Robinson University–2018 Edition

I know you already know I work at the best school in Missouri, and perhaps the world. :). We have such an amazing community of families and teachers, and we make things happen for kids. Last Friday was another example of that amazing community working together to provide priceless experiences for all the kids in our school. Let me tell you about it. 🙂

I am sure at some point on this blog I’ve written about Robinson University (hereafter called RU), but the version that was unveiled on Friday was even better than ever. Until now, first graders have not “officially” been involved, but instead we made up our own rotations for kiddos to do, alongside the “real” ones that bigger kids did. This year it was decided that we could indeed join in with the rest of the school. Yay for that decision!

In short, RU is a program we run on half-days at our school (which are half-days so that teachers can participate in professional development in the afternoons), which are designed to provide unique and different experiences for students–experiences that they may not normally or otherwise have an opportunity to take part in. They are available during school hours so that EVERYONE can participate. We’ve done some version of it for the last 5 or so years, but this was seen as the 2.0; many changes were made with structure and offerings that were an improvement on our original ideas.

Children were given the option of some 30 different classes, and all classes were taught or facilitated by parents, friends and community members of Robinson School. In the past, students had only 2 or 3 classes, as we stretched them out over the entire semester of half-days. Now kiddos choose their 10 favorites and then are assigned 6 of those–one for each half-day, so that they are able to participate in 6 exciting and different experiences throughout the year.

Teachers were assigned as faculty liaisons to work with one of our presenters, and I got to participate in a session about DNA. I got to work with a fabulous mom of a fabulous student I had a couple of years ago, who is a real research scientist and came with real science to teach us about what DNA is and how it works. Cool, right?

I have loads to tell you about that (since I was present in that session), but first I want to share some pictures from the other sessions to give you a little taste of the exciting things our Roadrunners were able to do AT SCHOOL last week! :). Check it out. 🙂

Aikido

Aikido (a different style of martial arts) is “The way of harmonizing energy,” known as the art of peace.

Let’s Make Breakfast!

Come and have fun mixing and making a delicious breakfast of Dollar Pancakes, cheesy scrambled eggs and Island Smoothies. Breakfast always tastes better when you make it yourself!

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Creative Writing

Have you ever dreamed of writing and illustrating your very own picture book? If so, this course will teach you all about the creative writing process from a published children’s book author.

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Food Science

Let’s make gummy worms! Come explore the Science of food!

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Happy, Healthy Kids

You will learn lots about healthy living and how healthy living makes you feel happier and stronger. We’ll also make fruit ice cream (no sugar/no dairy!) and it is YUMMY!

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Microbiology–Learning about GERMS!

Let’s test the 5 second rule in this session that investigates microbiology and our germ-filled world! We will explore what germs are, why they matter, where they are and how experiments and can help us learn more about them.

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Stop Motion Videos

Come and make your very own stop motion video!

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What Does a Veterinarian Do?

We will discuss the skills and tools used in veterinary medicine. We will discuss some fun and interesting cases and work together to learn to think like a veterinarian.

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(This one was taught by a very special Rm. 111 parent! Thanks for helping out, Mrs. Hendrickson!!)

Yoga

Explore how yoga, movement and breath can be both fun and relaxing.

I would have LOVED to have had pictures from all the sessions (there were also sessions that including geocaching, swimming, Keynote, School of Rock, World Bird Sanctuary, Jedi training [fencing], cake decorating and so many more I can’t even list them all!!), and unfortunately I didn’t get every smiling Rm. 111 faces on this post, but hopefully by the end of the year of RU I will be able to do so. :). Stay tuned. The next session is on November 2!

Ok…so here’s the details on the session I was in–it was all about What is DNA? It was led by my friend Dr. Ariel, who is a research scientist. She came to teach us about what it is, why it’s important, and we even EXTRACTED some DNA from a strawberry! Emily, a 5th grader who attended the session (and who can be found on this blog from several years ago when she was a first and second grader!) named him Jeff. Unfortunately, Jeff gave his life for science and we were amazed when the little cotton-like strands actually came out of the test tube right before our very eyes! Check it out…

(P.S. I have a GREAT video of the whole DNA extraction process but it it turned the wrong way and I can’t get it to rotate!! Ugh. If you know to do that and want to give me guidance I’ll do it and post it here later!)

