Successful Parent Conferences

We just finished our parent teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday. It was a long couple of days, but they went fabulously! I genuinely don't think I've ever had a more successful set of conferences! Every parent left very happy, and so did us teachers! Whoo hoo! Yippee skippy!

In our class we have 2 teachers and we each bond with completely different kids. Some kids come to me for everything, other kids prefer Lauren. We have totally different personalities and therefore different connections with the kids. Both of us love this and see this as the epitome of teamwork in a co-teaching classroom. As long as every kid feels loved and has a strong connection with at least one of us, that's all that matters.

With this in mind, we took turns leading the conferences based on which teacher has the strongest connection with that child. It's a very equal balance and made the conferences go 50/50 for who was leading and who was taking all of the notes.

One thing that seemed strange to me at first, but I actually really liked was the "action required" section of our notes below our regular notes of the discussion topics. We had to make a list during our conference of things that needed to be followed up on. This ranged from emails to specialists, behavior charts to send home, to the new strategies we wanted to implement based on our discussions. This section made it SOOOO easy come Monday morning to make sure we did all of those little follow up things that can be so easy to forget after a new parent walks into your room to talk.

Our kids have made soooo much progress since they walked into our room on the first day. The kids have already made HUGE academic strides! We have also had kids who had struggles with their behavior who are like whole new kids now. We are so proud of them!

One thing we make sure to do is tell little stories about each kid to their parent about something that made us laugh, or something that made us very proud of them! The parents always love this part. This was my favorite story of the week:
Please note the kids are dead serious during this conversation.
Kid 1: (big sniffle/snort)
Kid 2: They make tissues for that!
Kid 1: Tissues are for boogers. This is snot!!
Kid 2: But still! Use a tissue!
Me: Actually Kid 1, Kid 2 is right. Tissues are for boogers AND snot (as I try my hardest to keep a straight face, but then burst into laughter as I look at the other teacher)
The parents busted up laughing and it made for a very enjoyable conference ending!

Teacher Retreat + Team Building

This first week back as been such a busy week! Our school is fairly new and only accepts students with special needs or learning differences who need intervention. The school started with one classroom and now has five. With all of that growth, the school staff has doubled since December of last year. One of our missions this summer was to decide how to develop a school community.

This team building as a school started with the teachers. We all do team teaching as well as interacting with countless specialists (Doctors, OT's, Speech, etc.). Our administration decided it was important for us to do some bonding and team building together before starting our year.

We took a trip to Half Moon Bay and did a whole bunch of activities as teams. We all enjoyed a beautiful dinner and hung out at the Ritz over looking the ocean. That night we played Heads Up and Mad Gab which was a fun way to get to know each other outside of school. It was basically a big slumber party with all of us getting to bond with each other.

My view at the Ritz while we hung out together

The next morning we all ate breakfast and headed out to the beach. We each went kayaking with our teaching partner. I had never been before and it was sooo much fun! Lauren & I were the first ones out in the water together. We discovered we make a great kayaking team! I loved it and I think it would be a fabulous thing to do again with friends!

The AMAZING view from my bed on the sleeping porch!

Our kayaks!

 When we got back to our beach house we had some team building challenges. We had a rope and had to solve problems in different ways.

1. Create an equilateral triangle without talking or taking our hands off the rope. This one was fairly easy and a nice way to start.
2. Create a square with our eyes closed. This was a challenge because several people talked at once and it was hard to decide when we were done when we couldn't see anything. We eventually got it worked out. (I'll admit it was more of a rectangle, but it was close!)
3. Lay the round rope on the ground and fit everyone in the circle at once while singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. This was tricky but doable the first time. Then the circle got smaller and got a lot more difficult. This is where the team building really happened!

One of the best parts of the team building was our facilitator. One of the teachers at our school used to do outdoor education and did a wonderful job of helping us reflect on the problem solving process after each activity. It was nice to think about how each of us approaches problems differently and we took different roles naturally in each situation. 

One thing I found very interesting were the Enneagram personality quizzes we all took. I discovered I am an "achiever" and "helper." Neither of these was a shock to me! I'm a SPED teacher who has always been a bit of a nerd! But it was nice to read a bit more about our personalities. Lauren, my co-teacher, and I have very different personalities, but we looked it up and discovered that we are very compatible and complement each other well. It's something I've noticed from the moment I started teaching with her. I'm so glad we were paired up together this year! Lauren was actually the one organized our retreat and she did an amazing job!

RAFT- A Teacher's Dream Store for Cheap Supplies

Today was one of those days where I wondered... why didn't I check out this place sooner?!?!

