Artists in Residence–All the Way from RWANDA!!

We are lucky at Robinson. While I could go on with lists and lists of reasons why that’s true, the biggest reason right now is because Pacifique and Tresor are here. All the way from Rwanda!

Through work and love and more work (and fundraising!), we (I mean Mrs. Berger) were able to secure some AMAZING artists to spend the next two weeks with us. We are SUPER excited to have them here, and it’s funny how much our kiddos treat them like celebrities. It’s so fun to hear, “I saw Tresor in the car rider line!” “Did you see Pacifique outside? I did!”

I think my favorite part of this once-in-a-lifetime experience is the way it was planned, and how it’s about so much more than just learning how to dance, how to play a drum or looking at beautiful paintings (although those are FABULOUS things in themselves, for sure!). Like with most everything else we do, the focus was on bigger ideas, and on how this could change our kids in big ways for their future lives.

This residence asks our kiddos to chew on these big ideas and essential questions:

And while I am certain that there will be more stories to tell, dances to dance, drums to bang and art to share at the end of their time here, for now I can share some pictures and videos from their first day here with us. We had an assembly to welcome them, and to get the party started. As you can see, the energy is contagious (and so are their smiles!)!

Tresor and Pacifique before they came on stage. Wearing Kirkwood hoodies because they’re freezing in the A/C. 🙂

It was hard to decide which videos to share, but I’ll start with these:

We are excited for the weeks to come, and for all the things we will learn! 🙂

Math Place Value Challenge

I mentioned on the math warm-ups post that we had been working on place value, and that mathematicians had a challenge to figure out how many sticks were in a big ‘ole pile. They were given a small group (their partner plus another partnership) and two questions: How many sticks do you have? How can you count them in a way that will be easy to show someone else what you’re doing?

Each group was given a pile of popsicle sticks and they got busy!

A group collected bundles of ten in their box as they went along.

As I went around to each group, I asked how they had decided what to do, and how they were determining how many sticks they had. Most were bundling in 10s (yay!) and I nudged them to make an even easier way to see how much is in a big pile. Could they continue to bundle and make a bigger group?

In the end, most groups ended up with bundles of 100, some 10s and–if their pile had any–some leftover 1s. They put their collections back in the tubs, and marked how many they had with a post-it note.

Then we worked for a bit on how to model the numbers we had made.

The next step was to figure out how many we had altogether. Many suggested that we could put our bundles together, but weren’t (at first) sure how to do that. We talked about how they had made their 100s bundles–with 10 10s–and then guessed that we might be able to make some more 100s from the loose 10s in everyone’s tubs.

Left with a massive pile of 100s, that eventually led us to thinking there must be a better way to show how much that pile had in it. I asked if they thought we could bundle any bigger numbers and honestly most of them thought I was crazy! I just began collecting 100s in my arms and counting: 100, 200, 300, 400….and they got the idea. They going until they got to…10 100s! That was a great conversation next about what number we had just made. 10 100? We figured out that it was a 1000, and that when we said “10 100” that helped us know about how many bundles were inside, but that it wasn’t the right way to say the number. We stretched a big ‘ole rubber band and made a 1000 bundle!! We counted the whole thing and agreed that we had one-thousand, four-hundred twenty-six sticks!

But how in the world do you WRITE the number one-thousand, four-hundred, twenty-six? We gave it a go. Many of us remembered that when we went from 2-digits to 3-digits it was a 100s number, and since we had 4 groups of sticks, maybe that meant our number had 4-digits…

Our model of this number–1,426–looked like this:

Many minds were blown as we figured out how many 100s and 10s were inside that big number. We figured out that it was actually than just what the digit said, because of all of the groups inside of groups. I loved how many kiddos kept saying, “Wow, this is fun!” and “Man, we’re learning so much today!” Definitely lots of great mathematical thinking happening here!

UPDATE: I got this email after the first posting of this story. Love this stuff! Thanks for sharing, Shannon. 🙂

Hi Jennifer!

You had so many math posts on the blog this weekend, that I wanted to share a story with you. We have a Curious George story CD in the car that we listen to a LOT and in one of the stories George gets 10 dozen doughnuts. The other day when this story was on, Millie asked me if 10 dozen was 120! I was so surprised! I said that it was and asked her how she knew that. She told me “5 2’s are 10, and then another 5 2’s makes 20 and 10 10’s is 100 so, 120”. It took me more than a minute to follow the math just because it wasn’t how I was used to thinking of problems, but she was totally right and I saw this “new” math stuff in action :). It was kinda cool! She was doing multiplication and didn’t even know it. Thanks for teaching her such great foundational skills that allow her to do these kinds of problems in her head!

