Picture Perfect

Picture day has come and gone, but we get a new chance to make an impression every day.  I really feel positive about the brain power in this room, but we had to stop and talk about what it meant to give your best everyday.  We are doing better during class times, but lining up has been a real chore the last two days.  I tried to impress upon students that we have more time to do fun learning activities when we make transitions quicker and quieter.

One of my goals is to give students good brain breaks where they can stretch out physically and mentally. This can help give them a time to consolidate their learning and be ready for the next topic. I believe these are essential, but they become very hard to do when it takes so much effort to get people back on task.

Tomorrow we will be working on getting better at transitions.  I think I am going to make a leader board and time the class.

In math, we are working on basic concepts of value and addition. I am trying to get routines in place so that I can do even more small group work which helps me challenge students from the top to the bottom of the class.  It is important for us to set higher goals every day to have something to reach for and stretch ourselves.

Thank you to all who have sent in seeds for our seed museum.  I look forward to laying them all out and watching students make observations.  We are going to get into that next week.

The Spirit of Strong Emotions

I had my first jumping up and down teaching moment today during writing.  There are days where I just get so excited communicating messages that I can't sit still as I talk.  I was pleading with students to understand that their writing this year needs to have heart.  We were talking about experiences that caused strong emotions like happiness, sadness, pride, and nervousness.  We talked about how those emotions made us feel and how they changed everything about us from our posture to our mood.  I challenged them to think of their writing as something that can have that same effect on their audience.

If I do nothing else as a language arts teacher this year, I want to instill upon them a love of crafting a story and reading with purpose.  I want them to put their heart into their work and think about the message they are communicating.  Those are all big plans, but we will start with choosing good ideas to write stories about.  

You can help at home by continuing to talk about the great memories and stories that kids can write.  I can't tell you how many students act like they have never done anything memorable in their life.  Even telling stories can help generate those ideas.  Try telling your kids stories about your childhood and their grandparents as parents.  It can be highly impactful when you tell them about stories from your childhood where you cared about things like your bike or pets.  They can relate to it and it may help them generate ideas.

We also talked about digraphs and blends today as a way to think about how words are spelled.  I challenged the class to find examples in their reading and we generated quite a list in ten minutes.  It is fun to have them take word study skills into their reading and think about how words are made. 

I also have to confess that I am not a perfect speller and I will make mistakes with the amount of content that I hope to bring you.  I hope you can appreciate that I am trying to bring you a conversational approach to updating you rather than a highly edited once a week thing.  I can see that I have long mistaken the word digraph for diagraph, but didn't realize until I was typing on here.  I guess I get to admit to another mistake to the class tomorrow.

Reminder that tomorrow is picture day.  We are also collecting seed for a "seed museum."  I really want to push inquiry and the process of science over any amount of informational content this year.  Thanks for all the support!

Zen Shorts

We read the book Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth today.  I love this book because there is a beautiful story of a monk who helps an ungrateful woman across a mud puddle and she was very rude. The monk's companion was extremely bothered by her rudeness in spite of the kind act. Hours later the wiser older monk asked the younger monk who was brooding about it, "I set that woman down hours ago, why are you still carrying her?"

I love this lesson and I will return to it because it is a tough lesson for kids and adults alike. In fact, despite reading that story I struggled with letting go of a negative experience today and I know it effected my mood. My team deserves a better me.  This perfectly blends into expectation number five.

Expectation #5 The Team, The Team, The Team

Everything in our class should be about what is best for our team.  It is hard, but we are really going to work at putting our team mate's needs before our own.  Teamwork sometimes means sacrifice and patience.

I am actually typing this on my phone while walking down a dirt road. I needed some time to reflect on my own expectations and how to convey them to my new students. Tomorrow I will share with them that I haven't been perfect this year and I have goals that I want to improve as their teacher.

I let pre-assessments and other school business drag me into an authority role instead of the role I prefer which is a teammate and coach figure.  I want them to know I will be right there with them in the learning trenches tomorrow. It is a new day and will be a great day.

STAR Math

The STAR assessment went well this morning. I have a ton to work with as six students scored higher than my top student last year at the beginning of the year. My only hope is that they are ready to work as hard as my class did last year to have some of the most impressive scores in the district. This assessment allows me to individualize instruction and target skills that help students excel in math.

I was very pleased with the effort and respect students put into their work and providing an environment for everyone to be successful. Kudos to Team 106 for a great start to our math year.

