Preparing for Parent Teacher Conferences | Teacher Evolution Ep 12

so I was saying here planning and we ended up having an earthquake drill and a tornado drill so that made up about 15 minutes of my planting time I thought this was adorable it says pocketful of Awesome that's what you are these are my top 20 tips for parent-teacher conferences my conference reports printed out I'm going to go through and fill these out for each of my students 18 conferences later and I am finally done [Music] good morning YouTube so it was my birthday weekend and I had the best birthday that I've had in a really long time it was just a great weekend I got to spend a lot of time with Billy we went out to dinner I got to get my nails done which I do not do very often at all so that was fantastic and thank you to all of you who reached out to me wish me a happy birthday you guys made it that much better and I was in a fantastic mood until last night so because I was spending my birthday with those that I love I did not get a chance to edit my classroom vlog and I still have an end of it I was hoping to have it up Sunday that didn't happen I was hoping to have it up Monday that didn't happen so I posted like on Instagram just saying that it wasn't gonna be able to go up because I'm putting it myself in my classroom before YouTube as it should be and I don't know just the messages that I got from some people I feel like people forget that I'm a person like yes I put myself out there on social media but I'm a person and when people send me messages that are either hateful or very judgmental like it does get to me it does make me upset like I have emotions just like everyone else and you know instead of responding to those people like I just made a post saying like I'm being the best version of myself that I can be and like I'm happy with who I am as a person like just being very positive with it and then I have people commenting again just being extremely negative and I feel like people think they say because we're watching your videos like we have a say and like I don't know it's just frustrating because YouTube is free content like you guys don't have to pay to watch videos I spend hours and hours and hours editing them to put them up for you guys and then it's really frustrating until I get negative feedback from people who are just telling me that I should give up YouTube because I can't be consistent and I had someone tell me I need a psychologist and it's just like I would never say that to someone and I just don't understand why some people do but you know why I'm gonna do me and I'm proud of the person that I am and I'm gonna be in a great mood and I'm gonna go have a great day because I deserve to I work my butt off and I deserve to be happy so that's what I'm gonna biggie I'm gonna go to school I do a conference this morning so I'll quickly show you like my conference report sheet that I gonna be using Oh and I'm not going to Dunkin Donuts this morning although I just remembered I need to go get my god oh okay I wasn't gonna get Dunkin because I need to get I have like a Frappuccino drink inside but I forgot to grab it so you know what I think it's just gonna be a coffee list day it's okay I'll make it through so this is the parent-teacher conference report that I created last night my team teachers had one that they used before so they kind of gave that to me and I made it based on that I may end up changing some of the parts of this I honestly made it really quickly last night so this is almost like a rough copy because I do have a conference this morning but I think I'm gonna end up changing some parts before my conference on Thursday but this first part says conference information so it just has student name attendees so whoever is attending the conference date and time over here is academic information so personally I have computation problem-solving science and social studies because those are the subjects that I give grades for and then I have an area for notes about academic progress so I can talk about like student effort or any other information that is important over here I have work habits and attitude so for work habits I would just write it on like satisfactory outstanding it needs improvement or like unsatisfactory so listens follows directions works independently it works neatly completes work on time and works accurately and then for attitude gets along well with others cooperative exhibit self-control respects materials respects Authority has a positive attitude about learning and then again an area for notes about behavior and social skills and then down here I have an area to write down any parent questions and an area to write down like a plan for implementation or like student goals and then over here I've signatures so teacher signature and then I have two spots for parent signatures so standing here getting my copies ready and look one of my students he's in my black two he had told me on Friday he was gonna bring me coffee on Monday morning and I kind of didn't believe him but he did he actually brought me a large iced coffee yeah I'm so excited this worked out perfectly because I didn't end up going to Tonka Donuts this morning and then over here I have some thank you cards to give to my students who gave me gifts for my birthday and then this is a printout from plan book I give this to my TA so she has an idea of what we're working on and how she can help my students my students are now at art I just I just realized my microphone is still on there we go my students alright our I just went up to my mailbox and this was in there so this is something that our school has started doing each bead represents like a PTA event that you attended which obviously they're all optional like you do not have to go it's all voluntary but this is like a cool way for us to track how many events that we've gone and them if we fill up our ring I guess we get some kind of like reward but I thought that this was really cool so I'm gonna put it on my lanyard right here that way I have it with me at all times so I just didn't bring in this huge bag of dum-dums this morning which is very appreciated because my candy little container is looking very empty right now and then I had a student bring me this is like a late birthday present which I'm really excited to open that and then I had a student bring me yet another Reese's okay so I just opened the card in the president first of all the president were these Reese's miniature cups which I'm excited about cuz I love me some Reese's and I like how it says family back ya know I'm gonna eat that entire thing by myself and I wanted to show you guys this card so that's the outside so I was saying here planning we ended up having an earthquake drill and a tornado drills so that made up about 15 minutes of my planting time it's always just interesting to see how the kids you know they all think it's a joke you know I remember doing the same thing in elementary school but like at the same time I want them to realize like it's serious it could happen and like you need to know what to do but I have 15 minutes left of my play anytime so I think I'm just gonna go over make sure I have everything in place for today get through the day and I'll catch up with you guys at lunch yeah at lunch time it is now lunch time black wine was interesting I felt bad for my kids because during math we were working on using base 10 blocks to multiply and I'll be completely honest it's confusing like I would never choose to solve it that way and like I have to show it to the kids as a strategy even though I know like they're probably not gonna use that they're gonna use an area model or partial products instead but it's really hard to be saying up there teaching them when it's like I don't even buy into the strategy and like I have to fake it and act like it's the greatest thing ever when in reality I'm like I know that none of them are gonna use this they don't like it they're confused and it's just frustrating like as the but at the very end I showed them the area model strategy and I think a lot of them felt a lot better but it's just hard like teaching your kids when you know that it's confusing and like there's only so much you can do it actually helped them because it is a confusing strategy but it's lunchtime now and I'm going to sit and enjoy my tuna and my pretzels and get ready for the afternoon so I had two students give me birthday cards in my block - this is