Books to help you recharge over the Summer

Hello Friends, it's Erin from The Elementary Darling. The countdown is on! I have about four weeks left before the end of the year, and this is the time that I start planning for the summer and organizing for the beginning of the year. I know some of you are thinking, "She is crazy!" and I might be a little bit, BUT the end of the year is the best time to organize and plan.  Last year, I wrote this post about what I do a the end of the year, and Kristin wrote this post, about planning during the end of the year.

But TODAY, I am going to show you my favorite professional development books. Obviously, I would recommend checking out one or two based on your needs, however they are ALL amazing!

For the teacher that needs to RECHARGE

I love anything written by Ron Clark, but Move your Bus is my favorite. I reread it often to remind myself to be a runner! If you don't know, his co-owner of The Ron Clark Academy is Kim Bearden, and her book, Crash Course will remind you why you went into teaching. It is my ultimate favorite! I also recently found the book Conscious Discipline, thanks to my friend, Theresa from True Life I'm a Teacher. This book is all about teacher mindset. I just started it, and I am loving it!

Throughout this post, you’ll find Amazon Affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission if you purchase something through that link, at no extra cost to you, that helps keep my blog running and helps fund giveaways!

For the teacher beginning Reading Groups

These books are good for reading groups, or ideas for your groups. Even if you have been implementing reading groups for several years, I know you will find something useful in them! These two books are my everything when it comes to Guided Reading. Jan Richardson has everything you need, including strategies and printables in this book for every level of guided reading. The Daily Five book is great for anyone who uses a grouping method for reading.  I also LOVE Word Nerds. This book has amazing ideas for vocabulary instruction. While I would recommend it for 2nd grade and above, it could be modified for Kindergarten and 1st grade.

For the teacher looking for Math Group ideas

I LOVE this book! Debbie Diller is an amazing math group guru, and she has fabulous ideas in this book! It is for grades K-2, so if you have a book suggestion for 3-6, I would love to hear it!

For the teacher looking for Differentiation Ideas 

If you are a GenEd teacher and you have a huge range of student abilities in your classroom, these are my top picks! I got my gifted endorsement several years ago and the book, Teaching Gifted Kids in Today's Classroom is my all time favorite. It has so many suggestions to extend the learning of higher level students.  Advancing Differentiation and How to Differentiate Instruction for Mixed Ability Classrooms are both amazing and so helpful when your classroom ranges in ability levels.

For the teacher looking for IDEAS or Strategies

How many times have we all run out of ideas or needed new fresh strategies for teaching a topic?  I recently found these books this year, and I never knew what I was missing. THEY ARE SO GOOD! You can use these books no matter what ELA format you use. It is literally a book full of strategies for every level. They do cost a little more, but honestly, they are worth EVERY penny. You can find the reading one here and the writing one here. These two will be the ones that I will be reading over the summer!

What professional development books will you dive into this summer? Whether you are reading to recharge, learn new strategies, or try a new method, these books will help you achieve your goal! Do you have an awesome book that I didn't show, leave it in the comments below! Happy Reading!

6 Strategies for Teaching Poetry

Does teaching poetry stress you out? Try these 6 strategies for teaching poetry to get learners to fall in love with poetry.

Use Poetry Templates:

Many styles of poetry use a certain format.  Using templates allows learners to really focus on word choice. Learners don't have to focus on the structure with templates.  Giving access to a thesaurus and dictionary will help writers find the best words to fit their poem.

I want FREE Templates!

Integrate Other Subjects:

Poetry doesn’t have to be limited to just literacy lessons. You can easily integrate poetry into the content areas. For example, in math you can write diamante poems about the different operations, bio poems about shapes, and acrostics for key vocabulary terms.  You can get plenty of suggestions in this

FREE How to Teach Poetry (Even if You Hate It!) eBook

Use Close Reads

A poetry close read can help readers make inferences and connections. This simple close read guide can be used with any poem. The questions guide readers to understanding the parts of poetry, identify key terms, and search for main idea.

Take me to the FREE Poetry Close Read.

Use Poetry in Lessons and Centers

Make poetry part of your guided reading lessons and literacy centers. Keep it up and running with a poetry book basket and the poetry close read.  Want poetry book suggestions?

Poetry Books Kids Love

Do you want poetry literacy centers that are already prepared?  These monthly poems will allow for you to cover all holidays and seasonal themes. A test-prep/close read guide, written response, poetry writing lesson, and content area connection is provided for each poem.

Take me to Poetry Literacy Centers

Read Poetry During Read Aloud Time

Use poetry as part of your daily read aloud. Poetry is perfect for read alouds especially on those days when you are running short on time.  Check out this article to get suggestions of poems that will keep your students reading poetry all year long. Each month includes a FREE set of questions and activities.

Take me to the FREE monthly poetry resources.

Found Poetry

Use found poetry to help students identify the main idea of a passage. Have students highlight the important words and phrases as they read. Then cut out the highlighted words and organize them into a poem.

Click here for a FREE Lesson Plan for Found Poetry.  

Create a Wall Display

Keeping up a poetry word wall is a great way to help students learn those important terms. Put it up near your literacy center.  This poetry word wall has terms and examples.  You can color to meet your classroom decor or for student notebooks.  Or just print and go.

Take me to the Poetry Vocabulary Book.

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Tips for the End of the Year

Hey Ya'll!

It's Theresa from True Life I'm a Teacher, and I feel like it's been forever since I've blogged here at "The Peach." It was actually just a month ago, but the end of the school year makes my days and weeks run together and I'm lucky to remember my own name, basically.

