TpT Conference Vegas 2015!

     Well, even after a day to take it all in, my mind is still spinning with ideas and inspiration from the conference.  From the meet ups to the panels, the sessions, and more meet ups it was a couple of days of intense learning and excitement from this small seller. 

     My journey started first with the decision to go.  I was actually in Vegas last year during the last conference with my daughter, who was in a dance competition.  I wanted to go, but I was there to support her, and to be honest I did not feel like my little store had any business being there. I secretly made a pact with myself to start socking away a little each month from my earnings so that I could go the following year.  So, when the opportunity rolled around I was ready!

     I also made the decision to fly solo (literally)!  My husband watched our two kids and I went to get serious.  This was big for me.  I had really never gone anywhere that far without friends or family. What's funny is that I didn't even realize this until I thought about it.  I was excited to push a little out of my comfort zone. 

  

     Even though I'm absolutely not an introvert, I've never been one to love entering a room without a posse. I faced my fear and did it starting with the bloggers meet-up.  After taking in a sea faces (and feeling a few pains of "OMG I know no one here!"),  I ended up standing in line for a drink and meeting a few awesome people!  It was fun to chat and learn from others. I love the human story!  I even got to take a selfie with Greg Smedley-Warren from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard!  He was so nice.  I had to take a picture for my lovely former teaching partner, Susan, who loves his kinder ideas and uses them in her class.  The next morning at the grade level meet ups and the sessions the uncomfortableness lifted and conversations flowed.  I met so many nice people, who I truly hope to keep up with.  I even got to take a photo with the adorable Deann Jump (perfect hair goals)!  

Below are some of my major take aways from the 2015 TpT conferenence: 

Hire help

I started with Erin Cobb's (Lovin' Lit) amazing presentation.  She was real, open, honest and very relatable.  She basically said get help on stuff you can outsource like cleaning your house, yard work, etc.  It was great advice for me to hear.  I've never had someone clean my house, and I seriously need to do it if I don't want to be a grump while I'm trying to do too much!

Schedule your TpT hours each week

This was another gem from Erin Cobb.  She suggested scheduling in time to do TpT as if it were a job.  She even suggested tracking for a year the amount of things you create each month and their dollar amounts.  I LOVED this idea. It really makes sense!

Find Your TpT Tribe

Collaborate!  Collaborate!  Collaborate!  I loved this concept as I am a huge believer in the synergy or minds that work together.  When I first started teaching, collaboration was not a big thing (at least formally), but now principals and districts are making time for teachers to collaborate, which is so smart.  Together we are better;)! I love the idea of finding like minded TpT sellers to work with, promote, and support!

Revise! Revsie!  Revise!

Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills gave a fantastic presentation on looking at your products with a critical eye.  Since I spent the last year in my own classroom focusing on revising and growing, I loved hearing the message.  I made a plan to go back and revise my older units and update them.  

Use Social Media Authentically and Don't Get Overwhelmed

I heard fantastic information on Instagram from Hadar Maor (@misskindergarten) and Michelle Griffo (@applesandabcs), great marketing tips from Rachel Lynette, and great information on Pinterest from Mel D (Seusstastic).  But the bottom line was don't let social media overwhelm.  Most echoed to pick one or two arenas to focus on and just create good products.  Most also said the best is to support each other with content of value.  I loved this and the idea of thinking most of what you, as a teacher, really enjoys, needs, and wants.

Where to start?  Luckily I started off my first session with Erin Cobb and she graciously gave us planners for our upcoming TpT year!  I plan to use it and make the most of my next year on TpT.  Even though I am a small seller, I found the conference SO fantastic and full of other sellers just like me who want to learn, collaborate, and more than anything become better teachers!

Click below to see other posts about the TpT Conference:   http://theelementaryentourage.blogspot.com/  

What I Learned This Year

Make it Fun!  Slow it Down!

I'm at school a LONG time. The kids are at school a LONG time.  I've always felt since it's somewhere that we need to be, let it be fun.   Needless to say a big part of that is letting go and being silly (after, of course, important norms have been established).  We sing, we dance, we make up silly poems to help us decompose numbers.  Anything fun sounding (that has rigor) I am usually all in.  Thankfully, my teammates always bring a gentle dose of reality when I over plan the fun :)   The kids quickly see me putting myself out there and when they see it's okay, they also join.  

