The Together Teacher: Chapter 4 Never Forget! Capture Your Thoughts

Today I am hosting the Together Teacher book study. If you have missed the first four chapters you can easily catch up and join the party! Chapter one Rules Over Tools  was all about creating our ideal week and showing us how the right tools can help us reach those ideals. Chapter two: No More Missed Deadlines gave reasons and tips for how to make a comprehensive calendar. (I've now done that and I can't tell you how freeing it is!!) Chapter three: Coral the To-Dos gave me tools to actually write my to-dos down and keep them organized according to when I plan on doing them. I like having everything in one place. I just have to get in the habit of carrying my system with me!

Now it is my turn! Chapter four: Capture Your Thoughts
I get some wild and crazy thoughts some times. Some of them are actually pretty good, but get lost in the lint cluttering my brain. You know what I'm talking about...ideas for a blog post, ideas to bounce off another teacher, ideas for a new craft project, ideas, ideas ideas...There are many ways to catch your thoughts, but I'll show you what I'm going to try.

I can quickly write who the thought is directed towards and even go back and add more!

Now I can easily write down my musings on the run. Later I can sit down and look over my ideas and decide which ones need to be scratched and which ones need to be added to my To-Dos or put into an e-mail to a colleague for discussion. There are many ways that you may want to organize your own thought catchers. These are the tricks Maia has for making your Thought Catchers work:

1. They must not be time sensitive.

2. They must have a trigger.

3. You should choose Thought Catchers over e-mail.

4. Take advantage of extra minutes in each day. 

You can take as much time as you need later to develop your thoughts. Thought Catchers are for catching thoughts in the midst of our busy days. It captures the thought for later reflection and careful attention.

So often during the day I have these great or crazy thoughts. I either forget them or send out an e-mail to share my latest inspiration. Sometimes I jump into things without having given my idea some thoughtful consideration. Sometimes that gets me in trouble. Thought Catchers are helping me to slow down and think about my ideas carefully before jumping into an empty swimming pool head first!

It wasn't until after I started making these elephants that I realized that the chapter I signed up to host was called "Never Forget"! I'm making these elephants for each of my students to help them remember to read. I've penned an acrostic poem to go along with each of the elephants that will be part of our first day of school. Would you like your own never forget to read elephant? Maybe you'd rather have an Amazon giftcard? Be sure to enter for a chance for one of these awesome prizes below! Everyone gets a set of the binder cover/mini-posters I designed by clicking on the picture below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

The Not-So-Together Teacher Gets it Together!

I'm baaaaack! I took two weeks off everything to spend time with my family on a road-trip that wiped me out! My husband thinks vacation means cramming as much in the day as possible. He had us up at 8:00 each day going from one adventure to another and then we would fall exhausted into bed around 12:00 dreaming of the fun we had that day. Niagara Falls, Anchor Bar, Mount Washington, Acadia, Boston and everything in between were the places we explored. I've needed a week to recover from our vacation!

We had one day to cover Boston...and we did!

Now my vacation is over and the vacation from my vacation is over! I do have to mention that my husband and I just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. If you'd like to see us the way we were follow me on Instagram!

Friday is the day I go help put my room back together after the floors have been stripped and waxed. I feel ready to tackle the coming year, but want to start off being a bit more organized. That's why I jumped on the chance to join Kelly at An Apple For The Teacher in her book study The Together Teacher. Here is how not together I sometimes operate...I waited until the day the study started to order the book. Lucky for me I could read most of the first chapter on Kindle Cloud Reader. What I like about the book is that it comes with a CD with everything ready to print to help me be a bit more together this year. Some people seem to be born organized, don't they? Some of us have to really work at it. I do believe that organization can be practiced and learned even by old dogs like me! 

Maia gave me 10 rules for being together. She also gave me questions to reflect on for each of the rules. They really struck a chord with me. 

Taken from The Together Teacher : Plan Ahead, Get Organized, and Save Time!
by Maia Heyck Merlin

Kelly has more to say about getting organized so go visit her and tell her an Owl sent you!

Don't skip the forward...It is really good!!

The Triple Dip! (Five For Friday!)

***If you don't have time to read this whole long post....Please read #4. I'm asking for an opinion and I know you have one! Thanks!!

Well hello there again! I can't believe I've managed to post some thoughts three times in one week. It is so quiet in my house tonight. My daughter is having a campfire on the HOTTEST night so far this summer and my son is out with friends and I have no idea where my Cranky Bear is, but I think it has something to do with a car and a water tank!

I'm going to do a little double or triple dipping for my Five for Friday. I hope you don't mind. You wouldn't mind if it was ice cream so I know you won't mind it here. Here goes...

On this hottest night of the year I made this yummy snack for the kids toasting out by the campfire. I had my first in St. Louis and I think I've finally found a recipe to rival any I had there. You may have one or two and you may double or triple dip if you like!

Go on...Take one!

So I signed up for Instagram. I LOVE it. I may be late to the party, but I'm having as much fun as anyone else. I'm not sure what the etiquette is for how many times you can post, but I've double or triple dipped today. You can follow me if you want. I'm owlthingsfirst and I haven't figured out how to link my blog to it or if you even can. Come see the wild turkeys in my backyard, or my precious uke player!

Don't click to look inside. Do click to go to a great give away! An Apple For The Teacher is giving this book away AND hosting a book study to along. I really need to win because I need to do a better job planning ahead, getting organized AND saving time! Just click on the book to enter which I hate for you to do because then I don't have as good a chance at winning it.

I am reading along with a group of teachers Donalyn Miller's  Reading in the Wild. It is a powerful text on how to instill lifelong "wild" reading. This week we were to read the section on "Creating a Workshop Schedule That Works for You". One of the things we must keep in mind when setting up a schedule is what  we are required to include. That has me doing some wondering and questioning. Now if you have actually read all the way down to here, I hope you will give me your opinion of what I'm thinking about. I'll stop thinking about it if you think it can't be done. 

So my son has taken a couple of "flipped" classes. They watch video lectures at home and then have more class time to work and have assistance from the instructor. Then they can even go back and listen to the lecture again if they didn't get it the first time. It got me thinking about what I might be able to "flip". I have to teach the basal reader. It is one of my "required" inclusions! In order to make more time for independent reading practice in my classroom, I thought I could send the basal reader home each week with an assignment to complete at home. I would still use the targeted mini-lesson and word work, but I'd be able to use class time to practice the strategies with the students with self-selected books. Do you think it is worth thinking about? I'll leave you with one my favorite quote from this section. I'll leave number 4, anyway!

I hope you'll click on the quote to see some pretty amazing waysothers have set up their schedules for a workshop that works for them. It may work for you, too! 

I leave now to get back to a book I started this morning and have to finish. If you teach fourth or fifth grade this is a book you will want in your library. I love anything WWII and this is not disappointing me at all! A Jewish boy has to move with his family away from his beloved Paris to a safer place to avoid the Nazis. I'm almost to the part where he joins the French Resistance and goes back to Occupied France. Oh my goodness! Look there the book is right there below these words. How cool is that?





Did you catch the triple dip? 5 for Friday, Reading in the Wild, AND a Give Away. Have a great week! Next Friday is the 4th already! Why does time go more quickly in the summer?