New Things I'm Trying This School Year | Pocketful of Primary

[Applause] [Music] so the beginning of the year sickness has officially caught me easiest way to sum up today is hot mess good morning YouTube so the beginning of the year sickness has officially caught me I spent my entire weekend sick all I did basically was sleep and sit on the couch and watch Netflix because I had no energy I'm feeling a little bit better today I think it's mostly allergy so like I'm not contagious or anything it's just so much pressure up in my head my throat was hurting but it's now better which is good because my voice is back and it's always bad when I lose my voice I'm leaving early this morning it's about 7:05 I'm gonna go to Starbucks and get some kind of a hot tea just to help me kind of feel a little bit better and that I have some things I have to get done this morning and then I'm meeting with my team teachers and then I have planning time so I will catch up with you guys at some point I promise [Music] so here are some new things first of all my pink book bins from Lakeshore Learning finally came in so I need to put those in my library I printed and laminated these multiples posters these were from ladybug teacher files she has them both in legal and letter paper I just did the letter paper because I didn't have any legal paper but the legal ones are even bigger which I thought was awesome so I need to hang those up around my room I will link them in the description box and then I got these doodle notes these are from science and math doodles I will link them in the description I actually have them for science and math these are these science ones this is what they look like when they're completed but this is what it will look like when the kids get them now I'm gonna shrink them down so that they fit in their composition notebooks but I just thought that these were really cool because it gives the kids a chance to be able to color them in and add like their own little touch to it and I just really like them and I'm thinking they're gonna be very engaging for my students so I have these and page protectors these have the color version and the black and white version and then these are like the half sheets which I'm actually going to be giving to my students and then there's also a PowerPoint that goes through and like fills it out with them which I really really like so I will link both the science and the math ones in the description box for you [Music] just like that it is the end of the day hallelujah I made it overall the day was pretty good but I was so congested up here that I felt like I had water in my ears do you know what I'm talking about and I could not hear very well at all and any like little bit of talking or sound effects or anything going on in the background just made it like really really difficult for me but it's okay we survived we made it I gave my students a pre-assessment in math and like a fact pre-assessment so that I could figure out where they are at now and I can figure out how to help them get to where they need to be and then we did the first science lesson which is going over like the rules in the science lab and classroom I'm gonna go ahead and get out of here it's like 5:30 I've been doing some little things putting some things away but I'm not feeling well and I need to go home and I need to take some time for myself so I'm gonna work on making a dismissal list for all of fourth grade we're gonna compile it all onto one list so that we have it so in case there are any issues that dismissal we can look at the list and see where that kid is or should be and as soon as I finish that I'm gonna go ahead and get out of here hopefully fingers crossed I'm feeling better tomorrow good morning YouTube good news is I'm feeling a little bit better today I don't have quite as much like pressure in my head but I still don't feel great however it's Tuesday and we're gonna have a great day regardless and I'm gonna head to school I do have a couple of things that I need to get to this morning just to prep for the day but I have time before my students come in and I have my planning time today so I should be good to go [Music] so I've went ahead and set up my math focus board and I officially have already used this bulletin board more than I did last year because last year I did not put a single thing on it I was a horrible teacher so I'm trying to be better this year these posters they're like strategy posters I don't remember who I got them from but I know they are from TPT so I will link them in the description so we are starting with factors and multiples prime and composite numbers and then the last little part of the unit is like number patterns but I don't have a poster for that so maybe I'll just have to make one and then I have these like vocabulary cards or word wall cards these are from a star spangled planner so I will link those in the description as well so I tried to put the correct vocabulary under the poster so it says factors and multiples so I have multiple factor and factor pair prime number composite number pattern and then pattern unit so I'm going to try to do my best to update this board throughout the year I already have all of the vocabulary cards printed laminated and cut so I just need to organize them into my unit drawers based on what topic we're doing each unit since we are doing multiples today my students are gonna play this multiple Madness game to practice this is provided by my curriculum so it's not something that I can give you but basically the students just need this game board they need counters and I'm using a double-sided counter so students will just grab a handful one person can be read and one person can be yellow and then they need to dice so I like to use a dice and dice it's basically a plastic die and it has a smaller one on the inside you can kind of see it there it's not focusing super well but that's okay you can see it and see what I mean these are great because instead of needing two dice they