Things Are Changing! | Pocketful of Primary

hello hello I wanted to interrupt this vlog before it even starts because I have some exciting announcements numero uno last week I was interviewed by inspiring teachers and that video went up on YouTube earlier this week so down in the description box I will link that for you it's about a half an hour interview with me and it's video so if you're interested go check that out number two I was also interviewed by a podcast last week and that went up this week so I will leave the link down the description box for that as well it's not annoying it's probably really annoyed I'm sorry third thing I have a donor shoes project that is now up I will talk about it later in this vlog but I'm trying to get some more flexible seating options for my students if you are interested in donating don't feel any pressure whatsoever but that will be taught in the description box as well truly I just want to provide for my students so if you want to support us I would greatly appreciate it even if it's a dollar or two dollars or five dollars I don't care that would be awesome if not I love you so much just for watching this video and supporting me that way truly do not feel any pressure whatsoever but I wanted to throw it out there because I knew some of you would be interested I love you so much I hope you enjoyed this vlog go ahead and give it a thumbs up right now so you don't have to do it later on I love you I'll get you all later Pluto's not gonna live much longer and I think we're gonna have like a little funeral service for it tomorrow I don't know it's just been it's been a day so we have some changes coming to fourth grade today I came up with a plan for flexible seating with my classroom our students need this I wanted to show you all my sweatshirt really quickly because it's super comfortable it's adorable and it was totally my motivation for getting that event this morning I feel like I'm in a good place right now and I feel happy [Music] good morning YouTube we are now three weeks away from winter break I had a very busy weekend and personally I like when my weekends are uneventful which this weekend was not we had the girls on the Run 5k yesterday which I am one of the coaches for so I spent Saturday preparing these little like ribbon things for them to wear so we could identify that they're from our school because there's tons and tons of people at the girls on the Run 5k races and then Sunday morning I had to get up and go to the race then I left from there and I went to the grocery store and I had to get stuff for our banquet so basically like our end of season party so I have a lot of stuff to carry and today we're doing like a taco bar and then ice cream sundaes we went I say we I went way over the budget basically were given a gift card by girls on the run and one of my like other coaches had decided to do both the taco bar and ice cream and just the talk of stuff was already over like the gift card about so I had to pay out of pocket for all the ice cream stuff but it's okay I don't mind doing it because I love my girls and I'm gonna get to enjoy some of it too so it's all good this morning at the same parent who came in last Monday to teach the coding lesson is coming in but she's only gonna be able to come in in the morning so I will teach a lesson on my own in the afternoon which is totally fine I am so appreciative for all the time that she gave me I need to stop rambling and get to school so I'm going to do that now and I will catch up with you there [Music] it is not my planting time and I need to just go on a little ramp for a second because I'm just feeling like I'm frustrated I guess so it's been a little bit of a hectic start to the morning only because I had to carry in a ton of stuff for the banquet for girls on the run I had to put stuff in the freezer I had to take the rest of stuff to my teen urn on my team teacher my other coach and then I had to come back and I had a meeting with my team teachers kind of our planning for the week and then I felt like my phone has not stopped ringing this morning like every chance I turn around my phone is ringing and I'm like sprinting to the side of my room to answer it and when I came back for a meeting with my team teachers I have a desk that I keep outside of my classroom I put stuff on it in the morning and sometimes I kind of sit there as I'm grading students it was just gone it was taken from me and typically like fine that wouldn't bother me but it's the fact that my table was taken my table has been taken a couple times but my table was recently taken I have not gotten it back and then now this desk was taken and both of these times like no one has asked me things are just taken from my room and that is very frustrating but I'm not gonna let it ruin my day you know it's it's a little thing it really doesn't matter I am just kind of looking over my plans for today were starting to compare fractions with different numerators and denominators specifically on number lines so I'm kind of getting stuff ready for that trying to organize my papers for the day and I have the parent coming in to do the sides lesson again so I'm excited for that and I need to get some stuff ready for a field trip that we have coming up in about two weeks so I am busy busy busy I will catch up with you probably like way later on in the day after I have the girls on the run banquet okay current stayed in my desk and yeah I think I'm just gonna leave it like this tonight all right it has been a day I just feel very like mentally exhausted you know I mean physically exhausted as well but I don't know it's just