$20 to TpT GIVEAWAY & Co-Teaching Series!!

Good morning lovely teacher friends!

Happy Sunday!  There's something about Sundays that I just love.  The promise of a new start week... yummy meals... quiet time.  I hope you're enjoying this Sunday.

Have you noticed my beautiful new blog design!!??  I am so excited about it!  It is courtesy of Beth Bradford from The Cutest Blog on the Block!  Beth was so fun to work with and I LOVE what she did!!  In honor of my new blog design *and* part 3 of mine and Mrs. Cahill's series on co-teaching, I am hosting a GIVEAWAY!!  Enter at the end of this post for the chance to win $20 to TpT!  Think of all that you could get with $20!!!  The Giveaway will end on Sunday, September 1st and the winner will be announced that day! 

This week Mrs. Cahill and I will be sharing about how our mentor teaching/ student teaching experience became more than student teaching! 

You see, my school is a charter school and is getting larger each year!  We started as a one round school and 5 years ago added a second round in Kindergarten.  So every grade has become two round after each year.  So last year 5th grade was the only remaining 1 round grade... looking for a new teacher for the 2013-2014 school year.  And Mrs. Cahill was student teaching.  So as soon as I noticed how spectacular she was and how perfect she would be in our school, I went to our principal.  He loved Mrs. Cahill anyway and pretty much planned on hiring her for the next year.  But I didn't want to lose her to another school.  So Mrs. Cahill and I hatched a plan to get her at our school for good and maybe a little earlier than the following school year! 

As soon as Mrs. Cahill was finished with her full time student teaching, she and I started looking at data.  We had some low mathematicians who needed some super support.  While I worked with them in our math workshop, it wasn't enough.  They needed more.  So we started finding common concerns and forming small groups based on the data we had collected, and before you knew it, we had some groups planned that would be led by none other than Mrs. Cahill!  These weren't just intervention groups- these were also challenge groups and support groups, allowing all kiddos the opportunity to learn more no matter what level there were working on.  So our kiddos would be getting the opportunity to meet with both of us multiple times a week.  With Mrs. Cahill willing to help out {even after she technically didn't have to!} we documented our student's growth {that's right- growth!!  There was a lot of growth!!} and took it to our principal.  With that- he hired her to work hourly for about 6 hours a day, 4 days a week so she wouldn't work at any other school. :)  {Guess what, y'all- she was there far more than that!  She's so awesome}  She also became our in-school sub!

With Mrs. Cahill in the classroom, we were able to continue our groups, changing them up about every 6 weeks.  The struggling learners gained more confidence and the above level learners took off when challenged with 6th, & 7th grade work!  It was awesome- for everyone involved!!  Obviously you don't always have two teachers in the classroom, or a student teacher as willing and capable as Mrs. Cahill, but if you can utilize another body- a parent, a friend, anyone- you can do so much in a classroom, especially when you're purposeful about your instruction.  It can be so much more than just student teaching.



 

 

 

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Now head on over to Mrs. Cahill's blog, The Hungry Teacher, and see what she has to say!!  And be sure to give her a huge CONGRATS because she just finished her first week of school! I hear she even received some compliments on her class from the Specials teachers!!  Woot woot!