actually will just need this one and then when they roll it they have to add the two numbers together so they can just add the number on the outside die and the number on the inside die together and that way it's less materials that they need out so once they roll the die and add the numbers together then they just mark a multiple of that number on the game board using the counter super simple but it's a great way to practice multiples and adding and multiply which is always great it is already the end of the day and I feel like the easiest way to sum up today is hot mess because I got a new student this morning which I love getting new students because again it's another student that I get impact it's another student I get a former relationship with and I already love this new student they fit him perfectly with us and they're super sweet however getting a new student is super stressful it's just overwhelming because you know they come in your room you're trying to teach them all the new procedures you're trying to get their supplies sorted you're trying to get their supplies labeled and it's just a lot and I know personally a weakness that I definitely have is when I get overwhelmed I get overwhelmed and like it's really hard to bring me back down from that because once I'm overwhelmed every little thing just makes me feel more and more overwhelmed so it's something that I'm working on but I definitely felt that this morning and that was my whole planning time I was just trying to get my life together but I still didn't feel like I had everything in order and organized and I just felt very overwhelmed however in the middle of my block one I like to check my email periodically just make sure I'm not missing anything important and I had an email from a parent just thanking me for making their child so excited to come to school and telling me how much their child already loves coming to my class and suddenly all of that stress that I felt just melted away my heart was happy you know what I need like yes I was smiling but like my heart felt happy and I can't even describe that feeling but that is why I do what I do and even though I get stressed and I get overwhelmed that right there hearing that I have made a child excited to come to school hearing that I've made them excited to learn hearing that I've already formed a positive relationship with them fix every little bit of stress every extra minute that I spend on my classroom and less the planning completely worth it because that is the absolute best feeling in the entire world and nothing will ever compare it to it so I am in a good mood regardless of it being a little bit of a stressful day I need to clean up my desk because it has become a hot mess along with the rest of the day and after that I'm gonna go ahead and get out of here I do have a pretty bad headache today so I need to get home I'm still not feeling great and I know that I need to give my body rest so I'm trying to be graceful to myself and get out of here as soon as I can so I'm gonna go ahead get done when I need to get done and get out of here good morning YouTube remember yesterday when I was finally feeling better well that lasted for a day cuz I feel a little bit worse today I have a coffee now and my throat is hurting again which I feel like is not a good side but we're gonna power through it for now I am headed to school I do have a faculty meeting this morning during my planning time I'm meeting with my team teacher and then right after school I'm meeting with some parents so gonna be a long day but it's okay when I get to school I am gonna show you a little project that I worked on last night it is in the back seat I also got some new materials for my stem bins which I'm really excited about so I will show you those as well [Music] so here are the new materials I am adding to my stem bin all of these came from Amazon they were all pretty affordable so I will make sure that I link them all in the description first I got brain flakes so these are little plastic discs they almost look like flowers but you can connect them together and build things I thought that they were pretty awesome and I think my students will really enjoy them then I got these sets of magnets hold on let me try to open it with one hand which is harder than it looks okay there we go so there are triangles and there are squares and they are all magnetic so they can build and they can make it 3d and then I got two sets of these just because I want them to have enough to play with and each one only had 100 so these are just like these rods and the magnetic balls let me try to open this one up okay so this is what it looks like on the inside they're just these little like magnetic sticks and then there are the little magnetic balls and they can use them to build so I have two sets of these so I'm gonna put those in my stem bins and then they will be ready for my students to use this was my project that I was working on last night that I told you about these are my students math notebooks now I learned my lesson last year when you give a fourth grader a math notebook they're just gonna open it up to some random page and write and then they can never find their notes again so I wanted to try to make their notebooks more organized this year so you will see that I have added tabs down the side now so far I've only added the first five units we actually have 15 units but I will add the rest of them as we go because this was very time-consuming I'm not gonna lie however I do think that it will pay off these tabs it's basically just a rectangle I printed them on colored aster breaks paper not cardstock just regular paper and then I laminated it with my personal scotch laminator so the lamination is thicker than school lamination and then I just folded it over the page and stapled it on there and then I just gave my students like 4 pages in between each one because our units are pretty short they shouldn't need more than like 4 pages and if they use a double-sided that's