Better Late Than Never!

All about me...Nicole Ring!

My name is Nicole Ring. I am married to my amazingly patient and loving husband, Justin. Together we have raised  2 incredibly crazy, fun-loving, athletic, smart and funny boys ages 6 and 8 years old. Our youngest started Kindergarten this year and our oldest is in Second grade.  

While attending North Central College, I attained my undergrad in Elementary Education and my masters in Curriculum and Instruction. 

Currently, I am an  Instructional Coach for Downers Grove School District 58. I have been working in the education field for 16 years, 4 of which have been spent in my current role as Instructional Coach. In my first 4 years of teaching, I taught 4th grade and the rest were spent teaching 1st grade! We are a 1:1 iPad District and we will be adding 1:1 Chromebooks to the Middle Schools next year. 

My job as an Instructional Coach is to work as a colleague alongside classroom teachers to support student learning and growth. I support teachers in the development and implementation of instructional strategies in all content areas and support effective planning, instruction, and assessment for learning. 

This site is intended to help me reflect on my current practices as a coach and to provide other coaches with thoughts and ideas they can use with their colleagues.

Here is the link to my St. Francis ePortofolio that we have been working on!

Are Primary Students Capable of Research?

“Can my primary students actually conduct research and write a paragraph on their findings?”

“Where do I (as a teacher) even begin?”  

“How do I guide my students?”

“Will they really be able to do this on their own?  

I was asked all of these questions when I met with a LRC teacher a couple weeks ago. She wanted to have the 1st grade students research an animal of their choice.  The project would require them conduct actual research, take notes and then write a paragraph that included a topic sentence and a wrap-up sentence.

My response...???... “YES! Of course they can.”

Let me start by saying, this teacher has wonderful ideas, welcomes collaboration and is always looking for opportunities to improve the classroom experience for her students.  For this particular project, as her Instructional Coach, we planned and discussed multiple instructional strategies that would work best for her various groups of students.  From there, we started planning her lesson using the Gradual Release Model: “I Do, We Do, You Do”.

1. She modeled what the students were going to be asked to do: How to get to PebbleGo, select an animal, listen to the information, and how to choose a fact from what she heard/read. She wrote down a fact on a similar graphic organizer the students were going to use.
2. In the “We Do” stage we all listened to the “Food” section of the book. Then we chose facts from the food section (shared as a whole group) and she wrote them down on the graphic organizer.
3. The kids were asked to chose their own animal and write down a fact for each section of the book on their graphic organizer (You Do.) The students loved using PebbleGo to help them research. Several of them listened and read about other animals when they were done!

The following week we used the same model to show the students how they would use their facts to create a paragraph about their animal. We emphasized that their topic sentence had to have the name of their animal so their audience would know what they were reading about. Then the students turned their facts into a complete sentence and wrote a paragraph about their animal. They concluded with a fun fact about their animal. They were so proud of their writing and illustration…(of course) so were we!

Next year, we are planning to have the students type their story and record it in Book Creator. They will have the option to use the photographs provided or create their own. Some of the students have chosen to put their story into Book Creator already!

Interesting Read: Rapid Release of Responsibility-This model is focused on putting “You Do” FIRST then “We Do, I Do”

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A new year and a "New Job!

The start of the 2013-2014 school year will bring some changes to my life. I have decided to step out of my own classroom and step into about 36 different classrooms as an Instructional Coach! 

I have a mixed emotions about this change as I think anyone would! Right!?! Teaching kids, watching them grow, and having my "own" little community (25 little ones) within my classroom walls is something I knew I wanted to do since I was about 6. This year, my classroom community will consist of about 200+ little ones across all grade-levels and colleagues from 3 different schools!

So, I have been self-reflecting a lot this summer. How do I want next year to pan out? What is my schedule going to be like? Will the teachers open up to me and "love" me like my kids do! 

 This is a new world for me and I am a little scared! It's not like I am going to be talking and teaching 6 years olds anymore! Lets face it 6 year olds love just about anything a goofy teacher does! My focus this year is going to be on collaborating and helping the TEACHERS and of course the kids! A little scary if you ask me! 

I want this blog to be a place where we can learn from each other. A place where we feel safe sharing and talking about what lessons went great and the lessons that well....need some work! :) 

I am now an Instructional Coach who will strive to:

www.nfschools.net -


I hope you will stick with me on this new journey and please share my blog! I am adding a pic below of a Daily 5 menu I created using while my 1st graders were 1:1 this past year. If you want more info please just email me! I will send you a copy! Happy Sunday!

St.Patty's Day Freebie!

Good Morning,
 I have not been good with posting, but I wanted to share something I made for my little kiddos to complete this week in celebration of St. Patrick's Day! I came across the cute shamrocks and backgrounds while searching on TPT. They are done by Megan over at I Teach. What's your superpower? Thanks so much Megan! :)

Hope you can use it! Happy Sunday Funday everyone! :)

iPads!!! So excited!

I have exciting news to share! I applied to have our class pilot a Learning Lab 1:1 iDevice experience and we GOT IT! :)

The Learning Lab pilot program is a 2-3 week opportunity in which the kids will utilize individual technology tools throughout their school day to engage in learning. The program is intended to explore how children can enhance their learning through the use of technology. The students will be working towards the same learning objectives, but may go about the process in a different learning manner.

I have been reading and reading about how others are using ipads in the classroom! I am ALL ears for anyone that wants to give me their thoughts! We get them in April so I have some time, but I'm super excited! :)

Thanks for reading! :)

Getting Back At It!

School is right around the corner for me (about a week) and my family and I are taking one last trip together to SC-Myrtle Beach to be exact! I am super excited to spend time together before the grind again. With that said I have been thinking a lot about the new COMMON CORE! Um, anyone else nervous about it? 

I am on my districts L.A. committee and we have been trying to align our standard based report card to them, lets just say it was A LOT of work! Now that it is "kinda" aligned I'm not sure where to start in regards to teaching it all! :) We have Scott Foresman as our reading series and I like it, but should we be using more specific texts? Anyone else having the anxiety that I am?