About Me
- Fran Richardson
- Welcome to my blog!I'm a teacher in a beautiful, small, rural town. I moved here a few years ago, but I have taught over 20 years in this same small town that is now my home. My experience is in teaching second, third, and fourth grades with one year in sixth grade. I am always reading, learning, and reflecting on what goes on in my classroom. I love the work that I do with the parents, my fellow teachers, and most all-my students.I hope you will enjoy reading my blog.
The Scholar, Age 5
I'm A Lifelong Learner...
My first and only microscope
I Still Love Learnin'!
Still The Scholar
Seriously getting ready for school: Our fourth grade summer team meeting ( 2009_
More Scholarly Stuff
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My Blog List
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Poetry Sisters Write Poems to Unanswerable Questions - This month the Poetry Sisters' challenge was to dream up an unanswerable question and answer it in a poem. For example, in the poem "How Many How Much," ...11 hours ago
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Pencil Themed Time to the Half Hour Clip Card Math Centers for your Class - My students LOVED Clip Card Centers and your students will too! You will love how easy it is to prepare these Pencil Themed Time to the Half Hour Clip Card...
1 day ago -
Excellence in Action: Practical Ways to Overcome Procrastination - From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter Procrastination comes to us all. And sometimes, we don't have enough tim...1 week ago
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St. Patrick’s Day Craft Project - Your class will show gratitude for what they are lucky for during the month of March through this hands on St. Patrick’s Day Activity. It makes a fun and...
1 month ago -
Character Affirmation Posters: Purposeful Reading Decor for Your Upper Elementary Classroom - As I've said in previous posts, I love decorating a classroom, but those decorations need to have a purpose. I leave a lot of empty space on my bulletin...
8 months ago -
ATTENTION TO ALL WHO SUBSCRIBE BY EMAIL!! - image via Unsplash You will no longer be receiving email notifications for this blog because Blogger email subscriptions were handled by FeedBurner, whic...
2 years ago -
My Latest BAM! Radio Show Is On Using Tech In English Classes - Ways to use Tech Effectively in English Classes is the topic of my latest ten-minute BAM! Radio Show. I’m joined in the conversation by Jenny Vo, Jennifer ...5 years ago
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Getting Started with Interactive Math Notebooks - I have been using interactive math notebooks in my classroom for as long as I can remember. Math notebooks are a great place for students to take notes, re...
5 years ago -
A Look Back: ADHD Diagnosis, Bullet Journal, Cube Timers, Brain Dump, Growth Mindset, Katie's Teacher Tea, & Encouraging Words - At the beginning of 2018 I had the goal of trying to a monthly post, but I had such a difficult time trying to keep up with posting on the last day of t...
5 years ago -
Four years after... - Hard to believe I walked away from this for four years. I love words. I love to write. It's cathartic for me. Somehow, I let four years slip by. There ...6 years ago
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The Mini Greg - It has been a long time but finally, a new lesson plan template. A colorful and organized approach to guided reading groups. Originally created for Mr. Greg...
6 years ago -
Ten-Frame FUN - Helllooooo! Yes, I am still alive. Yes, I am BUSY, BUSY, BUSY. But yes, I am still here! I think about this little old blog often but lately it has had to ...
7 years ago -
Celebrate The Last Day of School and Happy Teacher Appreciation Week - Happy end of the year to you, phenomenal teacher! Hats off to you and the hard work behind all you do. Finish out the school year strong - and treat yourse...
7 years ago -
I've moved! - Click the image below to be redirected to my new blog! Friends, I've rebranded. Thank you so much for following along over the years. I made a new blog...
8 years ago -
I'VE MOVED!!!! - Hi my lovely, loyal readers!! Please note that Mrs. Mimi has up and MOVED to a shiny new blog with fabulous new content. Don't worry, I took all the old s...8 years ago
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How to Get Started With Genius Hour for Elementary Classrooms? - I believe that every single child is gifted and that every kid has a talent which we as educators should help uncover. This is not easy when you have a c...
8 years ago -
Making Poetry FUN - Poetry can be so much FUN! My kids and I enjoy reading poetry, and we recently dove into a poetry unit, which included learning more about figurative lan...
9 years ago -
New School Year! - Dusting off the shelves of this blog for another school year. I'd like to use this more as a personal journal for my schoolteacher life this year so what b...9 years ago
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Looking Back - I’ve just spent nearly all of an afternoon looking back on all the INK blogs that I’ve written, trying to get a sense of what I’ve been doing, thinking, an...
