The Holiday Itch

Between Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break is one of the more challenging times for teachers. Over the past few weeks I have felt as if my students might explode, but the same goes for me. This Friday is our halfway celebration for Teach For America and I can't quite believe that much time has gone by. I am, admittedly, quite ready for a break!

My roommate and I threw a holiday party for all of our friends this weekend. Our apartment is completely decorated including my first self-purchased live tree! Since Charlotte is a completely new city for me far away from where most of my college and high school friends live all of my friends here are teachers. When we get together we swap a lot of amusing stories! As I said over Thanksgiving break my goal again will be to tell mostly the good stories (even though the bad ones are sometimes the most amusing). So whether you see me during break or we talk on the phone, remember to ask for the success stories, because as I am itching to have more time to sleep, think, and breathe I am also itching to share about the growth that my students are already making.

Teaching with Technology

Thank you to my sister for sharing another wonderful TED talk with me:

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education | Video on TED.com

Every Sunday I sit down to plan for the week ahead with a bevy of challenges in front of me. I start my plans guided by the upcoming assessment and standards from the North Carolina course of study that we are studying that week, and then from there I have a few big decisions to make: what part of the novel will we cover? How will we read this week; reading groups, read-aloud, color reading, etc.? How will I incorporate lessons on grammar? How will I incorporate writing, speaking, and listening as well as reading? How will I use data to drive my instruction for individual students? How will I differentiate for all of my different levels of learners? How will I use SIOP strategies, to make the information comprehensible to my English Language Learners? And finally, How will I use technology?

On our teacher evaluations, one of the standards we are evaluated on is preparing our students for the 21st century. I think about this a lot when I consider the state of America's schools, and I think that Mr. Mitra's talk is particularly interesting. I wonder if I could group my students in front of a computer and then allow them to take ownership of their learning. Although my students have access to a lot more technology then the students in this video, I do not think that this has made them any better prepared for the 21st century. My students can use google earth, wiki sites, email, etc. but whenever allowed time on a computer on their own they use it for social networking. I tried to channel this towards education through a great wiki site called www.edmodo.com, and it somewhat worked but they still are writing messages to each other on it in incomplete sentences that resemble text messages that I send when I am in a rush (and these are far from academic). I would like to find away to channel all of those challenges that I face every Sunday under the umbrella of technology so that my students are truly engaged with technology and learning at exactly the level they need to be taught at, but I wonder how to do this. Maybe I should ask for 30 Ipads for christmas...this may get the job done.

What Are You Thankful For?

Sometimes I must take a few steps back before I realize what is in front of me.

When you teach it is easy to get caught up in the daily labors of teaching. Over the past few days I have had the opportunity to visit friends in New York City, and friends and family in Philadelphia. As I reconnect with people who I have not seen in a long time, the teacher stories start to flow out. I am thankful for the people who listen to these stories, and the people who read my blog, write me emails, send me texts, call me weekly and help me stay sane in the midst of the daily insanity that is teaching.

As I take a few steps back from my life as a teacher my spirit to help close the achievement gap on the path to ending educational inequity is reignited. I also realize that in some ways I have made great gains with my students. We are reading our second novel now (Lois Lowry's The Giver) and I think 85% of the kids are actually enjoying it! My students responded to a very complicated discussion question on our class wiki about the importance of diversity last week, and this week they made connections between the movie The Truman Show and our book. Amidst all of these fun activities we are achieving mastery of our objectives for the year.

Before I left Charlotte for the holidays someone advised me to "remember to tell some good stories," and after a chaotic week at school I was not exactly clear on what those were, but after a few steps back it is clear that the good definitely outweigh the bad.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and thank you to my friends and family!

On Silence

TFA tells us that October and November is a time of deep hardship for a first year teacher. There is data that says on the continuum of stress for a first year teacher this is the pinnacle of that stress. I admittedly tried very hard to resist this, but I must admit they are right. Since my last post I have worked harder than I ever did before, and I am still working to keep my student's spirits alive.

