First Grade Bloggers!–Part 1

As with past years, I was SUPER EXCITED to get my kids blogging! This year was no different, well except that my bloggers are only 6 and 7 years old, and they don’t have iPads yet, and most of them didn’t even know what a blog was when they started in Rm. 202. Ok, so yeah…really different. But my excitement to bring this experience to my students was no different–I just knew I’d have to figure out how to make it work for first graders. I think I’ve figured it out, and thought I’d share my steps here. Many are the same as in years past, but I’ve added in a few that are specific to younger learners. Here we go!

As with years, past, I thought about starting our conversation with the question “What is a blog?” Like I already mentioned, the background knowledge of my students was much less than previous (older) students. I had to go all the way back to the beginning and be really explicit with what in the world I was talking about. Luckily, we’ve been reading this blog since the beginning of the year, so that was a place to start. But, because of my experience with blogging and the connections you can make from all over the world, I started there instead: Wouldn’t it be cool if people from ALL OVER THE WORLD could read what you write? Wouldn’t it be cool if you could TALK to people you didn’t know from far away places? This was the hook they needed. Just the mention of all the people I know from other countries got my kiddos all giddy and ready to go. So “go” we did!

This time around I needed a more visual way of explaining exactly what a blog is and how it is used, and so BrainPop Jr. came to the rescue with a video all about blogs (I should add that it’s actually my 2nd grader who told me this video existed. He’s a big fan and watches lots of Brain Pop while he’s in the classroom waiting for me–which is alot!. He said he knew there was a blogging video and I should try it with my kiddos. Teacher in the making? Thanks, Riley!). It was great in how it told what a blog was, what the parts of a blog are, as well as about comments and some safety tips about what to do/not do online. And since it’s short and familiar, it kept everyone’s attention. Win-win. 🙂

After we watched the video, we looked at some other examples of blogs. I shared many of the ones that I read, and we talked about what we noticed about how they’re laid out, what the theme is, what kinds of things are written on them, etc. (In case you’re wondering, here’s my list: Make It-Love It, I Heart Organizing, The Candy Blog (this one is actually not one I read, but my hubby does and I knew the kiddos would love it!), and Life with Lily (And Daisy and Caleb!). I should have also included Weelicious (which was once a blog and is now more like a traditional website) and Im4Students (my teammates’ blog!), but I forgot until after we were done. 😦 You’ll have to be sure to check them out or use them when you teach about blogs!

It’s a wonder how they waited through all of that explanation and waited for me to explain their next steps, because, like I said, that were EXCITED to get started! And speaking of next steps, the next part was for them to create their own blogs. But on paper first (this is a technique I learned long ago as I started blogging and was learning from other teachers like Karen McMillan (@mcteach) and Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp) who shared their resources online for others to use!).

One last thing before we got started: I showed them some examples from past years, and we created a chart to show what should be in our posts.

I was SUPER IMPRESSED with how quickly they took to it! They understood what to do, and did it effectively. Here are some pics while we were working:

Come back soon for Part 2–comments!

The 100th Day–YAY!! (Part 1)

Whew! Our 100th day of school was today! Boy am I tired! WE WERE BUSY!!

I’ve been thinking about how to spend that day (and mainly trying to figure out how to both “celebrate” and still be rigorous and meaningful in my choices), and had landed on several ideas I was pretty excited about. The good news? We were able to use my idea list today. The bad news (well, just the other news I guess…)? We just did one of those things. Let me explain. 🙂

If you were writing down a list of what we accomplished today, it would just say “blogging.” I even had a kiddo say, “All we did was blog today, Mrs. Bearden.” What? That’s ALL we did? In a word, yes, but MAN was there a TON of learning and thinking involved in that day of blogging! I am SUPER AMAZED at what we were able to do today.

I started the day by telling my friends that I had prepared several challenges for them to do and that we could spend the day with those things. We usually start our day with writing, so I shared the writing challenge first, with plans to share the rest of the challenges as we went on through the day. The first thing we planned to work on was a blogging challenge.

With it being the 100th day of school, and the fact that we just went live with our blogs yesterday, I knew they’d appreciate a challenge around the “bigness” of 100 things on their blog. I suggested we try to write 100 blog posts or comments. Or they could challenge themselves to write a post using 100 words (which would be a HUGE STRETCH from the 2-3 sentence posts we’ve written so far). As I had hoped and expected, they were SUPER excited to get started, and were totally up to the challenge!

Our next step was to figure out how we could make it happen. This was a great conversation filled with much mathematical knowledge of groups of 10, counting on by 10s (as I told them we had 17 posts right then and wondered how many there would be if we added 100 more today), and splitting 10s into 5s to figure out new groups (someone said they knew that if it took 10 10s to make 100, it would take 20 5s since 5+5=10). We divided (without knowing it) 100 by the 20 people in the room (including me!), and as we went through the challenge we did lots of adding and subtracting to figure how many more we needed and how many we had at any given point.