 There is literally not a second of downtime in my classroom this time of the year. I have backup plans for my backup plans. I almost treat it as if there's a substitute...free time = time for behavior issues. Here are some things I have readily available, some are good for 3 minutes worth of time, while others could take 15-20 minutes, and others could take up as much or as little time as what you need.

- GoNoodle (seriously, check.this.out)

- Read Alouds (random, not necessarily related to anything in particular)

- games (math facts around the world, hangman with spelling/vocabulary words)

- Activities like THESE themed specifically for the end of the year

After almost 180 days of specific management techniques/routines/seating arrangements/ _______ (fill in whatever you've been doing), switching up your routine or trying something new can the most exciting thing ever! Normally, throughout the year, I use "Copeland Cash" as part of a token economy, but by the end of the year, my kiddos are kind of over it (and so am I). I've started using stickers (never underestimate the power of a sticker) and some incentive charts I picked up at Dollar Tree. I pass out stickers like crazy for good behavior, and the kids plop them on their chart. They can turn in a completely sticker-filled chart for anything from our class store!

Also, by complete dumb luck, I stumbled upon something great! I had to flip flop writer's workshop and reader's workshop due to testing, and it was like I'd introduced a completely different subject. I mean, hello??? We've been doing these all year, but apparently just changing the order of our schedule was a game-changer. Go figure!

I also use these awards {they're FREE} to reward students who are being extra great in the hallways...well, anywhere! Ha!

My last tip is to have a countdown going! The excited surrounding the changing of the countdown is pretty surreal! Last year, I just used this simple {and FREE} countdown. We updated it each morning during morning meeting. The kids love it!

This year, I put a fun activity in an envelope with the number of days left of school written on the outside. So far, we've enjoyed no shoes in the classroom, a nature walk, a jump rope competition, Blow Pops, and lunch bunch! The mystery surrounding what could possibly be in the envelope is more than my sweet seconds can hardly stand, and their behavior is on point so that they don't miss out on each day's fun activity!

You can find all our countdown activities here!

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates. 

3 Summer Tips to Make Back-to-School Easier

Hey Friends! It's Theresa from True Life I'm a Teacher! I'm having an absolutely terrific summer so far! Buuuuut, I can't help but to start thinking about next year! Crazy, I know, but I just can't help it!

I'm here today to share how I plan and organize during the summer that helps me feel prepared for the new school year. I know, I know...some of your aren't even finished with the current school year, but I hope you'll be able to use these tips as well!

I shared on True Life I'm a Teacher that I follow the "One-A-Day" rule - try to accomplish one thing each day of summer. Clearly, I set the bar super high ;)

Anyway, while I do definitely try to do lots of things that I just don't have much time for during the school year (just getting caught up on laundry...or maybe that's just me), I do have a few MUST do's that make my life so.much.easier once school starts again.

Let's take just a minute to recognize that there are a TON of things that can't really be done over the summer, because they're contingent on either arranging furniture and getting your classroom set up, OR based around knowing what your schedule will be. AND, I don't spend my whole summer preparing for school or doing school-related projects, but I view summer as a gift of time, and that last thing I want to do is be completely overwhelmed the week before school starts, and wish that I had been more proactive during the summer (because I've been there, done that).

Now we covered what can't be done...let's talk about what we CAN do!

One of the things that puts my crazy mind (seriously - my mind goes nuts in the summer...too much Pinterest!), is to write down major things that happen each month so I'm not thinking, "Man, I totally forgot about my stash of St. Patrick's Day books." 

Here's what my yearly plan (you can grab your own copy here) looks like (I add to it as things come up or as I remember things):

From here, I like to take the standards for my grade, and type them out based on when they have to be taught. Think of this as sort of "zooming in" from the yearly plan. I'm such a visual person, I want everything for each 9 weeks/quarter on one easy to see page.

Disclaimer: This may require you to do a bit of digging around on your school district's website, or asking an administrator or academic coach. Chances are, they have them, but may not have shared them with everyone. Fortunately, at our last faculty meeting for the year, we got our "Teaching and Learning Frameworks" for 2015-2016, so I was able to write out the standards, just how I like them.

Anyway, here's what they looked like when I got them...

Can't even handle the various formats and the fact that each subject is on a different page. Here's how they look now. Boom.

Once I have the yearly plan created, I create pacing guides for each 9 weeks (or quarters...whatever your district call them). My teaching partner and I actually got together earlier this week finished these for the entire 2015-2016 year! Go us!

It took us about 4 hours, and we both walked away feeling like we had accomplished something amazing! (There will probably definitely be adjustments that need to be made, and some rearranging that takes place, but that's totally normal!)

It's kind of like putting a puzzle together...what makes the most sense where, and what do we have to teach when? Having a good game plan before actually starting the year helps me have a good picture of where we're headed!

Having these pacing guides makes lesson planing and finding/creating resources a breeze! Seriously! So worth the time it takes to create them!

My last must-do for summer, is to create simple grade sheets. Nothing fancy, just something I can plug my kids' names into, print and be on my way. The first 9 weeks always flies by, and I usually struggle with grades for this grading period because so much time has been spent on routines and procedures, and building classroom community. Typically, I'll go ahead and write in the standards/topics that are assessed (because I have my pacing guides and yearly plan finished). Having the grade sheets done ahead of time, just helps in having one more thing checked off of the to-do list.

Ready to make the most of your time this summer? Grab your copies below:

DIY Pacing Guides (Editable in PowerPoint)

DIY Pacing Guides (PDF - print and write)

DIY Grade Sheets (PDF)