September Updates

This month has flown and is flying by at school. It could be that with all of the new students which means interim IEPs, hurricanes, and scheduled days off we are just plain busy.

The students have been busy utilizing Moby Max and Brain Pop Jr. on their iPads, which helps because I can track data. Speaking of data I love using my data to drive instruction and this means more meaningful instruction for my students. I am constantly having to update their individual lesson plans and I love that kind of busy.

This month we are studying community helpers, fall, apples and sports as center themes in the classroom. I am constantly making new games for the class, because I think if I am tired of looking at it then they must be tired of using it to learn. One of the newest addition is our story map which allows us to break down a story, retell and sequence the story.
Tomorrow we will read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.  I am so excited.

Contact information

With the beginning of a new school year I do need to update all of my contact information on the blog. Many of the parents in my classroom are already aware of the new contact information, but for the newbies.
I teach K-5 self-contained special education at Frank Long Elementary School. This is the most awesome school, but I am a little biased.
My current schedule is:
7:20-7:50 student arrival
7:50-8:10 breakfast in the room
8:10-8:30 calendar/morning meeting
8:30-9:15 reading
9:15-10:00 math
10:00-10:30 finish morning work, writing, and reward time
10:30-11:15 specials/teacher planning
11:15-11:45 lunch
11:45-12:05 recess
12:05-12:50 science
12:50-1:30 social studies
1:30-2:00 TEACCH box time/IEP goals

School contact is pgrady@liberty.k12.ga.us

WELCOME BACK!!!!!!! 2016-2017

I absolutely cannot believe it is already the beginning of the second week of school. I have no idea where last week went.  We had an amazing start to what is going to be an amazing year of learning and exploring at FLE. I am so proud of what the students were able to accomplish last week.
I am continuing pre-assessments this week in order to determine instructional levels in the classroom. I teach in what feels like a one room schoolhouse and it does make for some crazy instructional planning. This year fortunately I only have one kinder, and only three on alternate assessments, so that will help.
Things that I changed in my classroom for the better have shown to be helpful the first week. I have returned to the tried and true with behavioral management and we had more time on task and less time with behaviors. I have returned to the traffic light system. I know many teachers hate this method, but I do not have my students move a clip. I keep up with on the clipboard so they are not seeing their name or picture on a color beside green. I am hoping this week that routine has developed enough to introduce the token economy on a full roll out to the students. Often students who are low such as many of mine they do not have the cognitive development to understanding working for three chips before receiving their reward. This has been a challenge for me. We will overcome and get it together.
Academically, I am also trying a few new things such as a weekly progress report on academics and skills (without grades), just a quick note to let parents know how their students are doing. I am also sending home weekly skill sheets for their parents to work on skills specific to the child. This is not graded either rather it is designed to help the students learn.

I will post updates later this week on new changes and how they are working in the classroom.
Happy Teaching and Learning !!!!!!!!
Ms. Grady

Updating

I have not held up my New Year's Resolution of posting at least once a week. Life and teaching happens everyday and I simply forget to post.
We are wrapping up the school year with less than one month to go.
Upcoming events include:
School holiday April 29 and May 2
Schools wide Coke fundraiser begins May 3
Cinco de May celebration-May 5- we are planning to collaborate with the GATE classes as we follow traditions and break Pinata.
Special Olympics- Ft. Stewart/ Hinesville- May 6
Frankie the Bear visits out classroom on May 10- this is a classroom reward for PBIS
Field Day is May 20
End of the year party will be an ice cream social- May 26
Kindergarten celebration with early check out for kindergarten on May 27
Last day of school May 27

WOW!!!! When I write it all down it really seems busy.

I will post pictures from events to show us having fun.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!

I hope everyone is refreshed and on fire for learning as we return from the holidays. I think we all needed the break.  Great news!!!!! GAA is almost over Hip Hip Hooray!!!!!
The class is growing by leaps and bounds. We are gaining another student tomorrow. Welcome Hayden!

I am planning a lot of new activities to celebrate the New Year and other events this month. We do have a long weekend this month, which will be nice.

We are continuing to work on IEP goals as part of our curriculum along with standards based instruction. I am encouraging my parents to work with their students at home on their goals so we can see lots of growth before the end of the year.

Welcome back students and lets finish this year Frank Long strong.

October

To quote one of my students. " Where did August go?" and to that I add where did September go????
Our school is on the push for students making a goal and charting their data. I frequently gather data and adjust instruction to meet the findings so this is nothing new to me. I have not really charted it in the classroom for everyone to see mainly because I have limited wall space and a classroom full of students who are non-readers or emergent readers. I had two students meet their goal this week of knowing their math facts 0-3. Congratulations to these awesome guys.

H. making his goal and earning a trophy. You mustache him about his data if you see him.

J. with Dr. S. -look at the proud smile he worked really hard on this goal.

I keep hearing about "DATA DIG"  and wonder is this what they mean.  LOL!!!!

 

 

Upcoming Events both in class and at school

10/19- field trip to the pumpkin farm

10/19- pumpkin decoration contest

 

We are using Twitter in the classroom check it out

 

 

Twitter@grady_pamela





New School Year

I am so far behind with my classroom blog and again I must apologize. We have been very busy learning our new routine and meeting our new classmates.  I did a complete redo in the room and it is much brighter and much more organized than it has ever been , YEAH!!!!!!!! Of course much like everything else I do with teaching it is a work in progress. It has been a struggle just getting a schedule together, but I finally have that in place.  We are changing things up a little this year, with recess in the morning when it is cooler, scheduled time for TEACCH task/IEP goal instruction. As far as the room I will include a few pictures, I love color and of course purple is the best color.
Parent conferences- I will begin scheduling those with parents this week just to have face time and to catch up with the parents on what has changed with their student over the summer.

Star Testing- We completed that last week thanks to Mr. Lent for taking students to the content mastery lab while I gave direct instruction in the classroom.

This year we are planning a very positive year and this includes no behavior chart in my classroom. WE have rules and if one is broken then we decide together what would have been a better choice using the good choice/bad choice anchor chart. I am very proud of how well this has worked so far and I believe it will continue to be a positive part of the day for the kiddos.

 

Reading Area/Ground Zero for Ms. Grady

Writing Area/ Breakfast in the room area

Class rules/voice level

The school theme is super heroes, we used the photo booth for a quick photo session.

Some heroes prefer to show their faces, LOL. 

         My favorite wall in the entire room.  This wall took Kelly ( my wonderful son and I two trips to the school to finish). This is the anchor wall for math. I love the colors and how it gives my classroom a visible break in areas. I am teaching from centers for the first time in a very long time and loving it.

The great divide between reading and math. Green is the main color on the math side and purple is the main color on the reading side. I love purple and Mrs. Williams, my paraprofessional loves green we had to have both colors. I love it and the kids all seem to love he bright colors, it was the first thing they noticed this year.