been it's been a day yeah I will just say that like it's just been hectic you know it's just been all over the place and I don't even have words to like describe right now but I you know I've really been reflecting lately and my weekends have been very busy because of grad school and it's unfortunate but it's what I need to do right now to better myself and that's fine however after having today and just feeling so mentally exhausted I need to do something for myself tonight I need to self-care like something terrible now I salsa lesson plan for tomorrow and in fact I actually have a another teacher from the county who is a first-year fourth-grade teacher she is coming to observe me tomorrow for math instruction which I'm excited about but I'm like I am NOT on my a-game right now like I'm on my like c-minus game and I just I'm like so I do need to lesson plan tonight and make sure I have my ducks in a row but once that is done like I am going to take time for myself I don't know if it's gonna be like do my nails take a hot bath something but like I need to self-care tonight because I can just mentally like it's only Monday but I can just mentally feel the exhaustion so that's my plan hopefully tomorrow morning when I catch up with you I can tell you that I stuck to it speaking of which I need to get out of here and go to the gym go home do all that take time for me and I'll catch up with you in the morning good morning YouTube I am very happy to report that last night I did some self-care I ended up my time I like you know Jim dinner lesson planning it was already like 10 o'clock and typically that's when I'm like oh like I don't have time tonight for self-care well you know what I did and I found the time because in all honesty I don't end up actually getting into bed into like 11:30 12:00 o'clock and I know that's bad don't yell at me but I was like you know what from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock I'm gonna spend this hour on me so I took a hot bath with a bath bomb I put on a face mask I did like a body scrub and I just feel a lot better like oh my goodness I'm ready to conquer the day once I get my coffee I am gonna go get some coffee cuz I definitely need energy today I mentioned yesterday that I was having another teacher from the county come to observe me I thought they were just coming in for like math they're gonna be there from 8:30 until like noon so I probably I couldn't really get a chance to vlog once I get to school because I need to make sure I have everything ready for today and then they're gonna be with me until lunch time I'm gonna go ahead and grab that coffee get to school and I will just catch up with you when I catch up with you [Music] it's a quick little vlog break during my lunch we had a local like realty company provide a lunch today so we have tomato soup and salad and a pickle so I'm gonna enjoy this and then head out to the freezing cold for recess so I just dismissed my students and I feel like every single day during dismissal I have a conversation with them about how it's not lunch time and they should not be eating and I understand they're probably hungry but they need to wait until they get home or get to wherever it is they're going and they always swear to me Miss Right we're not eating well look at what I just found on my floor that is a cheeto that is evidence of y'all eating so total my students who watch my vlogs yeah you're eating during this missile time I see you I see the crumbs you leave behind also this was found today inside one of my desk this was a whole whiteboard I now have two halves of a whiteboard in my five years of teaching I don't think I've ever really had a whiteboard get completely broken I mean these are decently thick like they should not be breaking in half no idea who or how this happened it's fine I'm not really worried about that but I did have a talk with my homeroom block 1 and part 2 about respecting materials today welcome to December as a teacher let's do a little life update so the learning visit with the teacher actually went really well it was nice to get to talk to someone else who teaches the same grade in the same County and just kind of talk about like whoa what do you do for this and even though she was here to learn from me I felt like I kind of got some good information as well and it was good to get feedback both from her and her right side advisor which is basically almost like a new teacher coach they were both here observing and and it was nice just to get feedback because as a teacher there's a lot of things sometimes you don't notice or you don't even realize that you do and just to kind of hear from another person like hey I really like how you did this because of this like it was really nice to kind of get that feedback so I really enjoyed it I was somewhat stressed out about it like last night and this morning just because anytime someone comes to watch me it's just that I have high expectations and I hope that it amounts to that I mean honestly it's just pressure that I put on myself so I am happy to have it done but overall and went really really well and my students did a great job which was great something else new what from today is my team teacher and I switched classes instead of the student switching classes so here's what I mean by that in weeks past I teach my block 1 in block to science for a week and then we would switch blocks and I would teach her block 1 in block 2 is science and she would teach my block 1 and block 2 social studies in the past our students have switched classes starting today our students still went to their normal block one a block 