being a teacher, love, twitter

#WhyILoveTeaching is Born

Pernille Ripp
Last night as Justin Bieber played through my speakers (my daughter and I were having a dance party), I tweeted this

And with that a new little hashtag was born.  I tweeted a couple of more reasons and then others started to join in.  These weren’t the big reasons like we change lives or what we do matter every day.  We always talk about those things,.  These were all those extra little reasons that teaching is an incredible job.  That teaching matters.

So I challenge you, send out a tweet explaining why you love teaching – the goofy reasons why, the little things we forget to discuss and use the hashtag #WhyILoveTeaching.  To see the positivity in the little things, to hear how amazing our job is, now that is something to remember.

Here a couple of my favorites:

                                       

So if you have a moment, check the stream out and then add your own.  I can’t wait to hear why you love teaching.

classroom management, new year

A Discussion of Rules

Pernille Ripp
Last night it happened again, another school nightmare.  The kids were running around screaming, not listening, not thinking they had to follow directions.  And there I stood, in the middle of it all, yelling louder and louder, hoping to capture their minds and hearts on that all important first day of school.  Except I didn’t.  And I wouldn’t that way either.  It appears that in my nightmares I betray my own teaching philosophy; not to yell, not to punish, not to stand up there and blabber on and on.  In my nightmares I am everything I used to be.

In this nightmare I kept kicking myself that I hadn’t gone over the rules.  If I had only gone over the rules then they students would behave.  Except they wouldn’t because kids are not stupid.  They know once they get to 5th grade what the rules of school are.  They know not to yell, run around, dismiss the teacher.  They know what is expected of them because those same rules apply in society as well.  Those same rules apply in all of their classrooms and are so fabulously taught by our kindergarten teachers, (I don’t know how they do it).  And yet we cling to our rules.  We cling to our decision about classroom management making sure that it is one of the first things we discuss with the kids.  Not what to expect out of the year.  Or what they should be  excited about.  Not the amazing discoveries and failures that are bound to take place.  No, the rules, my rules, my classroom.

So this year, the rules will be discussed but it will be by the kids.  I am not sure when it will happen, probably within the first couple of days as we share our expectations. The kids will tell me how they want to learn, what type of learning environment they thrive in.  If it is one that is a little bit noisy then I am ok with that.  If it is one that requires lots of movement, I am ok with that.  If it is one that requires breaks and variety, I am also ok with that.  They will mold our classroom because mostly it is theirs, not mine to decide over.  And I am ok with that.  What are you ok with?

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being a teacher, new year

On Those First Couple of Days

Pernille Ripp
Cross posted from my other blog 


I am in the countdown, getting butterflies, and starting to have those back to school nightmares about how much the kids will hate me.  Yes, school starts in 3 weeks.  So yesterday I sat down and brainstormed what I would do those first two days or week with my kids.  We start weird this year with orientation on Thursday and then full day Friday but then Labor Day weekend so I don’t plan out the lessons.  But I do make a list of all the things we should do.  Care to see it?

So what does it say?

  • Flag pennant – a way for my kids to show their personality and decorate their cubbies – it’s a 5th grade thing
  • Wordle about me – I have parents hand in 5 secret adjectives to describe their child and then we add 5 of our own and it make a really great Wordle about the kids which we hang up – the students get so surprised over the adjectives their parents use.
  • Intro to Blogging – we start to talk about blogging on the second day of school because it is a huge part of our classroom.  And then we start to discuss safety.
  • Paper blog lesson – this is a great lesson shared by @McTeach and one that I love to do with my kids.
  • Lunch magnets – sign in, sign out
  • Name sticks – I randomly pull sticks when we discuss and use them for group work.
  • Pencil cups – I have tables this year so no more name tags on desks.  Students will instead have a decorated pencil cup with their name on it.  They work on this while I read aloud.
  • Writing sample – I love seeing how they grow.  I think this year’s topic might be “What color is 5th grade?”
  • Read Dear Future Mrs. Ripp Student letters aloud.  Every year my students write a letter to the new kids sharing information about this classroom and how to get the best out of it.  This year some of those students are still with me so I am going to share their letters with the whole class when they work on projects.
  • Time Capsule – we measure height and write down our favorites and dislikes.  The kids always crack up at the end of the year about what they wrote.
  • Make Animoto classroom vision – the kids figure out our vision for the room and put in into Animoto.  It really gets them thinking and helps them take ownership of the room, here is last year’s.
  • Discuss classroom jobs – I have helpers every week and this year I added new jobs like Googler and Mapper.  The Goggler will google questions we have submitted on a list and the mapper will keep track of where we connect with.
  • Morning Routine – we discuss expectations; what type of morning do the kids want?  How do we get started for the day?  We come to an agreement on how it will run best.
  • Random Pictures of Mrs. Ripp – I will be sharing a slideshow of random pictures from my life to see if the kids can guess what they mean to me.  The following the kids will bring in their random pictures.
  • Connect the students – this is a great activity that only requires paper and sharpies.  The kids all write their name on the border of the paper and then one person makes a statement like “I play soccer.”  Anyone else who plays soccer gets to connect their name to theirs and then the next person states something and so on.  In the end you have a huge spiderweb of how connected we are in the classroom which I display even though it is super messy but it kind of looks like art.
  • Rules discussion – I don’t set the rules, the kids do.  So how do we want our room to function, how do we want it to sound, to look like?  What will we do to maintain it.  That conversation starts on the first day.
  • Be a tour guide – I have some of my students from last year so why not have them give tours of the classroom.  I have changed some stuff but not everything so then everyone can feel at home.
  • Name your table.  The students will come up with a table name and then create a banner for it.  This will happen monthly as the students change tables.
So there you go, just a couple of my to do’s for the first couple of days.  If you see something you like; borrow the idea.