This is another week full of kid’s jokes! 3 out of the 4 of them came from Rm. 202 friends! Here you go. Happy joking and I hope they make you smile. 🙂
Monday
What kind of makeup is a ghost’s favorite?
Mas-SCARE-a!
Thanks, Lauren–that’s a funny one!
Wednesday
This one’s from Kylie:
What did one stump say to the other stump?
Nothing, he was stumped!
Hee, hee! 🙂
Thursday
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
No bell.
No bell who?
No bell? Guess I’ll knock. 🙂
We love knock-knock jokes! Thanks, Ava. We smiled at this one for sure!
Friday
Why did the man throw the clock out the window?
Because he wanted to see time fly!
I shared this oldie-but-goodie joke because we’ll be starting a study on time very soon. 🙂
Hope you giggled a little and that you have a SUPER weekend! See you next week!
I really couldn’t decide if I should use that title or Mary Casanova–She’s SOME Author, but either way, we were super lucky to have some time with author Mary Casanova last week.
I don’t know how I hadn’t heard of her before recently, she’s written over 30 books, and have been nominated for many awards–including Show-Me Reader Awards right here in MO! Some of our favorites of hers that you might know (and that inspired the post titles) are:
We’ve had many other awesome authors and poets visit Robinson over the 15 years I’ve been here, like Lisa Campbell Ernst (she’s actually been here twice in my tenure!), Douglas Florian, Kristen O’Connell George, John Reynolds Gardiner and Eric Kimmel to name a few. There really is nothing better than listening to a real, published author talk about what they do and how they feed their soul (and their writer’s notebooks!) so they have things to write about. If you’ve been around here for even a little bit, it’s no secret that I would love to be included in that list of names someday.
Before she came, our fabulous librarian helped us share her books with our kiddos, and she did a little author study about Mary’s life and home in Minnesota. They even made a bulletin board to welcome her, with a canoe filled with at least a hundred animals you would find living near her home in the North:
When she came, she did such a GREAT job of keeping our kids engaged and learning, including them in her presentation by having them do voices and parts of the books she read to us. As she read a favorite, Some Dog, to us, the boys played George (loyal basset hound), and the girls played the part of Zippity (energetic new addition to the family):
You could definitely tell that Ms. Casanova has experience speaking with young audiences by the level of engagement in the room. I had to take a picture at one point that probably says it all. She had them on the edge of their seats (er..carpet spots):
Besides reading some of her books, she told us about where she lives in Minnesota, and gave lots of great advice about being a writer. She said something that I’ve heard most every author say, but that is super hard to get kids to believe sometimes: the best ideas for stories come from your life and what’s going on around you. She told us about how most of her stories were based on things that had happened to her, people (or animals) that she knows, experiences she’s had, things she’d wondered or thought about. Somehow, though, I find myself trying to convince a roomful of kid writers every year that the stories you share don’t have to be epic, grand or splashy–they just have to matter to you. What you ate for breakfast, the scene you saw outside your bus window on the way to school or something funny that your brother did to you last night can all be the basis for a great piece of writing. Someday they’ll believe me, right? Help me continue to spread the message, will you? Oh, and help me remind them that the way to be a better writer is to write. 🙂
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Then lastly, as if she hadn’t already been great enough, she had one more piece of amazingness up her sleeve: she let us act out One-Dog Canoe with puppets, an oar and a giant canoe she had brought with her! What fun! The best part? Our friend Landen got to play the bear! He rocked it, let me tell ya. 🙂
Wow! What a great way to spend a Thursday morning–entertained and inspired by a REAL LIVE WRITER! Thanks, Mary Casanova for taking time with us. Rm. 202 friends LOVED IT!! 🙂
We recently finished a pretty great unit on opinion writing. I just realized (which happens more than I’d like to admit) that I’ve been collecting lots of photos and teaching moments, but not sharing any of them! And now what has happened is that there is NO way I could write the whole story in one sitting, and NO way you’d want to read it all in one post! So I’ll just share bits of it at a time. That’s ok, right? Thanks for understanding. 🙂
Ok, so our unit (which was taken from Lucy Calkin’s Units of Study), began with an experience related to dog shows. Well lots of kinds of shows. Dinosaur shows, bouncy ball shows, army men shows, writing utensil shows. Our unit began with kids practicing what it looks (and feels) like to choose the best of something, and give sound reasons as to why that was their choice. I LOVE how even from day 1, kiddos were doing some of the same thinking and writing they’d be expected to do (on a much deeper level) at the end of the unit. We had jumped into the deep end with both feet!
Kids were asked to bring in a collection of something beloved from home. We talked about dog shows and made sure everyone understood the idea of “best in show” and how that works. We talked about how to judge fairly, and I modeled my very own “best in show.” I was the one who had a writing utensil show. I know you’re surprised. 🙂
This is the process we used to choose our Best in Show.
My writing utensil collection. 🙂 I used the “How to Judge Fairly” chart to determine which one was the best. It’s the black Flair pen, by the way. 🙂
You’re convinced, right?
After some modeling, practicing aloud with a partner (with my collection, trying to tell their partner which of my items was the best and why), writers tried out the process on their own collections. Isn’t it fun how many different kinds of collections we ended up with in our room?:
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As the closure for this first day of opinions, kiddos shared their Best in Show thinking with an elbow partner.