2 and instead her and I just flip-flopped classrooms and I really really liked that obviously I had to make sure I had all my materials and it's a little bit of like an adjustment for example my doorbell which I have in my classroom right here this is connected to a wireless doorbell that I have plugged in and when I click it like this it goes off mine obviously would not connect to my classroom or I wouldn't connect to hers like I couldn't use it when I was her in her classroom which took a little bit of getting used to because I use it all the time anyway so that went really well today I felt like I had good lessons today and I've been productive after school I got my block wanted lock - took a check for understanding today my black wine after looking at them I'm not gonna greet it because I feel like they just need a little bit more support so if I look at a majority of the check render sayings I'm like and like we're getting there but we're not quite there I will choose not to grade it my block - however theirs were really really good so I did go ahead and grade there it's got that put in the grade book also we have a field trip coming up in about two weeks and I reached out I randomly selected my chaperones reach out to them to let them know and then gave them you know follow-up information and all that good stuff so I feel like I've been really productive tonight is Alito's night which is a fundraiser where our school gets a cut of the money from Alito's pizza and do we have a competition to see which class can have the most students attend so previously my class was the winner and we got a trophy and I'm trying to have that happen again so I really encourage my students to go what Billy and I are gonna meet there around 6 o'clock so I need to head out soon I'm just gonna kind of clean up my desk area and then I will catch up with you at tomorrow I know that was a lot of me talking but that's what vlogging is sometimes good morning YouTube so we have some changes coming to fourth-grade today and I'm excited about it it's basically we are going to be changing our schedule after really analyzing our current schedule it's not best for our kids because what happens is we go to cultural arts which is like our special time first thing in the morning then we have most of luck one then we go to lunch then we go back to block one for like 20 minutes or so then we have blocked to for a solid two hours in the afternoon and that's a lot for our students because they don't really have a chance to get up much and we try to build a movement breaks but it's just a long time for students to be sitting in a class in the afternoon students are much better at that in the morning because they're not as like mentally tired yet as they are in the afternoon so we are going to be pushing our lunchtime back by about 15 minutes so that way we have olive lock 1:00 in the morning which makes more sense anyway then we go to lunch we typically go to recess right after lunch but instead we're gonna wait we're gonna go to block 2 for an hour then go out to recess and then go back to block 2 for an hour that way students have that recess break right in the middle block 2 and I'm excited for this I really really really think it's going to work better for them plus then they're not carrying all of their stuff when we transition classes in the morning they just need their block 1 stuff then they go to lunch and then after lunch they can grab their block 2 stuff and I just think transitions are gonna be much more smooth and I'm excited it's nice to have these changes at this time of year when like things start to get a little bit monotonous and the kids are a little bit tired this will kind of change it up rejuvenate us a little bit I have a meeting this morning and then I have a planning with my team teacher so I don't know what I'm gonna catch up with you all probably at the end of the day but I will catch up with you all once I get to school [Music] it's now the end of the day and I wanted to update you all on our schedule change today I really really liked it I felt like things just went more smooth and I feel like it makes a lot more sense to have the full block 1:00 in the morning then go to lunch then have block two and have recess in the middle so it's an hour block to recess an hour block - I just felt like the transitions were a lot better and overall I just felt like it it felt smoother and it felt better now that being said obviously its brand new and the fact that we had to tell our kids about it this morning and a lot of them were kind of confused in asking questions and it's going to take getting used to it's almost like a reset button in the middle of the year but I think it will end up being a good thing and a lot of our students they were very flexible you know our lunch is now 15 minutes later we eat at 12:35 they were actually not concerned about that which kind of surprised me a lot of them were concerned about recess being later in the day but we explained how it's actually good because it will help break up block 2 and they were they were good sports about it so I'm excited about that now that is not the only change coming to fourth grade that's a big one for right now but my team teacher and I have been talking and we're noticing our students really need movement our students need to move in order to be able to focus and you all know I'm a huge believer in flexible seating I have quite a few flexible seating options in my classroom and that's been great but it's been hard to fit it all on top of you know 32 desks in my classroom and my classroom is not as big as some of you think it's funny