actually from the same student who gave me the iced coffee this morning and I thought this was adorable it says pocketful of Awesome that's what you are and then this one is like all bedazzled it's super super pretty so I'm gonna put those in my memory box to keep them it is after school it's about 4:10 I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna great I have a huge pile sitting near all the stuff that I need to grade I'm only gonna stay until about 455 my team teachers and I are going to go to chick-fil-a cuz we're having like a fundraiser thing there and we will get another feed we're going and so we're gonna go and then I will probably just kill time because after that I'm gonna meet Billy at the gym around 7:00 so hopefully I'll have about half an hour 45 minutes that I can like go run some errands because I need to get a birthday present for my best friend Chelsea which she teaches third grade up in Maine we met through Instagram and we met because we had the same birthday so Herbert Lee was on Saturday just like mine and I haven't gotten her present yet so I need to go out and get that so I'm hoping I can get some grading done between now and like four 55-inch I'm gonna just sit and see how much I can get done and power through it okay it's about 450 I did not get done all of my greedy as you can tell I'm taking papers home with me will they get graded tonight I really don't know we're gonna wait we're gonna find out but I am headed to chick-fil-a so I'm gonna stop thinking about school and go start thinking about a chicken sandwich [Music] [Music] all right so I went to Target I'm not gonna get a teaching max or like home goods or whatever because I just don't feel like it my feet hurt and I want to go home but I did go to Target because our school is doing something I don't know what to actually call it but like you get booed and you get like a little old cup with treats in it and then you have to do it to other people so I wanted to go ahead and get my stuff even though I haven't been booted yet that way would I do get booed like I'm ready to go so I don't show you guys what I got I got two of these little like cup things from the target dollar spot those were just a dollar each and then I got two pairs of just like fuzzy socks or Halloween colors and I got two of these like little candles I think this one is pumpkin spice and I have another one that is like apple cinnamon I got two of these packs of stickers and then I also got these little like cat pens so since there's two in here I'll just give one to each person and then I got Reese's although now that I think about it I have so many Reese's at home I could have just used this but that's okay I got more of them so this way when I do get food I will be ready to go I'm heading home Billy doesn't feel good he has a man cold and he doesn't want to go to the gym so I'm gonna go home I probably could have gone to the gym like on my own but my phone is about to die I'd like 2% battery left because my phone updated last night and it has like killed the battery so I have to figure out why but I'm gonna go home skip the gym tonight I'm just gonna go home I've got a lot of work to do so it's probably for the best anyway good morning YouTube my car is covered in ice this morning and I'm not happy about it I mean I love fall weather and I love I think today's supposed to be a high of like 60 so it's mostly gonna be in the 50s which is perfect to me but I was not expecting to come out and see my car covered in ice especially when I'm wearing a dress so I have no idea when I'm gonna get my vlog from last week edited because I was working on stuff for school until 11 p.m. last night and I just can't work much beyond that cuz like my body slowly starts to just break down and like I'm ready for bed so I don't know like this week is busy because of conferences and I'm trying to get stuff ready for conferences and I never used to really have conferences I'd have maybe like four conferences a year so this is like totally new territory for me so I'm trying to get stuff prepared for it but it's time-consuming and I just don't have a lot of extra time so I don't know like it will all work out okay I'm not gonna sit here worry about it like does it affect my long-term life No so it's not a big deal I am however gonna go get a hot latte because it is cold outside and I had iced coffee yesterday that was really good I'm in the mood for like a hot latte so I'm gonna go get that I will catch up with you guys like probably during my planning time cuz I have to meet with my team teachers this morning I forgot to mention it I am proud of myself because I got up at 6:20 and I'm leaving at 7:30 and I actually like showered in the morning and dried my hair and curled it and put on makeup it's a miracle y'all hi can I get a large hot vanilla latte please that's hot yes that'll be it thank you so ignore the fact that these bins are on my desk usually I keep them up here on top of this cabinet but we have like the fire department coming to do inspections so our custodian told us we had to take certain stuff down if it was too close to the ceiling so for right now they're just staying on my desk and then later this afternoon I will put them back up there but I wanted to show you it last night I know I showed to my conference report yesterday and I told you I was possibly gonna change things I altered it just a little bit I added a section for strengths and weaknesses because I do think it's always important to start with something positive so now I have a place to actually record that and then also a place to record any like goals that you want to have for the student or that the parent wants to have for the student or that the student wants to have for themselves then I have the grades that's the same but work habits I change this from attitude to behavior and down here I just added another line for like plan for implementation and I also added another line for teacher signature just in case like we actually have a conference together like two of the block teachers I also made these reminder forms so I plan to put this all together in like a conference pack for TPT only I swear I'm actually gonna do it this time it's actually gonna go up in TPT because I know I say that a lot I know it doesn't end up happening but I'm just gonna fill out like the student name the location which will be my classroom the date and the time and I will send these home with students who do have conferences booked tomorrow's that they have the reminder for Thursday and then also just to show you I did make up this sign to like put on my door and I'm also gonna include this version that's all like black and white in case you don't have color ink although if you don't have color ink I highly suggest you check out HP and say Inc you can get a month free with the code I'll leave it down in the description box it's like the best decision I ever made I also made a sign-in sheet so I can keep that outside of my door again I have one with a real photograph that's in color and then I also have a black and white version in case you don't have color ink and then I also made a conference schedule so we are having parents sign up through a Google form and we can like export and see what time different parents signed up but it doesn't really go like in order so I personally just want to have this for myself so I can keep track of it and I know like who's coming in next it's important to have both the student name and the parent name so again I have one with a photographic color but also a black-and-white copy and I seriously am the luckiest teacher ever like I just cannot get over how giving my kids are and I'm just so grateful for it like it's the little things that really make your day and I had a girl from my homeroom class this morning that bring me these are homemade cinnamon rolls with homemade frosting oh my goodness and she even included like a little thing that has a fork and a knife how cute is the head so I got that and then I also got these two like delayed birthday presents it's this one one of the girls in my black two and this is from one of the girls in my homeroom and pie blog one like I just could not get over this so I open up this container and I bet you can already guess what's inside yep just what I need it more racy so when my clothes start to like not fit anymore within the next couple of weeks you guys will know why so then I open the bag and of course