End of Year Inner Struggles

I have decided that it is fundamentally impossible to pack up my classroom. There aren't enough hours in the day/boxes available/ space to store items to make it so that one week from today my classroom will be packed and ready to go.

This time of year, and the stress of "how will this all possibly ever get done?" always brings about the same inner turmoil.

Inner struggle #1- I am absolutely determined not to take anything off the walls yet. The minute things come off the walls the kids know that it is OVER. The posters we've referred to all year, their art work, the rules- once it's gone the classroom no longer looks like it belongs to them. And once they know longer feel that the classroom is theirs, well, why bother acting like it is theirs?  EXCEPT that OMG taking things off the walls is so easy to do, and makes you feel so much better. The room is a disaster, you have piles of work to do, but at least your walls are clean and ready for next September. Every year I tell myself I'm going to wait to take things off the walls. And I'm going to wait, and wait, and...  eventually I crack. We'll see how far I can get this year. Let me tell you, right now it's rough.

Max is also a fan of the "stuff and run" method

Inner struggle #2- Do you take the time to organize materials now so they'll be ready for unpacking in August, or do you stuff everything in a box and pray that you have enough time to deal with it in August? Every year I'm determined to organize in June. Some years I even start in May. It's admirable really. Today I even brought Little Lipstick back to my classroom and let her "help" me pick up the linking cubes and put them away so I could take time to really organize my math games. Once she started to melt down and my own stomach was rumbling I did the "stuff and run" strategy of "I'll deal with this tomorrow so I'll just stuff this into the closest box right now."  Let's be honest. Those games are staying in those boxes until September. But since I probably will no longer be able to find them because of the stuff and run, they'll be staying in them a lot longer.

Inner struggle #3- Do I methodically wipe down all of the book baskets and plastic crates? Do I scrub stray marker and pencil markings off the supply caddies so that next year feels more like a fresh start? Or do I just roll my eyes, figure they'll only get dirty again by the end of September and just stack them in a corner? Yeah. That's usually the option I go for, but the inner struggle occurs when I feel guilty about the stacking with the crayon markers still on them.

Inner struggle #4- All lessons up until the last day will be meaningful and engaging. No movies, no meaningless activities designed to keep the kids busy so I can get work done. Good intentions really are something, aren't they? The book room books have been turned in, the math materials are packed up waiting to be turned in, report cards are completed and progress reports are typed and ready to go. Define meaningful and engaging activity. I mean, a movie, when given the right intro can be meaningful and engaging,
right? (I have not yet shown a movie. That doesn't mean it won't happen. I'm trying, I really am.)

And so I will fight my inner battles right up until the last day. Please, oh god of teachers, help me be strong.

Break a Leg? When readers' theater takes on a life of its own...

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided that we'd do Hattie and the Fox as a readers' theater. Perhaps I was feeling ambitious, overly zealous, or thought that in the midst of all the rest of end of year chaos that it would be a really good idea to take on another project.

Yeah.  

What was I thinking?

We have one week of school left. Everyone wears their shorts to school and then spends the day checking out the scars on their knees from their exciting summer misadventures. The swimming pools are open. The kids can smell the chlorine calling them from the open windows of the classroom. Heck, I can smell the chlorine calling me. 

Put a fork in us, we are DONE.

And yet, we still have this play. A play that is making Mrs. Lipstick be a bit grouchy and unrealistic right when we should be having dance parties and celebrations.

Now, in the past readers' theater presentations have been no big thing. The kids practice their lines, we make construction paper costumes, we paint scenery, we invite other classes, we really don't make a big deal of it. It's something to keep us busy once all the guided reading books have been turned back in. This year it's about the same on paper- we practice our lines over and over again, we've made the construction paper costumes and painted the scenery, but everything is harder. Each step needs a lot more forethought and planning. Instead of ending up with activities that can happily keep kids busy for an hour after five minutes we have paint on the floor. And the door. And the table. And the kids. I will owe the custodian a large bottle of something delicious after this project is over.  And although we've made costumes I'm not sure that anyone will actually put the costumes on. We're a bit particular about what we wear. Sentence strip headbands aren't anyone's favorite thing...  But we're trying.

