New School. New Grade.

I am excited to announce that I will be moving schools and teaching a new grade!

I will still be teaching in Catholic education, 

however I will be teaching at a school down the hill from my house! 

Perfect location! 

Being a new Mom, I really struggled with being so far away from my one year old son. 

There were a couple of times where he had a fever or wasn't feeling too well, and I was 30 minutes to 40 minutes away and it was killing me that I could not get to him fast enough. 

So I am happy to be working in my neighborhood!

Now onto a new grade...

I have only taught kindergarten or first grade. 

I am excited and scared to be teaching third grade!!

 I am happy to be moving up, because I feel like I want to do more. 

I just haven't taught third grade, so I don't know what to expect! 

I have been going on Pinterest and searching teacher bloggers to help me get some ideas and all I have seen has been igniting a fire of excitement within me. 

I haven't had this feeling in a long time. 

This will be my fifth year teaching and I cannot wait to begin! 

Take A Break

This year I had a student who was showing a lot of anger due to a parent divorce. Because the behavior had a negative effect on many students (and parents), I kept trying to find different ways in which I can support this student in the classroom. 

My school went through a couple of Love and Logic trainings (which was really wonderful and I highly recommend it). One suggestion that was made was to create a place in the classroom where students can go cool off. I took this suggestion and created my take a break table and it was a hit! I told my students that if they ever get angry, sad, etc. they can always ask me to go "take a break." I was secretly hoping that this was exactly what my angry student needed, and he was the first one to try it out (yes!)! I was very happy that I added this to my classroom! This was also a perfect area for other students that were sent to my room for behavior issues from other teachers. 

I purchased Teaching in Progress's TPT product 

Behavior Management and Self Regulation-Take A Break

As a part of that packet there were signs where the students can see different emotions and see which one they are feeling, as well as steps on what they can do to calm down. Also in this packet was calming cards and one of the suggestions on the cards was to hug a stuffed animal, so I put a few on the table. There was also a sheet for the students to draw how they were feeling, so I printed and lamented a few sheets for the students to draw on. 

This was a very successful area in my classroom that I would like to continue to have and I hope that this is something that could also be useful for you!