there's more Reese's which I'm so excited about and look how stinkin cute this is a card and it like pops up into a little cake and then this is where they actually write the message and I love this so it says dear mr. a I know this is late but I hope you had the best birthday yet from here favored student they're all my favorite students let's be honest [Music] ok it is 5:30 and all set I was sitting here like grading and I realized that I hadn't blogged in a really long time so hi I'm still here I'm still alive I did not vlog during lunch because I had a girl who was out last week when I had a lunch punch with my homeroom class the team that had hit 25 dojo points she wasn't here so I had just like a one-on-one lunch punch with her today since school let out I've literally just been sitting here Grady so we had a social studies quiz that we took last Friday on the regions of Maryland and none of my kids really did that great I had a couple kids in my block too who did like okay but it still wasn't like their best so I actually made the entire class both groups of kids redo it I retaught the material we took new notes they redid the quiz and unless everyone got 100% the second time so that's a good feeling but I had to go through and like staple it with their original paper and input it to the grade book put the original score put their new score so it took a little bit longer than normal now I'm just grading some like exit tickets and things I've collected over the past couple of days and like the end of last week that I didn't get to and I'm gonna try to get as much of it done as I can before I have to leave and go to the gym and this homemade cinnamon roll is currently what is helping me get through my grading because I need just some mental help right now life update it is seven o'clock I got almost all the grading done I only am missing one assignment it was a science exit ticket that only one of my blocks got to today but I'm not saying any later I need to head to the gym so I'm gonna get out of here I'll try to get those graded maybe like tomorrow morning I don't know I can't really do it during my planning time because I have team planning but then I can't really do it in the morning because I have faculty meetings but it's okay I will try to get it graded before the end of the day so that I can hopefully be done with grades good news is because tomorrow is a homeroom oh no I was gonna say because tomorrow is a homeroom day I won't have anything to grade but that's not true because our students are gonna be working on assignments in homeroom for our blocks so I will have creative to do but that's a okay for now I feel better I feel like I caught up a lot so I'm gonna get out of here and then I'm just gonna try to be as productive as possible when I get home good morning YouTube I'm tired and I'm stressed because I have just so much to get done over the course of this week and I literally feel like I don't have enough time to get it all done which is really frustrating I'm still trying to get stuff ready for conferences I do have my reminders ready to go home with students today but I still have to fill out like their conference form I'm still getting stuff ready to have for like resources because you know parents are always like how can I help them in math how can I help them in science and I made up a sheet last night for like math so I need to print those out and have those ready but I should probably have something for like science and social studies and I'm just not there yet and I saw I'm gonna have to do a little bit of grading today before I like update their conference sheets with their current grades and I don't know I also have to FMP today and I'm just like I'm just not a great mood I'm tired and I feel like I'm working hard every single day and it's like why am I still this like backed up with stuff so I'm not gonna go Dunkin Donuts because I did bring one of those for appetit no drinks just to save me a little bit of time this morning I do however need to get to school because we have a faculty meeting and if you're not there like really early you will not gonna see and you'll have to like stand and I'm not about that life so I'm gonna go and I'm gonna try to get there a decent time so I can actually sit during the faculty meeting so I did bring in my like little boo baskets even though I have not been booed yet my team teacher is the one like in charge of it all and one of the trains that she started like ended up coming back to her so she's having me to start a new train so I'm gonna have to students deliver these to two other teachers today so I just took my students to lunches as the current state in my classroom kind of a hot mess because my students are working on assignments I have been at the back table FM PE so doing the finest and Pinel benchmark assessment and this is what I have up on the board for my students so it just says you should be doing they're doing a science right to source so I'll show you here because this kid is not here so basically this is practice for an upcoming assessment they have to read these two articles which are here and then they have to answer this question so they have to do like a graphic organizer and then write like a three paragraph essay for that then they are doing math practice which is back here so on the back counter I just have lined out this is their line paper for the science right to source and then here are two different math practice pages so this is for my block one and my team teacher miss White's block two and then this one is for my block two and miss White's block one and yet I still have these containers which got taken down for when the fire department came around and I still need to put them back up so then once they have finished both of those which I only had a couple people finished before lunch they are doing any work from their blocks and redoing assignments reading their novel taking they are quizzes doing math facts in a flash and I told them I am testing they can only interrupt me if it's an emergency and I did have another birthday president brought to me today and unfortunately this poor girl has been sick for the past like two weeks and she's been out off and on so she's not here today but her sister brought it to me and inside was this bag it's super cute it says anyone can be cool but awesome takes practice and on the inside it is stuffed with my favorite more Reese's just what my waistline needs so like I said my students aren't lunch since it is an early dismissal we were planning on still going out for recess but apparently we were told by admin this morning that we can't so when we come back we're gonna have close to an hour my students are still gonna just work on that stuff that I have on the board I'm gonna try to finish up some more F&P testing so far I've done like two and a half kids so it's a slow process but we're getting there little by little and then this afternoon once all the kids leave we have more PD so for now I'm gonna sit and enjoy my lunch cuz I'm starving go use the bathroom and by then it will be time to pick up my kids PD is done and thankfully it did end a little bit early it's 341 so we got about an extra 20 minutes to ourselves which is appreciated I'm gonna sit here and do a lot of grading because I want to get everything into the gradebook so that when I make the conference like report sheets I can have like their current most up-to-date grades so I need to get all that done before I leave tonight which is gonna be a lot I guess I don't have to finish it all before I go I can always like fill out conference reports but yeah it's gonna be a busy night like tonight and then tomorrow is gonna be exhausting currently I have 16 conferences scheduled so it's gonna be a very long day but it's okay then on Friday it's like half PD four things you need PD on so it's like somewhat optional which means hopefully I can have like a workday my room which I'm looking forward to that so it's like the light at the end of the tunnel right now I'm gonna sit here and grade as much as possible and I'll catch back up with you guys later on so we got our pictures which this is new to me because at my old school like we never got our actual pictures like we would have them in the yearbook what we didn't get like physical copies of them so this is my school picture what the heck I'm gonna do with it I literally have no idea look how shiny my face was oh my goodness but yeah maybe