At some point a year or two ago a parent mentioned getting something from "Raft" and I had no idea what she was talking about. She seemed surprised, but she was often telling me about stuff and most of it...well...wasn't worth my valuable time as a teacher. They were things that has zero connection to my curriculum and were informational, but random. I made a mental note to look into this "Raft" place, and then forgot about it.

Well today I discovered the AWESOMENESS known as RAFT (Resource Area For Teachers)!! It was far beyond anything I'd imagined. It's like all the big high tech companies around donated their extras (some used, some new) and threw them all in a giant warehouse for teachers to buy for cheap! 

They also have kits made up of materials given a new purpose and turned into cool learning games. CLICK HERE to check some of them out.

Teachers pay $40 to join, but the membership lasts for a year and the deals are AMAZING! I saw metal file folder holders that were $15 at Staples, but were only 10 cents at RAFT! Two of those and a few reams of paper would honestly pay for the membership! Good news! You don't need to be a member to buy stuff online! Just in the store where things are insanely cheap.

It's the kind of place where you never know what you are going to get, but you know it's cheap. I found TONS of things with high tech company logos that were brand new such as a computer bag for Cisco Systems which was probably bought for employees, but then donated as extras. If I bought the bag in the store it would be $30, but if I don't care about the logo, it's only $2. They had glitter, construction paper, staple removers, envelopes, yarn, scrap material, and tons of other stuff. Many items were brand new in their packaging! Obviously since it runs on donations from companies, you never know what you'll find, but it's all a really cheap!

Check out the things I found in the pictures below:

Every dice set you can imagine! Place value to 10,000, verbs, double dice, regular dice, and who knows what else! Every jar in this picture has a different one!

















These bins were called "bulk bins" and you can fill a whole reusable grocery bag for $2.50! They had things like corks, stencils, puffy paint, film canisters, and all sorts of things I can't name, but I could certainly come up with uses for them!

 

These colorful bags are those little balls you find in gumball machines that hold prizes! How cute! I need to find a gumball machine just so I have an excuse to buy these! It's $1.50 for a set that I think must have had at least 50 of them.

These bins had office supplies that look like they just sat in a storage closet for 2 years before getting dropped off for us to buy. They have everything from whiteboard cleaner to paperclips and pencils. It's crazy cheap too! A box of paperclips was 25 cents, and a big box of red correction pencils was only 50 cents. These are not "Back to School Sales," these are the regular prices! How awesome!

Carpet squares for only 25 cents?! Awesome! Too bad I don't need them this year!

So what's your favorite place to grab deals for your classroom?

A Fabulously Perfect Day, Plus Chinese Acrobats!

Today was so amazing that I don't even know where to begin! My kids were not just good, but PHENOMENAL! Every kid had some sort of outstanding moment of greatness today!

My new Julia Cook social skills books came in the mail and I brought them to school today. My little guy who asked for them (a kid asking for social skills book might be a SPED teacher's dream come true) was jumping up and down with excitement when he found them on our table this morning! He even asked if "RJ can watch me work." RJ is the main character in many of the books and my student wanted to keep the books next to him while he did math and writing today. Too funny! The best part, he summarized a story unprompted! He's never been able to do that!! This kid has a textbook case of autism and he is like my little miracle child this year. He's making so many gains it makes me feel like I'm really doing something.

It's easy to feel like you're running in circles and not getting far when you teach SPED, but then you take a step back and look at where you started and jump for joy!

Red Panda Chinese Acrobats performed at our school today for an assembly. It was an hour long and my little guys were mesmerized for every single second! I'm trying to put a video of it here, but it's not cooperating with me. So there is a regular pic to see. Does anyone know a good way to send videos to parents? The file is too large to email. I have some with students on them that I don't think I should post on the open internet.

Target has some super awesome Leap Frog learning cards for $1! I also picked up cute little erasers to use as counters. I'm starting to teach addition and subtraction to the kindergarten kids and these were perfect! My next happy moment is when one little guy when crazy and started doing addition up to 14 independently! I think he'd have gone higher, but that was the most he had of each eraser shape.

Last, but surely not least, one kid lost his very first tooth ever today! It was the most adorable thing I've ever seen! It was driving me nuts because it was barely hanging on and just needed to come out. I showed him how to pinch the tooth and pluck it out. I promised it wouldn't hurt, and after an uncertain look he gave me, he just plucked it right out! He was jumping with excitement and I got his first reaction with my camera to text his mom. She seemed very excited earlier this week about her first chance to be the tooth fairy.

Another kid was super sweet and ran to get some drawing paper. He seemed to be on a mission, so I didn't stop him. This is what he created for his friend to show people the way to find the lost tooth! Adorable!!