TpT Flock 16 Conference

Have you ever been awestruck and overwhelmed at the same time? That is how this past weekend was for me. I had the chance to attend the Western NY TpT Conference in Rochester, NY (my hometown). It was incredible and inspiring. 

The ladies that organized this meet-up... certainly did their homework! The conference was at the Woodcliff Spa and Hotel. Accomadations were simply lovely... just what a bunch of tired teacher-preneurs needed to be rejuvenated! I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to go here for an all day conference?!? 

Breakfast was sponsored by teacherspayteachers headquarters, and they even sent up four staff members from New York City to attend! No detail was left unattended... Check out these adorable centerpieces that were crafted with love for each table! As we arrived, we had to choose a paint swatch that best described our TpT journey... Can you guess which color I chose? 

There were four main sessions and five break-out sessions. Let me tell you... I could NOT write down all the great information the gifted speakers were passing along fast enough! The first break-out session I went to was Tabitha, from Flap Jack Education. 

She was incredible... she taught us all about how to do marketing strictly using your smartphone (an area in which I am gravely lacking)... I have already downloaded some awesome apps like Word Swag, Bit.ly, and Color Story and they're making my life so much easier! 

Next, I attended THE Erin Cobb (Lovin' Lit) and Heidi Babin's (The Doodle Oven) workshop.. Great Layout = Great Payout. These ladies were astounding with their knowledge (who knew Heidi was an artist before becoming a teacher?!?) and their ability to self-reflect, and grow from their mistakes. Hopefully you will be seeing some newly improved resources in my store soon!!! 

Oh, and did you know about the Rule of Thirds?!? I sure didn't... apparently, objects should be placed anywhere these lines intersect to observe the Rule of Thirds! More pleasing to the eye that way... so they say! Thanks Heidi and Erin for that tip, I had no idea!

Have you ever read the Clutter Free Classroom's blog? If you haven't, then you should! Jodi, like the rest of them, is incredible. She gave so many great tips on how to be a more effective blogger. I realize, I am on a steep learning curve, so if you are reading this... I appreciate your patience! 

The day just kept getting better! Up next was Jen Jones from Hello Literacy? She too, is mesmerizing. 

She gave us all great tips on how brand our stores and figure out WHO WE ARE as teacher-authors. She gave us some great homework to do... That I have been mulling over, you know, in all my free time between still being sick 7 months into my pregnancy, chasing around a toddler, laundry, diapers, cooking, TpT, tutoring, volunteering, cleaning... (Oh wait, does cleaning ever happen??? Not sure if it does anymore! My poor family...) 

Finally, I finished the day with a little PD on Facebook! Karen Jones... who happens to be local to Buffalo, our neighbor to the West... did a great job teaching how to use statistical analysis to advertise and grow your business via Facebook. Again, another area of growth for me. Boy, did I set a lot of goals this weekend. 

If nothing else, I met a ton of new people this weekend and learned that we are all on our own journeys. Whether it's in the classroom full time, working on teachers pay teachers full time, being a mommy or anything else... This world of teacherpreneurship is a blessing to us all, and I am thankful to be apart of it! What a gift!

I love this quote by Henry Ford... He certainly knew how to forge through uncharted territory! It came to mind as I was reflecting the next morning on all I had learned... 

Literature Circles

This week I had the AWESOME privilege to go into my friend's classroom and get a literature circle started! It was so much fun!! I first began using literature circles when I taught the 5th grade, gifted and talented blend. It was a HUGE change for me, seeing as I had always taught students with disabilities. But of course, it turned out to be awesome. In my 5th grade class, I had a chart created and posted next to our classroom library. My students needing enrichment would be given their role for the week and assigned chapters.

They were expected to complete their reading and their literature circle role BEFORE they came to group. My job was simply to observe discussions, the "discussion director" facilitated conversations! It was INCREDIBLE! Talk about kids taking ownership and responsibility for their own learning... and let me tell you... that was the year of book on tapes for me in the car driving back and forth to work! I had a hard time keeping up with all the different chapter books I had to read before I assigned them!! Ha! Click on the image above for a copy of the literature circle assignments I gave each child to complete before they came to group!

Now, when I moved down to 2nd grade... these assignments were a bit too complex for their little minds! So I modified it! I still had kids that were ready to have additional responsibility for completing reading outside of our guided reading group. But they needed accountability and a challenge to go with it. So I created reader's response questions to several book that kids could read and discuss at their independent reading level. To make things more fun, I even set up a kidblog account and had them blog their responses to each other.. but that's a story for another day!

So this week when I went into my friend's class, I taught the kids how to read the question before they read their chapters in the book. We chose the book Magic Tree House Dinosaurs Before Dark because it's a guided reading Level M (Fountas & Pinnell) and that is the independent reading level for the group. We discussed how good readers are detectives and need to search for the answers to the questions while they read! We also talked about how good readers will also come up with questions of their own to discuss with the group. 

The kiddos set off to read their chapter and record their responses. We gathered at the end, to discuss their answers. The collaboration was AWESOME. Before we discussed as a group, they shared their answers with a partner... using TEXT BASED EVIDENCE to support their thinking! If one partner noticed something the other one hadn't, they just added the details to the response sheet! They were so proud of themselves and I was proud of them too!

Thanks for stopping by! If you are interested in using these Magic Tree House Dinosaurs' Before Dark literature circle questions, click on the picture above!