First Day Back (for teachers...)

Today was the first day of contract time for our district. First day getting up at the "regular" time...which is about two hours EARLIER than the "preferred" time... First day of meetings (went WAY over time)... First day of catching up with friends/fellow teachers I haven't seen all summer... First day of MY. FEET. KILLING. ME!!!! And...I still have two more hours to go (it's 5:30pm) because we have Back to School Night tonight. A VERY long day!

Yesterday, my oldest daughter, Mallorie, and her two ADORABLE boys came to "Grammy's school" to help me get things in order. We hauled crates of stuff from home (some that I hadn't even taken out of the trunk of my car since I put them in there the last day of school! :/ ), baby paraphernalia, 3-year old "entertainment" paraphernalia, etc. And then it began...it was worse than I expected!!

(Notice the incredible mess on the far wall. I've always hated how those shelves looked but have never had the time or "umph" to organize them. Mallorie INSISTED!! Thankfully!!)

We dug in for about eight hours before heading home. Our two angel boys took FABULOUS naps...Drew (3 years old) in his little fort under my table and Lewis (3-1/2 months) on the floor across the room on his minky blanky under the fan (improvised white noise)...while Mal and I worked our little behinds off. 

Today, Mal and Lewis came out again after my meetings while Drew went to the zoo with some friends. Mal also brought my sweet little friend, Oaklee, to help watch the boys. She was absolutely in heaven taking care of Lewis while we worked...until he got too tired. 

After we got him to sleep, she wanted to help...and what a GREAT helper she was!! She and my youngest daughter, Maddi, got to work rearranging bookshelves, hanging Command hooks for Anchor Charts, arranging desks, etc. Oaklee tried to get Drew to help her open all the packages of glue sticks for my Interactive Notebooks but he was a lot more interested in the magnets or drawing on the whiteboards. Oaklee was AWESOME!! 

So...by 5:00pm, we were all cleaned up, arranged, and I only had to stuff a few things into drawers to get the room presentable for tomorrow! (HAHA...we all do that, right??) Look how much better everything looks!!!!

THANK YOU MALLORIE, MADDI, OAKLEE, DREW, AND LEWIS!!

I COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU!! (mwah!!)

I found inspirational/educational quotes on Doodle-Art-Alley that we colored, laminated, and taped to the desks. I plan on using them as writing prompts, adding to their Interactive Notebooks, etc.) 

If you notice the table-top podium in the "before" pictures, it was stained a natural color. Mallorie took it home last night and painted it for me. Looks SOOO much better!!

Check out those "after" shelves!!!!!! They've never looked so good!! :)

Also...here's my version of the "BE" bulletin board I talked about HERE...

THANK YOU AGAIN, MALLORIE!!!!!!!!!

Now...to get ready for Back to School Night...

Day 1: Set-up

Armed with my trusty document projector and a PowerPoint presentation I worked up to explain the whys, hows, etc. of Interactive Notebooks, we started to set them up. One thing I keep stressing, and stressing, and STRESSING is that they

MUST COPY MY EXAMPLES!

EXACTLY!!

At the first of the year, and several times throughout, I go over the "don't cheat," "don't copy," "don't plagiarize" speech. However, I've told them this is not only the one time I allow them to copy, I make it mandatory! 

Everyone's notebook must look exactly like mine as far as pages,

 information, etc. unless otherwise indicated. 

At first, they look at me like I've lost my mind but then they get over it and feel comfortable with the guidance and examples I give them. 

One of the things I loved about "The Mouth's" notebooks were you start at the first and work through page-by-page. Now, I'm not going to lie and tell you mine have been perfectly done every single time. I'd love to be able to do that but I cannot tell a lie! :) In fact, I've started and re-started about four notebooks. I'm down to one for my 8th grade classes and one for 9th grade. The others that got "messed up" are my TRIAL-AND-ERROR notebooks where I try the layout and then perfect it before it goes into my final books. "The Mouth" suggested keeping one for every period...I couldn't keep up with that! Two has been fine for me so far...

STEP ONE:

Number each page in the upper, outside corner. Even numbers on the left page; odd numbers on the right page. I had them number 1-25 or so in class with homework to number the rest. They should have 200 pages when they're finished providing they didn't get ripped off by the notebook company.

STEP TWO:

Title pages 1-7 as "TABLE OF CONTENTS." I did the Math and figured out we would use six to seven pages for our Table of Contents. I rounded up to seven just to be safe. I also told them to be as "cutsy-fartsy" as they wanted. (They thought it was funny I said "fartsy" in class. REALLY??)

As we add each page(s), we enter it into the Table of Contents. 

STEP THREE:

Glue in "Who Are YOU??" assignment from the first day of school. We'll come back to this at the end of the term for Goal Reflection and will enter a new one at the beginning of each term. Have them date it with the day you put it in the notebook and enter it in the Table of Contents.

NOTE #1: As I created handouts to be glued into the Interactive Notebooks, I created a border around the page for them to cut on. I'm a bit OCD in making sure things are lined up and don't cover the holes so they can put them back in their English binder (in my defense...my minor is Business/Marketing Education so I know computers and I was the Yearbook advisor for four years! I'm all about making things look neat and orderly!!). I have them cut out on those borders which I've adjusted to make sure it fits in the notebook.

NOTE #2: As I talked to them about putting glue on the pages, I really tried to stress they should just glue around the outside edges of the paper they're gluing IN the notebook...not the notebook itself. However, I've already had MANY who thought the entire paper should be covered with purple glue and then some. I guess that's why I needed to replace glue sticks within the first few days! Can't afford that!! :(