DIY T-Shirt Book Bags!

Over the summer, at a ELA/STEM learning institute we attended for our district, Ms. Turken and I were talking about what we could do to better encourage at-home reading this year in 1st grade. While we do not necessarily require homework, being a better reader (and becoming a reader at all!) happens by reading. Lots of reading. We brainstormed how we could do more to get loads and loads of books in kids hands so they could practice each night with their families. We remembered a connection we had to books at school, but we needed a way to get them home…

So I sent out a call to my friends on Twitter and Facebook (because that’s what teachers do when they have a question, right?), and very quickly I had lots of suggestions. Mrs. Horn, a friend and teacher at another school in our district, suggested this DIY t-shirt book bag from Mommypotamus. It’s a no-sew project, so we figured it would be easy, and since we planned on having kids make their bags, we knew they’d be really excited to use them every day!

Ms. Turken’s class was able to make their bags ahead of us, and came to show off/model them as they were finished. Boy was I excited when a friend of mine asked, “Hey–do we get to make those, too?” and when I said yes, she smiled so big and did a little cheer.

Friday was finally our day. 🙂

And so of course I left ALL OF THE T-SHIRTS WE WERE GOING TO USE FOR THE PROJECT at school on Thursday night. Nice, right? Luckily, though, I was able to find just the right number of unused shirts to upcyle into beautiful book bags. Double nice, right? Whew–saved by the big pile of junk in my closet. 🙂

FullSizeRender 20-min

Before we could make our bags (which required lots of knot-tying), I had to do a little bit of prep work:

Take a shirt…

..turn it inside out and cut off the sleeves…

…and cut a scoop-neck rounded shape where the collar is.

Measure how tall you need your bag to be and cut the bottom into strips.

Tie them in tight knots all along the bottom…

…and voila! Book bag!!

In order to better facilitate such an involved project (it was simple, but still required some supervision to make sure the knots ended up in the right place), Ms. Mimlitz and I (remember her from our Outside Adventures? She is the totally amazing TA who works with all of our first grade friends!) pulled small groups while everyone else was working on must-dos and can-dos for the morning.

And I MUST give a shout-out to my small friend Keira, because she took to this project so quickly and ably that I gave her her very own group to lead! She was truly a gift that morning and helped so many friends get their bags finished. WAY TO GO, kiddo!

The plan once we are all finished (there were a few kiddos not there on Friday) is to fill our book bags every week with lots of great titles and read, read, read! Until then, check out how PROUD and EXCITED these first grade makers are with their creations!

I am SO GLAD we decided to take on this project, and once again–first graders rock!!

Do You Really Want a Turtle?

By the second day of school, my new Rm. 202 friends were already asking me about why we didn’t have a class pet. What?? Were they serious? They had found out about Mrs. L’s turtle, Javy (because of a sibling we have in 4th grade), and many had seen Ms. Turken’s water turtle, Bradford, who lives next door to us in Rm. 203. And so already my friends were turtle-crazy.

The problem? It was the second day of school, I didn’t have a turtle, nor did I really know anything about them (or had we decided yet as a class if we needed one or could take care of it!). So Ms. Turken and I devised a little plan: her class was going to learn about turtles anyway, because of Bradford and their interest in them, and they could teach us about what we might need to know about what would be the best kind of turtle to have as a pet (I had noticed that Mrs. L’s turtle–who is actually a “cousin” to Bradford–is a box turtle, as opposed to Bradford, who is a water turtle): box or water.

Well, they worked and researched and wondered and wrote and last Friday they were ready to share their information with us. They came over after lunch on our half day to present their research. We were SUPER impressed with how organized and professional they were with their words and how well they used the microphone, stood so we could see them, and were so quiet and listening when it wasn’t their turn. Again a group of first graders was knocking my socks off!

Like I said, Rm. 203 friends were SUPER turtle researchers and taught us a lot. And yes, now our turtle craze is even greater than before. We even found this book to read together to teach us more:

Screenshot 2016-09-02 17.17.06

And luckily, I now also have a connection to a turtle. Updates to follow on whether or not a turtle joins the Rm. 202 family to come….:)

Outside Adventures!

On Tuesday we spent the morning outside. Shortly after our morning announcements, the pledge, Morning Meeting, and a quick Pinkalicious story shared by Rachel and read by Ms. Mimlitz , we headed across the street with our iPads in hand with some important work to do.

Once we get settled under a grove of really big, shady trees, we read a couple of books together (which is part of our regular routine, especially now that we’re keeping track of our books with #classroombookaday), and played a rousing game of Simon Says.

Next, I gave some directions for collecting some important information. Kids had been a bit distracted by all the nature around them anyway, so their next job was to “collect” the most interesting things as pictures on their iPads. After walking a big circle around the area to show kids their limits, I set them loose. They were given about 15 minutes to check out all they could find and WOW was there a lot to look at! There were even some kind horticulturalists working nearby that pointed out some things for us to see!

During this time we had an emergency drill (which was handy since we were in our emergency drill spot anyway), and since it was probably already 90 degrees and we were HOT, we headed back inside shortly thereafter.

But we weren’t finished! The next step was for kiddos to crop their pictures, zooming in on the MOST INTERESTING part of the photo. I wanted them to really think about why they had taken the picture, as well as what the story was about that image.

These were the next directions. And let me tell you (and I’ll elaborate about this later on, too) that it is a little UNBELIEVABLE that kiddos know how to do this already at this point in first grade!

Screenshot 2016-09-03 09.55.36

Kiddos did some great work, and we will build on this as we work together this year.

Check out our Outside Adventure WRITING!! Like I said (and I’m sure I’ll continue saying it!), what these kiddos can do with their devices already is nothing short of amazing!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Thanks for reading! Please leave us a comment and join the conversation!

#classroombookaday Update

Wanted to share our door one week since we started our #classroombookaday challenge started. I am SO inspired when I see it, and am loving the comments that people are giving us as they walk by and look at it. It also just makes me smile. 🙂 We have added 13 books this week!

Meet Mrs. Cohen!

We have been lucky to have Mrs. Cohen at our school for many, many years. I have actually been lucky enough to work with her when she was a teacher’s assistant in my 4th grade classroom, then I worked with her as a parent (I had her daughter in 5th grade!), she was most recently an administrative assistant in our office, and now we’ve the most blessed that she’s moved up to be our school counselor!! What great fun to experience so many dimensions of a person and be so encouraged by their work in so many ways.

Well…since my first grade friends were in our school last year, most of them already know Mrs. Cohen. But since they know her from the office, it was really important for them to be reintroduced to her in her new role. In order to do that, she spent the last week or so visiting each classroom, bringing with her a really great lesson (differentiated perfectly for each level of kiddos) about what they can expect from her this year.

Our lesson involved a magic bag. Kiddos got to pull things out of her bag and we’d guess (then she’d tell us) what each represented about her job, or how she’d use them throughout the day.

It’s a little hard to see all the things being pulled out of her bag, so I’ll tell you about them…

Tissues–because some times you might have emotions that make you cry, happy or sad!
Book–often reading a book with a kiddo is a great way to work through things
Foosball–Can you believe Mrs. Cohen has a FOOSBALL table in her office?? Need I say more?
Lunch boxes–sometimes Mrs. Cohen has lunch with friends; I want to be so lucky!
Bouncy ball–sometimes Mrs. Cohen spends time at recess with Robinson kiddos!
Ear–a great counselor like Mrs. Cohen has super listening ears and wants to hear what Robinson kids have to say (she brought that ear from her Mrs. Potato Head, which is how she introduced herself to our kindergarten friends)
Heart–she’s got a big one with lots of love to share!
Smile–who doesn’t love someone smiling at them and sharing a kind word?
Hand–she gives GREAT high-fives!
Feet (not pictured)–sometimes a kiddo might just need to take a walk, to burn off some steam, to calm down, to think through things, or just to talk. Mrs. Cohen is available for those kinds of times. 🙂

WOW–what lucky Roadrunners we are to be able to have such a caring, thoughtful, resourceful, creative and FUN counselor to take care of us. 🙂 I’m glad I get to spend everyday at Robinson with my friend, Mrs. Cohen! How about you??

#classroombookaday

If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably know that I like a challenge. I’ve written about a 40 Book Challenge, a blogging challenge, kid’s cup stacking, marshmallow and design challenges, and I’m not sure if I wrote about it, but I took on a half-marathon training program as a personal challenge last fall. And so when another book challenge presented itself recently, of course I was game. It’s just kind of how I roll. 🙂

The #classroombookaday hashtag is one I’ve seen before, and have thought about trying out, but most of the time I’ve caught it too late in the game to get started (I’m kind of an all-or-nothing person, so unless it’s the beginning of the year/month/quarter, etc., it’s hard for me to do). This time around I had already been thinking about it before school anyway, and had been informally keeping track of our read alouds as we got into the first days of first grade. Then, my friend Ms. Turken (@im4students @im4students) and our principal, Mrs. Sisul (@GRRprincipal), both got involved and I knew it was on. There are bulletin boards and tons of books being read and lots of fabulous stories being shared and laughs being laughed. I am pretty sure, too, that it’s a friendly challenge, with each of us cheering the other one on, rather than declaring a winner or counting who’s got the most (right, friends??). I’m super excited about how it’s going already, and am interested to see what kinds of conversations come out of this kind of data collection. I can already see TONS of math in the images I have of our door (which is where we’re tracking our books), and there are many discussions about predictions in our future, too.

Here’s our #classroombookaday data up to this afternoon; we’ve been reading since August 16, so today was day 11.

That picture makes me so happy, and I am interested to see how quickly we fill up the door. There’s really not that much room left! At this rate, we’ve only got about another month or so of space! Then where will we go?? Excited to see. 🙂

What math do you see in our pictures? Have you ever taken on a challenge? How did it go? What book suggestions can you make for us? Please leave us a comment and let’s chat about it! 🙂

#FDOFG: …yet

I have written before about how important the word YET is in the lives of my students. Well in my life, too, actually. Even though it’s only the third week of school, I’ve already found many opportunities to help kids change their words from totally negative grumblings of “I can’t do that” to “I am not great at that….yet!”

And so like I’ve done with previous classes (this is one of those beginning-of-the-year activities I left pretty much the same because it works for almost everyone!), we talked about caterpillars and butterflies in relation to the idea of “yet.” And then we got busy being creative!

After our butterflies were dry, we worked on adding a goal to them using this stem:

It was interesting to see what kinds of things kiddos wrote; some were related to things in school (like reading, writing or art) and some were about other things like bike riding, cooking, and some were applicable to all parts of life, like waiting or listening. I’m excited to watch as these caterpillars develop into beautiful butterflies and they see their “not yet” become NOW!!

Later these will hang in our classroom so we can be inspired by them each day, but for now they are on view in our hallway. So great and SO PRETTY!!

**On a side note…the pictures from our work time were taken by Ms. Mimlitz (a FABULOUS teacher who works with us in 1st grade!), and may seem different than the ones I usually post. I asked her to take care of documenting this activity because I was busy helping out as they worked and it was so interesting to see how someone else “sees” what kids do. The process was so much more beautiful through her eyes; I realized my pictures never have kids faces, just them working. I had chosen to do that purposefully in order to highlight the thinking, working, creating, PROCESS, etc., instead of interrupting kiddos to cheese at the camera….but as I see that the photos she took are so much more interesting to me, and I can see the JOY of the learners as they are working (I appreciate this as a teacher, but also with the parent hat on–I know I love to see the faces of my own kiddos smiling back at me on the screen!). Now that I am reflecting on it, it makes me wonder how I’ve never connected the fact that the absence of students’ faces has meant that a HUGE part has been missing! Seems so simple but such a big deal…I am there for those precious kiddos, and I WANT to see that they are both busy and enjoying themselves! As I go forward, I will be looking both at what they are doing as well as HOW they are doing it. Thanks, Ms. Mimlitz for helping to open my eyes to seeing my students and how I share our stories on our blog in a different way! 🙂

What do you see when you watch your kiddos working? Did you notice the difference in pictures? How important is it to involve students’ faces/expressions in the storytelling? How do you involve students in the documenting and recording? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

#FDOFG: …and 123s

We worked on letters letters this week, and also got some math into the mix, too!