Collecting Evidence

One of the most important topics for next weeks class is the understanding by our team that every moment is a precious learning moment.  The kids are adapting well to having a working snack.  When I moved to using this method, I found another 15-20 minutes of time to use to extend learning by not taking a snack break.  We will still take brain breaks and have transition times, but every minute I can steal is one that I can stretch our learning past the curriculum into problem solving activities, engineering tasks, and project based learning.

LT (Learning Target): I can identify the central message of a story and provide evidence that supports my claim.

Our focus in reading over the course of the first few weeks will be looking for the central message of a story.  We will be practicing that in our reading together and independent reading.  One of the key steps that I want students to take this year is to understand how to provide evidence to support their ideas.  I am keen on having them use the term evidence, but I have also been talking about it being clues in their reading.

One of the ways you can really support their learning this year is ask your students at home for the central message of a book they finish at home.  Help them look for evidence in words and pictures that made them come up with that idea.  This is tougher for my non-fiction readers, but it can still be done in those books.  I want parents to be thinking about asking questions that get students to dig a bit deeper and not as much questions like, "What was your favorite part?"

Next week we will be taking our beginning of the year computerized math assessment on Monday.  It is not something to worry about at all.  I will be building them up to the point where we used to count down the days where we get to show off on the assessment.  My class last year was excited on STAR math days.  There is nothing that can be studied, but it would help to get a good night's sleep and a good breakfast for Monday morning.  I will be writing more about STAR in the future if you are unfamiliar with the test.

Expectation #4: Integrity

I know I have probably typed that every expectation was the most important, but having high integrity is the thing that I am most passionate about.  It is a very hard concept for seven and eight year old students to grasp.  It takes thinking about more than the very next moment in their life.  Students understand what it means to be honest, but I want them to absorb what it means to be trustworthy and dependable.  I want them to be the type of students whose integrity is never questioned and can take the hard step to admit when they made a mistake even if it means being in trouble.  Kids are wired to take the easy way out and not disappoint us, but I aim to live with the kind of integrity that rubs off on them and they learn that honesty and trustworthiness is worth more than anything in this world.

Respecting Others

This afternoon we tackled the question of "What do we already know about plants?"  I challenged them to write as much as they know down on paper.  We then shared our favorite parts on the board for the class.  I was pleased with the good information, but I will be encouraging students to strive for more than one of two things when they are brainstorming.  We have to get out of the "I'm done" habit.

We also spent some time today drawing and writing about an amazing author.  We flipped the page and wrote, "I am an amazing writer!"  I challenged them to write words that describe themselves as great writers.  I am really pushing this idea of using affirmations and written work to build a sense of self confidence and academic confidence.  Look for the great qualities in others and model complimenting both your children, your partners, your friends, and your families.

During accountable talk today, we did an amazing job.  It was an A+ effort on the first day of turning and talking with a random partner.  Students were on task, supportive, and thoughtful in their discussions.  It was the best first day I have had.  I have been extremely impressed with the way students have shown respect and support to each other.

Expectation #3 Respect

Respect is probably the number one thing that I truly expect.  I believe that respecting adults is the foundation to building character in young children.  I am sure you expect similar things at home, but it is something that never wavers for me.  We should be the best class in music, gym, computers, and the library.  We should get compliments from guest teachers and presenters.  We should be known as the cleanest class in the school so the janitors don't even have to sweep.  I hold the pride of our team as a huge priority when it comes to respect.

We have done a surprisingly good job at respecting our peers, but our first note on our huddle notebook was about respecting adults.  When Mr. Peters came in the other day, six students were talking to each other while he was talking to us.  We have also had our learning time interrupted by private conversations several times today.  We will be making a plan to solve this over the course of the next week.  I don't expect perfection, but I do expect a better day every day and I know they are ready to work hard at making improvements.

I am excited to see their ideas to meet our expectations of respect.

Problem Solving in Many Ways

Yesterday we read the story Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Michigan author Carol McCloud.  We talked about the importance of being a "bucket filler," which is a person who does and says nice things during the day.  It would be a great idea to review the main idea of this story with your children.

This morning we will be sharing affirmations with the class.  I encouraged each child to wake up and find a mirror and say something nice about themselves.  I am encouraging them to think about something that is inside them and not just that they run fast.  I forgot to remind them, so we will see who remembers.  We will also be sharing these affirmations this morning and next week.  Please remind your child to think about a talent or ability they have that they loves about themselves.