whenever someone comes to my room who follows my blogs the first thing they always say is Wow your room is a lot smaller than I thought that it was so it's hard to fit it all in here my team teacher and I have been talking and we've been talking with admin and halleluyah are administered they're like look you all do what you need to do we're behind you where you support you and I'm so thankful to be at my school basically my team teacher and I are gonna come up with a plan and we're gonna start implementing basically full flexible seating we're going to be keeping a fair amount of our desks and we're just going to add in stools and wobble cushions and things to them but we're also gonna be getting rid of some deaths and and implementing some other options and I'm excited about it we still need to come up with a plan but I think what we're gonna end up doing is playing together a DonorsChoose project because I've provided a lot for my classroom and I just cannot out-of-pocket afford to do this all so we're gonna come up with a DonorsChoose project and hopefully fingers crossed we can get it funded when that all comes to fruition I'll you know clue you in on it more like I need to sit down maybe not tonight because I'm kind of tired but at some point I will sit down and kind of plan it all out I need to get out of here it's after six o'clock I need to go to the gym go home plan for tomorrow kind of work on some flex we'll see you need stuff and then I will catch up with you tomorrow we have a different schedule tomorrow which I'll explain that in the morning as well good morning YouTube I'm in a good mood because I'm just feeling pumped I'm feeling excited I mentioned yesterday that my team teacher and I are wanting to kind of roll out more like full flexible seating in our classroom and let me just say this is something we've been kind of discussing for a while like we've known that our students need it and ultimately that's why we're doing it not because it's a trend not because you know I want to have stuff to film for my channel not because I think it's gonna make my room cute because honestly it's kind of makes it almost like a mess but it's truly because our students need this we have a lot of hyperactivity within our students our students have a ton of energy which is great and so we don't want to smother them and like make them sit in seats when that's not working for them they're not productive in that moment they're not learning in that moment because they're not comfortable because that's not how they learn best so I set up last night and I came up with like a little plan I basically made almost like a seating chart for my classroom but like with the flexible seating options and kind of like laid out okay this many students can sit here this make students can say here and went ahead and started listing like the items that we need so we can get together a DonorsChoose project and I am just feeling excited now good news bad news today is an early dismissal day so we're gonna have another different schedule this week has just been crazy with like our schedule but it's good because it kind of keeps things interesting plus I have a meeting this morning and then my planning time is a little bit shorter because they've just changed like the master schedule for early dismissal days and some teachers were not getting planning time because their planning is later in the day so they kind of shrunk up all of our playing time so everyone can fit and have playing time which we totally support but that's gonna take some getting used to I'm gonna go get me some coffee because I'm pumped already but I will feel even more pumped with some caffeine and then I will catch up with you at school [Music] my students were just dismissed since it is early dismissal it's just before two o'clock I need to go down to a PD this afternoon but I wanted to quickly show you this first of all our Venus flytrap which we've had for a good like two and a half months this was from our science unit on carnivorous plants we named it Pluto because since it's a Venus flytrap in Venus as a planet we picked another planet name of Pluto but it is finally dying like if you look part of them are turning like black and they're closing even though they haven't caught anything and it's just it's not good so I let my students know today like hey by the way Pluto's not gonna live much longer and I think we're gonna have like a little funeral service for it tomorrow and some of my students have already started like writing eulogies for her which I just thought was funny and third grade today provided snacks of sugar cookies so after dismissal I quickly went and grabbed one daiquiri today I'm gonna enjoy this and then head to at my PD so I mentioned this morning that I came up with a plan for flexible seating with my classroom and I wanted to just quickly talk you all through exactly how I did that and how I'm kind of going to hopefully transition from regular desks and just giving my students more options because they need to be able to move so here is my current seating chart now I create this on Google slides so I just open up a Google slides I change the slide size to be eight-and-a-half by eleven or in this case eleven by eight and a half so it's the size of a sheet of paper this is just a well I guess technically a rectangle and it has no fill and it just has a black line these are all rectangles that I filled with black and then I typed inside of them with white text so I just kind of mark like my door my cabinets my smart board my windows in my vent then these are all rectangles and typically on Google slides I fill in