It just so happens that today is Homecoming. The energy is palpable in our middle school hallways! Our district high school is just across the street, and we are invited to participate in events such as the Homecoming Parade and school spirit day. Everyone is very excited (and maaaaaybe struggling to focus on schoolwork?) What a great end to Week 4! Here are a few more highlights from the week:

1. Guess the Reader Revealed! Our contest has come to an end, so I switched up the Guess the Reader board to reveal the answers. I gotta say, the students have actually had a lot of fun with this mystery game. The 4 winners have selected books from their respective wish lists, and I will order and deliver them by next week.

2. Workshop Folders – Each of my students has a hanging file folder to keep their writing pieces and other important documents. This week, I gave each student a manila folder and invited them to decorate it with anything at all about reading and/or writing. They could choose favorite books, authors, quotes, characters, genres, etc. Even kids who claimed, “But I don’t read” had plenty of ideas for decorating their own workshop folders. I think they turned out great. At the end of the year, they will take their folders home with them and, hopefully, on to their freshman year of high school across the street.

3. The False Prince – I finished reading The False Prince this week. It wasn’t my favorite book ever, but it was an interesting read. At times, it was quite predictable and felt a bit forced, but somewhere around the last third of the book, new twists were revealed that kept the plot fresh. It was hard to feel close to the main character, Sage, who reveals very little about himself. He is mischievous, cunning, secretive, and manipulative, but also sympathetic, loyal, and honorable. If you enjoy reading mysteries about royals / aristocracy, this may be your new book!

4. Colonial Occupations – In my social studies class, we are currently researching the 13 colonies. After completing a research report on a colony, my students generated a list of occupations from the early 1700s (based on the resources and needs of each colony). Next, I had each student select an occupation and do another brief report. Finally, I am having the students look for connections between the colonies and the occupations to illustrate that every job is important, and everyone relies on each other. Noting how interconnected everything is will help them to understand the deep and lasting impact of taxation without representation and the events leading up to the American Revolution.

5. On Wisconsin! My husband and I had a great time on Saturday at the Badger game. It was very nostalgic for us as alumni – especially for my husband who played in the marching band. Of course we won, then marched down E. Johnson with the marching band, visited State Street for a bite to eat, and enjoyed genuine ice cream from the Chocolate Shoppe! How have 9 years passed already since we left Madison?

I hope you have a fantastic week, and I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Oh boy, Week 3 felt like it was 9 days long. I think this is always a hard week every year. I consider weeks 1 and 2 the ‘honeymoon’ weeks where everyone is bringing their best. By Week 3, however, the students are progressively more tired and receiving increasingly longer and more challenging assignments in all of their classes. They have gotten over the shiny sparkle of going back to school. We’re not “Back to School,” anymore – this is life for the next 37 weeks. As we accept our fate and embrace the routine of things, we must also celebrate the many highlights of the week!

1. Guess the Reader – My favorite highlight of the week has been the “Guess the Reader” contest going on throughout the school. The students are sneakily trying to figure out who is behind each book by asking us totally not obvious questions and trying to get sneak peeks at our hands. I’ll announce a winner on Monday, and the winner will be invited to choose a brand new book from their wish lists.

2. Timeline – I am teaching Social Studies again this year. We will cover content from the founding of the 13 colonies up through the War on Terror and everything in between. I decided to post a classroom timeline to help my students get a sense of how events relate to one another chronologically. So far, this has been very helpful. My plan is to take a moment after finishing each chapter to have my students vote on an image that could symbolically represent that chapter as well as to decide where the image should be placed on the timeline.

3. AIMSWeb – I was trained in AIMSWeb this week. It is an assessment and tracking tool created by Pearson publishing. As an interventionist, I will use this tool to provide weekly probes to my students and track their progress toward becoming ‘on grade level.’ The training was a full 7 hours and included practice with a training module. I completely understand that this tool is necessary and I accept that this is the direction we must head as an educational community, however I still have several reservations about AIMSWeb. My main reservation has to do with the assessment tools themselves. To track reading progress, AIMSWeb provides a reading fluency measure (a running record) and another component called Maze to assess ‘comprehension.’ Maze provides students with a cloze passage in which every 7th word is missing and students must choose between the options to decide which word makes the most sense. I do not believe this to be an accurate or comprehensive measure of reading comprehension, nor does it align with any common core standards and expectations for what constitutes reading comprehension. What is Maze testing, exactly? Grammar? Vocabulary? There is so much more to comprehension. What about locating evidence in the text? Making inferences? Analysis, compare and contrast, or critique? I hope that educators and administrators will use AIMSWeb data as one of several tools to track student progress and make any high stakes decisions about a student’s education.