In order to find some solace this weekend I decided to go back to my roots and attend Quaker meeting in Charlotte. In Quaker meeting silence is very important. As I was sitting in meeting I was reflecting on being silent, and the peace I felt when the only things that I could hear were small movements in the room. I realized that as a teacher I place a high value on silence as well. When I am able to finally get all eyes in my classroom back on me, and mouths shut I feel like I just completed a marathon. So on Sunday I thought to myself, why is this so important to me in class. I can completely justify its importance in my religious life, but in class it's really just about control.

I decided this week to let go of some of this control. We are working in literature cirlces this week and rotating through working on the computers to respond on a wiki site. This means that students are leading each other through reading comprehension, and using their own opinions to talk to me online. We started on Friday and it has been anything but silent in my classroom since then. I think that despite my loss of peaceful silence my students are learning. It is really exciting to see them using the wiki (I am using edmodo.com), and most of the students are doing an excellent job working together to read.

Although October and November are proving to be challenging (just like TFA said they would be) I am learning to find moments in my classroom even when it's noisy that bring me the same joy as sitting in a meeting house in silence. It is my goal to be better about posting, so I should be back to at least once a week very soon!

If you are a mentor, I am sorry that the emails have been infrequent; my students have been busy starting the new book and have not had a lot of computer time. Please look out for some more emails coming really soon. If you never got an email your student is probably struggling with their email so please contact me and I will make sure they send you an email this week.

Whatever it takes... become legendary

My students needed a little motivation this week to focus back in on their school work so I showed this awesome video. All I did was play this video and 3 others from the "become legendary campaign," and then asked them to write for 5 minutes about why I showed these videos. One of my amazing students wrote the following (I copied her spelling, and grammar to keep it authentic):

Become Legendary

Ms. (my name) is showing us this video because she wants us to see how other people worked hard so they can become legendary.

When I grow up I will become legendary. I will not let anything or any one keep me down. I have the power to be brave and strong.

I will an am going to be the first girl in my family (mom, dad, sister, brother) to finish school and start collage. I will acheive all of my goals because Ms. (my name) and everyone else cares about me and my education.

Once I get my grade or report cards I will see 40ty years from now and see what difference i made with me and my life.

I can, i am, and i will become legendary.

My teachers are giving me the tools to work hard, I cannot just stay their and do nothing. They gave me the tools for a reason, that reason is for something in the future, so I will need to caryy those tools every where I go, and those tools will help me get to my destiny.

I believe in me myself and i to become legendary. and set my goals

Waiting For...

This Friday Waiting for Superman opened in Charlotte. It was playing in a small art house movie theater in a swanky neighborhood. Teach For America got us tickets to go and see it with the rest of our peers. When I first saw the previews for the movie this past spring it brought tears to my eyes. My heart swelled with joy at the prospect of a movie that could really ignite national change in the education system. My expectation was that it would expose people to alarming realities that they were previously unaware of, and that suddenly American society would be united in a movement to end educational inequity.

To say the least I was underwhelmed. I was hoping to have the same feeling when I left the movie theater as I had when I watched Michael Moore's Sicko, the feeling of outrage at the state of our nation. In Teach For America there is a term "transformational leadership," and this is a term that I frequently share with other people because it is something that I feel is very important. I look to this term to help me describe what this movie was not, because I believe it was informational not transformational.

