Closing Up for Summer and Reading Intervention Room

Finally!  Happy summer to all my teaching friends!  I have been out of school since 7pm on June 11th.  It might seem silly to put the time, but that is how late I stayed to clean up and put everything away after the kids left at 12:40.  Some of my teammates had to go back the next day to finish the job, but I was determined to go home and STAY home!

My school is the main elementary building used for summer school (we have air conditioning), so we literally have to put EVERYTHING away.  That means we condense everything into our cupboards, drawers, and bookshelves, then cover all our bookcases with butcherpaper, put plastic bags over our Smartboards, lock everything that has a lock and key, put zip ties on our cabinet doors, and cover our bulletin boards (or take them ALL down).  It's a ton of work.  I mean a TON.  I got the most depressed feeling ever as I looked around before walking out the door.  You would never know that this room was a wonderful, dynamic place to learn and play for twenty-one kids and one teacher.  It looked barren.

Two days later the summer school team was scheduled to move in.  They bring all their own materials.  I never know who will be using my room for the summer, I just know that it's hard to get back in there in August, because none of our rooms have been cleaned for the fall yet.  I'd love to go back and start getting ready as soon as summer school is out at the end of July, but there's no point since the custodians have to move our things around to shampoo the carpets.  At least they put it back for us though!  We leave a little map on one of our bulletin boards for them, so they know where we want everything.  I've often wondered if slipping one of them a $20 would move my room to the top of the list.  Ha ha... NO.

So, on to the reading intervention room...

  Small group room used for reading intervention throughout the day

This is the view when standing in the doorway.  As I said in my last post, we meet every 5 or  6 weeks to determine intervention groups for our grade.  Because our school does not qualify for Title I funds, we do not have a budget for reading intervention teachers.  Each teacher on the team takes a turn teaching a round of intervention.  When it was my turn, back in February, I was slotted to work with two girls from other classrooms.  We have an intervention curriculum that is fairly scripted, so it was simple to plan our 30 minutes together (4 days a week).  I enjoyed my round, so when we met again, I volunteered to continue for another round with one of the same girls and a boy from another class.  After a few weeks it got to be too much, and I was looking forward to the end of the second round.  A teammate who taught back-to-back rounds the year before agreed that we shouldn't do double rounds.  It's too hard on our classrooms, because when we leave the room to teach reading intervention, a paraprofessional has to teach our students.  I was able to make it fairly simple, where the para led the morning meeting, calendar routine, shared reading, and brain break.  Then I'd return in time for the readers workshop mini-lesson.  I had a special lesson plan form I'd fill out for her each week.  Some teachers on my team would teach during recess.  Students who missed recess would get 20 minutes once a week in the gym with the PE teacher and ride around in the empty gym on those little square scooters.  They loved it!  Teachers who chose that option had less planning to do but also lost an hour of prep time each week.  

Coming Next... Reading intervention curriculum