A Teacher's Prayer

Maybe I'm just having an emotional night, but this really got to me. As I've been trying to prepare for this new school year, I stumbled across this prayer on Pinterest (I couldn't find the original location). I don't think I could have said it better myself. I wanted to share this, simply so that others may benefit from this prayer's honesty. Most importantly I want to be a light for the Lord. Even if I can't pray with my students or share my beliefs, I want to live for the Lord each and every day. I want to make a difference in a child's life. After all, that's why I became a teacher. May I always remember this prayer, each and every passing day. 

Starting 2013 Off Right!

I have new classroom pics! 

I'm currently working on getting the classroom up to working order before we start back next week. I decided to work late into the night, with the help of my wonderful fiancé (at least he knows what he's getting himself in to!), but I finally am happy with where am at! Am I finished? Umm, no! But at least I can say, I can see the end in sight. 

So here it is Ms. Johnson's (soon to be Mrs. Parrigan's) classroom!

My (almost complete) job board. My thought is that my students will create their own superhero characters to place here after the first day of school. Then, after my classroom jobs are assigned, I will list them on this board as well. I will post pictures when it's finished. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

The front of my classroom. Notice my newly painted wall!!! I'm in love with it!

Teacher small group area. I still have more work to do here! 

Knowledge is power board. This will be my students' progress monitoring board

 Classroom overview. 

My reading center. This is my fourth year teaching, so my classroom library is still growing. However, looking at pictures from my first year, I'm pleased with the amount I've added since then! Hopefully this will continue to grow and grow and grow!

Challenges

Re-Discovery

This blog was a project that I took on one summer, and to be completely honest, I forgot all about it. The other day I was browsing Pinterest, when I saw my very own bulletin board! I was astonished that something I had created was actually considered worthy to re-post several times. I noticed that who ever had originally pinned my bulletin board, was on my blog! I couldn't believe it! 

So in order to continue sharing my thoughts and ideas when it comes to teaching fifth grade, I thought I'd dig up my old password, and re-blog! Here it goes!

Challenges

This school year has by far been the most difficult year I've had yet. I've constantly struggled to keep my endurance, enthusiasm, and creativity from hitting an all time low. Due to many circumstances, I've actually had to reconsider the reasons for going into teaching. Teaching was my passion. I lived for coming up with innovative and interactive lessons that truly engage my students in their learning. 

Recently, I've been hitting my knees a lot and asking God for guidance. I know that I was placed in my school for a reason. My students are not an easy demographic to teach. There personal lives are a strong factor to overcome. Some days it gets me down. There have been nights that I can't sleep, weekends I can't enjoy, and days that I just break down and cry for some of my students. Learning is one of the last things on some of my students minds, and that makes my job difficult. 

Re-Invention

With that all being said, I decided that I have to dig down deep and find every bit of enthusiasm that I have. I know that I have the ability to be an amazing teacher. I have a lot of learning to do; I'm completely aware of that. I'm ready to learn. I'm ready to teach. I'm ready to make a difference. Here is a post of my favorite lessons this school year. Get ready for new and great things to come from me. 

Historical Hero Cereal Boxes

I absolutely love this lesson. Not only do my students get to dive into research, but they also get to let their creativity run wild, and create something that everyone know about, cereal! To begin this lesson, I bring in a box of Wheaties. 

Did you eat your Wheaties?

As a class, we then discuss what attributes a person must have in order to be considered for the cover of the famous Wheaties box. Most popular answers ... strong, confidant, athletic, determined, etc. 

Then we move into a discussion of the many historical figures we've talked about in our Rising Conflict in Boston chapter. This leads us into the lesson. I'm working on adding my instructions, research guidelines, and rubrics to teacherspayteachers.com. However, until then, I'll give you a sneak peek at one of my student's final projects!

Thomas Toasties ... A Bit of Independence in Every Bite !!

Amazing, right? The front of the cereal box is to consist of a picture, a cereal title, and a catchy slogan. The sides have nutritional information (40g of bravery, 12g of creativity, you get the picture), and fun facts. The back consists of a biography. However, we don't write boring essays in Ms. Johnson's class! We disguise our biographies in crossword puzzles, and word searches. These projects turned out amazing! Check out a few more of my star students. 

Franklin Berries ... A Berry Saved is a Berry Earned

Reverie'o's ... No "tea"ing. These O's taste good!

The New Room 2011-2012

My classroom is officially done. (Well almost!) With only a few finishing touches left to do (i.e. label, etc.), I thought I would post the pictures. I've very excited about my classroom this year. I can't wait to meet my 26 new fifth graders tomorrow at Open House.

My Classroom

My Desk

Job Board

This year my school is beginning Covey's 7 Habits for Healthy Kids initiative. As a part of this, I have developed my job board. This year my students will be filling out applications for their positions. Each job is posted along with a description of each blog. I'm interested to see how this will work this year. Each student will hold their job up until the week before Winter Break. Then we will re-post the jobs and spend that last week training the new job holder. I hope this works!

Organized Book Shelf

This is my second year teaching. Even though I have more books than last year, I still am working on adding to my classroom library. At this point I have organized them into baskets and plan to add the labels tomorrow. I can't wait until I have a massive classroom library. I love to see my kids read!

My Podium

Here is a good view of two of my 7 Habits posters.

Here are 3 more of my 7 Habits Posters.

The last two 7 Habits posters.

My door!

Recipe: Spectacular: 5th Grade
Ingredients: 11 Charming Boys, 16 Delightful Girls, Dash of Happiness, Sprinkle of Curiosity, Lots of Leadership, Carton of Fairness, Heaps of Hard-work, and a case of cooperation

Yield: This recipe makes for 27 well-rounded students fully prepared for 6th grade. 

Bulletin Boards and Displays Through the Years

Through all of my college education, I had to make many displays. I've never really shared any of them with others, but I thought I would start. So enjoy :)

 Division Vocabulary Game

MLK Board

The students wrote on the stars how they could help keep MLK's dream alive. I had some really funny answers.

Students drew names and wrote something nice about the person on their tea bag.

My favorite door of all time. I made this for the 2nd grade classroom I was student teaching in. The kids loved it!

Then the teacher next door asked me to make her a door decoration, too!

Good news board for 2nd grade.

Such a cute idea. So many cute stories.

I love making collages. Especially as a formative assessment.

Native American Housing Project

Since I've only recently started this blog, I wanted to go back into last year and share some lessons and activities that I used in my classroom. One big part of fifth grade in Kentucky is social studies. I am the lucky teacher that gets to teach this. I absolutely love teaching social studies to fifth grade. I've always been a fan of American history and now I get to share that love with my students. Here is a project that I did with my fifth graders last year.

I was so impressed by how the students took this take home project and ran with it. The parents really loved this too! It was a great reason for students to spend some quality time with their parents. I couldn't believe how creative some students got with this project. I saw everything from used folders, straws, aluminum cans, sheets and even clay. Every single students submitted a project. Even if a parent couldn't come up with supplies I pitched in to help out. I didn't want one student to miss out because they weren't as fortunate as others. The students were so proud of their projects. We displayed them in the library for about two weeks after they were turned in.

A New Begining ...

As we begin this new school year, I love to look back on the last and reflect on my improvements as a teacher. Last year was my first year. I can remember back to last year at this time. I had just received my first job. I was full of wonderful ideas (too many to use). And I really had no idea how to actually start a school year. Looking back, I can see that I didn't exactly start my first year on the right foot. I felt like I was having to react to everything. One goal I have for this year is to be proactive. I want to fix problems before they even occur.

So with this new beginning, I wanted a new classroom theme, layout, and management system. Here are a few of my classroom pictures from last year. I'm currently researching ideas right now for this year. I will post pictures very soon!

As a first year teacher, my classroom library was very very small!

I went with a Hollywood theme. This board was used all year to celebrate accomplishments (i.e. A's, distinguished work, special awards, etc.).

Used paper to cover these horribly ugly cabinets. This year I'm considering painting these.

Sticking with my theme.

Classroom helpers board.

My desk :)

These actually stayed pretty organized all year!