I listened to an NPR review of the movie this morning, and they had a lot of the same sentiments as me. One of the things they pointed out is that the only solution that the movie really came to was charter schools. While I believe that charter schools are an amazing development in the educational movement I know that charter schools are not a reality for all of our students as we saw in the movie. The ultimate message was that much of education is left up to chance for children. Although this is greatly upsetting, for some reason the way this was delivered did not leave me with the combined feeling of outrage and inspiration that I was hoping to leave with. I shared this with a colleague and she said, "well at least it starts a conversation," and all I could think to myself was well does it? I don't know that it does. After you watched it did you feel charged to join the movement to end educational inequity? I think that this movie had a ton of potential to shine light on the injustice that many of our children face in public schools, but instead it tip toed around the heaviest issues, interviewed some politicians, and brought charter schools to the forefront of everyone's mind. So all I felt when I left this was that I was waiting for something too, and that is some public image of the achievement gap that will transform Americans' thinking about the education system in our country.

Please share your thoughts on the movie! I would love to hear other perspectives.

Look Out For Student Emails!

To those of my readers who are mentors, my plan is that students will email you during class tomorrow! So please look out for their emails and make sure to respond. I've matched everyone up. Some people have two students, just let me know if you don't think you can handle two. Can't wait for you to virtually meet you mentees! Enjoy.

Educating and Education

Thank you to my wonderful sister who sent me this:

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

As I embark on my path to becoming a professional and leave school far behind I am realizing that in order to really be the best teacher that I can be I need to continue educating myself. I do not just mean that I need to go to grad school to get my teaching license and complete an MAT, but I also need to explore articles, books, podcasts, blogs, NPR pieces, etc. that are related to what is happening to me right now. In school I studied the sociology of education to some degree, and I was fascinated by the evolution and degeneration of the American school systems. So fascinated that I decided this is my cause, or this is my calling. It is my calling to work relentlessly to close the achievement gap in America's schools, and to work to truly offer an equal education to all students. I exclaim to my students at least on a weekly basis that it is not fair that they are far behind their high-income peers in their academics and that I am here because I believe this is an injustice and I care about helping them learn. This is something that gets me fired up, something that puts tears in my eyes, and something that motivates me on a daily basis, and something that just generally gives me chill bumps. So why would I ever let this passion and drive be consumed by the daily tasks that come with teaching and overwhelm me on a daily basis? Well teaching is overwhelming, I make tons of important decisions everyday, I appear (or at least attempt to appear) composed and motivating towards my students every minute I interact with them, I plan, preplan and lead a professional learning community. What I am trying to say is that a teacher does not just teach. So what, you might be thinking, so why in the world did you post this TED talk and why are you talking about the responsibilities of a teacher?

I believe that Ken Robinson is right. I think that schools have the potential to kill student creativity. I couldn't help but think of all of my ADHD students when he was describing the dancer. I couldn't help but think about how testing for some of them is only a source of frustration rather than a mark of success. But Ken Robinson, let me ask you this? How do I teach a classroom that is full of dancers who cannot progress through school if all they do is dance? So here's my challenge of the week (well really for the year): My challenge is to promote learning for my dancers, my singers, my artists, my talk show hosts, my doctors, my lawyers, my veterinarians, my athletes, without stifling their creativity, and I must do this while simultaneously teaching them state objectives, and ultimately testing their mastery.

At Cornell I frequently questioned my professors who could effortlessly theorize about educational issues, without ever having stepped foot in a title 1 classroom or any classroom at all, and today I continue to question them. It is all well and good to sit up on the top of the hill that is the Ithaca campus and look down on the world as if it is all a game, but the reason that no person has been able to solve the civil rights issue of education in America is because the theories, and the practice do not connect. So my goal is to educate myself everyday through different outlets in order to save the children's education. If you ever want to share articles, podcasts, etc. please send them my way, and help me resolve the civil rights issue of our time.

Goodbye Keys

So Wednesday I left my apartment around 6:40, went to my car, and realized I forgot my water bottle. I locked everything in my car, headed back into my apt, grabbed my water bottle, and locked my door....and locked my keys in my apt. As I stood in front of my locked door with just my water bottle, dorky CMS lanyard, and four flash drives I realized that I royally screwed myself. If I had locked myself in a desert I would be ok, because I had my water bottle, but nothing else! Panic set in very quickly. I had no phone, and only a water bottle. How in the world was I going to get to school!?

