The First Week

     We had a great first week back in 4th grade! Instead of the normal going around the room and letting each student speak we did an engaging 4 corner game that helped us all get to know each other better.

     We used Plickers to survey the class on reading interests. I taught students the C4b4Me (See four before me) which reminds students to ask 4 other students before going to the teacher with a non emergency problem. Students were introduced to team jobs. We are off to a great collaborative start!Next week, we will set up data folders and set reading goals!!
                                 

Rethinking Reading Conferences

So, as I sat at my desk this past week with 3 very large binders, packs of dividers with labels and my new class lists for the upcoming year I gave an exasperating sigh as I dread to put together  these binder for reading conferencing purposes because it literally takes me a couple of hours. They are cumbersome and not easy to take around the room with me and not optimal for looking at class data in a group format. I had watched an online google training a few days prior and the instructor had shoed how to use google forms for surveys and assessments and then it hit me!! Google Forms for reading conferences. So, of course I googled it and other teachers were already doing it. I watched some instructional videos on you tube of other teachers doing similar things and created my own.
Below is a sample. It allows me to enter data for each student and the cool thing is it will compile class data into a pie chart and graph as well as displaying it on an excel spreadsheet. I'm so exited to try this for my reading conferences with my 3 fourth grade classes this year!!


Conference Form