Record Keeping Troubles

Well, I always thought that I had a pretty good ok system going on keeping track of who had turned in what work until the other day when I was looking at my spreadsheet.  WOW!!!  It looked like I had what looked like a million check marks.  I was overwhelmed!  It had always worked well for me in the past, but this year I have 22 students and it was showing a lot of check marks.  So, here is what I have done in the past-on an excel spreadsheet I have all the students names listed on the side and up at the top I have all the assignments that have been given for the week.  Once the student has turned it in with no corrections I put a check mark on the assignment by their name.  Every week right now there are about 15 assignments-hmmm... well that would be about 330 check marks if all the students completed the assignments, no wonder I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I am now on the hunt for a better system to do this record keeping.  Something that will not be so overwhelming.  I need help with this and would love for you to let me know how you keep track of who completes what work throughout the week.  I'm not the best at organizing things so I'm hoping to find a very organized system to do this record keeping.  I look forward to hearing about your system.

Have a great day!

Rudolph the Red Nosed...Teacher and Common Core Grade Cards

Okay, so I look like Rudolph! I am not kidding! I have a horrible cold that has caused me to blow my nose every 2 minutes (okay, it feels like it, maybe it is more like 5). I feel a bit better today so maybe I am on the mend. And no, I will not be posting a picture!
:-)


Anyway, yesterday we had district-wide grade level meetings so Kristi and I had subs for the afternoon and we went and met with the other first grade teachers in our district. Our main focus was grade cards for next year and how they will reflect the Common Core Standards. Ugh! Quite a project...and I still don't think we are finished.


So, I'm wondering, have you had a part in revising your grade cards to reflect Common Core? If so, how in the world did you condense it down to something a parent will be able to understand and want to know!!!?!?!?!?! Do you even do a standards-based grade card?


We'd love to hear from you about how your grade cards look (and if you've made changes because of Common Core).


And by the way, it has been an awful day here. Coming back to bad reports from my "spies" about my students' behavior while I was gone makes me upset - especially when they all said they did GREAT! The sub left a short and sweet, "Great class!" But I had others watching who knew I would not be pleased. Oh, how I wish I could teach them to show good character!


Crystal

Being gone...and Grades

When you’re a teacher, being gone is so much harder than going to work – even if you’re sick! I’ve been battling a sinus infection for weeks (months really) and went into the doctor (again) Friday afternoon. This time we are trying 3 weeks of antibiotics. Yikes! I’ve never taken so much medicine in my life. I decided to stay home yesterday and get some rest to aid in the recovery process. After today, I’m thinking I should have just gone to work!!! I feel like I’m so far behind – and our grades are due on Monday! Good thing we don’t have kiddos on Friday so I can get them finished up. We have Friday to work on grade cards and prepare for parent/teacher conferences.

Instead of plunging into another week of reading, we are taking that time to review and get some grade card testing done (running records, specific skill tests, etc.). I’m curious, fellow bloggers, do you do grades each nine weeks or just at semester? Do you set aside a week to do grade card testing or squeeze it into your schedule?

At my school, we do grade cards each nine weeks with conferences in the fall and spring. I seem to take more time for testing before conferences…guess I want to be prepared with plenty of data to back up the grades that I will be showing to parents.

One positive of being gone, my kiddos seemed so happy to see me this morning and gave me an extra jolly, “Good morning, Mrs. Ratcliff,” as I greeted them each at the door. That just makes me smile. J Of course, I missed them too and wondered how they were doing without me…though that could be because I am a bit of a control freak (I hesitantly admit).

Hope you have a blessed day!

Crystal