Looking forward and back

at Two Writing Teachers!

The school year is here!  It's here!  It's here!

Students come tomorrow, and I'm so excited.  Last year at this time, I was a nervous wreck: new school, new subject, new age level.  I barely slept for days beforehand.

This year, I've been sleeping soundly through the night!  I'm comfortable in my school, I'm elated to have my own room, and I'm truly looking forward to seeing my students.  One of the great things about teaching ELLs is that I get to have many of the same students several years in a row.  I keep thinking about stories I can't wait to tell certain students, new books I can't wait to show them, and conversations I can't wait to have with them.  I can't wait to check in with the students I've worried about and get caught up with the others.  And of course, I can't wait to meet my new freshmen.

I'd love to write more, but there are still a few last-minute details to complete tonight.  However, I just have to share something exciting that happened recently.  Last week, I opened up my email to find a surprising message:

(What a surprise!)

We did a phone interview today, and it was so much fun to revisit my cart-traveling days.  It's really neat to realize that my blogging helps other teachers, and now it has led to something even bigger! The article will be up later this fall, so watch your email if you get those NEA Today emails.  :-)

I know I've said it before, but the Internet is so cool!!!

My Adventures on a Cart, Part 3

Day 8 of 31 at TWT!

Yesterday I gave you a tour of my cart, Rollsie.  Yes, she's undergone an official name change, thanks to Elsie!  Now I can think of Slices of Life and smile while I'm careening down the hallway, dodging kids to get to my next class in the 2-minute class change window!  (Which, some days, is really more like one minute -- or zero minutes -- or negative one minutes, by the time I throw everything back into Rollsie, answer some kid's question, and/or listen to a story another one just HAD to tell me!)

Anyway, today I have one more glimpse to share of my life with Rollsie.  How do I function without walls of my own?  No whiteboard with which to create a homework-posting area and display the day's scheduled activities.  No walls to hang posters on for student reference or developing curiosity. (I love Linda's idea of hanging a poster on my cart and changing it every week, but none of mine seem to be the right size, and Rollsie's already so full I don't know where I would put it that wouldn't block something essential!)

To solve the homework board problem, I just got a portable whiteboard and re-created my homework board on it.  Since I'm rather obsessed with color coding, like Diana, I always color-code the board.  (I like to pretend that it helps the kids, at least!)  There's not much on it this week, but usually red is required homework, blue is optional homework, and orange is for when assignments are due.

the traveling hw board, easily set on any small piece of board tray I can get my hands on!

Unfortunately, there's just no logistical way to also have a place to write the plans for the day, so I just have to live without that.  Too bad, because the kids acquire significant vocabulary from the posted plans (I always write them in Spanish) -- they really remember words like "game", "video", etc!  Sadly, that's just one of those things that we have to do without.  (For myself, I carry the plans on my clipboard, as I mentioned yesterday.)

The other big essential item is the daily routine board.  When I got this job three years ago, I spent an entire weekend (no really, the WHOLE weekend) covering a tri-fold board in contact paper for durability, putting Velcro on it for each question and answer, and laminating/cutting out all the paper pieces.  Husband and I (poor thing, he always gets stuck helping!) were ready to collapse by the time we got it done, but it's been AMAZINGLY durable and easy to use.  Even when I've had a room, I've just set it up on a whiteboard tray and kept using it.

Every day we do feelings, weather, days of the week, the date, and the time (7th graders only).
The board also displays the word of the day and important classroom phrases (i.e. "Can I go to the bathroom?") for reference.

One student runs the routine each day.  He or she finds all the answers first and then asks the questions, calling on other students to answer and putting up the answers as they say them.  When I have a room, all the possible answers (and weather pictures) are in bins on a nearby table, but when I'm using Rollsie, they're in bags on the back flaps of the board.

the routine board closed up, showing storage on the back flaps

Best of all, both the homework board and routine board are the perfect size to fit on top of Rollsie for transportation.  (That was really just a fortunate coincidence -- I'm not THAT organized!)

Ready to roll!  (The routine board is under the hw board.)

Hope you enjoyed these peeks at my "rolling room-away-from-room"!  Have you ever traveled between rooms?  What tips and tricks do you have to share?

My Adventures on a Cart, Part 2

Day 7 of 31 at TWT

Yesterday I started to write about my teaching life on a cart.  As often happens while I'm writing, I thought I had a small, quick idea... and then the words just kept falling out of my mind.  Teaching from a cart has been such a big part of my life that I had quite a lot to say about it!  So much, in fact, that I didn't even get to my original "main point", which was to give you a tour of my cart and how I make it work.