We practice everyday. Since Hattie is a pretty repetitive story it's the perfect readers' theater play for our kids because they each only have one line (except for Hattie) but they get to say the same line over and over and over and over again. Which is, frankly, beautiful. High participation with only one line to read. We even have the ipad cued up so that our non-responsive friends can hit the button on the ipad which will say then line and then our friends can repeat the line. So far so good. 

It's getting better. Everyday they seem to be able to say their lines with fewer prompts. Less reminders. They are even starting to sound like they are in a play. They are taking turns with their lines and understand when to talk and when not to talk. We're even able to sit still during practice without giggling hysterically, sitting upside down in our chairs, or touching our neighbor. Well, almost. Maybe I'm in a glass-half-full mode right now.

We've invited everyone we know. Parents, principals, teachers, friends. If it is going to be a disaster there will be a large crowd to watch the disaster unfold. I have faith that people coming love our kids and will be understanding. I have faith that everyone will appreciate the hard work the kids themselves are putting into this project, despite whatever outcome may happen when we fill the room with strangers and force them all to wear paper crowns and signs. 

One more week and I think I'm going to give myself an ulcer before Friday's show. Keep your fingers crossed and tell us to break a leg.

Animal Research Mural

This is our class mural after we finished our animal research projects. It's one of my favorite murals from the year. Each student got to choose one animal to research using the site Pebble Go. After they did their research and answered questions about how many legs their animal has, what it eats, what kind of babies it has, and how it walks, each student wrote an "All About Book" (Think a very basic research report)

When their book was complete they were able to work make their own animals out of construction paper. It was completely free-form, as you can see. I sat with each child to help but didn't really provide any guidance and they pretty much had to do all the cutting, gluing, and planning themselves. I mean, look at that duck. That is one inspired duck. And the two sharks clearly look very different, but are both awesome. The children had to decide where their animal went on the mural based on what they learned in their research (how did their animal get around? Did it swim? Walk? Fly? Notice the duck has it's feet in the water. Very intentional.)

Mrs. Wishy Washy success: Just look at them!

It took me an entire year but I found the old, good Mrs. Wishy Washy books, ordered them, and now have them in my classroom. You can only imagine the dance I did when they were delivered to me, and the happy gasps that came out of my students' mouths. Look at all those Mrs. Wishy Washy books!  Just look at them!

Bring on next September! I'm already mentally planning my lessons around The Hungry Giant, Mrs. Wishy Washy and The Meanies.

Just 30 minutes... 30 seconds?

My poor cat gets the brunt of most everything around here, especially now that we have a little one. But seriously, after a full week of taking care of students then coming home to take care of my daughter and then just being a friend and wife to my husband I can't take it anymore. All the poor cat wants to do is cuddle but I am absolutely incapable of giving anything, even a cuddle to anyone else for the next 30 minutes. I need time to not have to think of anyone but myself.

30 minutes. That's it.

The look the cat is giving me tells me that I am not going to get it, but at least she's quiet and not yelling "MRS LIPSTICK" or "MAMA" loudly into my ear...

Touch and Feel: Adapting our Guided Reading Texts

Another Donors Choose project up and running! 

Adapted Version of The Snowy Day

This whole year has been one long exploration into how best to bring reading to students with low incidence disabilities such as autism and intellectual disabilities. It started with trying to adapt our read aloud texts to make them more engaging for my students. After working together with a great team we're getting ready to spend time this summer adapting actual guided reading texts.

Max Cleans Up turned into a touch and feel book

Our school ordered the guided reading books for us and they are already in our hot little hands. Now we just need the artsy materials so we can turn what would be a regular guided reading book into a multi-sensory reading experience to engage our readers. We've put up a Donors Choose project and we're over halfway to our goal (shameless plug: if you donate this week your donation is matched. We have $61 to go, but if you type in INSPIRE as the code at checkout your donation will double.)