4. Classroom Mantra – “Why are you here?” On Wednesday, I was very moved by Alicia Keys’ advice she shared on my morning commute radio program. Every hour, everywhere, she asks herself about her purpose. It’s a simple question that can mean so many things. I decided to put the mantra on my classroom door for myself and for my students. Why are you here today? What do you hope to accomplish? What is your purpose on this planet?

5. Graze – I am LOVING having a Graze subscription this year. I so look forward to it every Tuesday. I log on to my account and let them know how I liked each snack, which helps them to send me more of the snacks I will like. They are healthy, filling, and tasty, with the bonus of being a surprise and not the same boring things I always buy. Loving it!

How was your week? I’d love to hear in the comments below!

Happy Week 2! These first few weeks back to school are always the longest and most challenging, and I feel completely wiped out this week. We had open house on Wednesday, and I met a lot of wonderful parents. I can’t wait until tomorrow morning so I can sleep in and finally catch up on my overflowing inbox! Here are the highlights from week 2:

1. Guess the Reader – I’m working on a fun new bulletin board! Check back next week to see the final product.

2. Identity Pie Graph Activity – As an opening activity for our unit on Identity, my students created pie graphs to represent the various elements that impact their own identities. This is a great activity to learn more about your students and to get them talking!

3. Sea World Controversy / Practicing Argumentation – In Social Studies this week, we read various articles and watched youtube videos both in support of Sea World as well as condemning. We practiced writing claims and finding supporting evidence as well as working in groups and initiating collaborative discussions. In my opinion, this is a perfect controversial issue to use in your classroom because there are strong points on both sides of the argument. Sea World does a lot of critically important work in protection, education, and preservation. We watched the trailer to Blackfish as part of our investigation, and I have to tell you – the room was completely silent. After the clip ended, there was an audible “gasp” in the room, and I know my students were emotionally impacted. I watch it and feel like I got punched in the gut. The next day, several students told me they went straight home and watched the entire movie. This topic clearly got their attention.

4. Dissertation Bound – I completed my doctorate in June, but it takes several months to get your dissertation professionally bound. I got the call and went to pick it up from my university library. It is HUGE! Glad I brought my husband along to help me carry it!

5. Paleo Foods this Week – I received my copy of Meals Made Simple in the mail, and I’m in LOVE! I’ve been cooking exclusively from this cookbook this week, and I’m absolutely loving everything. Here we have Mexican Chicken Soup, Cumin-Garlic Summer Squash, Real Deal Chocolate Chip Cookies 2.0, Pumpkin Bread, Chicken and Rice Casserole and – my own recipe – frozen Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bites (a great summer treat).

Happy Back-to-School! Today is our first Friday of the 2014-2015 school year, and we’ve made it through week 1. It was your typical first week back with bumps in the road and interesting challenges, but we made it!

Every Friday, I post a “High Five For Friday” entry that highlights 5 things from the week. It’s all about being positive and finding things to celebrate. Here are this week’s 5:

1. School Supplies – The Supply Fairy delivered a wonderful, colorful pile of back-to-school supplies to my room! I do all the ordering for our department, so that is why there is so much here. Who doesn’t love new pencils, highlighters, and white out?!?

2. School Forest Field Trip – Our district is lucky enough to own a 16 acre school forest right in our own backyard. This week, I took my students on a quick walking tour of the grounds. We noted several invasive species, steered clear of the poison ivy (!) found some great places for doing creative writing later, and enjoyed how we felt worlds away from school when we were only a few paces from the playground.

3. Packers Season Open – To celebrate the official start of Packers Season, the staff got to have a dress down ‘Green and Gold’ day. We have some very enthusiastic staff who made me giggle with their seriously fantastic sportswear (think Green and Gold overalls!).