my student names so I started with my current layout like here is where I currently have all of my desks and I started looking for areas where I could replace that with some flexible seating options or keep the desk but just add different seating options so I'm gonna kind of do like a side by side that way you can see like where I started to move things and all that good stuff so here's my current setup here will be my flexible CD and setup one of the first things I did is I thought about how am I gonna make it so all of my students can see and I thought about doing a tiered approach so basically these are higher these are medium and then these are lowered that way my students in the back can still see the board because that's one issue I have right now having these high class sizes a lot of my students in the back can't see and I can't move everybody up to the front I wish I could so this right here is going to be just a regular table but I'm going to raise it up I'm either gonna put the table up as high as it will go and if that's not high enough they make risers I think they're actually made for beds but you can get them from Amazon or Bed Bath & Beyond there are about $15 for a set of four so I would put the table up on risers this table will not have any chairs I have quite a few students who love to be able to stand when they work so this table will be first standing and this can seat six students I can put three students on each side this table I thought about having another high one but I don't think I need twelve options for standing so this is just gonna be a regular table and it will have IKEA stools so I can't make these small white stools I will link them in the description box they're about six dollars a piece very affordable I actually already have five of them so this could also seat six students again three on each side these are all going to be regular deaths and you'll notice these are laid out exactly the same way that they are right now here I would leave the to regular desks with regular chairs because there are some students who want regular chairs and I think that's important if you are transitioning to flexible seating keep that in mind some students like a regular test in a regular chair then I would have these four regular desks two of them would have balance balls two of them would have auto stools auto stools are awesome because you are able to store stuff inside of them and I'll get to that in a minute but I will link those in the description box if you are not familiar with those these would be regular desks but they would have wobble stools I currently have one wobble stool that I got from Lakeshore Learning I absolutely love it so I will link that along with a code that you can use for a discount through the end of the year actually may be good until do I'm not sure but I will link that for you in the description box my students really really love the one wobble stole that I have right now so I think it would be beneficial to have four of those so these would all be like the normal height of a desk these would be floor tables which I currently have one floor table also from Lakeshore Learning absolutely love it I would have one of them with four wobble cushions and those could actually be stored inside of the otto stools so at the end of the day when they're put away I can store them inside of there this floor table would have adjustable floor seats I currently have two of them and those are from Lakeshore Learning as well I absolutely love them students can recline them and they fold flat so they're super easy to store so this way I can actually see all of my students so 4 8 10 14 18 24 and 30 now one of my classes does have 31 students currently but I could very easily make one of these accommodate 5 students I also have some bean bags I also have some scoop rockers so this would work for my class once I came up with like my layout I actually made a table to show okay what do I need how much is this going to cost cuz obviously transitioning to flexible seating can be expensive so I started with a floor table I already have one so I would need one my team teacher would need to price yada yada yada Auto stools we would each need two of them Wabble stools I already have one so I would only need three my team teacher would need four wobble cushions I already have two so I only need two more she needs for floor seats again I have two so I would need two more she would need for Ikea stools I already have five so I only need one more she would need six of them balance balls I already have one so I would only need one she would need two and we would both need one set of risers if we did the standing desks so that's what I did last night and I printed it out I talked to her both my team teacher this morning she was like yes like let's do this so after school today I sat I got my DonorsChoose project up and I'm excited because truly I just can see the benefits for my students and if you're not sure about the benefits of flexible seating look it up because there are tons of them and I just know my group of students and I know that this is something that they need to be able to reach our full potential and that why I'm happy to do this now I don't want to feel like I'm like you know hey donate to my cherished Ruiz project like obviously if you want to support me I'm gonna put the link down the description box I would love that that would be fantastic do not feel pressured you know you all just being here leaving comments watching my videos that is all the support I need obviously I wish I could fund this for my own classroom I just can't because it's gonna be