You've got to love your job

Some people never figure this out, but it is very important to love what you do as a job.
I am personally glad to be a teacher. Don't get me wrong, everyday isn't perfect. I am not saying that everyday is great. However, I am saying I love my job. I might not make as much as a business person, but I love my job and that is what matters.
When my kids were in school I remember a particular Secretary at one of the schools. She definitely did not love her job. She was always yelling at the students that came into the office. She wasn't very nice to me either and I was a parent. We really need to think about how we are perceived by those parents that stop at the school. What is really interesting is after I graduated from college with my teaching degree I subbed at that same school. As a teacher that same Secretary treated me with all the respect in the world.
Our school in the past have had parents take a survey to gather a perception of our school climate. The results show parents don't know if teachers like their job or not. I say if a teacher loves his or her job it would be obvious and the parents would know.
So I leave you with this question~ do you teach like you love your job?

Parent Teacher conferences

 Our district had our PT conferences this week and I had 94% attendance. I only had one parent not attend which is great! I personally love PT conferences because it gives me a chance to connect with the parents and let them know what goes on daily in the classroom. I wish I had the time to let the parents know this on a weekly basis for every student.

Parents want to help in any way that they can. It really is a brainstorming time with the teacher letting them know what they can do at home to help and to let the parent know what we are doing at school to improve scores and get their child on grade level work. Together is the only way to do this!

Of course there is always a student or two that seem like they don't care and both the teacher and parent are baffled on what to do about it. This is why these conferences are so important. Together maybe you can find a way to help their child.

Just giving the parents a call when their child has a great day or comes up with a great idea means so much to them. Last week we were learning money in Math and one student was just buzzing through the problems and I showed him how exciting learning can be. I asked him if I could call his mom and tell her how awesome he did. Of course he was excited (sometimes my excitement will do this) and said "yes".

Well, it was a really busy day and I didn't get the phone call made that evening. But, the next morning I called home and the mom told me he was waiting for my phone call last night. Both the kids and the parents love this!

Making this kind of effort is what teaching is all about to me! Trying to make these kind of connections on a weekly basis is definitely a goal that we all should make.

21st century learning

Yesterday and today I have had the opportunity to learn ways to use video and qr codes in the classroom. I always have to keep in mind "WHY" I want to use these things.
First QR codes: These are amazing and fun to use. It gives a mystery to what they are and gives teachers an opportunity to let students explore their own ways of learning. A couple of sites we used for QR codes include. http://www.qrstuff.com/  and to make an entire collaborating type of quiz you could go to this site.
http://www.classtools.net/QR/

We also did some video creating and sharing using Windows Live Movie Maker. This was an awesome tool to use. I am not sure my 2nd graders could use this tool but I could use it to put together videos from the classroom.
Great learning experience!

The importance of professional development days

This week I have three days of out of school professional days. Although it is hard to be away from the classroom for professional days, I feel they are important.
The first day is about a PBIS. This is our third year of PBIS and we are now learning how to implement tier three interventions. Without AEA support it is difficult to know and understand how these systems work.
The other two days of professional development are for using 21st century skills. These classes have given me so many ideas to use in the classroom.
It is so important that teachers keep learning new systems and new strategies to keep up with the most important thing. Students learning.