My first thought was that my PD lives in an apt below me, so despite the early morning I would go bang on her door...after banging on it for about 5 minutes I realized that a. she really probably couldn't help me and more importantly b. she was away at a conference! Panic struck again... I ran downstairs to the callbox and tried to call my roommate from it, and her phone was off.

So now for my last resort (well I tried a few more things before this, but they really aren't that interesting): I needed to find someone to help me. I decided at some point after running after the sounds of closing apt doors, that I would just wait in the parking garage, because if anyone was exiting the building it was most likely in a car. I was able to flag down a man in a big SUV and through tears explain to him what was going on. He immediately parked his car, and told me that we could try to break in (in retrospect this was probably a terrible idea, but I was in crisis mode). Well breaking in did not work (thank god) so then I borrowed his cell phone to call building services. They redirected me to a locksmith, and did you know that in an EMERGENCY you have to leave a message for a locksmith! Absolutely ridiculous! At this point I knew I was probably making this poor young man late for work, so I just looked up at him and asked, "what in the world should I do?" He offered to give me money for a cab and called a cab to the apt. building. I couldn't believe that this stranger was so willing to help me. I somehow made it to school 30 minutes early with two students at my door waiting for tutoring!

The moral of this story is that random acts of kindness still exist! My students loved hearing this story, and making fun of me about this for the rest of the week.

A Failure and A Success

Today my lesson was a failure. Sometimes we have to admit our failures, and I am learning to accept that. This is not to say that my day was a failure...just my lesson. I wanted students to have time to set up their blogs, so I broke students into three groups, they would be at the computers for 15 minutes each, and then they would switch. While students were at computers all other students were reading in pairs filling out a graphic organizer together... this did not work. It was chaos, mayhem, and my newest favorite expression: complete bananas. I accept this all and now it is time to charge head on towards tomorrow in order to overcome this chaotic day. Tomorrow students will not be in groups and they will have to be seated for much of the class time, we just need to regain some momentum in terms of our behavior. We are also going to do some positive fun activities in order to get our morale back on track.

Now for my success. At the end of today, I felt pretty under appreciated. I think that this was a result of my own low self esteem from being a new teacher and also from a chaotic day. As I was telling a friend about my day on the phone and strategizing for the next I found the note above. One of my students left that note somewhere on my desk under a binder instead of in the usual mail box. On the front it says "to: Miss Samuel from: u will never know..." and then on the inside there are all sorts of small words of encouragement. Every negative feeling that I had about today was erased because of that note. That note reminded me why I am here and why I am a teacher. I am here for the students.

Life and Classroom Updates

I find that as a teacher my life is now non-stop, even more so than before. Every moment of each day needs to be scheduled so that I get everything done. So I have tons of updates since my last post, despite the fact that it was only a few days ago.

Firstly, I finally got our class big goal poster up in the classroom. I made a poster of the big goal that I shared with all of you and I had all of the students sign it so that they were committing to our goal.

I've been having some frustrating car issues, and I got the car you see a picture of here for a rental car. This car is a

cross between a grandma's car and a gangster's car...I am embarrassed to be anywhere near it. I can't wait to get rid of it, but the jokes about my grand marquis don't seem to get old. For

example: last night I went out for Indian food with L, and they gave us an extra entree...we are pretty sure we can attribute that to the grand marquis.

I went on a baking and cooking rampage today to let off some steam and relax before grading and some yoga. As the weather cools off in Charlotte I can't help being excited for fall. I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies... a family favorite that reminds me of my sisters!

Lastly the classroom blog is going to be fully launched tomorrow! I posted our first post tonight. As I am trying to adapt technology into our classroom, I am always seeking out advice and ideas. so email me if you have ideas! My newest idea (thanks to a brilliant coworker) is that each of my students will actually have a personal blog that will be linked to our blog so that they can have an outlet to express themselves and explore their own interests. So check it out http://classroom432.edublogs.org/

Classroom Revamp!