I can like give this to kids as incentives or something would that be weird life update I am done with grading or at least what I need to have created before conferences stuff that they did today while we were f in pain I am NOT gonna grade so here's what I'm gonna work on next I'm gonna start working on conference stuff so I have my conference reports printed out I'm going to go through and fill these out for each of my students I am gonna have this in my TPT store hopefully by the time you guys are watching this video the link will be in the description box can't guarantee it but I'm gonna try to work on it this weekend before I post this vlog so hopefully this isn't my TPT store if not it should be in there shortly last night I printed out this parent-teacher conference in progress poster and I laminated it so in my conference pack there is both a color and like a clipart version that's all black and white so if you don't have color ink you can just print that I laminated this just so I can use it each year then I have my conference sign-in sheet so I printed this in color at home but again there is a clipart version instead and then I also made up this little sign it's just like a 4x6 and this little plastic holder I got from Dollar Tree so there's only you dollar and I'm gonna have this sitting in front of that on a desk outside of my classroom then I have my conference schedule which I personally am gonna fill out this is just for me to help keep me on track I'm also gonna give a copy of it to the office just so if they get any like phone calls and parents aren't sure what time the conference is they can facilitate with that I also made up this little sign that says thanks for coming I really appreciate your support take a treat with you I left this very open-ended purpose honestly I don't even know yet what I'm gonna have as like a tree because I've never really had to do a lot of conferences before so I'm gonna go store tonight get like some chips or pretzels or popcorn or something and just have it as like a treat for the parents to take with them so I left this very like general so that when you use this again you're not like limited to one specific treat you'll be able to use whatever you have on hand or whatever you are able to get at the store next thing are file folders these are just plain file folders you can get these like on Amazon I can link some in the description box I'm gonna label these with the conference geezers an email watch it be something else for a conference um I'm gonna label these with the conference times rather than the student names that way I can reuse them for all of the conferences so I'm just gonna do one for each conference time and then I'm going to use my conference schedule whatever student is scheduled at that time I'm gonna put their conference report sheet in here along with any papers that I have to show parents so I always make copies of like tests or quizzes that are below a C just so I have that and we can use that to talk about so I'm gonna put all of those in here and have them in order based on the conference time so that these will be all ready to go for tomorrow so I've not been out the conference reports yet or written the times and the folders that's next but I did just go ahead and make copies of this page which I made last night oftentimes parents are always asking like how can I help my student with math at home so I wanted to have like a printout ready to go to give them and I just copied out on pink Astro brights paper so the top part is all about practicing math facts so I talked about using flashcards from the dollar store using playing cards to play like multiplication war math facts and a flash is a program that our school uses it's along with like AR and then multiplication comm which is a free website that has tons of games sushi monster which is a free app and then extra math which is a website you can make a free account and then down here these are more based on like practicing specific skills so factors and multiples which a lot of students struggled with and like we're going to use that a lot when we get into fractions so there's a game called number munchers which actually i played when i was in the home entry school and you can play it for free online so I gave them the website you also can get an app so there's a paid app for a dollar ninety-nine I think I'm actually going to get it on my iPads that I have here and have it for my students to play at school for just assorted skills like you can browse and pick the specific skill you want to work on splash mat and I have the website you can create a free account and then also prodigy which I've created accounts for all of my students so all I have to do is write their username and then I have the same password for all of my students and that is free as well so these are just a couple ideas this page is editable in the conference pack this part is not filled out because obviously you may have different ideas or your school may use different programs but the top like heading part is there for you and I have it for all the different subjects so you can print these out and have them ready to go for a different subject areas and I know this is totally random and probably not what I should be doing right now but it came to my mind and I wanted to show you guys so talk to my team teacher and like she had out her pictures that I showed you that we got and I'm seeing here and I'm like what am I gonna do with these like the bigger one I guess I'll keep like at home and put it in a photo album or something but I was like what am I gonna do with these smaller pictures so I got this idea I have these small plastic frames which actually one of my subscribers sent to me so I don't know exactly where to get them but I'm gonna actually take one of those smaller pictures and put it in this frame and I'm gonna make it like an incentive for my students and like if they have I'm gonna say like picture-perfect behavior then they'll get the picture of me too like I count on their desk I don't know if they'll buy into it or not but we will find out thank you we will always win all right it is 6:45 here's where I'm at with things I have labeled the folders with the time and then I've also gone through all the folders and I put a sticky note on the front with the name of the student that way after today I can just take off the sticky note and then reuse the folders I put the names the date and the time on the conference reports but I have not filled out the rest of them I'm taking that home to do I also went through my like file drawer and pulled out all the copies of tests and stuff and put them in the folders so I'm still gonna have stuff to do when I get home I have to finish filling out like the conference reports but I'm leaving because Billy just called me he's on his way we're going to meet at Panera and before I go to Panera I need to go to Target because I want to get some snacks to have out for the parents just like some bags of chips and maybe some like little waters or something like that so I'm gonna get out of here I'll catch up with you guys in the morning hopefully I have a productive night and hopefully it does not take me all night good morning YouTube I am leaving so early that the Sun is not up yet and you all know that never ever happens for me I got a bit 5:30 I'm leaving at 6:45 pretty sure that's a record for me the school year but welcome to conferences I wanted to get to school early because I have a couple of last-minute copies that I had to make basically when I went through my students conference report sheets last night filled them out I also made a list of any resentments of anywhere Simons I made a list of any assignments that they can redo so once that they scored below a 70 on the first time I also made a list of any assignments that they are missing and I'm making copies of all those so I can give them right to the parent unless it's a quiz and that way they can take it home and hopefully have their suited do it over the long weekend and then return it to me on Monday that also will help me just get more like grades into my grade book because I'm missing quite a few things from some students so that will help me a help and it just shows the parents that like I'm prepared so I have a couple of last-minute copies because I didn't want to print like 50 pages at home last night so there's one that I need like six copies of it and it's three pages long