25 Times When Taylor Swift Lived the Teacher Life
-Kristy
...life is just a classroom...
I had a stereotypical teacher moment this summer while traveling out-of-state to see Taylor Swift's 1989 tour. As I was taking my seat, I heard some excitement from a kid nearby and discovered that I was sitting near one of my students. Luckly, it was a very positive experience - we danced, sang, and had an amazing time seeing Taylor at the top of her game! It made me wonder - what would Taylor Swift be like as a teacher? Would she bring baked goods to the staff room daily? Wear the best outfits for the first week of school? Create the most memorable talent show performance? Write songs about her students? The possibilities are endless. All I do know is that if Taylor Swift were a teacher, she'd probably deal with the lifestyle as well as the rest of us... 25 Times When Taylor Swift Lived the Teacher Life Don't forget to keep some humor in each of your days, educators! Keep up the hard work this fall!
-Kristy
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Where to begin?!?! First-year and veteran teachers both have the same thoughts each year when they report back to school: where do I begin? Setting up desks, organizing lesson plans, putting away games and manipulatives: it seems like the list is endless. It may seems less critical, but one of the first tasks I tend to start each year are my files. I used to put these files off till later since they aren't the "pretty" part of the classroom, but I have found that to be a mistake. As soon as my files are established, all the other papers and clutter have a home base! As I'm sorting the rest of my materials, I will find papers that need to be organized and my newly created files are the perfect spot! I polled a variety of teachers, and here is our list of the best files (or notebooks!) to establish early in the year:
Want to save yourself the time of creating your own labels? These labels are pre-formatted and can be purchased at the Everyday Elementary Store. <---Click Here Thank you to Karlis Tavernier, Courtney Brooks, Keith Ayres, Katrina Ayres, Codie Christenson, Kitty Holdren, Catherine Olson, and Shawna Bonnin for sharing your file ideas for this post! Leave a comment below to share what files YOU use in your classroom! Quick - head on over to www.teacherspayteachers.com to take advantage of their awesome site-wide sale. Tons of stores are offering their products for a discount this week. I'm going to go buy some lessons for my fourth-graders as soon as we're done here. Here are the directions on how to take advantage: While you're there, check out the items that we have posted at the Everyday Elementary store! Here are a few of my favorite items that are discounted: I've been at an AWESOME literacy training today with the hilarious, inspiring, and knowledgeable literacy expert Kathy Collins. I can't wait to blog about my new classroom ideas in the near future.
Best, Kristy I love a good deal - who doesn't? I'm guilty of going to our local outlet mall each year for Labor Day weekend to load up on the best back-to-school outfits from Banana Republic, Gap, and J.Crew. So I've been especially excited over the years to hear about so many stores that offer discounts to teachers for showing their school ID. Check out the list below and save a little cash while you're shopping!
Clothing:
Arts & Crafts:
Books & Media:
Electronics & Technology:
Home & Dining:
Travel:
Have you scored any teacher discounts that are not listed? Leave a comment below with your best tips for deals! Happy shopping, Kristy Music has always been a passion of mine. I grew up performing in musicals, playing guitar, and I sang in choirs growing up. As a new teacher, I knew I wanted to include music into my classroom activities but I wasn't sure how! Here are some tips I've learned through the years... How To Find Kid-Friendly Music:
Visit the Public Library! One of the best ways to include new music (for free) into your classroom is through your public library! I regularly check out CDs, play them for a few weeks, and exchange them for new ones when they are due. When I read the book "Bud, Not Buddy" to my fourth-graders, I love playing lots of jazz to help them understand the descriptive language in the book. Around St. Patrick's day, Irish dance music is a great way to keep the kids learning about different cultures. This low-cost method of circulating music has been very successful in my classroom. Listen to Pandora! My favorite website for free music streaming is http://www.pandora.com/. Once you've set up an account with Pandora, users can create their own online radio stations based on specific artists or styles of music that they enjoy. Although there are some occasional ads with the free version, I've found that by turning down the volume during ads the students don't tend to be too distracted by them. Like all radio stations, the content can vary and some stations are not kid friendly. Remember to pay attention and skip over any songs that will get you in trouble. Here are a few stations that I've found to be excellent in the classroom: White Noise Radio - This station plays a lot of soothing background noise (rivers, birds chirping, quiet music, etc.) that is excellent during reading or test-taking times of the day. Classical New Age Piano Radio - As the title suggests, this station showcases a variety of classical piano songs. They can vary from slow to more upbeat. I find that this can be used well during reading time if the volume is lower. It's also appropriate during group work times. The Piano Guys Radio - The Piano Guys are artists that cover many popular songs on the piano. My students enjoy hearing their favorite radio songs played in a more classical style. As a teacher, I love that there are no lyrics, so I don't have to worry about the content of the songs! Film Scores Radio - My kids have a blast listening to the scores written for motion pictures. Many of them are surprised to hear how quickly scores can change from happy emotions to darker feelings. At times, this station will play some scores that sounds "creepy" to the kids, such as background noises from "Pirates of the Caribbean" or similar movies. I've found that when I explain to my students about the station, the variety of film scores makes a lot more sense to them. They then laugh when the darker songs come on, instead of wondering why the music sounded more intense suddenly. Create Your Own - Although creating your own station can take some fine-tuning to make sure all songs are kid-friendly, a little effort pays off! I started a new station based off of a Disney movie. Once you've clicked on a station to listen to, you will notice that a small button appears below the station title that says "Add Variety". You can then add many other kid-friendly songs, movies, or artists to the same station to help Pandora get a taste for the type of music you're interested in. In my experience, the station tends to play less-mature songs (like "Sesame Street") instead of inappropriate music. If something comes on that you don't want played again, just click the thumbs-down icon and Pandora will adjust to your preference in the future. Music helps Manage Behaviors! For many students, music can be a simple addition to a classroom that can help with behavior management. For students who are distracted by noises during work time, having quiet music in the background that is calming can help to blur the other distracting sounds of cars, whispers, and pencils. I have also found that using music to signal transitions is an excellent way for kids to switch between activities (more on this to come with a later post!) Of course, some kids work best without music, too! In order to be respectful to those kids, I have access to noise-canceling headphones in my room that kids can access. This way everyone is set up for success. Haven't tried playing music with your kids yet? Don't be afraid! Mix Up Styles! Although students do enjoy listening to the Disney classics, I've found that exposing them to new genres tends to keep them more excited. Don't be afraid to play something different for your kids. Take the time to teach them about why YOU love particular styles, and you'll find that they learn to love the style, too. Last year, after playing jazz in class for the first time, one of my students came back the next day and said he begged his dad to play a jazz station in the car as they drove home. His dad was thrilled and so was he - win/win! I also make time for some kid-friendly songs by Justin Timberlake, Nsync, Elton John, Beatles, Kelly Clarkson, and Taylor Swift: my personal favorites! Broadway for Kids! I love to play Broadway show-tunes from classics that I loved as a child. My students have always enjoyed listening to the "Matilda the Musical" soundtrack after we read "Matilda" in class - and it's very rare that my kids would have picked up that CD on their own. Other excellent musicals for kids include: The Lion King, The Sound of Music, Wicked, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Seussical the Musical, Aladdin, Annie, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, Finding Neverland, and select songs from Newsies or Shrek (to name a few!) Be sure to preview all music before you play it - you know best what your kids should and should not be listening to. I want to hear from YOU! What music do you play with your students? Leave a comment below with your favorite ideas! Pump up the jams, -Kristy *Warning - Matt gets adorably fired up in the video clip below and uses some language that is not safe for work. Not suitable for children* I see you, Matt Damon. I see past those (stunning, piercing, sparkling, radiating) blue eyes into your true Bourne Identity. Quite frankly, I like what I see! You're more than just a movie star. What you are, is a public defender for teachers. Although this video of you is not new, it still feels incredibly relevant, especially going into a new school year. Your mother is a teacher. You get it! You understand that we teach long hours because we are passionate about what we do. You know that defending working conditions for teachers means that all students benefit. Can veteran teachers be fired? Absolutely - You know that! You're well aware of the fact that teaching is a profession and that not everybody is able to teach - it's a skill!