So today I did my first afternoon of tutoring. I guess it was more like an evening because it was from 4:30-6:30. I was able to spend some one-on-one time with my students and get them to help me set up my classroom even a little bit more. I am really getting to know all of my students and of course getting more and more attached to them. I will give my first assessment Friday and am looking forward to seeing how they all do. I will let you know how that goes, but first take a look at some pictures of the classroom!
I found these hilarious posters at the dollar store. I don't think they are really that great, but they make me smile. If you can't read it the quote on this one says "If you never stick your neck out you'll never get your head above the rest"

This corner of the classroom looks a lot different than the last time that you saw a picture. The computers all are named after famous baseball players, because the sixth grade theme is baseball (shout out to lower school GFS computer room for that idea). Our word wall is growing, and under the sign that says "our goals" students wrote their career goals and names on name tags and stuck it to the wall.

This is a new organizational system that I am trying out. It took me a very long time to get set up so I hope that it works. Each student has a mailbox in the bin for their block, and this is where they keep their notebooks and where I hand stuff back. Classes are also color coded.
And finally some student work on my wall!!!! These are posters that my students made out of "book covers" that were created on Friday. The book covers are based on the setting from the first chapter of our book. The students did a wonderful job with this, I wish I could show them all to you individually they are just beautiful.

Inspiration

First of all I would like to thank you all for your responses to my blog post and emails! Please wait patiently while I figure out all of the details. I did announce to the students today about this project and the excitement in the room was palpable. I used a few students as examples, because I've already found good matches for them and their faces lit up.

I find daily inspiration in my students, and I hope that as you all email and chat with them you will feel the same. As the southerners say, "I get chill bumps just thinking about it." This morning I downloaded Obama's back to school speech and listened to it on the way to work. I was moved to tears as I was driving for a few reasons: firstly because it took place at Masterman in Philadelphia so it really seemed like it was close to my life and second of all because it was all about goal setting just like we are doing in our classroom. He told the students of America that "the future is in your hands." So of course I wrote that on my board today and as I introduced our objective mastery tracking binder I made a direct relation to this quote (this is a little too complicated to explain through blog post, but of course email or call with questions).

In addition to feeling inspired by my students' goals and aspirations today I was also impressed with their reading. TFA has us do all of these reflections that answer the question, "when you look forward to May on the last day of school what do you want your students to say to you, and how do you want it to feel?" I always talk about how my dream is that my students will all love reading and will feel that they have the tools they need to succeed in academics and life. Today my students loved reading. We read aloud by color (more on this later or email me for the strategy) and as we were reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and really getting into it I looked up at the clock and saw it was time to go. When I stopped the students in the middle of our read aloud I got responses such as awww man, and noooo it was just getting good. They love the book!!!!! I couldn't be more happy about this, especially since we have to get through all 200 pgs of it, and it is not easy for my little 6th graders. I hope this feeling will carry on throughout. Keep checking back because our classroom blog should be up and running soon!!!

Looking For Mentors

Inspired by a mentorship program between my school and UNCC I would like to match every single one of my students up with someone who can be a mentor to them over the internet (by gchat, email, skype, etc.). The vision is that my students will get to know someone who is in college, or a college graduate and who is on the path to success. The conversations they have can be about anything from hw help to mentoring, and in the beginning they can start by talking about goals, and what a goal is and how you plan to get there. If you are interested in being a mentor please email me zoesam2@gmail.com and I will give you more information when you email me.

This will mean so much to my students, and it will be a great way for them to practice writing for someone other than me. Thank you for your continuous support!