actually 8 pages so I'm happy that it's done like as you can see it was a lot because it was like 16 notebooks however now that it's done I am really happy about it I'm also going to be printing out a table of contents to go at the beginning and I'm gonna print out like a math reference page that has like a multiplication chart some stuff for fractions and place value and all that good stuff but I have not gotten there yet and I'm currently out of ink so that's gonna have to wait but for now I'm really happy that I got the tabs done I also need to do it to their science and social studies notebooks which are over here those should be easier though because I'm just gonna have a science tab and a social studies tab my goal is to get those done after school today but like I said I have to meet with a parent so it probably will not get done until late [Music] my science and social studies journals are officially tabbed as well I'm really happy to have these done the sites and social studies were definitely easier than the math and the math I still have to go back and add 10 tabs to every kid's notebook overall with this it was time consuming I don't know if I'll do it again next year I'll have to see how it works out throughout the year I'm really hoping fingers crossed that they stay attached but I think if these tabs stay attached all year it will end up being advantageous for our students to have them and I will be forced next year to do it again however good news is if I am gonna do it again next year I can print and laminate these tabs during the summer because I know that I'm absolutely gonna need them and then all I will have to do is staple them in and I will be able to get my TA to help me with that so if I could think ahead next year I think I will be better off that being said it is already the end of the day I'm finding it really difficult to vlog like during my planning time and during my lunch because it has just been a very busy start of the year and I feel like I'm just constantly doing stuff and obviously my job will always come first before logging and that's okay that's how it's supposed to be so overall I had a wonderful day I felt like my kids did a really good job today they're finally starting to get to know the rules the procedures they're starting to just respond better to things and overall I felt like it was a really good day my kids did awesome in math and I'm super proud of them I feel better now that the hectic day is over with the faculty meeting and team planning with my team teacher and parent meeting and the tabs on the journals and all that good stuff but I feel better now I am gonna go ahead and show you my behavior incentive system for the first marking period I know I showed Instagram but I don't think I showed you all so I'm gonna show you so this is my block incentive system my students all have cup kuno cards which is like an individual incentive system but I'm using this with my block classes and all of the fourth grade teachers are doing the same thing so we're all on the same page I think we're gonna try to change it up like once per marking period that way it stays fresh and new so this is just for the first marking period I did something similar to this with my second graders they're basically just little fuzzies and this is the jar that holds all of them if the class is doing a great job they're all super focused maybe they transition really well they and earn a for their jar once they fill their jar we will have a class prize I've gotten a lot of questions about what I do for like class prizes I like to do things that don't really cost money so maybe a whole class Lunch Bunch where they all come and eat lunch in my room or it could be a class PJ day it could be bring a stuffed animal from home something like that that's super easy and doesn't really require any prep or any money now I am using these different sized pom poms from Target I really like these because there are small medium large and then these like super big ones I'm calling them fat fuzzies but they can earn different sized ones based on their behavior so if they do something little really well they can earn a baby one if they do a bigger thing that they do really well they can earn a large one no one has heard of fat fuzzy yet I have told them that those are like super super hard to earn but this is my block one jar this is my block two jar and the fourth-grade teachers decided whichever block or class like fills up their jar first will get some kind of extra incentive on top of the treat they get for filling the jar so so far this seems to be working pretty well I do have to constantly remind my students and sometimes I have to look for something little that they did well even if it seems like they're not doing well because positive reinforcement does work and if you reinforce them for doing something positive even if it's something really small they will start doing that more often so I will check in with you all later on in the year and let you know what our next incentive system is for the second marking period also one last thing I wanted to mention I had a student bring me coffee this morning they had it in a Styrofoam cup they double cupped it so in case any spilled it would go into this bottom cup and they have it covered with aluminum foil to help keep it hot I just thought that that was like the most endearing thing ever good morning YouTube I'm going a little different today I'm wearing my clear transparent framed glasses so we'll see what the kids think about them I'm feeling a little bit better than yesterday I have more of a kofta day and now the congestion is like in my chest but it's okay we're getting there I feel finally like the stress of the begin of the year is like starting to go away there's all those little things that you have to do at the beginning of the year that are just very time consuming and I feel like I'm finally pretty much done that was like last night when I got home I really just had to lesson plan for today so