We began partner sharing yesterday and I was impressed how seamlessly students interacted with each other.  They must have had really good first grade environments because they did a great job of sharing with whoever was around even if they didn't know them very well.  They also did a great job listening to each other and sharing their partner's thoughts.

Finally we went outside at the end of the day to solve the rocket boots challenge where each group had to work together to try to cross the chasm while their feet remained touching the person beside them.  It challenged them to work together and solve problems outside of the box or outside of their comfort zone.  We had some successes and we had some failures, but we learned a lot by trusting each other.

Expectation #2 Effort

We have talked about effort and how I expect them to give me their very best every day.  I want them to try their best and never give up.  We also stressed that part of effort is taking risks academically and not worrying about it if they get something wrong the first time.  We are here to do our best everyday, but also to learn when we make mistakes and be able to accept that process.

Setting Expectations

Today was a whirlwind of a day.  I think all teachers wonder what students take home with them on the first day of school.  I have so many great ideas and it usually ends up being a fairly boring day of walking through procedures and setting expectations.  I hope they laughed and learned as well.  I had a good day.  One of the things we did was to introduce ourselves and our family.  We will be finishing those up tomorrow.  We also did some writing and we reviewed our classroom expectations.

The kids and I had a great talk about our expectations in the classroom.  You can quiz them to see if they remember everyone of them.  I will review each with you this week.  It is very important to set a tone that my classroom is not a place of rules that can be broken, but it is a place of expectations to be met.  I try not to reward poor behavior with attention, but rather praise outstanding behavior so that students aspire to reach higher than they ever have.

Expectation Number 1: SMILE every day!

I hope every student brings their red folder to school.  I hope they bring notes back when they are sent home.  I hope that get a good night of sleep and a healthy breakfast, but the most important thing you can send to school is a smile.  We talked about how our attitude can not only change our day, but the day of everyone around us.  We brainstormed all of the people we can smile at on the way to school and how that might make people feel.  I hope to see students working to bring a smile with them even when they have to fake it until they start feeling better.

Final Note:

Some people asked for notes that might have gotten lost.  I will send those home with kids tomorrow.  It was too crazy at the end of the day for me to sort through who had brought notes back and who hadn't.  Anyone who doesn't have things turned in tomorrow will bring extra copies home.  I want to THANK every parent who has checked in on the blog.  I appreciate sharing with you and hope that this is much more topical than trying to whip out a few lines on a Friday to send home.

Can't wait to start another great day tomorrow!

Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #1 I LOVE THIS JOB

I LOVE THIS JOB!

No, I really mean it.  I am passionate about this career and this classroom.  I am always looking to do something better and innovate the way I educate.  You may find me run down after a long meeting or some menial paperwork, but when it comes to teaching in front of your kids I will be asking for ten more days by the end of the year.

I have a passion for the art of teaching, but I also love building relationships and willing my team to be the best team in the school.  I gave up my dreams of coaching high school sports because I get the same thrill from working with the students in my class.  My goal is to send them home every night with something exciting they learned, a question they are thinking about, and a feeling of pride over what they have accomplished.

I am sincere when I say that I have been chomping at the bit since August 1 to get my team in this classroom with me and work to accomplish more than we have ever accomplished in here.  Have a great weekend and bring a smile on Monday because we are going to do GREAT things.


Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
7. Super Hero
6. Enjoying the Outdoors
5. Healthy Decisions
4. Helping Others
3. Leadership Style
2. Solving Problems
1. I LOVE THIS JOB

Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #2 Solving Problems

I love math!  It was definitely my favorite subject when I was a kid in school.  It always made sense to me and it was my favorite subject as I went to high school.  I like that math has definite answers and that sometimes there are many ways to find that right answer.  I also like the fact that I can draw pictures to help me understand how to solve the problem.

When I first started teaching math, it was tough for me to understand why people didn't just see math like I did, but as I taught more and more I found ways to show them how I saw problems.  I have been incredibly successful teaching math to both students who it is their best subject and students who it is their biggest challenge.  I also have taught advanced problem solving which has led to many of my students getting medals in a national problem solving challenge in the spring.

I get excited when it is math time and I can't wait to help you see how much you can do when you gain a few more skills.  Every year I learn more from my students by having them explain to me how they see things and that helps me explain things to other students.  I will be learning as much as you are and we will all be helping each other excel in math.



Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
7. Super Hero
6. Enjoying the Outdoors
5. Healthy Decisions
4. Helping Others
3. Leadership Style
2. Solving Problems
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Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #3 Leadership Style

In my natural state, I am a pretty solitary person.  I enjoy reading and doing other things alone.  I typically avoid the craziness of going out into large groups of people.  Events like the Back to School Blast and Open House are something that I have to step out of my comfort zone to do.  With all of that being said, the classroom is my natural environment.  I love being among the buzz of learning.

I spent the weekend hiking around the Upper Peninsula showing off all of my favorite water falls and trails out into beautiful nature.  I thought about my leadership style as I was hiking.  I like to plunge ahead and carve the trail and look back and help people follow.  My teaching style is a lot like my hiking style.  I press forward and teach to the top and then look back to support other learners.

What does that mean for you?  No one will ever be board in my classroom, because I will present you with something difficult to think about every day if you want to learn and grow.  If it seems hard, I will help you find each step to make even the tallest hill seem easy to climb.  I AIM HIGH!  Don't ever be discouraged because I will help you along the path, but always be ready to be challenged.

Make sure you rest up and are ready for school everyday.  Your attendance and hard work will help you get the most out of everyday.  I can't wait to lead you on the greatest expedition you will ever know!



Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
7. Super Hero
6. Enjoying the Outdoors
5. Healthy Decisions
4. Helping Others
3. Leadership Style
2.
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Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #4 Helping Others

The past two days have been exhausting days.  I was planning on finishing this series on Friday, but I will be going out of town and I missed a couple days, so I am planning on finishing before our Open House on the 17th.  It has been great to meet so many people in class.  I am planning on helping out at registration tonight, so you may see me if you come with your parents.

I was raised in a way that I believe the greatest triumph in life is not standing on top of the mountain, but it is doing it while working with others.  Few people are successful working by themselves, but people who work as a team are consistently able to do extraordinary things. As your teacher, I will do everything that I can do be the teammate helping you summit your challenges.  We will work together and we will do amazing things. 

Education is a process with many challenges.  Some of the things that we do might seem like huge mountains right now, but we will take them one step at a time.  Some people will climb each mountain before others and it will be easier for some students.  Our attitude should be that as we reach the top, we go back to help our teammates reach the same spot.  We will not go down the mountain and carry them to the top.  They still need to do the work to feel that pride.  We will just help guide them down the correct path so we can all be successful together.

It is very important to remember that everyone has different talents.  When we look for the great things in other people it helps us respect them more and learn how special we are that we have different talents.  I can't wait to celebrate all the amazing talents we have on our team.

Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
7. Super Hero
6. Enjoying the Outdoors
5. Healthy Decisions
4. Helping Others
3.
2.
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ANNOUNCEMENT

If you are going to the Back to School Blast.  Please stop and say hello to me, I would love to meet everyone.  I also will have an envelope with a couple forms that can be filled out before the open house.  If you are not going to the blast, I will mail them out and hopefully they will get to you before open house.  If that fails, it will be fine if you send them in on the first day of school.  If you don't find me until the dunk tank, I will have my mom or my sister there to hand out the envelopes.

13 more days until the fun begins!

Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #5 Healthy Decisions

My favorite holiday of the year is the 4th of July.  I love having my family and friends over to celebrate and play games.  I love having a big meal together.  I also love creating a fireworks show.  This year I went to a party on the 4th of July and some people were playing volleyball.  A 55-60 year old man played volleyball with us for two hours straight.  I made some changes in my life right after that to make sure that I would be able to do that when I am 60.

I never want to stop playing games, sports, and being active outdoors.  I decided that a big part of that was going to be working on eating much healthier.  I am loosely following a paleo diet in order to reduce the amount of refined sugar and hydrogenated oils I was eating.  I stopped drinking sugary drinks and cut our bread and cheese to get back to meats, vegetables, and fruits making up the majority of what I eat.

I feel great and I know that I am giving myself my best chance to continue being the kind of teacher who still dives to win potato sack races the rest of my career.  I like to go out to recess occasionally with my class and I usually try to go to gym class once a week to enjoy exercising along with you.  We will be talking about how a healthy body helps you have a healthy mind.

You can help me stick to my healthy choices and make sure I have a lot of energy to make your year great.  I was working today and enjoying a wonderful salad and some fresh fruit.  I hope you also make healthy choices as you bring food with you this year.  I know we all love those sweet deserts, but our brain is begging us to feed it healthy things so it doesn't get distracted by wanting to eat more sweets.  

