Favorite Places in Memphis (so far)

Hey everyone! Good news: Institute is just about halfway over and I am flying to Tampa a week from tomorrow for Lexi's wedding! This break cannot come fast enough. I'm enjoying summer school, don't get me wrong, but it's exhausting leaving my dorm at 6:15 every morning and not getting back until 7:30ish at night. But in this post, I wanted to share about some of my favorite spots I've visited in Memphis on weekends and such. We are super busy during the week so dedicate our weekends to exploring!

Midtown is Memphis, you guys

Of course I had to check out the children's section at the public library. This section is gorgeous! There are these huge plastic colorful trees and little nooks for the kids to read in. It makes me want to be little again and just hide with a good book =] 

So Seussical

Fancy

Overton Square is another of my favorite places. It's a couple of blocks of restaurants and bars and it has a great atmosphere. Everyone's walking around and sitting on patios outside. 

So hip and happening

I went two nights in a row last weekend for happy hour for our summer school at Louie's, then a group of us had dinner at Chiwawa's with dessert at Yolo. Chiwawa's is a really cool Mexican place. We sat outside on the deck and had drinks, chips with salsa and queso, and some tacos. Perfect night for sitting outside and relaxing! Yolo is a frozen yogurt AND gelato place. Let's just say I'm already in their reward system. Best part of Overton Square? It's only about 3 blocks from my apartment. Win. 

For our school happy hour get-together

yummmmm

Great people to explore with!

This past weekend was much more chill. I saw a couple movies, got to have dinner at a TFA donor's home (they were also Gators!) with some other corps members, and did some errands. However, I did check out Beale Street for the first time Friday night. We went with a big group for drinks and dancing and had a lot of fun! It's really overwhelming because of all the people, but if you have a big enough group, it feels more manageable.

Hello Beale Street

So those are some of my favorite Memphis places so far and how I've been spending my weekends. Of course my favorite place is my classroom =] thanks for keeping up with me!

Patriot's Day

As all of you know, today is September 11th. For all of us "adults" (I use the term loosely) that date will never have the same meaning as it did before 2001, but for the 7 and 8 year olds in my class, it's just another day. They were still years from being born on that tragic day and they don't have "I remember where I was..." stories to tell. The issue for today was: How do we address the importance of the day without scaring the children or oversharing beyond what parents find appropriate. What was even more difficult was the fact that none of the other second grade teachers were doing anything special for the day and my mentor teacher was out of town to greet her son-in-law returning from Afghanistan! So after some searching, I found a nice idea that was simple, but to the point. We made cards for police officers and firefighters thanking them for their service!

The kids came in with this prompt on the board:
     Good Morning! Today is September 11th, Patriot's Day. Please make a card for a police officer or a firefighter thanking them for keeping us safe.

They could choose a piece of red, white, or blue construction paper and use their crayons. I also had a list of words on the board for spelling reasons and to give kids an idea of what to write:

• Thank you
• Brave
• Protecting
• People
• Courage
• Hero

Some of the cards were really sweet! Here's one to a police officer:

"America need's you officer's"

Notice she drew ALL 50 STARS on that American flag. Dedication right there.

"thank you for all the things you do to protect us"

You can tell she worked hard on getting it just right! Here's one for a firefighter:

"Thank you" with a crown? and some stars

"Dear firerfiter's. You are the best. Do you now about the fire by the animel shelter?" And then a place for an answer, of course. I had to warn her that she may not get an answer...

So now I have the issue of how to give these heartwarming cards to police officers and firefighters... I may give the police ones to my dad (a police officer in Jacksonville) to give to rookies, and then swing by a fire station to drop off the firefighter ones. Any better ideas??

So that's how we remembered the victims of 9/11: celebrating the heros of our nation. I wish I had more time to plan a lesson, because I'm thinking of so much more stuff I could have done. But that's a start! How did your school remember today?

In Defense of Inclusive Classrooms

I know I just posted yesterday and you're all freaked out by my over-productiveness (a real word?) but I just had to share this sweet story that happened today. It definitely showed 1) how great children can be and 2) how important it is to have a mixed group of kids.

We were doing a math lesson and the students were supposed to work with the person next to them with some cubes to solve a couple of problems. We didn't plan out who was working with whom and just wanted to see how they worked together. Most of the partners worked well together, but one pair really impressed us. The boy and girl paired up were at different ability levels- the boy had repeated first grade and struggles with many assignments. The girl is on grade level and understood this particular lesson very well.

I was walking around and saw that on his turn to solve, he didn't get the right answer. Instead of taking the cubes and just "doing it myself" as I expected a second grader to do, she encouraged the student by saying "That's really close, but not quite right. Go ahead and try again. I know you're smart enough to get it!" A couple minutes later, he had tried again and found the right answer. He was grinning ear to ear and she was saying "There you go! I knew you could do it!"

