain can't deal with a messy plan page. 

 

We had a lockdown drill today and my class was so well hidden, that when I left my lights on and door unlocked (inadvertently) I heard  our "intruder" (our custodian) say "Mrs. Sadler's class is not even in here!"   Ha Ha!!!  My room configuration worked so well in the drill at least!  My students safety is my top daily priority.  I won't risk anything when it comes to it. 

 

I love melonheadz and if  you don't know what a melonheadz is, I want you to click this link.  If you know what they are but you are not following Nikki's blog, then you should click the link as well.  Her work is IMPECCABLE!  She also has this cutest little freebie for fall on her blog right now, all you have to do is right click and save.  I have a hard time holding back when it comes to buy graphics or buy TPT or TN products which have Melonheadz in them.  I love Nikki's work so much, I am having a personalized melonheadz made for me, my bestie and my principal.  (SHHHH, that parts a secret!!!)

 

So that's my random five...I love this linky!!!!

 

Classroom Tested/Teacher & Student Approved with Deb at Crafting Connections...

I was fortunate enough to be chosen as a collaborator with Deb Hansen over at Crafting Connections for her Classroom Tested-Teacher & Student Approved Series

 

 

 

Deb was so kind to send me the subjects and predicates train craftivity to try out in my classroom. 

 

 As soon as I put the packet up on the screen, the kids were excited.  We had already been exposed to subjects and predicates the week before, so I used this craftivity as  a form of assessment.  I was surprised by how it seemed to firm up the concrete, if you know what I mean.  The kinesthetic aspect of putting the complete subject on the engine car and the complete predicate on the caboose car really was an "a-ha!" moment for some of my students.  I was surprised by that honestly. 

 

I passed out the packet I had put together for my students, this is suggested in the teacher directions section of the craftivity and was a time saver.  In this packet were directions for students to follow, a worksheet for the students to complete and then the craftivity itself. 

 

I went over the directions very carefully.  My students don't always like to wait for directions, they just want to jump right in.  I had to hold them back.  I showed them the sample picture which Deb had posted on the front of the directions, HOWEVER...I suggest making the craftivity yourself first.  I think that would have made my students take more notice of what the craftivity was intended to look like.  I don't think the presentation really matters if you are using it the way I did, but if you are a stickler about presentation, I would certainly make your  own sample first.  I only had one student go against the grain for presentation and she worked hard and diligently, so I didn't want to make her redo it. 

 

Each child first completed the worksheet where they underlined complete subject once and complete predicate twice.  I circulated the room heavily during this time checking for understanding of the subject/predicate concept.  I had only a few that were still having difficulty at this point and was able to redirect and reteach on the spot.  

 

 

We then made the first train car set together with number one on the worksheet.  Each student will have the same first train car set then after that, students choose four more from the worksheet to display on the train car sets.  I like this idea of student choice.  Some of mine went right down the page and others really scrutinized which sentences to display. 

 

 

 

Students will need a black pen or maker, crayons or colored pencils, glue, scissors, and a large sheet of construction paper to showcase their work.  Make sure you are clear about how these should be cut out...do they need to be trimmed precisely or can they just cut around and cut both out at the same time.  I told my students in the interest of time, to cut around and cut out both cars together.  As long as the engine car and caboose car were different colors and contained the correct content, that is what I needed to see.  You might want to be specific about which colors to use.  I intended for my students to use the same two colors for each train car set, but my kiddos just colored them two different colors.  Some followed the picture and some just used two random colors.  Each child did a little something different with the colors. 

 

 

 

I should have set aside larger blocks of time for my students to complete this, because they are a very social group and like to talk while they work.  This craftivity took me three 30 minute class sessions to complete BUT that is because of my group dynamics.  Once I told them it must be done that last day, I had everyone working their little fourth grade fingers to the bone and other children who were finished were helping others. 

 

My students loved doing this craftivity, and this is one I will do again...Definitely! My students seemed to work harder on getting the work right because I told them that nothing that is messy, disorganized and WRONG will be hung in the hallway...PERIOD! 

 

 

 

Here are some of my students comments... Kyle L said "this is an assessment, I have never had an assessment like this before!"  Alea W said "Mrs. Sadler, I like when we get to make stuff to show what we learn.  I like hanging my work in the hallway!"  My principal said, "I like this!" when she came down to just pop in my room for a moment.  Craftivities get noticed much more easily when displayed as opposed to a worksheet.  Craftivities may take a little more time, but because they address multiple intelligences (especially visual and kinesthetic learners), they are worth the little extra time. 

 

SSSSSSoooooooo...Deb is holding a giveaway for this very craftivity at her site right now!  Click here to check it.  I am also offering my new Character Setting and Conflict Interactivity as a bonus gift in the giveaway!!!

 

Thank  you Deb for sending this craftivity my way and I look forward to another collaboration in the near future.

 

 



I JUST SIGNED UP FOR A SLANT BOX!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED CAN YOU TELL!!!!!!!

 

WWWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

 

You all have got to do this.  I have been waiting with baited breathe for these to open so I could sign up!  I hope you will sign up too!!  I need some teacher love!  My hubs says that he's already been to school...when I try to share with him my products I make for my teacher store he begrudgingly looks at all my cuteness I put into my store and then asks why I don't charge more :)  He's the police, they live in a black and white world! 

 

 OH well, I am super excited to meet my partners and getting to know some new folks out there in the colorful teaching world!