I can't wait to see you all at the Back to School Blast.  I will be in the dunk tank an extra 15 minutes starting at 6:30.  If you see me at the blast, please come say high and introduce yourself.  I will also have a couple more notes for your parents that you can take home.

Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
7. Super Hero
6. Enjoying the Outdoors
5. Healthy Decisions
4.
3.
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Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #6 Enjoying the Outdoors

I love being outdoors.  My favorite part of going to school at Northern Michigan was being able to go hiking and rock climbing whenever I wanted.  I like hiking because it is good exercise and it is a peaceful time to think.  There is also beautiful scenery that can be enjoyed and photographed.

I can remember many days where I packed up my camera bag and headed out for an adventure.  The picture above came from a walk down a trail at a roadside stop on my way to take pictures of waterfalls.  It is one of my favorite memories because it felt like I was the only person who ever saw this spot.  Pictures are a great way to share memories, but I also enjoy writing stories and poetry to help remember my favorite memories.

There are beautiful things to see in this world if you take the time to look.  I waited for three hours to shoot this picture and I only had a few moments to get it perfect.  It isn't the best picture that I ever took, but it taught me about patience and how to work hard to get exactly what you want.

Knowledge is like a great picture or a large fish.  When you are patient, work hard, and put yourself in the right place to be successful, you will surprise yourself with how amazing you feel and how much you will accomplish.  We will work hard to help all of our teammates be incredibly successful this year in everything we do.  We will be patient with each other.  We will work hard and try our best every day.  We will do everything that we can to put our brains in the best place to learn.  This will help us achieve amazing things.

Have a great weekend!  You can visit twitter to see a picture I made today at school for our new Word Study Adventure. Just Click on the link to my twitter below!

@CentralTeam106

Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
7. Super Hero
6. Enjoying the Outdoors
5.
4.
3.
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Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #7 Super Hero

It's a bird...

It's a plane...

It's Superman SuperMom!

Yesterday I told you about how my mother was a teacher for 42 years.  She is my inspiration to be a great teacher.  I learned so much from her and I still look forward to talking to her everyday.  I am happy that you will also get to meet her as she is retired now and likes coming in to help in the classroom.  You may also get to meet my sister Mrs. Sparks who is a guest teacher sometimes and comes to help me with crafts when I need her.

Everyone should have a hero in their life.  Find someone to look up to that makes the right decisions and shows you how to live in a positive way.  I was lucky that my hero was someone in my own household.  My mother has never let me down and I feel like I am very lucky to have had wonderful parents.  I try to thank her as much as possible, because I would probably not be teaching today without her support and encouragement.

Take time today to hug your parents and say Thank You for something special they do just for you!  I hope to learn about your heroes and the ways they help you to be the best young person that you can be.  I am going to go over and hug my mom right now and help her out and then I will be off to the classroom to start dreaming up a new fun project that we are going to do in social studies this year.

Good Bye for today!

Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
7. Super Hero
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
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Top 10 Things About Mr. Montgomery: #8 A Touch of Creativity

Hi Everyone!

What do you want to be when you grow up?  I still haven't decided :-)

It would be a fun assignment to write about what you want to do when you grow up, because if you are like me you will change your mind a bunch.  I really wanted to be a paleontologist when I was your age.  In high school, I really wanted to be an architect until I found out you had to stay inside most of the time.

When I went to college the first time I wanted to be a High School science teacher.  When I got to Northern Michigan University I took a photography class and fell in love with making art.  I am not the best artist in the world, but I once won second place in a contest to get my art on the cover of a book.  I put up some of my favorite pictures that I have taken of animals around my house.  I hope you think they are as cute as I do.

One day I realized that I wanted to do more with my life and I went back to school to be an elementary teacher like my mom.  She taught elementary school for 42 years.  It was the best decision of my life and I am happy everyday that I wake up and get to go to work.  I hope you are as excited to come to school as I am every day.

I still take pictures sometimes and I like to draw with my niece Melanie from time to time.  I hope we have time to do some creative work so that you can show me your creative side.  Creativity is not just about drawing or taking pictures.  It is actually the key to thinking and problem solving.  I will help teach you how to use your brain in creative ways to solve problems you never thought you could solve.  I will be back tomorrow with another installment of the Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery.

"Have a purr-fect day!"

Top 10 Things about Mr. Montgomery:

10. My Family
9. Playing Games
8. A Touch of Creativity
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