Names, Names, Names!!

One of the most important words a first grader knows (how to read and how to write) is their name. We have done lots of work with this, including making sure everyone knows how to write it neatly with only 1 capital letter. Along with knowing the letters in our names, we will soon officially begin to focus on the SOUNDS in our names, as well as the chunks, blends and patterns in our names that can help us read other words! We practiced in many different ways with many different materials. We are getting SUPER good at names now and are using beautiful handwriting in other places, too!

Check out our work from the last few weeks!

Playdoh

Just like when we use our pencils, using our “pinchers” to make the Playdoh into sticks and curves is a challenge. Our goal was to make the Playdoh letters look just like the name on our name tags.

Inch Tiles

Who’s Name is Longer?

This one was a name practice that we used as a math investigation. Each kiddo made their name on inch tiles and groups worked together to figure out who’s was longest, shortest, and how many letters their group had altogether.

Legos!

Boo…so I just realized that most of the pictures we have of this activity are on kiddos’ iPads. 😦 Maybe I’ll come back and add them after I get them transferred to me, but for now, trust me that this was a challenge! I had to nudge many kids to create 3D versions (to actually connect the Legos, rather than just lay them on the floor) and that up’ed the ante on the thinking. Plus–it was a really fun and totally engaging way to practice letters and names! Goodness, what can you NOT use Legos for?

Good ‘Ole Fashioned Handwriting Practice

One More Time: Analogies with Mrs. Berger

We had one more Kingore lesson this past week with Mrs. Berger. This time it was analogies. Man, these can be hard for first graders, but like with most every time, we had some great examples before we got started. We tried some together (with pictures to help us out!) and then she read to book Animalogies to us, which was written by some other kids and involved analogies that were all about animals!

And…just like last time, we smelled brownies! What great opportunities we’ve had with Mrs. Berger to think in a new way, stretch our brains a bit and show how creative we are! We will definitely continue to put these skills to work in the classroom as we go forward in first grade! 🙂

Another Kingore Lesson: Pentominoes

We have visited Mrs. Berger many times recently to stretch our brains and show our ability and creativity. Recently we went to work on pentominoes puzzles. Basically, a pentomino is a plastic piece (labeled with a letter name because of its shape), made of 5 small squares. They can all fit together to make a rectangle, but can also be used to create other shapes and designs. That was our job on this day. 🙂

After the explanation and some “try-its” together, we got to work, using our grit and perseverance to figure out the puzzles on the sheets Mrs. Berger gave us. Some of them were really hard, and you had to turn the piece around and around and over to make it fit. We were all able to do it, though, and the smiles on faces when they got it were priceless. I heard so many “yes!”‘s and it made me smile, too. 🙂

Perhaps the best part was when we figured out what our class grit smells like (which you can smell in the room when we’re all working hard and using it!): chocolate chip brownies right out of the oven. 🙂

10 Lego Math

Last week during our Bike Rodeo in PE, we did a math investigation around how many wheels were on the bikes in our bike row in the gym (yeah, I know…I should have shared that post first. Sorry. 🙂 ).

It was our first try with math notebooks and working to communicate our mathematical thinking in words, pictures and numbers. Kiddos are expected to be able to do that thoughtfully and clearly, based on this rubric:

Screenshot 2017-09-27 21.26.34 This is an end-of-year expectation, but we learn about it early and work on it all year in different ways.

As I looked over the work kiddos had recorded in their notebooks, I noticed that kiddos mainly just wrote numbers. Ok, really a number. Just the answer to whatever question they were working on. The words and pictures parts were pretty much MIA. It’s still early, so this is neither surprising nor worrisome–we just need some work on what it means to clearly and concisely show what we did to solve a problem.

While we could have done this in a variety of ways, I took a super smart suggestion from my friend, Mrs. Marks, (who you might remember inspired this Lego Leading/Following lesson) who thought she would walk a bit backward and have her kiddos work on just representing something really small they that had counted, made, etc. Perhaps because the first “Mrs. Marks” lesson was using Legos, or maybe because they’re the best tool ever, or we all love them or we have a TON of them….but regardless, I framed our next communication lesson around a Lego creation invitation.