Such an inspiration. Let this be a reminder that it is so important to have a mixed group of abilities because without that, you don't have moments like this one! This was a win-win situation because both students felt encouraged and confident and both improved their understanding. Inclusive classrooms for the win!

Three/Thirty-three

Oh. Baby. What a week. I appreciate Friday afternoon sooooo much more than I used to! But I've had a great time and it's been an absolutely wonderful week full of learning- and I think the kids learned some too ;)

Biggest thing I learned? The three/thirty-three rule. It's something our principal says and it means that the first 3 weeks of teaching and planning will decide how your next 33 will go. Such a great reminder! Now is the time to set up the room; teach the procedures, rules, expectations, and discipline; plan the curriculum; and begin assessments. I can already tell that living with 3/33 in mind will help immensely come October, February, April, and other super busy times!!

For fun, here are some pictures of how our classroom is set up:

The kids started in pods, but now we're trying a U-shape

These are our computers and manipulatives along the back wall. Also some bean bags for reading, and our own bathroom!

My own desk(!) and the classroom library with bulletin boards just waiting for student work

The front board and a glimpse at our behavior system (pocket chart on the right)

 Some of the things we did this week were fun: read-alouds, writing activities, get-to-know-you activities, practicing procedures, and time on the computer. Some of the things we did this week were less than fun: math and reading probes (basic assessments for us to see where they are), FAIR assessments, sight word assessments, and STAR reading assessments. Yes. First week and we're already testing to get a baseline. Just a glimpse into 21st century education! I taught a little blurb on social studies, did a read-aloud, did some assessments, and monitored the kids. Definitely not sitting back and observing this year! Woohoo!

So to wrap it up, I love my kids, I'm learning a ton from my mentor teacher, my team is great, and I think I'll go back next week ;) I'll leave you with this picture, hopefully you'll love it as much as my kids did. Haha!

Ms. Douberly in second grade!

Confession Time

Wanna hear my sad and pathetic confession? I had zero idea what teachers did during planning week. If I was forced to guess, I would offer up a weak "um... plan?" and then shrug and hand over my elementary ed diploma in shame. But fear not. I have learned what planning week entails. BOY HAVE I. All of you teachers out there are emphatically nodding your head and now I understand why. Announcement: planning week is not just decorating bulletin boards and sorting manipulatives (though that definitely happened). We just went through four solid days of hardcore meetings. Everything from faculty meetings, to meetings about common core (the new nationwide standards), to meetings about VAM, RTI/MTSS, FAIR, DRA, and CCSS. Y'all, remember when I said educators like acronyms? I wasn't kidding! But in all honesty, I found the meetings really interesting and was so proud of my widdle program at UF because I felt totally prepared to handle everything they threw our way. I was like "Oh! I know what that is! Oh! I know what that is, too!" It was so exciting!

In between all the meetings, we had some time to set up the classroom and would you just look how cute our bulletin board in the hallway looks?! (Recognize the saying? It's one of the 7 habits!) It's so fun seeing all the second grade rooms in our hall. Our hall bulletin boards are the best, though. We have turned our children into bees, frogs, owls, monsters, and safari animals. Just another Thursday in the life of a teacher ;)

You can also see we have a little owl from the board across the hall!

Teacher milestone! My first time introducing myself to the parents! In the past, I was in and out of the class so often we didn't bother introducing ourselves to parents, but this year, I got to add an addendum to my teacher's note and write a little hello. I feel like I shouldn't be this excited..... but I am! haha

Can you see my sweet little paragraph at the bottom? I felt like a celebrity signing 20 of these

Other than that, everything's been busy, but exciting. A lot of the teachers on my team are new or fairly new, so we're all asking questions and I feel a little less of an outsider. I can't wait to meet the kids tomorrow at registration and then start school Monday!

New Beginnings

Hello and welcome to my blog! I'm so excited to get this going and start a blog following this new phase in my life. To tell you a little bit more about me, I just graduated from the University of Florida (go gators!) with a degree in elementary education and am now working on my masters degree in elementary education. UF just changed up the graduate program so that it consists of a yearlong internship with online classes and can be done in any county in Florida. So I moved home two weeks ago to save some money and intern in my home county of St. Johns! I'll be in an inclusive second grade classroom and am really looking forward to it!

edugator: get it? get it?

Now that I'm home, I'm enjoying my month-long vacation by reading all day, trying new pinterest recipes, experimenting with crafts I've been too scared to try (quilting, anyone?), and laying out by the pool with my sweet, sweet Sadie dog. Try not to be TOO jealous over there, I still have one online class and, boy, watching the bachelorette can be really stressful.

Meet Sadie- my 3 year old chihuahua-pug mix. Isn't she just the cutest?!

I wanted to write a blog to share what being a preservice teacher is like and because I wish I had a blog to read when I was an underclassman education major trying to figure out what this journey would look like! I also really love reading other teacher blogs and wanted to join that community hardcore. So here I am! Love meeeeeee please ;)