Dear Mr. Rushdie

Yesterday I decided to put myself out on a limb and try to contact the author of my students' first novel. Our first novel is Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, so naturally I emailed Rushdie's agency. Much to my disbelief I got an email back this morning! The news, however, was not good, Rushdie I was told did not have enough time to write my students an email as he is deep in the writing process. I am not going to take no for answer so easily though. I emailed them again today with this African Proverb:

http://archive.uua.org/re/reach/fall00/social_justice/how_are_the_children.html

and asked that the agency asks one more time (or for the first time probably) and as they ask, they should consider themselves as people who are looking out for the children. So hopefully Rushdie will sign on, write me 6 sentences or less about why he wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories so that I can have a 1st person account to give my students Monday, and he will forever ask himself from now on "how are the children?"

No Longer Teach For Free!

One of my friends cleverly exclaimed this week that we are no longer Teach For Free, as she pulled our first paycheck out of her mailbox. Oh how right that sentiment was. The motivation to teach can easily be pinpointed on the children that you are teaching, but when you only have about $30 in your bank account and an empty gas tank that pay check feels pretty great.

So yesterday marked my first full week as a teacher. I came straight home and got in bed to finish my homework for my grad classes, watched a movie and went to sleep. A lame Friday night you may be thinking, but quite necessary. I am losing my voice because I am not used to talking so much and most days I spend over 12 hours at school. This is not because I absolutely must spend those 12 hours at school, but it feels like it is necessary. I also am there because I hope to inspire my students as much as they inspire me, and to do that I have a lot of work to accomplish.

Here you see the wonderful window in my classroom acting as a temporary bookshelf. I decided this week that I would like for my students to read 20 minutes every night. I presented a reading log that I borrowed from another teacher, and showed them how to fill it out. As soon as I finished what I interpreted to be a very clear explanation hands shot up in the air to ask questions. I then got this terrible feeling in my stomach and realized what it was they all wanted to know: where to get books if we don't have any at home? My heart dropped and I told them to try to read anything they could find until I got them books. I asked my principal that afternoon if I could take my students to the media center to check books out, and he told me to see him after school because he had a better idea. Well you can see the result above. Scholastic at some point last year or at the beginning of this year donated 100s of books to our school and because I asked I got to take some of them. I spent the whole evening cataloging every book that was given and creating a library log. When I went home that night I couldn't sleep because I was so excited to see my student's faces light up when they saw the books. The next day was just as rewarding. I wish I took a picture of the books before I left this weekend, because you would see that there are only about 15 left. Almost every single one of my students took out a book and was reading at every moment they got! If that is not inspirational I don't know what is.

My goal is to get ahead this weekend, so hopefully that means more blogging! Happy Labor Day weekend.

On to Day 3!

I need to go to bed right now, but I wanted to write a quick post to say how wonderful my students are! I was just reading through all of their work and I came across something that I cannot keep to my self. Today my homeroom had a "do now" to write about "what makes a great teacher?" One of them (even though my students will always be anonymous I actually don't know who this one is, because I forgot to have them put their names on it...) finished early so she/he got to write about a favorite teacher that they've had. Here is what she/he wrote:

"My Favorite teacher"

My favorite teacher is Ms. (my last name, trying to be anonymous) she's always enthusiastic and she cares about us a lot. She doesn't fuss a lot and she always giving us positive thoughts. She believes in us.

What a compliment! That last sentence is exactly what I wanted students to say about me. I will take this with me forever.

Ok off to bed for my 5:30 wake up.

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

As the title says tomorrow is the big day! I am so excited to meet my students. I've planned planned planned but I don't think that anything can quite prepare me for tomorrow. Those of you who know me well, I am sure are rolling your eyes upon reading this. I feel like I've gone over just about everything, used my risk management skills to plan around any potential issues, but I still feel like I am missing things.

Tomorrow is mostly procedural and getting to know my students. They will get a tour of the school, fill out a facebook page, talk about the syllabus and our classroom systems. I can't wait to hear about my students. I am on the S.I.O.P. hall (more on what this means later) so I have all of the English Language Learners, and they are from so many nationalities. I am going to learn so much this year.