I have to tell you, I was SUPER impressed with how well they did at their very first try! I think it was a peek into the great work that was to come. And I’ll share more of that great work in bits and pieces over the next few days. You’ll come back, right? 🙂
I think I mentioned last time that we had been gone for our Spring Break for a while, and this week we were back in the full swing of things! Vacations are great, but being “home” again in Rm. 202 is also a nice thing. 🙂
This week started on Tuesday, and one afternoon we didn’t get to review the warm-up, so there are only 3 (instead of 5). Since we’re in a new quarter, we’re also working on a new topic: right now it’s data collection and analysis. Here we go!
Tuesday
OK, so as soon as I said it, I guess I found a warm-up that didn’t fit–this one was a leftover from last quarter, reviewing how to use groups to add and solve problems.
Wednesday
I probably should have taken a before and after of this chart. It started out like most of the other warm-ups: a big jumbled mess of post-its. This was the first survey question of the quarter, and because it was the first, the conversation around it was a little longer than most. We talked about the definition of the word “survey,” as well as the steps and focus of data–we collect, then organize, analyze and answer questions about the data. From this day on, we’ll go back to this focus with each set of data we discuss.
Thursday
This one seemed like an easy question. Then I realized that I asked it in a confusing way, and many kids didn’t understand what it meant. I guess I could have just asked “When is your birthday?” instead. This one was organized going horizontally instead of vertically because we had to many options.
What survey questions would you give your kiddos for math warm-ups? What things do you focus on when talking about data collection and analysis with your students? Leave us a comment–we’d love to hear about math warm-ups in your class! 🙂
This was our first week back from Spring Break! After a day off for students on Monday, we got back into the swing of things on Tuesday and were moving and grooving really quickly. Welcome to 4th quarter!
The jokes this week come from my friend and teaching neighbor, Ms. Turken, as well as a first grader in Ms. Lewis’ class (LB), and one last one from jokesbykids.com (which is my original go-to place for jokes when this whole thing started. Ok, let’s go!
Yesterday I posted last week’s (or at least the LAST week that we were in school’s) math warm-ups. I mentioned that there’d be more about the strategies on which we’ve been focusing. Well, that time is now. Hope this makes sense and gives some insight into the work we’ve been doing for the last few months. Well all quarter, really…but I digress. Here we go. 🙂
One thing I wanted to do was to be able to SHOW how these strategies work, and even better, have KIDDOS involved in that work. So, just before we left for our break, many of them volunteered to help me with a project. I have a Tweep (that’s a friend you know from Twitter, for those who might not know) named Shannon in Alabama who was interested, too, so this is for you and your friends, lady! 🙂
Ok…so here are some videos of our Rm. 202 kiddos explaining more about how to add 2-digit numbers using place value strategies! (I will mention, though, that they are a little rough, so ignore the bumpy parts and see the big ideas, ok? THANK YOU!! 🙂 )
Sorry, I’m a few days (ok, weeks!) late with these warm-ups. Spring Break happened and I had forgotten to snap pictures of them before I left for my vacation. Oops. But alas, they were still there when I got back today, and so here they are for you. And man, are they worth the wait. Hee hee. 🙂
Monday
This week was the last week before the end of our quarter, and so we were wrapping up our work with addition and subtraction. There were a couple of things that I wanted to highlight with our problems–the connections between adding and subtracting strategies, and using mental math for quick facts up to 20. This one again helped lead them to see how what they know about addition can help them with efficient subtraction. More about all of those strategies listed there later…
Tuesday
Yeah, somehow I didn’t get that “y” on the end of strategy in the picture (I promise I wrote it there correctly!)…again, more on that practice we did later…it involves some pretty great explanation videos. Worth the wait (but isn’t everything I write on this blog?! Kidding, just kidding!).
Wednesday
Again, with our focus on strategies, I wanted to point out that good mathematicians know when to use a strategy as well as why to use it in that situation. This one didn’t really have a “right” answer (many strategies make sense with these numbers), but it was important for kiddos to explain their reasoning for which strategy they chose to use.
Thursday
Wanted to get a quick temperature read on kiddos and their ability to do these facts quickly. Most could do them quick and painlessly, using what they know about other problems to help (like tens and doubles), which is exactly what I was looking for!
Friday
This last warm-up before the end of our quarter (and what I considered a well-deserved break for everyone!) gave a sneak peek to next quarter’s work with graphs, charts and measurement. Needless to say, since it was a preview, not many kiddos knew what to say to this one…
You know, seeing all of these charts reminds me of the suggestion I got from a reader once about using Padlet to do this electronically. Does anybody have any personal experience they can share? I’d love to hear about how it’s working (or I guess not working would be helpful, too!) for you. Appreciate the help and advice, friends! 🙂
While this has always been an important part of my job, it seems like I have much more of an influence and responsibility to start my first grade kiddos off on the right foot. Many of them begin their life-long reading journey in earnest with me, and I want to help EVERY ONE OF THEM feel what it’s like to be lost in a book. This is the main reason why read aloud (and good books in general!) are non-negotiables in Rm. 202. 🙂
In what book were you last lost? Tell us about it! 🙂
On one of the last days before our Spring Break started, we were visited by a music teacher from a nearby university, and some of his students. Best of all, they brought DRUMS with them! Our kiddos were able to learn about the drums, about the music you could play with them and then they got to try it out, too!
And then, when I came to pick up my class, they asked for teachers to get in on the action, too! I’m so glad my friend Peyton was up there for that round with me, because he definitely helped me know what to do. That rhythm was harder to follow than you’d think! Way to go, Robinson musicians–Robinson does indeed have GRIT!
20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher 