Sydney's School Stories

The 2016-2017 school   year was an exciting one for me- I got married, cleared my CA credential, and survived my first year teaching! There are many things I wish I could have changed about year one and lots I learned. Here are some of my Do’s and Don’ts for making the most out of your first year in the classroom! TLDR ( too long didn’t read) Version ·       Teaching is really hard, but also really enjoyable- so celebrate the awesome work and relationships that come out of your room but also reach out and lean on others for the tough days. ·       Have fun ·       Don’t compare yourself to others ·       When your friends tell you about their fancy jobs and big paychecks celebrate with them but remember this job is important too! Do’s ·       Do ask a lot of questions ! Ask your administration or fellow teachers questions about the cultu...

This summer I taught a month of summer school for students in my school district. The summer school program focused on STEM & the topic "Under the Sea". I got to design 3 days of curriculum of my choice for 5th/6th grade students. I had 4 different groups of students (about 25 per class) and had each group for 3 days. Check out some of the ideas I implemented in my summer school classroom! Build An Ecosystem Students built an ecosystem in a jar and kept track of changes and temperature of their water over several days.  I went to Petco and bought aquatic plants & sea gravel to put in the jars. My students needed help sticking the roots of the plants in the gravel  Elmer's Build a Boat Challenge   http://elmers.com/lesson-plans/lesson-plan/build-a-boat   The Elmer's Build a Boat Challenge is a fun project for students that places a price value on different materials and asks students to construct a boat that will be both economical and hold a lot o...

I am officially moving from Newport --> Woodridge Elementary. I am leaving Newport because as a first year teacher you're last to get an assignment and teachers with continuing contract get priority. I will be teaching 5th grade math & science at Woodridge and doing the expertise model (this is where I partner with an ELA/social studies 5th grade teacher and we share 2 classes of kids who switch mid-day). Sad to leave Newport, but excited for new opportunities!!

The medium sized colored bins from Target are amazing for organizing science materials (you can find them at Target for $3 and Dollar Tree also has great deals on all sized bins.  Put ALL of the materials a group will need in a bin for each group- I do this the night before or have student helpers come in at recess to help gather supplies Give directions BEFORE you pass out the bins and write them in a place that students can easily refer to during the lesson (after the bins are passed out- it is hard for kids to concentrate on teacher directions) Give kids a chance to touch/explore the materials- this gets the "newness" of working with materials out of the way  Have a basket that contains extra supplies that groups might need in the front of the room. If your class can handle getting out of their seat for more supplies, assign a "grabber" for each group - this will be the kid who gets more supplies as needed. If your class is too rowdy or distracted by getting...

Top 3 Tips for Teaching 5th Wrapping up my first year of teaching was so fun! I learned a lot from my fabulous group of 5th graders and want to share 3 top tips I have learned so far about teaching 5th graders. Listen To Them. 5th graders have a lot of opinions and are able to deconstruct a lot of information about the world around them- and they want to share what they think with their teacher. I was really open with my class that it was my first year teaching and I wanted their feedback about how class was structured, what books to read next, etc. I gave out surveys to students and listened to their feedback in morning meetings. Students in upper grades want to feel like their voice is being heard and when they see their ideas put into action are more likely to join the class community. 5th grade is also a time of change and transition for a lot o Hold Them To A High Standard. At most elementary schools students in 5th are the oldest kids in schools and may think they are ...

I introduced the concept of customary units of measurement by having the students walk around the room with rulers and measure their friends and items in the classroom.  I also had students trace a ruler into their math notebooks and mark the 12 inches that make up one foot. Getting students up and moving is great for student engagement & conceptual development.

GLAD stands for Guided Language Acquisition Design and are strategies to help ELL students and struggling readers. I was first introduced to GLAD when I was getting my MA/credential at UC Irvine. When you think about it- most students are English language learners in the sense that they are learning new academic vocabulary! One GLAD strategy I tried was a Sequence Pattern Chart. This chart helps students recognize parts of speech and use a writing resource. I used this because I wanted to help students create interesting descriptive sentences for a personal narrative we were working on. To make a sequence pattern chart you create 5 categories- adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. As a class we picked one noun we wanted to focus on and then filled in the rest of the chart based on our noun. For our example the class decided they wanted to talk about "porta-potties"- we had a good time making creative stories about aliens using space traveling porta-p...