Summer Reading List

I'm a HUGE reader.  It's seriously one of my favorite hobbies.  I always have at least one book (or more) that I'm reading.  I love hardback books, paperback books, books on my Nook, and books on the Nook app on my phone.  Honestly, most of the reading I do is on my phone. 

So when I saw The Hands-On Teacher in First was having a Summer Reading List linky, I knew I had to join up.

My New Years resolution this year is to read 52 books for the year.  I've read 24 so far, and I'm in the middle of 2 more at the moment.  I track my challenge on Good Reads.  I love Good Reads for tracking which books I've read and how I liked them.  If you're a reader, you should add me as a friend {here}.

Now onto the list of books I want to read this summer.

This is a new release that is first on my list.  I love Emily Giffin books for a light hearted read.

This one has been on my list for awhile.  I love emotionally powerful books, but sometimes I have to work up the energy to read them.

I saw the previews for Maze Runner when I went to watch The Fault in Our Stars (book and movie were soooooo good).  Now I must read this book before the movie comes out!

Here's another upcoming movie preview that I saw and realized I must read the book.  The movie looked great, and If I Stay has some pretty good reviews on Goodreads.

And finally, I always find true crime stories really interesting.  

What are you reading this summer?

Confessions of a Teacher

I'm linking up with Rowdy in First Grade for some teacher confessions.

1.  I'm secretly thankful that my daughter was sick and I needed to stay home with her today.  Does this make me a bad mother?

2.  Although giving the 27-page end-of-the-year math test is PAINFUL with my students, I'm relieved that I don't have to plan for math for at least a week.

3.  I've written an entire IEP the day of the meeting.  Maybe several times....

4.  I hate home projects and have done several of my own kids this year just to get them over with.

5.  I am seriously burned out right now.  Teaching, blogging, and TpT have become a huge chore that I just don't want to tackle right now.

6.  I cancelled our weekly fluency and spelling this week due to end-of-the-year testing and that made me super happy.

7.  I actually despise assigning, collecting, and checking homework.  I'm constantly debating whether homework is useful or not.

8.  I started the end-of-the-year countdown two months ago.  16 teaching days left!

9.  It's really sad how one person can completely make a job miserable.  :(

10.  Reading to my students is one of my favorite parts of the day.

Organizing Student Work for Portfolios

Hi everyone!  I'm super excited to link up for another Bright Ideas Blog Hop!  I love getting new ideas that make teaching easier.

Since I teach special education students, I need to keep student work to show how students are or are not progressing.  I've tried different ways to organize all their work for their student portfolios.  For a long time, I used 3-ring binders.  But they're bulky and honestly sometimes I don't want the work 3-hole punched.

I finally found this super easy (why didn't I think of it before) system just using a simple crate from Target.

For each student, I use 4 cheap folders.  One has their name on it and includes personal information like copies of their IEPs, their last IEP progress report, their contact information, and other random papers.  I make a folder for each area that I'm keeping data.  For me, that is reading, writing, and math.

This makes keeping work super easy and makes filing for each student super fast.  Once a quarter is complete, I take all of the work our and put it in a folder labeled __ quarter.  What I also like about this system is that it's super easy to change out if you have students who move or come in.  Since only one folder has the student's name on it, I can either white out the name and reuse it or throw it out.

There you go!  It's not genius by any means but I wish I had thought of it a few years ago.

Next up, you'll want to hop on over to Amanda from Around the Kampfire's blog to see how she makes the most of anchor charts in her classroom.

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up