I can sympathize with the woman interviewing you in the clip below. I honestly do believe that she thinks she is an expert in the field of education because she was once a student in Los Angeles. I am guilty of believing I understand my aches and pains from reading WebMD a few times, though I would hardly call myself an expert in the field of medicine. Yet, This is a common belief in education. If you were a student, you MUST know what it's like to be a teacher, right? Until I became an educator myself, I didn't know about the world of education that happens past 2:35pm. I didn't know what an IEP was or about the complex systems in place to ensure that students with disabilities are able to access education in the least restrictive environment possible. I had no clue that after school, teachers spend hours differentiating lessons so that their classrooms of students all get instruction at their individual levels. I couldn't have told you that over the summers, teachers are constantly updating curriculum and attending unpaid trainings to become better at what they love to do. There was no way I could have understood that I would regularly give up my plan time to seek out food for a student that came to school hungry, or dirty, or whatever. I didn't get it. But you do, Matt Damon. You do. So I want to say "thank you!" Thanks for going against the grain to publicly state accurate information about what tenure really means. Thank you for making it clear that "a teacher wants to teach" - because we REALLY REALLY do! Finally, Thank you for "Good Will Hunting", which is a really fantastic movie. Because of his support of teachers everywhere, Matt Damon is the first recipient of Everyday Elementary's "Teacher's Pet" Award. Congrats - you can swing by my room to pick up your award whenever you'd like. ...Just make sure to check in at the office first so you can get the "visitor" sticker. Keep up the good fight, Kristy I confess: http://www.pinterest.com takes up 90% of my time during the summer. I go nuts pinning about cute new scarves that I can wear in my arctic classroom, the latest and greatest organizational tips for keeping my room neat, and a billion lessons that I want to buy from Teachers Pay Teachers. When I started my account I practically blinked and had a thousand new pins on my "classroom" board. Then the year started. And the parent emails came... And the papers had to be graded... And the report card comments needed to be personalized... Catch my drift? I wasn't finding the time to go back through those awesome ideas and actually USE any of them. So this past year, I started a new method that has been insanely helpful. I sorted all of my boards by classroom subject area. Having some organization has breathed life into my pins again. Now when I get a flashback to an awesome geometry lesson idea I saw months ago, I don't have to dig through thousands of pins to find it. PLUS, with the amazingly useful new search feature at http://www.pinterest.com, you can search through your own boards to find the pins you vaguely remember from your summer pin sessions.
Although I have been teased by a friend (or two) about the large amount of boards that I have, the time it saves me is worth the friendly teasing. If you haven't set up your boards this way, it's not too late! Pinterest allows you to select multiple pins at a time and move them all to a new board at once. So just grab all of your math ideas, and start a new math board. Keep going until everything has been sorted. Investing the time now will pay off later on! In addition to the typical subjects (math, literacy, science, art, etc.) I have found it helpful to collect boards on the following topics:
During work week (what we lovingly refer to as our first week back, without students) I have made it a habit to go through all of my boards and print out any amazing lessons or ideas that I want to file with my units. This way, nothing gets forgotten in the excitement of the school year. Your turn: what tips do YOU have for utilizing your Pinterest boards? Leave a comment below with any ideas to add! Happy pinning, Kristy I'm so excited to welcome you to Everyday Elementary! This site has been a little seed of an idea that is finally ready to bloom. Everyday Elementary will showcase lesson ideas, some teacher fashion, stories from the trenches, and ideas for improving your modern classroom.
I can't wait to explore this new adventure with all of you! Let's go, -Kristy |
Everyday ElementaryKristy is a passionate teacher with a love for music, fashion, science, and math. Read to learn about how to innovate your lessons, inspire your students, accept that sometimes lessons to awry, and have fun figuring it all out. Archives
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