Second Grade Math Warm-Ups: 8-24 to 9-4 (2 weeks worth!)

We’re in the swing of some things in 2nd grade. Math warm-ups are one of those things–just I’m not yet in the swing of writing about them! Here are last few warm-ups we’ve been working on:

Monday

Even though we worked on this last year, many kiddos had a hard time with the answer to this question. We’ve since been doing many things (games, two-pen tests, conversations) to help us remember (or learn!) our doubles, near doubles and combos of 10. They all form the basis for the bigger things we’ll do with numbers later on.

Tuesday

While I’m not entirely sure about the order of these next few warm-ups, the concept that is highlighted in them all is certain–the importance of place value. Here was another that many had a hard time with. Most of their answers were “I don’t know yet...”

Wednesday

Thursday

Tuesday, 9-1

This one was an easy connection to the essential question (EQ) I had asked earlier. They had to think about place value to answer this one, knowing which numbers to add to each other.

Wednesday

Although not related to place value, this warm-up was related to a conversation we had had in math workshop the day before, and is definitely something all 2nd graders need to know how to do–tell time! Often I will spiral older concepts into math warm-ups to keep them on the front of our minds!

Thursday

This warm-up, although badly worded, gave kiddos a little peek into a task I would have them do later that day in math workshop. The question was really about the most efficient way to count a big ‘ole stack of something, which they’d have to do with a pile of popsicle sticks in a group that afternoon. I was happy to see how many of them were already thinking about bundling into 10s and 20s (rather than counting them all by 1s).

Friday

The warm-up on Friday was actually the end of the lesson from Thursday, and mathematicians completed their thinking with their learning partner in their math journal, which is different from how they MWU normally works. I love how we can adapt this structure to work for our needs! Since many of us have been doing this for a whole year now, it was easy to make that little tweak and still have them know what to do. In this warm-up, kiddos were asked to model the counting we had done together the day before.

…yet

Last fall, when I was doing my final project for grad school, I came across the idea of “the power of yet,” which goes nicely with all of the work of growth mindset we’ve been introduced to by Carol Dweck. We began using that word all the time, and I helped my friends learn to add it to the end of many sentences they spoke to me and to each other: “I can’t do this yet...”; “I don’t know yet, but what I think right now is…”; “I’m not sure yet, but I’m going to keep trying!” At first it was just me, but slowly and surely, I started to hear kids saying it to each other when they’d hear their friends discouraged about something that was challenging them.

I knew it was something that I would incorporate again (and continue, really, since most of us remember it from our 1st grade together), but wasn’t quite sure how I’d bring it up again. And then I found this book:

I was first intrigued by the use of the ellipsis, since I knew it was something I thought I kids would remember learning about last year. Ok, and I have to stop and give a shoutout to JK right here for TOTALLY remembering what we talked about. Before we started reading, we were discussing the title and cover and trying to figure out what we could learn about the story–as well as why the author would choose to use that particular punctuation mark like that. Well, JK totally whipped out–all casual-like, “Well, that’s an ellipsis, and an ellipsis means that you’re waiting for something, and the mice are always waiting for Nick. So …and Nick means there’s suspense and you’re trying to figure out what happens next.” I was TOTALLY impressed, and TOTALLY proud. And yes, other kids knew it, too. YAY for first grade punctuation studies!!

Well, while the part about the ellipsis was exciting, it wasn’t all I had up my sleeve with this activity.

My team had copied these blank butterflies for me, with the idea of using tissue paper to decorate them and then make a goal for 2nd grade, and I found them to be a great place to apply this “yet” idea for us this year. Instead of tissue paper, though, I decided to get out the watercolors. (On a side note–can you believe we’ve never painted together before? NEVER. We got all the way through 1st grade paint-free. And now we’re going to change that. Big time. So paint it was for our butterflies!).

Ok, back to the paint for a second: the thing I noticed when I put a paintbrush in some of my friends’ hands is that I saw work I’d NEVER seen before. The creativity, the focus and the engagement was beautiful. Don’t get me wrong–I’ve seen it in other ways, but this was eye-opening for me in many ways.

So after they painted their masterpieces, they were to think of something they don’t know how to do. Yet. And then they wrote that as a sentence: “I don’t know how to __________yet.” This was put on a label, and stuck to the front of their butterflies. These are now flying high on our walls where we are 1) reminded of …yet by the title, 2) encouraged by how if we work hard we’ll be able to do those things, and 3) given something beautiful and colorful to look at. Fly beautiful butterflies, fly!