With the goal being using words, pictures and numbers (as necessary) to explain their thinking and making their explanation match their creation, kiddos were given a baggie with 10 random Legos.

Then I gave them these directions:

For the first part, kiddos only worked on steps 1 and 2.

As we moved to the next step, I did a think aloud as I drew and then wrote about my own creation. We talked about what information would be helpful to know if they were going to build a replica of my tower (because that’s what they will be doing next!). They gave great suggestions of words to use and we revised and added to the words, also discussing what labels might be helpful.

Somehow I didn’t get a picture of my tower, but I promise it looks just like that drawing. 🙂

Kiddos’ next step was to work on their drawings and writing, with nudges along the way to add or revise to make sure their thinking was clear and complete.

Today we finalized our thinking, took a picture (to compare our drawings and creations) and posted our work on Seesaw. We used the recording feature to read our writing and add any details we thought were important. Next step is that we will build each other’s creations and discuss what information in our work was helpful, confusing, and/or missing. We will then try again with another creation and see if improve. Kiddos have been so excited about this work and I’m excited to see how it impacts our math work going forward.

How do you use Legos to learn? We’d love to hear your ideas. 🙂

DOT DAY 2017–Another Day of Making our Mark!

We had a SUPER Dot Day this year, and a lot like last year, there was too much fun for just one day! Oh, and I realized that I forgot to mention that in addition to The Dot, we shared many other Peter Reynolds titles, and sang another Emily Arrow song, too!

OK, moving on…If you read the post from Dot Day 2016, you’ll notice a fabulous Skype opportunity we had with Ms. Hachen’s class from Kansas. This year we were not quite ready to chat with a “stranger” class yet, so Ms. Turken and I figured out a way to have our first graders learn what to do–with each other!

We had a plan to share our dot creations with each other, as well as prep kiddos for our Skype journey for this year. We started our Friday with a quick flip chart to introduce kiddos to what Skype actually is and how it works. We practiced how we would have a greeter (we decided the helper for the week could easily do this); how they would come to the computer and what they would say; as well as what everyone else should do while it’s not their turn (spoiler: they should sit quietly and watch and listen!). I even gave them a few seconds to do that crazy thing that kiddos always do when they first see themselves on the screen; allowing them to make faces and be goofy for a minute helped quell that desire for once we actually got started.

After we had practiced the procedure and were ready to receive our call, the Skype call rang. But when we answered there was only a black screen on the other end. Ms. Turken and I troubleshooted for probably close to 10 minutes, and Rm. 111 friends were AMAZING while they waited for us to figure out what to do. Jeremiah even had some super ideas about how we could fix the problem (great job, kiddo!), but somehow nothing could get our friends’ faces on our screen. 😦 Eventually, since they were just in the classroom next door, we decided to do this Skype in person. Yep, it was a first for us, too. 🙂

We headed over with our dots in hand and got all set up.

And..perhaps the best part of the whole deal was when Ms. Turken had the brilliant idea of building a computer out of blocks so kiddos would know where to do and what to do. It was GENIUS and kiddos did a super job! Check it out (in pictures first and then a rather long, but super cute video!):

I was so impressed with how well they did, how the mostly were quiet and listening, and how I am sure they’ll know what to do when it’s “for real.” YAY!!

And speaking of Dot Day creations, here they are. Can’t wait ’til they are up and displayed for us to see! Of course, I’ll share again once that happens, but they were too good to keep to myself!

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Aren’t those amazing? And you know, they so inspired me that I had to join in. I didn’t do it on actual Dot Day (hope that’s ok), but I did indeed make my mark and make a dot creation with my daughter today (who is also a first grader!).

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I’m excited to see them all hanging up soon, inspiring us EVERY DAY to make our marks! 🙂

So tell, how did you celebrate Dot Day?? 🙂

DOT DAY 2017!!

Oh my goodness–one of my FAVORITE DAYS of the whole school year (maybe even the whole year) happened last week: International Dot Day 2017!

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We choose to celebrate in first grade on September 14th (Thursday) because of a crazy schedule on Friday that would cut into our time to play and create. Every year it seems the day gets bigger and bigger (I believe this is my 3rd Dot Day), and this year was no exception. Check out what we did! (And a little warning that this post might be a wee bit long and meaty!)