One student, who will remain anonymous, came into my class without so much as saying a word.  It took me months to see a smile, and even longer to hear a laugh.  She took her time with everything and thought deeply, I could see that.  Watching her wanted me to learn to slow down a bit (it became my year goal:  "Don't rush things Mrs. Miller").  I'm a bit on the hyper side, so watching her grace and pensive nature inspired me.  But, being the spaz I am and people pleaser to a fault, I was secretly sad that this little one did not appreciate my funny side.  That is until she slowly let me know through her writing.  Below was my spark.  She did think learning was fun.  By the end of the year she was joking and laughing with us.  She also felt comfortable questioning me, which I loved.  I remember I was working with a full table of kids who needed help with a concept.  My sweet, sweet pensive girl kept coming up to the table.  She was struggling matching a detail with a fact that she was writing in an informative piece.  She finally got one, showed me, and I quickly approved.  Not one second later she came back.  She said, "Read it again."  I obliged. We both looked at each other. She said, "I'm writing another one." and she did.  She came back and had a much improved detail that went with that fact.   She let me know that even though I said it was okay (and it was...just okay) she pushed herself to do better.  I knew from then on to read her writing slowly, carefully, and with great precision.  She took the time to do it, and I needed to take the time to read it with her precision in mind.  That sweetie taught me to yes, have some fun, but also slow down!

 

Take the Time to Get to Know One Another and Be Kind!

I am blessed to teach at a wonderful school.  Teachers are viewed as professionals and their judgement is supported. The whole child is focused on and celebrated.  It is a wonderful environment.  Support wraps around you like a blanket and starts with the administration.  My two wonderful administrators realize that the relationship that they have with their teachers directly affects the relationship that their teachers have with their students.  

It is because of this that I allowed myself and my class to really have the time to get to know one another this year and it has paid off in so many ways that I can't count.  I made sure to plan (usually around a holiday) a Friday block of time where we have free roaming art/activity stations.  There are usually 5 or so activities and the students can choose how quickly or slowly they move through each.  Truly they can stay at one the whole time if they want.  There is usually WAY to much to do in that time period, but I always allow my few that have to complete them all to take a project home to do if they need to.  There is no ding and switch, no rushing, no need to do a project that they have no interest in.  It is their time to choose.  During this time I also choose. I choose to take time to sit and color with each one, listen to them, and hear their stories.  I'm not rushed to finish a lesson, get to recess, or anything else.  I am just there to listen.

At first, I just did this so the kids could have some fun.  However, what I quickly realized is that this turned out to be the best classroom management tool I have ever used.  The kids became bonded to me and they realized that they mattered to me.  They did not want to disappoint me.  I also learned about what motivated them.  I had a reluctant writer who loved comic books.  Soon after learning that I had him write comic books as a choice.  By the end of the year, writing was no longer a struggle with him.  I learned that one student loved koalas.  I brought in fluency passages with koalas as the topic and her reading flew.  I also learned from another student that his mom used to be a teacher!  She never told me.  Soon after, she did a huge project with my class.  I enjoyed getting to know these little people and they enjoyed me listening to them.  

Now, even though I had a very well behaved class to start with, it was not without challenges.  I had a student who stomped on classmate's feet for awhile pronouncing that he would not stop and that he would not stop because he wanted to step on feet.  I also had a student who cried for the better part of the first four months for up to an hour a day to name just a few challenges.   I spent extra time at first with these guys.  Slowly, they began to trust me.  Then, slowly, their behavior started to change.  Now this choice art/get to know you time did not alone make a smooth running classroom.  Along with clear expectations, a calm demeanor, fair consequences, parent help, and structure our classroom ran smooth.  However, I couldn't help to see how these "art sessions" every 4-6 weeks changed things so much.

We also really focused on kindness, filling our book bags with Chrysanthemum and other books that explored kindness and how it affected people.  We also focused on random acts of kindness.  At the end of the year we plastered our school with these posters (shown below) for the last week.  We hid, pretended we were on a covert mission, and were very sly when we put them up.  We didn't take credit.  That was the beauty.  If someone asked if it was us, we would of course fess up, but the beauty was doing something kind just because.  The kids and I LOVED it.  It especially hit home when one of the most challenging students in first grade had one of our notes sticking out of his pocket.  My class went wild when they saw it.  Our actions affected someone.  

  

 

Gratitude!

