Five for Friday!

Happy Friday! You can tell it's summer because I have time to do a Five for Friday!

I just finished reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I am chronically disorganized and tried about a million things to get my house together. I don't think I realized how necessary it was to go to these lengths until I started.

You should really snap up a copy for yourself because the Kindle version is like $8 and you can read it in a couple of afternoons buuuut I will give a little synopsis. The author is a hugely successful professional organizer from Japan and has a whole philosophy of how to get nonsense out of your space so you can actually enjoy it. Basically, you purge everything from your home that does not "spark joy," minus a small handful of non-joyful necessities and the things you really want to have around. 

The first step is tackling all of your clothing. Getting started was intimidating, but once I piled everything on my bed and started handling it, I flew through it. After 45 minutes:

 Donate pile.

Keep pile. The few things on the floor were so beyond tattered I had to throw them away!

Ultimately I filled seven trash bags to donate and one to throw away. And my drawers and closet are still full! It was eye-opening -- even if I somehow managed to get it all clean at once, I could never put it away. Mount Laundry would never be conquered and I'd be pulling my outfits out of a pile on the floor well into my 30s. I can't wait to throw away more of my possessions.

I started using Words Their Way last year, and liked a lot about it. One area where we struggled was in our Data Binders. With so many different groups using different sorts (each with a different number of words) I couldn't find a good way for my kids to chart their progress.

This packet has charts that work a bit like goal sheets. There's a chart for each unit in what you might consider the first grade books (Letter Name Alphabetic and Within Word Patterns). On each chart is a space for each sort in that unit. Students can highlight, color in, stamp, etc. the space when they master the sort.

Last year, I assessed students weekly by having them glue down their sorts. For some that seemed to be a good indication of whether they understood the sort, but not for others. I'm not sure if I want to do it that way this year. How do you assess your students on their sorts?

Looking back on the last two months (during which I polished off my second class for my ESL endorsement and dragged my rear end into my classroom twice a week -- you know you're jealous) I've also watched a lot of TV. Namely Orange is the New Black and all three seasons of Inside Amy Schumer. It's going to take some conscious effort to clean up my language by August.

This is the home stretch of classroom set up. I don't foresee having a "big reveal" because it never seems fully ready. I tend to make a very long list of projects to complete over the summer and then scratch several off the list in the final weeks. I did manage to finish up a few things that I'm pretty excited about.

My anchor chart situation was a hot mess last year. I'll leave it at that. These graphic organizer chart pieces are from the Applicious Teacher and I also scored a cart that another teacher in my building no longer needed. It took a while to create and laminate all the charts, but now it's set for the year to fill and refill with sticky notes. Next to it I posted my I Can Statements for Speaking and Listening so we can incorporate those goals into our group discussions.

I also set up a space to hang the ones that we're currently working on. I'm really trying this year to embrace the idea of not filling every square inch of wall space and leaving some areas to hang current work.

That's also my idea behind my new focus wall. All I've hung are more I Can Statements and a pocket chart for math vocabulary. In the middle, I'm debating what to include. I'm thinking perhaps something that illustrates our current units for math and reading, such as a graphic organizer or small anchor chart/poster. I could also put formative data and goals from preassessments, but I'm not sure the best way to display it. But I knew for sure I wanted to keep it very simple. I don't think a board with 50 items on it could reasonably be called a "focus wall."

Every year I vow to devote more time to weeding my garden. Every year, something better comes up, such as not squatting in the dirt in the hot sun surrounded by hornets. But the monsoon rains of May and June did yield some big happy tomatoes.

If they could go ahead and just ripen simultaneously, they could become a big happy heirloom pasta sauce.