So today, in part 2, I want to introduce you to my current cart.  I'm really surprised I haven't named it, considering how I love naming things.  Not to mention my cart is a friend that never leaves my side at school!  Maybe this is a good time for a name -- better late than never!  Cartie?  Store-y? Rolley?  (I'm infamous in my family for naming things that way.) I kind of like Rolley, actually.  :-)

Anyway, Rolley has all sorts of amazing compartments to help me out.  She was already pretty amazing when I got her, with an enclosed bottom compartment, two shelves, a drawer with dividers, and slots for pens/markers!  However, I've really made her my own traveling room with some special modifications.

Look at all that space!  I was in love as soon as the secretary got her out of the storage room!

First, the top layer: The clear boxes are my pass-out-materials boxes, one for each grade level.  I discovered they had to have lids so worksheets wouldn't fly away as I sped down the hallway!  My example binders, laptop, and teaching clipboard (with attendance/formative assessment checklists, my plans, and my schedule on it!) go in the middle.  New after I'd had a room are the two little black bins: blank notecards in the left front corner and a place to put notecard suggestions for the "word of the day" on the right corner.  Last but not least, in the middle: a box of extra pencils for those kids who somehow never have one.

top layer

The front of the middle layer is all for students and contains my most essential procedures. First, turn-in drawers for each class, labeled in green.  On top of each set of turn-in drawers, the red slivers peeking out are my absent work folders for each grade level.  Each is an accordion file with 10 folders inside: 2 for each day of the week.  One says "(Day) required"; homework and other essential items that must be picked up. The other says "(Day) optional"; other stuff we did that they might want but doesn't NEED to be made up.

middle layer, front

Behind the turn-in drawers, on the back of the middle layer, are my prize boxes (one with big prizes and one with small prizes), speakers in the corners (the cord runs up to the top layer to plug into my computer as needed), flyswatters (for a vocab game we play), and my sports drink (I don't like drinking water!).

middle layer, back

On the doors to the enclosed bottom layer, I taped my hall pass holders.  After asking in Spanish to go, my students must choose the appropriate hall pass for where they are going and then sign out. (You can just barely see the green sign-out clipboard wedged beside the left-hand turn-in drawers in the first picture!)

hall passes!

Inside the doors of the bottom layer, the students can find supplies (markers, scissors, glue, dictionaries) and "What do we do when we're done?" activities.  On the left (hard to see, sorry!) is a big blue accordion folder of extra practice activities, filed by topic.  On the right, they can peruse my collection of children's books in Spanish, including many of my favorite childhood books!

bottom storage

That's Rolley!  Hope you enjoyed seeing how she helps me function no matter where I am!  Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion of this little mini-series: my "homework board" and my "walls"!

My Adventures on a Cart (Part 1)

Day 6 of 31 at TWT!

Lately I've been writing a lot about switching buildings (again) and not having a room anymore.  On my first day at School #3, I was even afraid my "cart skills" would be a little rusty.  But if there's anyone who's an expert at teaching from a cart, it's me.

In my first position (my first 2 years of teaching), I traveled between 6 buildings during the year (switching mid-day and then to 2 new schools each trimester).  Out of all those buildings, I had a room one time: half a day, for a trimester.  All the rest of the time, I traveled to the "regular classrooms" of my kids (every 3rd-5th grader took my class).  Because I had different classes every day (each class had Spanish once a week), this was a LOT of classrooms to wheel myself in and out of!  Ready for some more math?

my little old cart, with fantastic pockets!

(average of 5 classrooms per day) x (5 days a week) x (3 trimesters)  = 75ish classrooms in a year!  

Slightly fewer the year I had my own room that one time, but accurate for the 2nd year when I never had a room.  I was a cart ninja.  I could adapt to any classroom arrangement imaginable.  I had a system for everything inside a little cart that fit in the passenger seat of my car (for the travel between buildings).  I even found one that had a million little pockets for all my stuff!


Then I got my current position, which I've had for 3 years now.  The first year, I didn't have a room at any of my 3 schools.  Since I now saw the kids every day (and they were slightly older kids!), I suddenly had way more materials to pass out, way more complex lesson activities, and way more work being turned in.  I needed to figure out an even better system.  I also didn't need my little tiny cart anymore because I didn't have to travel to a different school during the day.  I graduated to a big cart and became an Advanced Cart Ninja.

Last year, I got a room at School #1 and two half-rooms (my 6th grade classes were all in one and my 7th grade classes all in another) at School #2. This year, I got rooms at School #1 and School #2.  I graduated to Teacher With A Room!  Except at School #3.  At School #3, I continued refining my big-cart skills with things I had incorporated into my rooms that were now "essential".  I became an Outstanding Cart Ninja.

my awesome cart right now!

I was going to tell you all about all the parts of my cart, but this post is already too long.  Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 and get a closer look at everything I have on my cart!