that's good news I'm hoping that it stays that way today during my planning time my goal is to make sure I have my plans done for tomorrow and then start kind of planning for next week because I want to have that done hopefully by the time I leave on Friday that would be my goal so I'm gonna go ahead and get to school and then I'll catch up with you all there [Music] this week in math we are focusing on multiples and factors now I like to give my students notes of because I want them to be able to reference them during class I want them to be able to reference them during their homework and to use them to study for tests so I always provide my students with notes last year I just gave them like notes with detailed like steps this year I wanted to make sure that they were engaged and following along and I want them to be able to fill in the blanks now I actually found a set of doodle notes there from science and math doodle notes I will link them in the description box I absolutely love them except there was not a doodle note sheet for multiples and factors so I went ahead and just made up my own I made it somewhat look like the doodle notes sheet so this is not something I will be putting in my TPT store because I totally copied her format but I just wanted it to look the same for the other doodle notes so my students will have throughout the year but it just has some like fill in the blank area so here it'll say you skip counting multiple monster makes numbers smaller they'll fill in the multiples here as examples and then down here factors are numbers multiplied to get a product factor ninja chops them up and makes them smaller and then two strategies area models and tea charts so that was today tomorrow my students are going to be introduced to the terms of prime and composite so I already have the notes ready for that cuz again there was not a note sheet included there was one in the fifth grade bundle but I didn't like the way that it explained it so I went ahead and just made my own so we will work on this tomorrow with my students I am noticing that it really helps them and my one goal this year is for them to have interactive math notebooks that they can look back at throughout the year to really help them just solidify the information and retain it I've been the worst vlogger ever today it's already is 6:00 p.m. but the good news is I am all planned for tomorrow however I had originally said my plan was to start planning it for next week my plan was to start planning that did not happen but it's okay because I used my planning time today to get a bunch of like little things done that I needed to get done and now I just feel a lot better my desk is finally clean I don't technically have grading yet like I haven't given any graded assignments but I have classwork assignments that I've given that I've gone through and analyzed to help figure out which students I need to pull to be able to reteach them and just help them in the future so I feel good regardless of the fact that I don't have next week plan but I have tomorrow planned tomorrow I do not have planning time which kind of stinks but I will get through it I may work tonight on starting to set up my plans for next week otherwise I'm gonna have to stay after school tomorrow and I don't think I really want to do that so I'm gonna go ahead and get out of here and then I will catch up with you in the morning good morning YouTube it is officially Friday I am wearing polka-dots this morning because tomorrow is international dot day it goes with the book the dot by Peter Reynolds but we are celebrating it today so we're all gonna read our students the book the dot our students are gonna decorate a dot this morning during morning work and then we will put them all together as a big mural outside of our classrooms and everyone is encouraged to wear put that so I have a quick enough time now this morning we have at committee meetings I am on the hospitality committee this year so I'm gonna go be hospitable and then I do not have planning time today and I'm getting a student intern which I've never had before so I'm a little bit nervous America live but she's coming to meet with me after school so he can kind of discuss her schedule everything so I am excited it's gonna be a great day plus I get to go get me some coffee this morning cuz y'all know I'm trying to stick to just fridays and so far I've been doing a really good job so I'm gonna go give herself a nice latte I make it like a breakfast sandwich or something too because I don't have any breakfast this morning and that I'm gonna get to school good morning can I get a large iced pumpkin latte and one of the turkey sausage egg and cheese sandwiches thank you [Music] I wanted to show you some Amazon purchases that came in yesterday first of all I got this twelve pack of black flare pens because the black flare pens are by far my favorite and they were on a really good sale so I grabbed these because I can always use more this is my old wireless presenter you all may recognize this I've been using it for about the past year however it's starting to get to the point where I will click it one time but it'll go through like ten slides at once and I'm like whoa so I knew that I needed to get a new one I've loved this one but it's just starting to kind of not work anymore so this one was like I don't know twenty dollars ish on Amazon it's the Amazon basics brand here's the new one that I got and I'm really excited for this I don't remember this specific brand but of course I will link it I want to say it was like $17.99 but you all know that the price has changed on Amazon all the time I like that this one is really really thin so it still just has like the buttons to go through the slides it has a laser pointer and that also has tab and enter on the sides here's what I really like about it it is rechargeable whereas this one ran on triple-a battery so I constantly had to change well not constantly I think I had to change the batteries like two times throughout