so I'm gonna just do that at school I also just want to have time to like sit and enjoy my breakfast before conferences Stark is my first conference is at 8:05 a.m. so I don't want to feel like rushed I want to get there I want to have plenty of time I've got my snacks in the vaccine that I need to get set up in my classroom I just have little mini bottles of water and backup chips so I'm gonna go get coffee because it's conference week and I deserve it I also kind of want a donut I feel like I deserve a donut oh you know what I really want chick-fil-a I think I just decided I'm gonna get a chick-fil-a hi um can I get a number two the chicken Minnie's a meal with the sweet tea please yes actually can I make the sweet tea large no thank you Michelle thank you okay I wanted to show there you this yesterday but I forgot one of the girls in my class made all of these sticky notes someone says be nice as one says remembers stay confident and then this one says you are brave and she put them on people's lockers so this is my setup outside of my classroom I have my sign-in sheet just on a clipboard with a pen I have this little jar that I got from the target dollar spot with some flowers from Dollar Tree the little sign that I made and then this decor item that I also got from the target dollar spot and then this is my little setup that I had by the door I moved where I usually have like our bathroom sign now in our hand sanitizer and all that I moved over to buds desk and then right here I have out just some assorted chips and pretzels and popcorn little water bottles and my sign this is thank you for coming I really appreciate your support take a treat with you this is what my back table looks like this is where I'm actually going to hold the conferences I'm not gonna get super close because I do have student and parent names on my conference schedule but those pink papers are those math sheets about how to support students at home then I have my schedule and just a yellow scented marker I'm going to like highlight their names after I'm done with that conference I have two seats over here so if both parents attend they will have places to sit and then over here are my folders that are labeled by time with a sticky note with the student name and inside is their conference report form along with any copies of like missing work that they have or any copies of things that they can redo or any copies of tests or assignments that they feel that I made copies of okay it is now 11:50 so I have been through it 10 conferences but honestly I feel good going into this you know I've always heard about like conference days and I never really had that as a teacher I'd only ever had a couple conferences so I thought I was gonna be more tired than like I actually am honestly I've really enjoyed sitting down and getting to meet some of the parents cuz I hadn't met all of them previously and getting to talk about their child and their student because I feel like when you have 60 students it's hard to like zero and on each student so like to get that time and that chunk of time to sit down and talk specifically about that student and like I don't know I really enjoy that so I've actually enjoyed conferences is that weird I feel like maybe because I feel like I'm prepared like I've got you know all my documentation I've got all that so it makes it that much easier so if conferences are something that you struggle with or that you don't like I would just recommend trying to get as prepared as possible because it's gonna make you rather than like being nervous for the conference and worrying about like making a good impression if you're prepared you don't have to worry about that and you can focus just on the student and working as a team with the parent or parents to be able to better support their students so I feel good it's almost lunchtime I think me and my team teachers are gonna go grab lunch somewhere and then this afternoon when we get back from lunch at 1:00 I don't have any conferences until 2:30 so I'll have like a nice chunk of time if you get some grading done or something I don't know exactly what but I actually feel good I only have a couple left this afternoon and then conferences are done okay so for lunch we ended up going to this place called nooks and it's almost similar to a Panera but I think it's all like almost like homemade kind of stuff but my food did not end up coming it was like super super late so I just had them like bag it up for me so I brought it back to school and I said it's okay like I don't have my next conference until 2:30 I can sit here and eat it but one of my conferences I was scheduled for 3:15 I guess she had gone online and changed it to 1:15 which I did not know so I just met with her I haven't had a chance to eat yet and I have another conference that wasn't scheduled but they stopped in and they like want to meet with me after they meet with another teacher so I need to get there like conference form ready so I'm gonna like try to eat during that but I don't know it's been a little stressful this afternoon so I just got chicken salad and mac and cheese hallelujah my mac and cheese is actually still warm and I'm gonna sit here and try to fill out this conference form really quickly 18 conferences later and I am finally done I'm in a good mood I'm not as tired as I thought it would be honestly like I'm glad that I got a chance to sit down with that many parents and just you know build more of those relationships and get to talk about the students progress I know I already said all that but I'm singing again because seriously like I feel good one thing I am gonna do is send emails to all the parents that I met with and just like thank you or thank thank them for taking the time to meet with me because I know like they have busy schedules with work and everything so I'm gonna send them like thank you emails I'll probably do that at home though honestly I think I'm gonna get out of here like one of my main things with conferences is treat yourself treat yourself before treat yourself during treat yourself after so I'm not gonna stay late I have a work day tomorrow so I'll be able to get plenty done I'm gonna get out of here I'm gonna go enjoy my afternoon and then be ready to work tomorrow and I know this is not typical for me at all but I'm leaving my back table like this I still have stuff out from conferences i papers out from when i was grading like inbetween conferences and i'm not cleaning it up i'm just gonna leave it here it's fine it will be here for me tomorrow it's four o'clock I'm gonna get out of here enjoy my night and then I can always do this tomorrow okay so this happened [Laughter] Oh No I know there's gonna be people commenting and telling me how mean it is guys we're gonna take it off soon but look how cute she is look who's ready for Halloween she's a bananas okay now we need to try it on Lena all right that's why you just have to sit I'm proud of you well it's okay it's got potential so you just kind of flopped it yep just flop it just go for it yep just go for it go with it I can't we have a new tactic here you're horrible pet owners have you bought it I know it's the best ten dollars I've ever spent women women do me a switch okay you should why did you have trouble with this I just got it right on there ah I started it look at me Luna no I only saw this one they had a banana but it was smaller although that might work for just Luna it's a little choppy I've ever seen good let her out we'll see if she knows all right Luna you're ready to split get it you get it Scoob Oh Billy uh-huh good come on cupcake fine dessert no oh there you go just walking yeah I'm sorry kiddies did a raccoon seriously get into it in the front yard right bye mommy - good morning YouTube oh my goodness so I know yesterday during the day I was like I feel good I'm not tired at all well I ran some errands after I left school I like went the post office I went to TJ Maxx I went home goods I actually went to Starbucks and I sat there and I emailed all the parents who had came to a conference with me and Billy and I went to the gym at like 7:15 we got home at like 8:30 ish by time I showered and made dinner it was 9:30 and I planned to edit last night I swear I did but I seriously like it hit me like a brick wall and all of a sudden I was like I am so tired like a different level of tired and it came out of like nowhere I feel like because I was Go Go Go all day as soon