 

Another thing I learned this year was to focus on gratitude.  Each day, at the end of the day, we wrote what we were grateful for (we are blessed with awesome white board desks).  I modeled, and at first we started small with a sentence.  Then, after time, I modeled longer statements of gratitude.  If we missed a day the kids would let me know, immediately.  The above gratitude made it all worth it.  It was from a student who didn't love writing his gratitude that much.  He fought me a little, but I stuck with him and near the end he was writing beauties like this.  It also shows how important a things like getting invited to play basketball at recess is to a kid.  It puts everything into perspective.

Share and Celebrate Learning! 

 Another huge thing I learned was the importance of sharing our learning.  The pictures below are of my class telling kindergarten about first and second grade, sharing our animal research projects with other first and second graders, and the final picture is of a memory lap book that recorded our favorite quote of the day, memories, things we learned, etc.  This year I made time for kids to share, reflect, and revise.  I went a little slower and deeper with things, and it paid off.

What We've Been Up To!

Small feedback group.

We've been busy these past few weeks!  In writing we're been working on feedback and revision.  The kids are giving feedback whole class, small group, and one on one.  We try to revise (whole group) one piece a week. I make copies of the piece.  We highlight parts we really enjoy.  We attach a feedback form where we evaluate whether the piece has all the parts, something we enjoy, and then a place where we can ask questions, or give a suggestion.  Then the author sorts the feedback.  If a few people say it could use, for example, adjectives, then we pull a small group adjective group to see where the featured author could place adjectives in the piece.  The feedback group then brainstorms with the author.  As of now, I'm running these groups.  I haven't released them, but I am seriously amazed at how great the feedback is that the kids are getting.  And I'm so impressed with how the authors view the feedback.  They love it! GO GROWTH MINDSET!

We've also been working on text features and actually assembling informative articles.  I also made QR code scavenger hunts that the groups use iPads to search for text features.

In math we've continued with the fun of scavenger hunts by searching for plain and solid shapes around the room. We've also been focusing on different types of comparison math problems. 

In science we've had a lot of excitement, discovery, and learning working on our Waves:  Light and Sound Next Generation Science Unit where the kids have been learning about light and sound.  If interested in the product link it is below:  

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Waves-Light-and-Sound-Next-Generation-Science-Standards-Unit-1785634 

I can't believe we only have a few months left!  

Students putting together articles.  Hard decision:  where to put the caption:). Also, getting ready to find headings using a QR Code!

Look!  We found a triangle.

Shape scavenger hunt.

Student work on a comparison problem.

Watching refraction!

Transparent?  Translucent?  Opaque?

Part of our science wall.  Vocabulary cards and ideas are in my TPT unit.

Military appreciation week.  One of our amazing dad's, who is a Military doctor, brought us all stethoscopes.  Great for our sound unit!  So grateful!

Designing and building communication devices.

Scientists predict and observe!

Science doodle vocabulary!

Project Based Learning...by accident

It all started when a couple of my students read a book where some owl students put on a spring festival for their school.  They immediately raced to me with the book in hand, and asked if they too could put on this fabulous festival.  With only a few weeks before spring break and spring conferences (which means a large battery of assessments), I knew it would be a challenge, but those big eyes, mile a minute words filled with excitement and ideas, and sweet little smiles one me over...in a flash.    So, we agreed to a class spring festival and it began.  The three students brainstormed ideas of activities that they would like to do and we negotiated the activities and settled on a set number.  I agreed to give them the Friday before spring break.  They decided on the following:  1)  They would write a spring article using text features we'd been studying. 2)  They would make a scavenger hunt for outside on the playground. 3)  They would design a noun guessing game with spring nouns. 4)  They would pick 3 art projects to make off Pinterest. 5)  They would author a Kahoot it! question game with questions based off the article.  

This is one of the to do lists.

These are the art projects the 3 girls chose off Pinterest.

A stage in the development of the festival.  Lists and lists and lists! Edited articles.

Students created a noun game where students gave clues on their spring noun and their partners guessed the spring noun.

It was a GREAT experience.  The students have always had a block of Daily 5 time that they could learn what interested them in the context of reading and writing, but these three students took it to another level.  They were so motivated and the bulk of what they were doing was all literacy related.  The learning extended beyond what I would have expected.  They had to be organized, accepting of feedback, and they truly had to focus on time management, all in first grade!  As a teacher, I let go of total control and instead guided their learning.  Did I provide them some structure? Absolutely.  Did they take ownership of their learning.  Yes, they did.   Reflecting, if I had a whole class creating spring festivals I would need to provide a lot more structure and guidance, but it inspired me to create a project forum for our next unit.  I'm so excited and I can't wait to see where the adventure will take us!