very expensive and I do get back to teachers three DonorsChoose I've been doing pocket full of positivity so anyone who uses hashtag pocket bull positivity I donate a dollar to DonorsChoose projects and to date I have donated over a thousand dollars which is fantastic unfortunately right now I just can't afford to do that all for my own classroom so if you do want to support me even if it's like a dollar even if it's five dollars you know whatever it is if you're willing to absolutely I would love you forever for that my students specially would love you forever because that's ultimately what this is for it's not for me it's not in my classroom can look cute it's for my students and for them to be able to learn but please do not feel pressured to like donate like I part of me just feels really weird doing this because I don't want to feel like I'm I don't want people to take this the wrong way and see it as me like begging for donations or use it I don't know I'm just things can always be interpreted rear ways ultimately I just hey if you want to support me like that would be amazing if not thank you for watching this video that's all that I really care about but that link will be hate down in the description box I'm just feeling excited I'm I'm excited for the potential that this can bring to my students so I'm in a good mood I feel good I also got some grading done we had an awesome PD this afternoon we were talking about culturally responsive teaching and I just I feel like I'm in a good place right now and I feel happy as a teacher that's a really good feeling and ultimately like you go up and down and I feel like right now I'm in a good place I'm trying to keep it there I need to get out of here I need to get to the gym and go home plan for tomorrow all that good stuff that goes along with teaching and I will catch up with you at tomorrow morning good morning YouTube I got up it did my hair four times this week I think that's a record at least for the school year that's definitely a record and I feel like the deal I should make my with myself is if I get up and do my hair I get to get coffee I think that's going to work that's going to be motivating for me I got coffee yesterday so I'm gonna go get me some coffee I'm gonna get to school I do not really have played any time today so I don't know what I'm gonna be able to catch up with you all but I will catch up with you all I don't have anything like super exciting happening today I'm basically trying to get in some last-minute graded assignments cuz interrupts are due next week and that's gonna be about it but I will catch up with you at some point during the day [Music] I wanted to show you all my sweatshirt really quickly because it's super comfortable it's adorable and it was totally my motivation for getting that event this morning I found this actually because people were messaging me on Instagram with the image of it and they're like hey you need this and after the first person sent it to me I ordered it right away and then everyone else who messaged me I'm like yes I already got it I already got it but this is from wholesome culture so I won't link it down the description box but it says it's beginning to look a sloth like Christmas and it's just adorable and like I said super cute super comfy if you like sometimes I recorded these little sitting down vlog segments and all of a sudden I've been recording for two minutes and I've said nothing actually worthwhile so I'm gonna try not to do that today was a good day but it was kind of boring you know unfortunately I didn't have anything like super exciting going on but that's just how it is sometimes I was trying to get some great at assignments because interims are coming up but as a whole this week I feel like it was chaotic it was definitely chaotic because of the whole schedule change however it's been good and I'm I'm feeling excited again and I have felt very just kind of stagnant for a while so it's nice to have this change and I'm really excited about the potential a full flexible seating because even today just watching some of my kids like they need to move they cannot just sit in a chair for a two-hour chunk of time in a block and as much as I try to get them up and moving they need other options and I'm just excited to hopefully be able to provide those for them because I think that they deserve it and I know it's gonna help them be more successful so overall I'm just feeling pumped and feeling energized I'm tired from this week but I'm excited about the future if that makes sense coming up in the next two weeks I do have some exciting things to share with you all I'll be doing my classroom some activities of things so pumped about that pumped about the change this just kind of happened this week and I'm in a good place that being said I have a lot to get done not necessarily for school but for other things so I'm gonna go ahead and end this vlog here if you enjoyed it please go ahead and give it a thumbs up it really helps me out also hit the subscribe button and the notification bells that you are notified every time I post a new video as always thank you for watching I love you all so much don't forget to think positive and I will catch it in the next 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 a link 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: 86,858

Rating: 4.939692 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, classroom, vlog, 4th grade, 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, donor's choose, flexible seating

Id: 7wbvHGXIvu0

Length: 31min 2sec (1862 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 09 2018