Poor man's adapted guided reading book. This summer we'll use velcro to let the kids match words into the texts.

Adapted Miss Nelson is Missing

In my adventures with adapting regular texts this year I learned that the glue, even a glue gun, doesn't stick well to laminated pages. However foam stickers do. The Donors Choose project will get us sheets of sticky back foam paper, foam number and alphabet stickers, foam sticker shapes, and foam sticker animals. It will also get us Wikki Sticks and our own copy of Rhyming Dustbunnies that we'll throw into our pool of texts to adapt this summer.

We are ridiculously excited about our work this summer. Not only will we be adapting text but we'll be working with a reading specialist and a general education kindergarten teacher on making our literacy block model a general education balanced literacy approach. We're leading a training on this in July as well as a series of trainings next year.

Dreams of next year...

It's the time of year when I can't stop thinking about everything I want to do better next year. Grant it, planning to improve next year starts in September when I start making mistakes and start thinking "next year I won't do that..." but right now I'm desperately trying to remember all of those fleeting thoughts.

This was my first year in an intellectual disabilities program. I've learned a lot, and I did a lot of learning on my feet. I planned lessons I did for years in general education classes, only to find that I had to adapt, and adapt, and adapt some more to make them work. I tried things that flopped and tried things that kind of worked and finally settled on teaching methods that worked for me and the kids.

Here's my starting list of things I need to improve for next year:

1. Intentional time on "learning to learn behaviors", particularly "quiet hands". I had a student transfer into our class in January and I was much more deliberate in teaching him how to wait and not touch materials than I was with the other children. Next year I'm going to plan activities or plan to work one on one with students to intentionally teach not touching materials, waiting for instructions, etc. 
2. Following my new writing workshop structure from the beginning. It took me a long time to settle on a writing workshop structure that worked for my kids. I love Lucy Calkins and Katie Wood Rae. I LOVE writing workshop. Giving up the structure I was used to using in general education was hard, but in the end my kids are making more progress now that I've adapted my structure. Now I do more of a center style writing workshop, and kids that are able to use that time for free writing go to a free writing center. At this point in the year more kids can do free writing since I changed the structure.
3. Be more deliberate in inclusion. I think we did fairly well with inclusion this year, but I think we can do better. I want to spend a lot of time before school starts looking at ways we can include students with their gen ed peers and then planning how we're going to work on getting them there from day 1. 
4. Change how I store materials- this year I didn't want my kids to have free access to pencils, crayons, etc (see number 1 change for next year) so I kept baskets empty and put the supplies they'd need inside them before the activities. It worked occasionally but lent itself to being disorganized. To work it needed heightened organization, which just isn't possible on the fly.
5. How I organize my work table. I set it up how I used my table in past years, but this didn't transfer over to this class. I need to change how easily I can access materials while teaching. 
6. Better organization of my math centers earlier in the year. Halfway through the year I took time to file my math games and really organize them. It's been a life saver. I want to spend a lot of time organizing them this summer so I start the year knowing where all my games are.
7. Being more upfront with how I want the class run with my aides and other teachers in the room. This year I didn't know what I wanted so I'd often find myself thinking "why isn't anyone doing this" and then I'd realize that I hadn't actually told anyone what my vision was. 
8. Including parents on my weekly notes to all service providers. I spend a lot of time writing an email to all the teachers who work with my students so that they know what prompts we're using, what language we're using, what behavior plans we're starting and what we're teaching. There isn't any reason I can't include parents on this. 
9. Have a re-telling Board Maker answer chart set up from the beginning so that I have generic answers to questions like "who", "what", "where", "when", including distractors. 
10. Actually post on my class blog and make it a living part of the classroom. I had that intention this year. Next year it will actually happen...