10 years ago -
Exciting News! - We are excited to share with you our newest adventures! We are both opening up our own individual Teachers Pay Teachers stores, as well as our own indivi...10 years ago
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Auntie Claus Preview and our Polar Express Day! - I wanted to give a sneak peek at our Auntie Claus unit that my friends, Michele and Elana (Lana) and I are finishing up for teacherspayteachers. We are ...
11 years ago -
It's a Lifestyle - I have noticed that everything I do is not a career or an event or even an activity/ chore.... it's a LIFESTYLE. The problem is making sure my lifestyle c...11 years ago
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Calling all teachers!!!! - Alright, this is kind of a poll... I'm about to *finally *open my TpT store, but I'd like to know from y'all what kinds of things you'd like to see first a...11 years ago
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Tennessee's Teacher Evaluation - What a mess! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/education/tennessees-rules-on-teacher-evaluations-bring-frustration.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=fb-share12 years ago
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Five Friday Freebies - Week 22 - f you are not a TN member, membership is FREE. Here is a link to register so you will be able to download. *Teacher Notebook Registration *Click on log in...
12 years ago -
Connecting Children With Nature: Learning About Trees - Our playground is surrounded by an abundance of beautiful trees, which always seem to captivate my very curious kindergartners. Who would have guessed that...12 years ago
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First WAS Fab...Second will be Super! - Thanks to all followers of this BLOG. I will be moving to second grade and will no longer post to this BLOG. I will, however, leave it active for viewing a...12 years ago
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Summer Book Club (for students!) - Our recent post on Teaching Blog Addict has me thinking.... I know I can't wait to read over the summer, but what about my students? How can I help preven...12 years ago
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New Year - New Plans - It's been a whirlwind end to 2010. My school was in the middle of a Quality Review when I received a call to take a position at another school. It was such...13 years ago
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
WOW- It’s already WEDNESDAY!
I’ve spent the past few mornings working on some things in preparation for the upcoming school year, and these past few days I’ve just been overwhelmed at the amount of great websites and blogs and classrooms that I’ve visited all while sitting here on my comfy little couch. In case, you didn’t already know it:There are some amazing teachers out there in the world who are just a click away!
Despite all the negative news that teachers seem to attract these days, the majority of us go to work each day and close the doors to our classrooms and teach! It’s sad then that most of us will never make the six o’clock news unless we retire at age 100 having taught five generations in the same school. Teaching can sometimes be thankless but also very isolated.
That is all the more reason that we as teachers need to come together collaborate and support each other even across long distances, and visiting and sharing and ENCOURAGING via classroom websites and blogs is a great way to do just that.
I feel enthusiastic,renewed, and encouraged in my beliefs about both education and what I do as a teacher, but I’ve also discovered better ways of doing some things that I already believe work well in my classroom.
For several years, I’ve been a fan of Ms. Powell ( Angela Watson) of mspowell.com. As someone who is organizationally-challenged, I admire her skill in lesson planning and storing her materials, but she also has some instructional practices that are worth checking out. I believe that her book The Cornerstone should be a gift for all first year teachers in the primary and elementary grades. It’s THAT good in helping to set up a classroom, set procedures, communicate with parents- everything.
Her website is the first place where I saw the idea of a content-based bulletin board that would serve as a visual review for students.
http://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/
My district supports a literacy-based model of reading that encourages the use of anchor charts. Having used Strategies That Work for a decade, I am familiar with that idea. I found many good examples at readinglady.com.:
The Reading Lady
http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/AnchorChartPhotographsfromKellyandGinger/
The Mosaic Listserv
http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/tools.htm
Another teacher that I am a HUGE fan of is Angela Bunyi who blogs for Scholastic. Her use of anchor charts and bulletin board incorporate several great ideas from the Daily 5 and CAFÉ books and Tanny MacGregor’s book on comprehension.
http://blogs.scholastic.com/3_5/2008/08/combining-readi.html
Last year before my job description was social studies teacher, I hung up a “chart wall” as described in Denise Leograndis’ book, Launching The Writing Workshop which I LOVE because there are plenty of colorful pictures of the classroom and examples of the charts. However, once I became a social studies teacher, it was difficult to adapt that idea to a content-area. I was really bummed!