One way was with one of our first morning math warm-ups (which I will start to share about later). I asked a short, simple question with infinite answers, allowing every kiddo to share their initial thinking about what math would be this year.

The variety of answers was great, with no one having to use the prompt I taught them of “I don’t know yet, but here’s what I’m thinking now…” I love that someone’s answer was “math is fun!” Many kiddos said “numbers” and many others gave examples of kinds of math like adding/subtracting or wrote equations. I was impressed that they were not scared by this question, even though we were only on day 9 of 1st grade!

After we discussed this warm-up, I gave everyone an activity that would allow them to show me (and the class) a little bit about themselves as people and themselves as mathematicians. Now…it is a very infrequent thing for me to ask everyone to do the very same thing at the very same time in the very same way. But since it is early in the year, and we 1) don’t have our iPads yet (which is how we often differentiate opportunities), and 2) it’s still early in the year and we don’t have all of our routines established yet, this seemed like a time and place to ask the whole class to try something together.

The general idea was based on a math poster that was shared in our school’s Sharetank on Facebook by Mrs. Hill ((a 5th grade teacher):

Screenshot 2016-08-28 19.00.24

Ms. Turken made the template we used in 1st grade, and it was most of the same questions as this 5th grade version, but you’ll see that our equations were a little different. 🙂

After kiddos were finished with their Math About Me posters, I put them in pairs for them to have their first go at a math game. We had not had a chance to prep for this, but since it didn’t include a die or an iPad, I was pretty sure they could handle it without much instruction. Once I explained how to play Turn Over Ten, they got busy and did a pretty great job of quietly playing while the rest of us finished.

Now for what I learned…

*The idea of using numbers to tell about yourself is a GREAT idea, but I should have done it in a different way. This was a bit formulaic for 1st graders, had a lot of directions, and they needed a lot more help than I had first anticipated.

*Most kiddos had the same answers for the number, and made the equations in a similar way, too, although they did vary a little in the order their labels and cards went on the paper.

*This was DEFINITELY more of a lesson in following directions than a community building or math task. We didn’t even have a chance to share our answers when we were finished.

*I did not clearly explain why we were doing this, which made it much less meaningful to my students, and therefore probably was not the best use of our time.

*My class works really well when they are busy with an individual, partner or small group task, and can do a lot of things independently already, even at this point of the year.

*Most kiddos are willing and able to talk to each other to clarify directions, ask for help and encourage each other when they don’t know what to do.

*They were able to transition very easily from a project to a game. They followed the directions, worked quietly and were focused on doing the right thing with their partner!

*We have a pretty strong foundation on which to build the rest of our mathematical thinking this year, and kiddos are excited to get started on “real” stuff!

And just like them, I am also excited to get into the “real stuff,” too! Let’s go Rm. 202 mathematicians!

#FDOFG: ABCs…

The alphabet is a important feature in any first grade class. And with every primary class I’ve taught, I’ve had some version of the alphabet hanging in our room, ranging from kid-created with paper, kid-created with markers on card stock, and even back to my first year when I proudly hung the brand spanking new one I bought from Bradburns. There is also usually a smaller alphabet chart for use at tables when kids are writing on their own; this is usually also just a preprinted sheet that I got years ago from our reading teacher or that I found online.

Screenshot 2016-08-28 17.31.21

As this year has started, though, it seems that I’ve been rethinking many of the things I’m choosing to do as I return to 1st grade again (after a year in 2nd with my looping class last year!). I am trying to be very mindful of the ways this class is different than my first graders even two years ago, tweaking things to work best for them as learners (instead of doing the same things in the same way as previous years). The alphabet is included in those things.

I know that there has been a connection to ABC books, or to how writers use letters/sounds or come conversations about the word wall (which also has letters on it), but for some reason I’ve never written about that part of our community building, nor do I remember specifically how I’ve presented it. Weird, right? Guess it wasn’t very meaningful or exciting to my kiddos, either. LOL

Well, luckily, since I was thinking about it differently (and perhaps more deeply), I remember what we did this year (ok, and it helps that we just did this the other day. HA!).