4. Eleanor & Park – I started reading this new book, which was recommended as an adolescent fiction novel. One chapter in, I soon realized that I would not be able to recommend this to my 8th grade students due to the language. However, I am really digging this book so far. The characters are very interesting and the story feels nostalgic to my own teen years in some way. I’m on Chapter 13, and I expect this will turn into an emotional roller coaster by the end.

5. Making lots of Connections – I saved the best for last. I have loved meeting my new students. The best part of the first few weeks is the connections we make. I learn so much about my new students, their interests, their anxieties about the year, what they are excited to accomplish, their hobbies and talents, and everything else they are willing to share. On the first day, it’s become my tradition to wear these silly rainbow socks. I do realize how ridiculous they look, but they have become a real conversation starter. My students like to come up and talk to me about them. I think it helps them to see that I don’t take things too seriously, that I am approachable, and that I know how to laugh. Connecting with my students is really important to me, and I value our relationships and everything that we can accomplish knowing there is mutual trust and respect.

Whether this was your first week back or you’ve been back to school for a while, I hope you had a SPLENDID first week of September! I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

Welcome, 2014-2015 School Year! This is my 8th year teaching Language Arts at my school. I am always looking for new ways to streamline, engage students, and improve. To that end, I am trying out a few new things this year.

First of all, my schedule has changed quite a bit. Last year, I taught only Language Arts. This year, I will teach Language Arts, Social Studies, a Reading Support class, an Academic Support hour, and I will also be the Reading Specialist. Phew! While that is quite a change with a lot of new things to learn and teach, I also think I’m going to love the variety. Teaching the same thing all day long can get kinda boring and repetitive. I welcome the challenge!

Below are a few new things I am excited to try this year:

1. Common Core Learning Target Web – At my school, and likely at yours, we are required to communicate the daily learning targets to our students as well as visually display the targets. Students benefit from knowing the intended goals and outcomes of instruction. That being said, changing up the learning target on a nearly daily basis can become a cumbersome task. To streamline, my partner and I decided to create a web of ALL the targets we will hit in our first unit (about 1 quarter). Then, we can simply put a laminated bullseye sign on the target(s) we are working on any given day. Seems like this will make things a lot easier. This has the added benefit of showing students a preview of all of the targets and where we are heading throughout the unit.

Common Core Target Web (c) Kristen Dembroski

2. Talk Partners – For the past 7 years, my room has been organized into table groups (4 students). This fit nicely with my classroom philosophy of collaboration, group work, and community. However, it became distracting at times. Put socially-motivated 13-year-olds into a cluster, and shenanigans will happen. This year, I am trying a new idea called “Talk Partners.” You can see from the new seating chart, which I call Chevron Tables, that students are now more in rows instead of clusters. Each table will consist of one pair of students, talk partners, which I will switch up every week. The infinite campus grading program that I use can create randomized seating charts at a click, so this will not be too difficult. I will also work in more reflecting and communicating time into my curriculum. I will pause more often and say, “Explain to your talk partner what you just heard / understood” or “Ask your talk partner a question you still have about this topic,” etc. The goal will be more focused interactions.

Chevron Seating Arrangement (c) Kristen Dembroski

3. Leveled Literacy Instruction – I will be teaching a Reading Support class this year, which is a new offering at our school. It will be for students who are performing below grade level on our district-wide reading assessments, yet aren’t receiving any other kinds of support (not Special Education). The LLI is an elementary school model that is releasing a middle school component in September. Since it’s not released yet, I can’t tell you much about it other than the Reading Specialists that use it at our district elementary schools love it and see very positive results!

4. Snacks! Okay this has absolutely nothing to do with my curriculum, but I am excited anyway. I signed up for Graze this year. School starts at 7:45 and lunch isn’t until 12:50, so I’m very likely to get hangry… So Graze seemed like a perfect solution for me. They will deliver 4 snacks per week (or every other week) directly to my school mailbox, and I can customize the snacks based on my tastes, dietary needs, etc. It’s only $6.49 a box, and I don’t have to do any shopping, prepping, or packing. Food! Yassss!!! Below is my first box that I received during Teacher Institute week. Loving this idea! If you would like to sign up and get 2 free boxes using my referral code, click here.

Are you trying out anything new this year, or embarking on a fun new adventure? I’d love to hear about it!