This is going to be a fantastic year!
This is the first Friday of 2017 and I am still on winter vacation. (I do go back to school Monday, but I am not thinking about that right now.)
Most of this vacation I either spent in the gym, with family and friends, or lounging on the couch. I did not bring home one single paper to correct, nor did I bring home any lesson plans! I made sure to complete the first week back lesson plans before I walked out of school the last day of break.
However, I did complete a teensy tiny tidbit of work while on break, and I am so glad that I did.
During the first week of winter vacation, I finished a major project. A teacher friend/colleague and I have been working for over a year creating scales for the Florida math standards. We were informed by our administration at the beginning of the last school year (August 2015) that all classrooms must have standards, scales, and activities posted. Easier said than done!
(FYI the school board does provide the standards, in teacher language, however they are not student friendly at all. I don't know about you, but if students don't understand it, I'm not wasting valuable wall space. Also, and I am sure we were not the only teachers who faced this, some of the standards are not teacher friendly either. A few of the standards are difficult to figure out!)
The first thing we did was turn to Teachers Pay Teachers, but all we could find during our searches were the standards written in fancy fonts and pretty colors. So we worked together to write each standard on 8.5 x 11 inch posters and include the information that we knew our administration required. All posters have the standard in teacher language (small print), student friendly language (large print), a 1-4 scale with level 3 always being the proficient scale and level 4 always being the "enrichment" level. We struggled many times with levels 1 & 2, because breaking a standard down into smaller pieces while maintaining the integrity of the original standard is no easy feat. But we did it! Yes! Sweet relief!
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| MAFS.5.MD.1.1 Converting Standard Measurements |
Now those of you who know me know that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE clip art. So we made sure to include student friendly clip art on each poster. After all, we want our students to feel comfortable interacting with the standards. If I am required to have it posted, then it MUST be student friendly.
If you are interested in checking out this major undertaking click here, if not, scroll down for my New Year Resolutions for 2017.
Resolutions for 2017
#1. I'll grade papers in a timely fashion - at least before the stack buries me.
#2. I'll stop comparing my anchor charts and bulletin boards to the stuff I see on Pinterest - my colleagues' out-of-this-world creativity is enough for me to feel inferior.
#3. I will not bad mouth the copy machine when it jams - after all, I have plenty of time to come back later. I don't need to eat my lunch!
#4. I will keep my hands, feet, objects, and unkind words to myself when non-teachers tell me how to run my classroom. Yes. Really.
#5. I will not pray for a hurricane day every Sunday night during Hurricane Season - even though it would be nice to sleep an extra hour or two.
We wish for snowstorms here in upstate NY. :) Great list. I could use some of those resolutions myself. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThank you. :-)
DeleteYour resolutions have me dying. As a fellow Florida teacher, I loved your #5! Seriously, it's perfect.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Number 5 is my favorite-saved the best for last!
DeleteWe always have the same thing to do here - switching up language and sentences to make the targets more understandable for our children! It is so time consuming! Love your resolutions, number 4 LOL! We have this a lot, it's so hard to stay quite!
ReplyDeleteTeaching Autism
Cracking up! As much as I know it won't happen, I pray for snow in SC. It doesn't take much to shut down school here.
ReplyDeleteLove these resolutions! So perfect.
ReplyDeleteLove your goals! HAAA.... Even I have set goals and stuff in the new year, I usually end up need to adjust my goals through the year. So good luck on both of us.
ReplyDeleteThe copy machine is going to be a tough one! Good luck with the resolutions!
ReplyDeleteTaryn