We got started, and you know what? I don’t have many pictures of the work we did. I was as busy as they were, answering questions, moderating posts and comments and helping everyone as needed. So with 20 people, 12 iPads and 5 MacBooks between us, we were able to complete 100 BLOG POSTS AND COMMENTS today!! YIPPEE!! It took us almost all day, but we did it! And when we were finished, we had this to say:

(Hopefully you can tell they’re saying, “I00 BLOGS ROCK!!”

Now, I go back to that part about “all we did was blog all day,” because even though I didn’t mean to, at one point I even questioned whether I had done enough with the day. We didn’t have a big long list of activities to show for our time together. No one took home anything different than a normal day. We didn’t have any thing to prove we worked hard and stretched our thinking today. We did, however, have this:

It’s a little hard to see, but these are the charts where we kept tally of all of the posts/comments we finished. We counted them by 10s, 1s, and 2s at several points during the day as we figured out what we’d done and how much we had to go. It hangs outside our room for others to see. I’m hoping it will elicit questions for my kids (and for me) about how we spend our100th day! We have a great story to tell!

(ok, we did have a few pictures of the day!)

We also have a Kidblog dashboard that looks like this:

Yesterday we had 17 posts and 0 comments! Check out those numbers as of tonight! We have only been on our blogs since yesterday morning–crazy, right? We’re rocking and rolling already!!

And perhaps even better, we have memories. We have encouragement that came from our friends–“We can do this!”–when we wanted to give up. We have full buckets from the words our friends wrote about our stories. We have new knowledge about how to work the iPads and laptops on our own. We have that feeling that comes with accomplishing a goal. We have successful problem solving that happens when we’re allowed to figure things out for ourselves or talk with our classmates. We have practice with creating meaningful writing for a REAL audience; we worked hard to make our words look right, sound right and make sense. We have practice with letters, sounds and words and we have momentum to go forward with our writing. AND we have a great list of things that we didn’t finish today that we’ll use to continue our learning tomorrow! hee hee

So as I reflected, I thought it would be a great visual (for me at least) to look at our district’s rubrics and match up how today’s work addressed the expectations therein. Check out how many ways this simple blogging challenge touched our 1st grade standards:

Reading

Writing

Speaking and Listening

Learning Behaviors and Study Skills

So needless to say I am tired tonight! I’m pretty sure my kids are, too! The amount of grit they had to use to make today happen and accomplish the HUGE goal set before them was great. And while I know that I am a little biased, I’d say that today was definitely a day we can say we worked to get a little closer to helping Rm. 202 kids meet this mission of Robinson School:

What did you do for your 100th day? What have you heard from Rm. 202 kids about their day? Please share your thoughts with us! We’re learning how blogging is all about the conversation, and we’d love to start a conversation with YOU! 🙂

A Book Binding Machine?

I shared a couple of days ago about the class books we make that go along with our Read Aloud Timeline. Well, today it was time to put together the books from our last 2 read alouds and so we took a little field trip to learn about this machine:

Have you ever seen one of those? It’s funny how excited they were to learn about how it works. This was partly (I’m sure) because it is housed in a teacher workroom where kids aren’t allowed to go (but that we sneaked into for a few minutes!) but also because it’s just pretty cool. And old. I’m pretty sure it’s the same machine that’s been in that workroom for the last 20 years. And I made books on it the last time I taught 1st grade 10 years ago. But hey–even in this age of technology and digital learning–sometimes you just need to do things the “old school” way. That totally works in this case. 🙂

100th Day Questions

I have returned to 1st grade this year after about 10 years with 4th-5th graders. Many things have been the same since my return, and of course there are some things I’ve had to readjust to, or that are entirely new, as is the nature of education. One thing, though, that was definitely not a “thing” the last time I was in primary is the 100th Day of School. No, I said that wrong–we definitely HAD the 100th day of school, we just didn’t officially celebrate the 100th day as a holiday. This is new to me, and as I am coming up on that day (it’s next Wednesday, the 28th), I’ve been thinking A LOT about what I will do with that day in my classroom. (Before I go on, I feel like should ask that you presume positive intent in my questions here–my focus is on really understanding the why, not judging what others may choose (or not choose) to do in their own classrooms on any given day. I want to learn here!) 🙂

It seems that other people are also thinking about it, and having similar questions to me. I found a blog post by Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) the other day, after she posted this tweet:

Getting Uncomfortable … Again as I start to reconsider the 100th day of school. Thoughts? http://t.co/aSMi5Ymbzj #1stchat #kinderchat — Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) January 23, 2015

I found myself nodding as I read her post, as she was asking the same thing I have been struggling with: Why do we “celebrate” the 100th day of school? What is the purpose and how can we use this day to continue to help our kiddos think and grow and problem solve? Why is this day any different than every other day? I’ve read many opinions about how it’s a rite of passage and a fun day to celebrate the milestone of getting so far into the year together, and I’ve heard others say it’s about helping students understand the “bigness” and importance of the number 100. Believe me, I’m all for having a great day, and I LOVE the idea of kids understanding numbers and being flexible in their use of them. So the part I’m grappling with is how I can “do” the 100th day in a way that is still high quality and rigorous, while fun and enjoyable–and not just full of things that are “cute” or that we’re doing “just because” they have to do with the number 100 (and let’s be honest–this is really our goal for every day, isn’t it?).