And then today, I found a video, that I will incorporate to our yet conversation. It’s a song and it’s catchy, so I’m sure we’ll be singing it for many days to come!

Weak side/Strong side

Much of the first days of school is spent learning routines and procedures for how to make the classroom run smoothly, and learning how to be a good learner is part of that. In second grade, we use the idea of weak side/strong side to illustrate how kids can (and should) make good choices that benefit both themselves and their classmates.

As with many lessons, we began with a book. We read Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon.

I explained the idea of weak side/strong side by talking about how everyone has two voices in their head. You know, that one that encourages you to do your best, think happy thoughts, follow the rules–the shoulder angel. There’s also that other one that whispers and tells you how great of an idea it is to pinch your sister or blow bubbles in your milk or slide down the banister on the stairs–the shoulder devil.

In order to make the concept a little more concrete, and move visual, we created a class chart (which I will later make a little neater and hang on our anchor chart wall) with our ideas of things we could do or say that would fit under each side. Students started with partner thinking–where many of them recorded thoughts using a t-chart–then we put our ideas together. As of today, our chart looks like this (but it is ever-changing–I think we’ve added to it every day!):

It’s definitely sinking in, too, because I am hearing kids use the language of their chart when they speak to each other. 🙂 We’re by no means working perfectly all the time, but we’re on our way!

Self-Portraits 2015

Remember our FABULOUS portraits from last year? Well, we did it again. Partly because we had free wall space, partly because we took home the ones from 1st grade, partly because we look different than we did last year at this time, and mostly because it’s a way to reconnect our old community and connect for teh rifrst time with the new friends in Rm. 202.

We found a new book this year, which spoke to the idea of how beautiful we are in our own skin, and how that skin can come in such a spectrum of colors:

I really wanted us to paint our portraits, but because of a planning fail, I didn’t have those supplies ready for us when it was time to work. Instead, we used the same fabric, paper, and yarn that we used last year (plus really anything else that could be found in our room), as well as the many different colors of crayons and colored pencils we have to try to make our portraits match our beautiful selves.

Of course during the process, it was messy:

but once we were finished, and they were hanging, they were magnificent! I love how much they look like the kiddo who made them. 🙂 (Be sure to click on the pictures to see the full-size version. 🙂 )

Getting Started with Reading: Second Grade Reading Museum

I hope that like writing, it’s no secret that I love reading and books. And getting great books in the hands (and ears!) of kids so that they can have the feeling of losing themselves in a good book. One way we do that in 2nd grade (ok, in all my classrooms no matter what grade they are!) is read A LOT, and talk A LOT about books. This year, since our kiddos are older and wiser, we also added in a Reading Museum, like I’ve written about with bigger kids.

It started out much the same, with this invitation:

I changed the criteria for choosing books a little from when I taught 4th and 5th grade, but really the goal was the same: bring your favorite books to help us learn something about you as a reader.

When Friday finally came, we got ready by setting up our “exhibits” and discussing the etiquette for visiting museums.

As kiddos circulated through their friends’ exhibits, they were expected to be thinking about these questions:

We turned on some soft music and got busy with our museum:

I was very impressed with how quietly they were focused on checking out all the books on display. It became very clear, though, that most kids were not thinking about making connections with friends. They were instead focusing on just the middle question:
They were reading new books and finding new favorites, and you know what? That’s amazing! The goal of the museum (and in general) is to get kids excited about books and reading and see that it’s for them. When we shared at the end of our museum time, I was reassured that they actually were paying attention to whose books they were looking at, too, as they shared where they’d seen some of their new favorites. YAY!

I should have expected that they’d go about it in a little bit different way, and but I shouldn’t have been surprised that they still accomplished the goal I had set out. These kids are super amazing, after all. So glad we did this!

Second Grade Math Warm-Ups: 8-18 to 8-21

When I first started using math warm-ups a couple of years ago, I had no idea how useful they would end up being in my classroom. They are quick, easy and definitely give me a bank for the buck. So of course I am using them again now that my mathematicians are second graders! Here is how we got started this year:

Wednesday

I waited until the second day of second grade to start, and since we spent all last year doing this, most of my friends knew exactly what to do. I just had to introduce my new friends (there are 4 of them) to this routine. I started with a question everyone could answer (and if I remember correctly, it’s one of the first problems we did last year, too).

Friday

As I think about how we’re getting started in Math this year, our focus will be on making sure we have a firm foundation of basic skills and facts before we move on to other things. That means we’re going to review combinations that make 10, doubles, doubles +/- 1 and basic addition/subtraction facts. Hence the next question:

Note that I had to revise my question, since kiddos wrote 1 combination and thought they were finished. I drew the visual of the 10s “rainbow” as we discussed the problem, and it was good to hear a couple of friends say, “Oh, now I get it!” Like me (who is a visual learner), seeing how those numbers connect is important to their understanding. This is definitely become an anchor chart in our classroom!