as I like stopped and like sat down and started to relax I was just done the end I literally it was like 10 o'clock and I was struggling to keep my eyes open so I went to bed early I slept in super late I didn't get up until 7:05 and I still just feel so tired like I got bags under my eyes like for real I didn't even bother putting makeup on today I was like you know what I'm gonna be in my classroom all day I just want to be comfortable so I'm gonna go get a large coffee because yesterday I did not have coffee I had sweet tea from chick-fil-a and Billy is currently standing in front of me hold on yeah so we kindly have a raccoon problem that Billy is cleaning up at first I Koons were just getting into our trash like behind our townhouse but now they've like found it in the front because the trash comes today so we had to put it in front of our house and they found it there too and they're digging through we need to get a lid but we're probably gonna have to get just a whole new trashcan even though it's the trashcan belongs to the guy that owns our townhouse but still anyway I'm gonna go get some coffee I'll catch up with you guys at school it's gonna be a pretty laid-back day get some grading done get some planning done get some cleaning and organizing time and then leave on time at four o'clock good morning can I get a large iced vanilla latte and one of the chocolate glazed donuts yeah that'll be it thank you so I'm at school now the first thing I did was go through with the homework pages and I made answer keys for both my block too and my block one and then I put a sticky note up at the top student struggling with the base ten blocks strategy students struggling with the area model strategy and then for my block two students struggling with the area model strategy and student struggling with partial products and I'm actually gonna have my TA she's here in the morning so I'm gonna have her go through the students homeworks just check it over and kind of give me a list of who's struggling with what that way I can address it next week so I just make copies of all of the conference reports so these are the original I am going to file these in my student data binders and then these are the copies I'm going to send these home with students in their Wednesday folders that way parents have a copy of this same report that I have so next step is to clean off this table which means I have to grade all those papers they're almost all graded so I just have to finish them up put them in the gradebook and then I'm using this drawer to store all of my conference stuff so I put those extra like math support sheets there I put my little signs here my clip that I use to hold the sign on the door right now I have this clipboard because I still have a conference that I'm making up on Monday and then down here I have like my sign and then all of those folders that I use so that way when the next conference has come up everything I need will be in that drawer that's the grave and let the colors rain to the series you - sure [Music] cuz you and me so this is my next project I've had all of these fraction bars in these bags and honestly I just had this container at the top of one of my cabinets and I was like I have no idea how I want to organize these but thanks to all of my amazing subscribers I now have a ton of extra sandwich containers now I thought about storing them in sandwich containers like originally at the beginning of the year but the only problem is like the whole bar is too big to fit in a sandwich container but I thought about it I'm just gonna keep these separate and then I'm gonna put all of the pieces into the sandwich container so that way when we use them students will just grab a sandwich container and then they'll grab one of the whole bars [Music] [Music] so here's the result these ones all actually have the one like hole bar because these are a different like brand of fraction bar so they actually all fit in the sandwich containers so I have this container down here and this one up here that are all ones that I could easily pass out and we would be ready to use them in here are the other sets so there's ones here here and some underneath of here where they would have to get the one whole bar out of this container this is actually one of those old like crystallite containers so I'm just using that to hold all of the one bars and then these are just other like blocks that don't really go with any of these fraction bars and then these are bags of like extra ones that I don't have complete sets for so I'm going to just hold on to those if I can come across more sandwich containers these ones are like completed sets I just don't have containers for them so of course I mean I knew this was gonna happen like I would have all these extra ones but then not have enough to be able to use them for this but it's okay for now I think I have enough and I'm just gonna keep all of those extra ones in here in baggies like update it is 12:20 I am done with all of the organizing I am working on grading the homework because my TA wasn't able to get to it and I do want to have like a list of which students need to work on which skills for lesson planning which I will do when I get back from lunch I'm leaving that in there [Music] I am back from lunch I just spent a little bit of time creating a homework checklist this is just covering student names but up here I have all of the dates of the weeks through the end of the school year it's double-sided so the rest of the days are on the back that way it's just one piece of paper for the entire year to check homework and then I'll really be able to see like patterns of students aren't turning it in so I just checked off the students we turned it in now usually I'm gonna highlight the boxes that are empty so students who are not turning in homework that way I can see trends over time we don't actually grade homework it doesn't go into a grade book at all I just like to track it to see like who is consistently turning it in or not trained in and I think I want to do like a reward for students who turn it in like maybe the entire month or maybe the entire marking period or year or something but I'm actually not going to highlight those right now because on Wednesday was such a hectic day since we are in homerooms so we had to collect homework kind of differently so I think some of these students probably have it and they just didn't turn it in or their teacher hasn't given it to me or something but I've gone through all of the homeworks I've checked and made my list of who is struggling who's not struggling and then I have their homework all tracked and I think I'm just going to keep this on a clipboard and I will keep it inside of this black magazine bin that I have it from Big Lots so here's what I'm now thinking I have about an hour left before I can leave for the day part of me really wants to try a new desk arrangement I think I want to try five groups instead of six groups that way I could have the three groups up here because that's working out pretty well but back here I could have just two groups instead of three and then I file Imman eight that group right there I can then move my table over so I'll have more room to be able to meet with students so I think I'm gonna try it out see if I like it I may end up moving it back and it may be a waste of time but it's worth a shot [Music] regularities leaving all the dreams playing all the games and getting [Applause] they can chase we are always clean I wanted to show you guys what I came up with for desk arrangements it's a little bit different like each one of the groups is kind of different but I think it's going to work better so I only have five groups now instead of six this group has six and then the one at the end and then this one is my biggest group this one has six and then two at the end and then I freed up this space over here by my library for my small group table so now I have a lot more room that students can come up to the table I also have more room back here for me because before I was literally smushed up against the vent and it just wasn't working so I think having this area a little bit more open is going to work out better and then over here I struggled because in the front of my room it's really really crammed and I tried having like two desks you know facing each other and it was just too smushed like I wouldn't be able to walk past to get to my desk so I went with this