Can't wait to tell you all about tomorrow. Check back soon.

Somehow a whole week has gone by, and one of my favorite days of the week has returned. I am so enjoying my early morning Saturdays. Todays visit to the farmers market was fruitful as always, but I will spare you pictures this time around. I did buy some hot german dill pickles that are delicious! Not quite like Dad's but these could be a competitor.

This week was my first week of teacher workdays at school. My school is going through some extreme changes so the whole staff needs training until school starts to make sure that everyone is on board. We have a staff of about 90 people at our school, which is absolutely overwhelming to me considering that I graduated high school with less people than that. I will probably have about 90 students! Which is about 22-23 a class. We will see if that is the case.

Our days have been long but each day I feel inspired and relevant. I finally feel like I am going to be doing something that will make a difference in the world. For those of you who knew me in high school this was something that I was so passionate about and really focused on, but I think over my college years I kind of lost sight of this. On Thursday evening we had an open house and I got to meet about half of my students and their parents. I am on the team that is teaching the students with limited english proficiency so I have an extremely diverse mix of students! I did have a terrible moment though when I was trying to communicate with a parent and I couldn't because we did not speak the same language. She asked me through her son "how will I communicate with you during conferences." My only answer was "I will make it work, I promise." Luckily I found out that there are translators available in the school, and software on the computer that I can use to translate letters I send home to parents. I think I may also try to learn spanish on my commute to school via podcast.

My students were all so bright, nervous, and excited. I asked one boy to tell me how he learns best, and he looked at me and said "don't seat me near my friends." This was an 11-12 year old telling me this! What a smart boy I can't wait to have him in my class. The parents were so involved and eager to tell me about their kids as well, I think that they have just been waiting for someone to listen. From these conversations I have learned so much already.

I have a ton to do this weekend, as I finish up classroom decorating (I bought some hilarious animal posters from the dollar store), and I plan for my first few days, but meeting these students on Thursday really makes it all worth it. The staff at my school is incredible as well. I get chill bumps just thinking about how dedicated each person is, and how willing to teach and learn from each other we all are. My first day is Wednesday! I cannot wait to give you a full report. Look out for my classroom blog in the coming weeks as well, my students will be blogging about the life of a 6th grader.

Saturday

Today my friends and I went off to the farmers market for the second week in a row. We found lots of yummy unique veggies, and I bought this beautiful bouquet for only $7! Below is an image of the market to give you all a sense of what it looks like.

I finished up in my classroom yesterday for the most part. I will add stuff as my students create exemplary work!
This is our big goal, not sure I am going to keep that, because it doesn't look great there.

The bulletin boards! I am quite proud of these. We will put vocab words that we master on the word wall.

And here is the calendar reinvented, and looking much better.

Last night 7 friends and I had one of our first potlucks! We all made delicious food and ate together before heading over to the all corps social. It was a really nice event and we hope to make it a weekly get together.

This weekend I am working on a project. I picked up an antique nightstand for about $25 and some paint and sandpaper and I am now in the process of painting it! I will post picture of the end result.

My Classroom

I think this is the moment you've all been waiting for...pictures of my classroom! So these are pictures I took to help me brainstorm ideas and I thought I would share them with all of you to see if you have any advice. I have to say that decorating my classroom really stresses me out. I really do not like tacky teacher paraphernalia so this does not help with my decorating skills. My vision is that my students will sit in a horse shoe shape so that I can walk around in front of them (I like to wander when I teach). I am worried that everything is looking a little claustrophobic right now though, and it's only going to get worse because I am getting ten computers soon and I have no idea where those are going. So take a look at these pictures and send me your advice! Tomorrow I begin new teacher training hooray!

Can I fit 120 binders for all the students in this space?

This is what I will see while I am teaching.

