Twas’ the night before school and all through the town, not a teacher was sleeping with all the excitement around!

It truly is the night before school and I too am filled with so much excitement.  This year brings a new role for me and a whole new kind of excitement.  This year I will be an Instructional Coach for the elementary schools at Eastern Lancaster County School District.  I am so excited to embark on this adventure and support the teachers in helping the students find success!  Look back for more posts and a revamp of the blog.  Happy first day of school everyone!

With this year adding so many additional transitional times I thought about managing transitions in my own classroom.  One of the things I used to motivate the students, and myself, to keep transitions quick and quiet was a timer.  I would squawk a bird to initiate the transition and then put on a timer that the students could see and hear.  Here are some of my favorites.

• http://www.classtools.net/education-games-php/timer (you can choose different songs that are different lengths in the drop-down box at the top)
• http://www.online-stopwatch.com/eggtimer-countdown/full-screen/ (sand timer; use in full screen mode)
• http://www.online-stopwatch.com/rocket-timer/full-screen/ (rocket takes off and ends in fireworks, use in full screen mode)
• http://www.timerland.net/planetary (a planet makes a complete rotation around the sun in the time that you set OR you can select the bunny option and the farm gets filled with bunnies by the end of the time)
• http://www.online-stopwatch.com/world-games-running/full-screen/ (use in full screen mode; runners race to the finish line in the time you choose)
• http://www.online-stopwatch.com/world-games-swimming/full-screen/ (use in full screen mode; swimmers race to finish line in the time that you choose)
• http://www.online-stopwatch.com/snail-racing-timer/full-screen/ (use in full screen mode; snails race to finish line in the time that you choose)

My most successful transitions were ones that I modeled and the class practiced many times.  In addition, I had to make my expectations clear to the students so that we all were on the same page for what the transition should look and sound like.  

What are some things that you have found to be useful?

I am always trying to think of new ways to assess my students’ understanding of concepts that will fit with my teaching style and with an always busy schedule.  Edutopia recently posted 53 ways to assess.  There are some fun fresh ideas to use.  Some of the ideas I enjoyed were having the students create their own ten question quiz to determine if they could identify the important details of the lesson, “The Minute Paper” where the students share important concepts in a written format in 60 seconds, and giving a false statement that the students need to make true. 

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/dipsticks-to-check-for-understanding-todd-finley  (scroll down a bit to get to the list of 53)

How do you quickly assess your students’ understanding of concepts?

I am so excited to get my new blog up and running!  This year starts a new adventure for me in the position of Instructional Support Specialist.  I am really looking forward to learning, teaching, and growing!