arrangement so this one only has five desks I had one right here like it was one of the ones from back there I put it up here but then it was just a little bit too long so I decided to just have a group of five and then there little thing of drawers is at the end but that way I can still clearly walk by to get to my desk so I think that that will work out pretty well I also like that this area back here now is more open so when students have to come back to get manipulatives in their teams basket they can get to a more easily because before it was behind the table so it's kind of hard to get to those are all of my students morning work journals so when I make a new seating chart I will have to put them well I'm not going to my students will put them into their drawers and then these two groups both look the same they're just a group of six with all of the dusts facing each other but I think overall this is just gonna open up my room a lot more I have more space over here which these poor kids were like all the way up against those cabinets so I open this up a little bit I think it's going to help and just overall I think I like it we'll try it out on Monday see how it goes but hopefully this will be the last change that I have to make this year and then I can just move students around when needed so I wanted to take a break from being productive for a little bit and I know you guys have seen like how I prepared for conferences throughout the week and all that stuff but I wanted to give you a rundown these are my top 20 tips for parent-teacher conferences originally I was only going to give you Ted but then I wrote down Ted and I was like I have a lot more tips in this so I'm gonna give you guys 20 tip number one have evidence of student work now that doesn't mean keep every single paper that the kid does but keep examples of good work that they're doing keep examples of work that they need to improve on send home the originals but make copies before you actually send them home tip number two is start planning early planning for conferences literally takes hours and hours so if you can start planning for them early on it's gonna save you a lot of time right before conferences start tip number three be up to date on grading personally I think it's really important during the conference to be able to give the parents their most recent up-to-date grades you don't want to give them a grade and then later that week you enter a bunch of grades and suddenly their entire grade changes it's really important that you can give the parents an accurate representation of how they're doing right now tip number four is to schedule your conferences online if you can I know some schools that may not really work especially if a lot of families at home don't have internet access but if you do live in an area where a lot of them have internet scheduled them online it's gonna be so much easier for you than trying to like email and call and all that you can use signup genius which I personally have not used but I know that's what my school used prior this year we actually used Google Forms so we sent out the link to all the parents they could go on they could sign up for a time and when they signed up for that time it would eliminate it so no other parents could take it and then we just exported an excel sheet that had the list of all of the parents the time we were meeting and what they wanted to meet about all right my hand is already losing feeling tip number five is to send home reminders I recommend sending home reminders at least obviously a day in advance but maybe even two days in advance but you don't want to send it out like too early that the point of the reminder is kind of ineffective and if you're interested I do have that reminder sheet included in my conference forms pack and only four that is down in the description box for you guys tip number six is to fill out the conference report ahead of time you don't want to be sitting there with the parent trying to fill out the report cuz that's gonna take up all of your time so go through update their grades have strengths and weaknesses ready have things that they want to work on make sure that you talk about their work habits and their social skills and behavior and all of that ahead of time that way the conference will go that much more smoothly and again I do have a conference report included it might come in swarms pack and lake for that is in the description box tip number seven is to organize all of the papers you need for each student in a folder you can either have the folder labeled with the student name or with the time that you're gonna meet for the conference that way when the parent does come you have everything you need all in one place tip number eight is to have plenty of seating available both at the table because sometimes it could be just one parent coming sometimes it could be two sometimes it could even be more so that means you want to have seating out in the hall for any parents that are waiting I recommend having at least four to five chairs depending on how frequently your conferences are scheduled and how many parents you may have waiting you also want to have enough chairs at your actual conference table in case the student comes in case any siblings come in case multiple parents come or grandparents whoever ends up showing up you want to make sure that you have seats available for them tip number nine is to have refreshments available it doesn't have to be anything super complicated you guys solve for me I literally just got mini bottles of water and bags of chips put them out with a sign and that was it but trust me people are a lot more positive and happy hey when you feed them and you have water available for them tip number ten is to have paper available you want to have either a notebook or sticky notes or pieces of paper with pencils or pens available that way the parents or whoever else attends the conference they can write down notes if they need to tip number 11 is to have a laptop or an iPad or a computer nearby that's available because if you're showing parents like websites and stuff that they can use at home it's much easier just to pull it up right on the computer and show them that way they are clear on what to do when they get home in order to help their child tip number 12 is to try to stay on schedule I know that can be really hard like my conferences or only 15 minutes each I stayed on track for the first like seven or eight then I had one that ran over but the next two kind of ran short so it got me back on schedule try to stick to that time limit that you had set for the conference whether it's 15 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes or longer if it starts to go over it's okay to tell the parent you know I would love to keep talking to you about your child's progress but unfortunately I do have another conference scheduled and I want to stay on schedule in order to be fair to everyone could we please move this to another day or time there is nothing wrong with saying that and it will keep the rest of your parents who may be waiting a lot happier tip number 13 is to start with the positives you have remember that you and the parents or the guardians are a team you both want what's best for their child no one wants to sit down and hear all the horrible things that their child is doing whether it's behavior or schoolwork make sure you sit down and you communicate to the parents how much you care about their child and how much you do have their best interest at heart so tell them the positive things that they're doing I always think it's best to start with positives and also end with the positives as well tip number 14 is to be honest the whole point of a conference is to communicate what's happening in the classroom with the parents and I know that means sometimes we have to have difficult conversations but it's not going to do you any good if you try to sugarcoat everything sometimes you do just have to be direct and honest about what's happening but make sure the parents do know that you're on their side you want to work together as a team to make sure their student is as successful as possible tip number 15 is to give parents resources almost always parents want to help their child at home they're just not exactly sure how to do it and I always think it's best to be prepared with ideas whether it's math science social studies reading ela writing whatever it is that you teach have