The sea of desks. That big bulletin board is now covered in blue chart paper and will have a border on it next time you see it. On the right I will put the behavior trackers I think.

That was my attempt at making a calendar out of painters tape (resourceful I know!). It looks awful no need to tell me...Friday it will become bigger squares, only school days, and four weeks long.

And this is what you see when you enter. That's my desk in the back. So send me ideas, thoughts, whatever!

Falling in love with Charlotte

To start, some images from my dinner this evening, inspired by my farmers market finds this weekend. Roasted squash and eggplant (from the farmers market), israeli couscous, and heirloom tomato mozzarella salad with a pesto vinaigrette (tomatos and basil for pesto from farmers market). Turned out to be delicious!

As I am getting more and more settled into my new city I keep finding wonderful and special things that Charlotte has to offer. This week's find was the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market. Here are some photos of my finds:

Squash, peppers, eggplant, and a white cucumber!
Beautiful and delicious yellow heirloom tomatoes.
And a little more.
I am so excited to be able to share little pieces of my life here with all of you. This week is an easier week, because I only have new teacher training on Thursday. Otherwise I am just planning on my own time for August 25th the first day of school! I am going to decorate my classroom this week, so stay tuned for pictures of whatever that turns out to look like.

I titled this post "falling in love with Charlotte" because I am really starting to feel at home here. This city just has so much to offer. On Thursday I went to a great art house movie theater that is right near my apt, and Saturday I explored some of the night life in uptown (Charlotte calls its downtown "uptown" because it is on a hill). I can't wait to share more of my finds, and start to share my classroom stories!

Week 2!

I have been waiting to post until I had some image of togetherness with my apartment, so here it is, my bathroom. That beautiful shower curtain came today, and I am going with a white and navy/indigo theme.

Enough on the apartment though, it's time for me to fill you all in on my life: Since Wednesday I have been in TFA round zero. This is our professional development that helps us set big goals for our classroom, plan our units, familiarize ourselves with content, and get a sense of what the year will look like. I am excited to share my big goal for my class this year with all of you.

My big goal is that students will be qualified to apply for the National Junior Honor Society by the end of the year by acquiring a 3.75 GPA, passing our ELA (English Language Arts) EOG (End of Grade assessment), and completing our writing project.

I know what you are all thinking... this is insane and way too ambitious. The point of setting these big goals is that by the end of the year my students will be able to compete with their high income peers. I believe that if I do not push my students towards this goal everyday I am not providing my students with the opportunities that I had, nor am I providing them with the opportunities that they deserve. Studies show that students who are put in high tracks K-12 have a higher chance of success in the future. So this is my goal, getting my kids on these high tracks so that one day they will write to me about their college experiences.

I hope that as I embark on this exciting journey you all will feel invested in this goal as well. If you have any ideas related to my goal please share them with me. Also keep emailing, calling, and texting because I will definitely need your support when the going gets tough.

Moving In Part 2

As you can see the apt transformed quite a bit today. The boxes were all moved in, and ikea exploded in our living/dining room.

In these pictures you see us preparing to leave Ikea (after being there for about 2.5 hrs). A's car is completely filled to the brim above and here P is strapping a mattress to my car. We drove about 20 mph the whole way home with our hazards on.

Moving In Part 1

We arrived in Charlotte last night around 6:30, and then quickly headed off to L's house for a lovely home-cooked meal. Below are pictures that I took of our empty apartment so that you can see it as it transforms.

Living and dining room. That door goes out to our balcony.

My bathroom.

Closet

Kitchen

Getting Started

I hope that this poster is as inspirational to my viewers as it was to me this summer. Our fourth graders created this class motto on one of their first days of summer school. After we hung it up in our classroom we recited the motto each morning.

The purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with my family and friends, to share amusing teacher stories, and other stories about this new chapter of my life in Charlotte, North Carolina. Enjoy and keep in touch!!!