We started our day with a reading of the book by Peter H. Reynolds that sparked the whole thing in the first place, The Dot. And who better to read it to us than Peter himself?? My favorite part of the video we watched was when he read the cover and said, “The Dot. By me. ” HA! Bet that’s SO COOL to read a book you wrote. He also shared the story about how he got the idea for the book (ask your kiddo about that one–I’ll bet they remember it!) Anyhow, moving along…

After we talked about the story, and how the character Vashti used grit and encouragement with her friend, as well as what it means to make your mark, we added in another video—this time a song–that helped us further the idea. Have you ever met Emily Arrow? She created a genre of music called “kidtlit tunes” and first grade kiddos met her on Dot Day as they learned her song that she wrote about the book we had just read. We’ll probably get through ALL of her books and songs by the end of the year because they are just that good. Check her out on YouTube if you haven’t yet! Here’s the one we sang together:

After we had sung (and danced!) a couple of times to that catchy tune, we were ready to do our first (of a series) of dot-related activities, and we made our mark with some art. I shared a flip chart to get the creative juices flowing, if they weren’t already:

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Kids got to “shop” from the table filled with LOADS of art materials and then get busy with their creation.

Even before they were finished they made me so happy just laying out to dry:

Later, after lunch, we HAD to do math with dots. 🙂 And you know what is shaped like dots? SKITTLES! We had been working on sorting and graphing anyway, so it just made sense. And then–there was a Dot Day snack!

Whew! By that point we had already had LOADS of Dot Day fun, but it wasn’t over yet! After we came back from specials, we returned to the fun with Dot Day Games! We had collected Connect 4, checkers and Twister from families and other classes. Kiddos got to choose which they wanted to do on a chart:

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Then they got busy with more Dot Day–even I got in on the fun and played a few rounds of Connect 4 with Celia. 🙂

I have add a couple more pictures–the dots that kiddos WORE for Dot Day!! I didn’t remember to take it until the very end and so you can’t really see many of them, but trust, me–these kiddos were decked out and READY to celebrate. Check out Campbell’s shirt–he made it especially for the day, and Sarah who had dots on her dress AND her socks! Wow!!

Ok…well, our Dot Day was not really over, but there was TOO MUCH FUN for one day, so I’ll share part two in another post. Whew! Thanks for lasting all the way to the end! 🙂

First Grade Twins (x3)

Last Friday we had three sets of twins in Rm. 111!

And just because he couldn’t let a selfie happen without him, Mkahi jumped into this one with Makayla and me.

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First graders are silly. Enough said. 🙂

What’s in Those Boxes?

Last week there was this pile on the risers in our room:

I wish I would have taken a picture of it BEFORE I opened them all up (just because it looked a little nicer), but let me tell you that this last week was like Christmas over and over and over. I posted our Amazon Wish List recently and then boxes of goodies just started showing up with our name on them! What amazingly supportive families we have (THANK YOU!!) and they gifted us with many new learning tools and toys (including MORE LEGOS, a Sequence game, a new book and some paintbrushes that are not in these pictures). At this point we just had to stop and play!!

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Thank you, families for all the fabulous treats! We feel very loved and supported by you. 🙂

#FDOFG2017: Marshmallow Challenge 2017

I learned about the Marshmallow Challenge about 5 years ago and I’ve been doing it with classes ever since! It’s always fun to see what a new class with do with the challenge–how they tackle it, how tall their towers are, what strategies they use to work as a team, etc. Like with most years, we did it twice, with a debrief in the middle to help us think about what worked and what we could change.

Take 1:

We had an ok start, and kids took pretty quickly to what they were supposed to do. Teams (which I chose ahead of time and are groups we will use periodically all year) worked well and learned to negotiate who did what/when/how, etc. After our first round–where all of the towers fell over–we talked together on the carpet:

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The black words are from our first conversation; the green arrows denote the things we changed that made our second went much better. So yeah–spoiler alert!–we tried again and this time teams were much more successful. Successful, we thought, meant that our towers stood up and everyone participated and helped the activity work.

Check out our 2nd go-round: