(Photo courtesy of Round Rock ISD)

This is my own children's alma mater, Anderson Mill Elementary School, as well as my current place of employment.  I am wrapping up my third year as a special education teacher here at AME.  I do some inclusion support, but the majority of my experience on this campus has been in the resource room, working with scholars in small groups on their individual educational objectives.  I have spent time interning and subbing in the library, covered classes for bathroom breaks (we had a passel of expectant teachers in my wing one year!), and I've sponsored the Chess Club on Mondays during this past school year.  

Today, however, I was fortunate enough to substitute in a fifth grade classroom in the morning, and a first grade classroom in the afternoon, in order to give those teachers some much-needed time to use as they needed.  It was an eye-opening, exhausting, and educational experience!  

Eye-opening:  Seeing how scholars perform in the general ed classroom, and ways in which they are the same as and differ from my caseload.  I am reminded once again that my students' goals should be the same as their peers, even if they are met on timelines as individual as their learning difficulties.  Learning differences abound in the general ed environment, too, and I applaud the teachers who differentiate for classes with dozens of students to accommodate.

Exhausting:  Working with, and monitoring, a dozen or more students at one time keeps a teacher on her toes!  Fifth grade was involved in group activities much of the morning, and the temptation to socialize instead of solve word problems is tough for that age group, especially with eight days of school left.  On the bright side, I've never been told "Yes, ma'am" that often in one class period; it was refreshing!  In first grade, the scholars were so eager to read and write and share their learning, they were practically standing in line to present their work!

Educational:  It was evident that both teachers had routines and class environments that nurtured their scholars and made them feel safe at school.  The fifth graders allowed me to group them for their activities without complaint.  When they needed to switch classrooms for their big final project work, everyone knew where to go and what to do.  The first grade teacher had a lovely windchime that, when brushed against, immediately cued the scholars to clean up their current projects and scurry to the listening carpet.  They pointed out the helper charts in the room, did not hesitate to lead the partner-read chant, and thoroughly enjoyed sharing books with each other.

What a great, heartwarming experience to be had today, right outside my classroom door, in the school that's been part of my life for 14 years now!

I wish I had a picture of my classroom door bird bombing last month, but unfortunately it didn't arrive in my inbox from the tablet-camera that took the picture.  The story is still fun:  I put the holiday du jour on my door each day, and on National Bird Drawing Day, Ms. Selby and her students took it upon themselves to draw birds on sticky notes and cover my door with their artwork.  What a fun way to end the day!  I did save the notes and taped them to construction paper for posterity.

Since then, I have been the lucky recipient of a Region XIII education intern in my resource room!  We just wrapped up week one of two, and it's been wonderful having an extra teacher for my students.  She is doing so well, and feels so comfortable teaching, that she's going to take over for an entire day next week.  I'm sharing as many resources with her as I can:  professional and children's book recommendations, websites, social bookmarking, my self-created open-ended reading and writing work for students, anchor charts, etc.  We've reviewed our electronic special education paperwork program, talked about developing PLAAFPs and IEPs, attended an SSI meeting and an ARD (with parent permission, of course), behavior plans and modifications...We've done a lot in one week already!

The picture above is of my coffee table, from last year.  The piles of books have changed titles, but they still remain.  We are a family of readers, and I'm already saving book recommendation emails to spur my summer reading into action.  Four more weeks, and I'll be basking in the sunshine of my backyard with book in hand, enjoying our summer break!

The big news today in my classroom was "We got mail!"  If you've read my blogpost on The Three Ninja Pigs  then you'll know that the author, Corey Schwartz, commented on my post. This led to an email exchange, bookmarks for my students, and her offer to respond to any letters they wrote to her.  What teacher can pass up a real-life writing assignment like that?  So my students went through the writing process, produced their final copy letters, and I took photos of their papers using our document camera in the classroom.  I then emailed Ms. Schwartz the jpegs--easy peasy!

And today, Ms. Schwartz was kind enough to send her replies!  Not just one letter to the class, but a reply to each individual student and our one group letter.  I printed out duplicates so we could keep one of each in class and the students could take their own copy home.  I've distributed half of the letters; the other half will go out later this week, when the students are done with content focus groups.  Ms. Schwartz has asked them some questions of her own; I think we'll be writing more letters soon!

I love this avenue for exhibiting our IB learner profile of "communicator"!

No library experience to report this week (sigh).  I have, however, begun a month-long writing challenge put forth by the women behind the blog Two Writing Teachers called the "Slice of Life Challenge".  By joining the challenge, I have committed to writing on my blog every day during the month of March.  Since the writing can be of a personal nature versus professional, I've chosen to post on my reading blog, More Books Than Time.   Not all of my posts are or will be reading-related this month, but I'm hoping that my followers (all six of them!) will understand and put up with my musings, rants, and raves during this challenge month.

I chose to do the challenge to flex my writing muscles.  As a teacher of reading and writing, I feel it's important to model those actions as well; I want students to "do as I do", not just "as I say".  I won't be sharing every single post with them, but I will share my struggles to write thirty-one cohesive, interesting pieces.  And when I'm not successful, I'll share that, too; students need to know that failing does not have to lead to shutting down, and failed attempts at writing do not mean failure as a writer, or worse yet, failure as a person.  We celebrate the attempt, and strive to improve!