We started with a conversation around our Word Wall, which at this point just has our names on it as the only words. We met on the blue rug in front of the WW, and discussed the letters, the words they noticed, how they might use the word wall to help them with reading/writing, and then enjoyed some ABC books together:

Both of these texts are poems, and are funny and fun to read. Doreen Cronin is a favorite author of most kiddos, and Lisa Campbell Ernst is a favorite of mine. 🙂 Our classroom library has author boxes featuring both of these writers, as well, so the choices were meant to lead them to other books they might enjoy, too.

After we read, I explained that our work next would include them getting a letter, and then drawing any corresponding picture that starts with that letter on the bottom. Differently than usually, I allowed kiddos to check out the books we had read or any other ABC books in our room, as well, if they need inspiration. I’m not sure whey I’ve never provided that scaffold before; guess something about it seemed like I was stealing a struggle or giving them the answers. Actually, I think it allowed everyone an entry point into the activity, even those with a less developed knowledge of letters and sounds.

With all of the other changes/tweaks I’ve made this year, it made sense to me that our alphabet ended up being a little bit different than in previous years. Some of our letters had “traditional” sound/symbol match ups (like apple for A and ball for B), but some of them are completely unique to our Rm. 202 2016 alphabet, and that is super cool.

Did you check out the Q and Z? These are Star Wars related letters, because of a special ABC book we have in our box:

so Q and Z may not be something you’ve heard of before. Let me show you their inspiration pages:

Those made me laugh at first, and I even considered having them rethink them, because of how obscure the references were, but then I realized that this would be a great opportunity to embrace something that could be truly “ours.” Betcha there isn’t another first grade class around that has Queen Amidala and Zam on their alphabet!!

Then, this time I decided to take this whole “the-alphabet-is-special-to-us” idea one step further–I created our own table-top alphabet chart based on our wall version! It just made sense that the sound/symbol matches could be consistent and (at least in the beginning) take away confusion some kiddos might have as they try to use the system. I’m really excited at how it turned out!

Screenshot 2016-08-28 17.58.43

Alphabet_chart

I don’t know yet how this will work with kiddos (I just finished making it!), but I’m excited to see how it goes, and to compare the usefulness of this tool with versions we’ve had in the past. Crossing my fingers that it works as well for Rm. 202 friends as I hope it will!

#FDOFG: First Grade Menagerie

As I look over the pictures I’ve taken the last 8 days, as well as think about what we’ve been doing during our first days, I’ve found some things that don’t really fit into their own blog post, but are all connected because they’re all about the friends in Rm. 202. Hope you’ll stay to check out the first grade menagerie I have to share. 🙂

First Grade Victory Dances!

If you’ve been here since the beginning of our first grade journey, you’ll remembering reading the welcome post I put up for my new friends. Well, I got two fabulous videos from two very brave first graders that I keep forgetting to share. So forget now I no more!

Keira

Callahan

Who’s That Smiley 1st Grader?

I had a picture posted on our welcome screen for a couple of days, with a question of who they thought the smiling face might be. Strangely (at least I thought!), not many figured out that it was me. None of them thought it looked like me. Well, I guess when you add 30 years and change the hair it messes people up. LOL

My favorite part of this picture? It was the year I decided I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up! My first grade teacher Mrs. LeGrand was pretty much the most amazing lady I had ever met and I wanted to become her some day. I am not sure I did that–but I think (hope) I have become my own version of a great teacher! 🙂

Day 2 Plusses/Deltas Reflection

We don’t have the opportunity to sit down to “officially” reflect (although we almost always talk about how things went), but this was a fun one to talk about. After we worked super hard on our 2nd day together, we sat down to practice more with “plusses and deltas” and we were SO EXCITED to see the things we were able to write down. We also talked about how easily we could work the next day to solve the struggles we had on Day 2. To be able to see brand new first graders doing such fabulous things so early in the year together was so commendable. Way to go, Rm. 202 friends!

Grit and Growth Mindset AT RECESS!!

The other day at recess, Cal came running to me to show me something he can do now that he couldn’t do before. He told me he’s been working for a really long time and now he can do it! Way to keep trying, friend!

Ok…there are other things I could add, but really–what could follow that awesome video? 🙂

20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

Starting a 3rd Grade Journey

Category Archives: First Grade