Tiny Notebooks: Sharing

That last post got a little long (and probably all my entries get a little too long!), so I figured I’d share the last part in another story.

On Day 3, after we had gotten back into our notebooks, I found a way to easily share our writing with a random partner. When I made our tiny notebooks (by cutting regular spiral notebooks in half), I was looking at the halves and thinking about how they could be put back together…

So kiddos found their sharing partner by finding the writer who had the other half of their notebook. So quick and so cool!

They shared their entry with their halfsies partner and had some great conversations!

Next time they are supposed to find their other halfsies partner (because there are 2 notebooks of each color), and we could match up in a couple of other ways. SO glad this happy accident happened. So simple but very useful. 🙂

Getting Started with Writing: Tiny Notebooks

Ok…do I need to start by explaining my love for the teaching of writing? Or just my love of writing itself? Probably not. You’ve read those stories before, right? 🙂

We got started with writing in 2nd grade on our second day. I started by reading two books:

I chose them partly to be funny (The Incredible teacher one was because their notebooks used to be full-sized and are now only half-sized notebooks like I used here. By the way, they didn’t think this was funny. LOL), and also to give us an idea for somewhere to get started (an entry about something they had done over the summer). Before they left we had a quick reminder of how to label each entry, as well as a reteach of how to use the date stamp (yes, there is a lesson for this!).

Ignore that big blue scribble…it was from another conversation we were having about how authors sometimes sign their books….

After our lesson, most kiddos got to their spots and got started quickly. Some took a little extra long with the date stamp, and some did a lot of thinking. I’d say most of us got something on the paper, but I did hear some of those dreaded words: “I don’t have anything to write about!” Ugh. But then I remembered they were second graders AND it was the second day of school, so they may have been a little rusty. I worked with one friend to put an ideas list in the back of his notebook (like we had done last year but he had probably forgotten), and had multiple conversations with friends about how to find an idea (like talking to another friend about their writing, thinking about their day, showing them an example in my Writer’s Notebooks or using a book for inspiration). We had a quick share at the end of our writing time and got ready to move on. I LOVED it when the next question was, “Can I take this journal home and finish my writing for homework?” Well, of course, dear friend, you can do that! 🙂 I LOVE this not because I wanted my little friends to have homework, but because it shows me that they are already getting the idea that writing can happen anywhere, and that their stories are important enough to them that they want to finish sharing them. And yes, those notebooks came back the next day. 🙂

This whole “I don’t know what to write about” thing had me thinking about what to do the next day. I needed to get them thinking again about how ANYTHING could be an idea for writing, not just great big events or monumental occurrences. Ideas come from watching the world in a new way and expecting to see stories. Those can happen on the way to school, while you’re eating breakfast or at recess. And probably when you’re least expecting them.

This made me think about how to connect this idea to something they could understand. I thought about we could explore the idea of a scrapbook and how your Writer’s Notebook is a place to collect things you don’t want to forget. I pulled out my very first notebook (which I started in the summer of 2005, 10 years ago), and read a couple of entries (I wish now I’d brought that notebook home so I could show you those entries–boo. :(). I talked about how the moments I wrote about were not “BIG” deals, and I wouldn’t remember them now if I hadn’t written them down. We connected this to how in Inside Out the memories turn gray in long-term memory and are sucked away forever (good thing I’m up on pop culture, huh? Never know where a connection will come from!). We don’t want this to happen to our memories, and it doesn’t have to if we collect them! For them, 10 years from now is when they go to college–how cool for them to be able to think about things they want to remember at that point in their lives. Totally didn’t mean for that connection to happen, but was SUPER glad it did!

Then we read a book (as another way to help them visualize the possibilities) and made a chart of the small stories in there that we could write about:

This got many kids thinking and they shared new sparks they had: one friend said he could put in the necklace he wore this summer on the airplane when he flew by himself, and another friend wanted to bring pictures of his dogs–because they will probably be dead in 10 years and he doesn’t want to forget them. Cute, right? That same friend wanted a picture of me so he could remember me in college, too. He wrote this entry with that picture:

While of course I love this entry because it’s about me (ha!), but also because it is the definition of how I want them to be thinking about their notebooks as a way to collect and curate their thoughts. Plus I think it’s just cool how deep and wide 2nd graders can think when we give them an invitation and opportunity to do so. 🙂

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

Starting a 3rd Grade Journey

Category Archives: Classroom