ideas ready to be able to give parents I think it's best just to give them a hand out rather than having them like write it all down and notes give them a piece of paper that has all the information they need that way they can take it home and they can help their student and then they can just contact you if they have any questions or they need help with any of the programs or websites or ideas that you're giving them tip number 16 update parents on missing assignments conference time is a great time to go through your grade book figure out what assignments students are missing make clean copies of them because chances are the student probably doesn't have it anymore that's probably why they haven't turned it in so have clean copies of the assignments ready and available to give to the parents that way they can take it home and get it done ASAP tip number 17 is to avoid teacher jargon we all know as teachers there are a million acronyms for things everything is abbreviations and parents oftentimes don't understand most of them half the time we don't even understand them as teachers there's just so many to try to keep track of so try to keep the conversation as simple don't include those acronyms or if you do make sure you explain to parents what they mean it's not really a time to show off like that you know the latest and greatest vocabulary for teachers you need to make sure that you are connecting with their parents that they understand everything you're telling them number 18 it's okay to say you don't know I do think it's important to anticipate frequently asked questions that you will probably get at a conference but at the same time if you get asked something and you're not sure what the answer is don't just try to make something up be honest with the parent and say you know I really don't know the answer to your question but I will do my best to be able to figure out the answer tip number 19 send a thank-you note or an email a lot of times parents have to take off work in order to attend conferences so make sure you thank them for their time and it's just gonna help to build a relationship that much more and finally tip number 20 implement any plans that you came up with for students ASAP if you said that you're gonna move that child to the front of the room to help them focus better make sure you move them to the front of the room ASAP or if you said that you're gonna start making a checklist for a student or you're gonna start checking in with them at a certain time make sure you start doing that ASAP so hopefully at least one of those helped you or give you a new idea again if you are interested in any of the conference stuff that you have seen throughout this video I do have the link for you guys in the description box I uploaded it to my TPT I tried to cover as much as possible but if there's something else that you guys want me to add just let me know down in the comments and I'll do my best to get that added in there as soon as I can so I just went on to PowerPoint where I had my seating chart and I moved around the boxes so now it reflects my new arrangement so now I need to go through and make a new city and chart for homeroom block one and block two and I always feel like conferences are the best time to do that because like I had some parents where who were like well can you move them up to the front so I feel like it'll just be nice to have a clean start it is now five o'clock for some strange reason I am still here I feel good I went around and I put their morning work journals on their desks and that way they can just find their desks when they come in on Monday morning I haven't really lesson planned for next week I know that's horrible but forever reason like I can't lesson plan until I feel like everything else is in place and I feel like I have to get everything else done and then I can sit down lesson plan because I do not like lesson planning when I have a million and a half things in my mind right now one of the big things has been stressing me out is my vlog from last week I have not edited it and edited it did you know what I'm trying to say I have not had a chance to edit it I have not gotten it uploaded I'm planning on editing my birthday vlog tonight and have that up for you guys on Saturday and I plan on editing this vlog on Saturday and having up for you guys on Sunday but I have no idea when I'm supposed to get that vlog from last week edited and I'm thinking maybe I just don't post that one like maybe I just go a week without having videos posted and I hate doing that but at the same time I'm like this shouldn't be stressful to me like I vlog because I enjoy it and if every once in a while that means not posting a vlog like you know I haven't done that in a really long time like got an entire week and not posted a vlog so you know what it happened it's okay it was my birthday weekend and then the week of conferences and I just couldn't get it up and hopefully you guys understand that it stresses me out and it makes me feel bad because like I want to be able to provide for you guys but at the same time like I know you guys understand I'm human I'm a teacher too like my classroom has to come first and that means sometimes YouTube does take a backseat and it's frustrating because I would say 90% of you guys are super supportive which I'm so thankful for and I love so so much but there is like a small group of people that are not so understanding and like give me a really hard time with my videos not posted and that really bothers me I'll be completely honest and I guess because it makes me feel like I'm not doing enough and I hate feeling like that like is one of the feelings that I just absolutely do not like as a person so I don't like when people make me feel like that and honestly I don't want to surround myself with those people so I'm just trying to you know only read the positive comments honestly when I'm seeing negative comments I just delete them because I'm like I don't need that in my life and I'd rather surround myself with the positive because it makes me happier it makes other people happier so yeah I delete negative comments and I delete negative messages and I don't answer them and I don't know anyway a little rant there I'm gonna end this vlog here because I actually need to get going because Billy and I are going to meet my parents in Pasadena to go to Carabas which is one of our favorite restaurants my parents are treating us to dinner for like my birthday slash Billy's birthday which was back in July but like they forgot to get him something so we're just celebrating with like a big dinner and I'm excited because I feel like I really really need that after this really long week of conferences I'm tired I'm very tired but at the same time I feel good I feel better than I did at the beginning of the week I know at the beginning of the week like I was not in a great mood because of stuff that had happened with like people being not nice and I don't know but I feel better like honestly conferences even though they were tiring they made me feel a lot better and they made me feel more connected to my students and their families and like that just makes me feel like a better teacher so overall I think I had a really good week I'm gonna work on getting the conference packed for you guys up hopefully by the time this video goes live fingers crossed that I can make that happen but if you enjoyed this video and I give you any kind of good idea that you can use for your next conference please and give this video a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already so you don't miss any future videos 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 one 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 the link right up here in the description box you'll find links for my teachers pay teacher's store along with my Pio address if you're interested thank you for watching and I'll catch you guys in the next one you

Channel: Pocketful of Primary

Views: 186,756

Rating: 4.9110856 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, classroom, vlog, 4th grade, teacherspayteachers, teachers pay teachers, tpt, 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, conferences, parent teacher conferences, parent conferences, teacher conferences, parent-teacher conferences, preparing for conferences, prepping for conferences

Id: ln5VfGGvz_c

Length: 63min 23sec (3803 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 22 2017