So now I have found something that seems to take the best of all of these ideas: FOCUS WALLS!
Take a look at the Power Points by a third grade teacher in California
http://schools.cajonvalley.net/webpages/tlee/hm_reading.cfm?subpage=262015
My imagination is just running wild for FOCUS WALLS!
I imagine my focus wall as a content-area chart wall that is very LITERACY-BASED. I imagine my wall being a place that includes something along the lines of Michael Gravois (who has so many wonderful hands-on ways for children to create study tools and manipulatives in his many books such as the one below about publishing research). The class mural or quilt would be ideal in my social studies classroom.
Using my imagination and some online examples, I’ve come up with my own focus wall based on what’s expected with my district’s literacy model and also what I believe is best for my own classroom such as reciprocal teaching during my small group/ guided reading block. Here are my headings for my new focus wall.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yLgXZ05cnBsXipFd1E-oMWvppmc9IvqsuKSqWYC8-Qk/edit?hl=en_US
I am looking forward to later posting some pictures of my very own content-area, literacy-based focus wall.
I hope you’re WOW’ed by focus walls, too!:)
Despite all the negative news that teachers seem to attract these days, the majority of us go to work each day and close the doors to our classrooms and teach! It’s sad then that most of us will never make the six o’clock news unless we retire at age 100 having taught five generations in the same school. Teaching can sometimes be thankless but also very isolated.
That is all the more reason that we as teachers need to come together collaborate and support each other even across long distances, and visiting and sharing and ENCOURAGING via classroom websites and blogs is a great way to do just that.
I feel enthusiastic,renewed, and encouraged in my beliefs about both education and what I do as a teacher, but I’ve also discovered better ways of doing some things that I already believe work well in my classroom.
For several years, I’ve been a fan of Ms. Powell ( Angela Watson) of mspowell.com. As someone who is organizationally-challenged, I admire her skill in lesson planning and storing her materials, but she also has some instructional practices that are worth checking out. I believe that her book The Cornerstone should be a gift for all first year teachers in the primary and elementary grades. It’s THAT good in helping to set up a classroom, set procedures, communicate with parents- everything.
Her website is the first place where I saw the idea of a content-based bulletin board that would serve as a visual review for students.
http://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/
My district supports a literacy-based model of reading that encourages the use of anchor charts. Having used Strategies That Work for a decade, I am familiar with that idea. I found many good examples at readinglady.com.:
The Reading Lady
http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/AnchorChartPhotographsfromKellyandGinger/
The Mosaic Listserv
http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/tools.htm
Another teacher that I am a HUGE fan of is Angela Bunyi who blogs for Scholastic. Her use of anchor charts and bulletin board incorporate several great ideas from the Daily 5 and CAFÉ books and Tanny MacGregor’s book on comprehension.
http://blogs.scholastic.com/3_5/2008/08/combining-readi.html
Last year before my job description was social studies teacher, I hung up a “chart wall” as described in Denise Leograndis’ book, Launching The Writing Workshop which I LOVE because there are plenty of colorful pictures of the classroom and examples of the charts. However, once I became a social studies teacher, it was difficult to adapt that idea to a content-area. I was really bummed!
So now I have found something that seems to take the best of all of these ideas: FOCUS WALLS!
Take a look at the Power Points by a third grade teacher in California
http://schools.cajonvalley.net/webpages/tlee/hm_reading.cfm?subpage=262015
My imagination is just running wild for FOCUS WALLS!
I imagine my focus wall as a content-area chart wall that is very LITERACY-BASED. I imagine my wall being a place that includes something along the lines of Michael Gravois (who has so many wonderful hands-on ways for children to create study tools and manipulatives in his many books such as the one below about publishing research). The class mural or quilt would be ideal in my social studies classroom.
Using my imagination and some online examples, I’ve come up with my own focus wall based on what’s expected with my district’s literacy model and also what I believe is best for my own classroom such as reciprocal teaching during my small group/ guided reading block. Here are my headings for my new focus wall.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yLgXZ05cnBsXipFd1E-oMWvppmc9IvqsuKSqWYC8-Qk/edit?hl=en_US
I am looking forward to later posting some pictures of my very own content-area, literacy-based focus wall.
I hope you’re WOW’ed by focus walls, too!:)
Technorati Tags: focus walls,literacy-based classroom,content- area reading,teaching,visual learning
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