the year this one is actually rechargeable through USB which I'm really excited about now I put velcro on the back of mine and I use that to attach it over here to my document camera that way I never lose it so when I'm not using it I just attach it right there so I'm gonna go ahead and put some more velcro on the back of this one that way I can keep it there as well but I just really really like how tiny this one is and it's a lot lighter too compared to my original one look at me finally vlogging during my lunch time for once I'm not like super overwhelmed just during lunch and trying to do all these little things I got the absolute sweetest little gifts this morning let me show you because my heart I just can't take it so first of all I got a brownie which you can guarantee I'm gonna be eating today during my lunch time that was amazing then I also had a student who brought me a little gift bag this morning and inside where these pictures of sloths was her absolutely adorable so you all know those went straight onto my bulletin board so I can look at them and they can make me happy plus they also brought me a Dunkin Donuts iced coffees so sweet so this is gonna go my fridge it'll be a little treat for me on Monday and they made these little figures out of clay and these like blew me away I was like holy guacamole so this is me with a sloth on my back and I know it's probably hard to see but there's like actual texture on the sloth like for its fur so good and so cute and then there is like my logo with the pencil around the books and the Apple like how cute is that so these are gonna stay here all year long so I can look at them and they will make him smile every single time because the fact that one of my students took time at home to do this and make it for me I was just blown away by de life update for the vlog it's currently about 5:30 I was meeting with my new intern until about 5:15 she seems amazing and super sweet can't wait for her to start I get a lot of questions about what advice I have for people who want to become teachers my best piece of advice is that if you're wanting to be a teacher get into classrooms to get experience as early as you can meaning like high school level personally her high school has a program where it offers like internships I think that that's amazing I did not have that when I was in high school but even if your high school does not have any kind of an internship program you can still reach out to teachers and see if you can volunteer in their classroom I guarantee you almost any teacher would be more than happy to have you sit in and observe and help out and that hands-on experience is just priceless also by the time you get into college hopefully your college offers some kind of an internship I can't imagine any college not having that for teaching but definitely make sure if you're going to college for teaching that they have an internship program but she's gonna be with me for two hours on I think Mondays and Fridays and then it could change throughout the year but I'm super excited for her to get started and I'm excited just to be able to answer any questions that she has and help her because as much as I love being a teacher it's my favorite thing in the entire world in fact but I also love helping teachers and that's why I started this YouTube channel I feel like with teacher YouTube channels there's been a lot of them popping up which i think is amazing I just questioned some people's motives for starting them personally my sole reason for having this channel is for helping people people who want to become teachers people who are teachers and want help or support or motivation or ideas whatever it is that's why I do what I do that's why I spend all of this time on my channel because I truly love to help people and I hope that that is what my channel offers you even if you're not a teacher because I do have some non teachers who watch me hopefully I provide you entertainment or even if I put you in a good mood because I'm positive I want my channel to be about that the inspiration the motivation the ideas and I want you to be able to get content from my videos that being said I actually have a film crew coming on Monday during my planning time to film in my classroom I can't really give any other information but I need to make sure my classroom is nice and clean and currently it is not it's not terrible but it's not its best so what I'm gonna do is just kind of tidy up my classroom but I'm gonna go ahead and end this vlog before I do that if you enjoyed it please please please give it a thumbs up I really appreciate it and it really helps out my channel helps it to grow and reach more teachers if you are not already subscribed to me go ahead and hit that subscribe button and also hit the notification bell so you were notified every time I post a new video and as always thank you for watching I love you all so so much don't forget to think positive and I'll catch you guys in the next slide thank you so much for watching all the way to the end of this video and for supporting my youtube channel if you want to check out any of my older videos you can use the two links right down here if you want to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss any future videos you can use like or right up here the links to all of my social media sites my teachers pay teacher's store my merchandise store and my Amazon store are in the description box and I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Pocketful of Primary

Views: 134,677

Rating: 4.9231706 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, classroom, vlog, 4th grade, first week of school, pocketful of primary, tips for new teachers, tips for teachers, new teacher tips, teacher tips, classroom vlog, vlogger, teacher vlog, teacher vlogger, classroom tour, a day in the life of a teacher, a week in the life of a teacher, life as a teacher

Id: MuMLaa2Ljrw

Length: 28min 27sec (1707 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 16 2018