After thinking about this for a couple of weeks, as well as reading about what others are doing, I think I’ve settled on a few things. Most of them are incorporated into our normal routine, but are focused on the idea (that Aviva mentioned in her post) of the learning we’ve done in the last 100 days. I plan on there being a focus on how long those 100 days have been and how much learning we’ve already done! I hope to highlight the “grittiness” we’ve displayed and the fun we’ve had together and how much more fun we’ll have in the rest of the school year. Here’s what I’m thinking:

1. 100 Book Reading Challenge–with my “big” kids, we have done a 40 Book Challenge the last few years, after reading about it in The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. I would love to give my firsties a similar, one-day challenge for our class together to read 100 books. It averages out to 5 books a piece or so, which is TOTALLY doable, and would be a great motivation to reach a goal and work on being better readers. That’s how it happens, right? By reading! I figure we’ll make a chart or list somewhere in the room so we can record the titles as we go.

2. 100 Word writing challenge–I’m not entirely sure how to frame this one, maybe around writing word wall words correctly or creating words from them (like word families), or if we’ll write stories that include 100 words or what…..somehow we’ll write. Like we do everyday. 🙂

3. What Have We Learned in the Last 100 Days?–Taking inspiration from Aviva’s post, I thought it would be great to document all of the things we’ve learned and done in the last 100 days (which I am sure is WAY more than just a 100) with pictures and words. Since I’m a regular blogger, I am also a regular picture-taker. That means I probably have at least one picture from each of our 100 days together. I’m thinking about having kiddos reflect on each day (probably in pairs) and writing something to go along with each picture. These could be put into a book (either paper or digital) and we could add to it as we finish up the year. Again, what a great way to visually see all of the many things they know now that they didn’t know on our 1st Day together!

4. Legos? Blocks? Maker Space?–We are definitely builders in Rm. 202, and incorporate this kind of representation into many things we do on a regular basis. I have seen ideas for “what would you do with 100 Legos?” which could be interesting, as they could answer the question about what they’ve learned or what they are most proud of. We did something similar when we returned from Winter Break where they created and then wrote about their favorite thing/event/present from Christmas. I’d love to give them the same question and have them build something with big blocks or just “stuff” and then have them video their thinking as they explain what they made and why. The video part would be pretty basic, as we’re just getting into documenting our learning digitally. Those videos would be great to share on our blogs–which we’re going live with this week, too!

5. 100s game in Math–this will be an easy extension of what we’re already doing! The unit we’re currently working on is about kids become flexible and efficient with adding numbers within 100. We’re already playing games, solving problems and having great conversations about place value with bigger numbers.

6. Read Aloud–I know that Read Aloud has been a focus around here lately, so maybe we’ll read 100 pages in our book on Wednesday, too, as a way to celebrate a great story together!

I guess we’ll see what I end up going with (as it will happen in just 3 days from now!). I’d love to hear your thoughts on how YOU will be spending the 100th Day of School. What questions did you consider in your planning? Please come back later this week to see the update on what actually happened in Rm. 202, and/or follow us @jbeardensclass to enjoy the day along with us!

Have a great week! 🙂

Why I Blog

As I was rereading my copy of Classroom Blogging by David Warlick today in preparation for work this week with my class, I came across a suggestion I could not resist trying: write about why you blog. I am have written many times (on this blog!) about why I write, as well as facts about me as a writer, and even what I write about in the summer, but I had never thought to share the reasons why I’ve spent so much time and energy (and I’d say a generous dash of love!) on keeping this blog for the last 3 1/2 years. I think it’s a great idea and I’m excited to share my thinking! Hope you enjoy reading it! 🙂

Reasons Why I Blog…

1) REFLECTION

Writing in general is a way to slow down, step back and reflect on how things are going. For me, my blog allows me a venue to do that with what is going on in my classroom, just like I might do in my Writer’s Notebook about something in my personal life. I find that as I am planning posts, and am thinking about how best to share my story, I figure out the parts that went right and the parts that could use some improvement. And honestly, it’s the “not-so-right” parts that I value–it’s in these that I learn the most and grow for the next time. Plus, as I share them in a public forum, I am hopefully sharing them so that someone else can learn from them, too!

2) INFORMATION

Originally I started my blog for myself, and maybe to share with a few others who could care (probably members of my family! LOL). Very quickly, though, I began to see it as a tool to highlight the things going on in the little slice of heaven called Robinson School. And since the families of my students don’t get to be there with us every day, the blog would (and did!) become a sneak peek into what we were learning–and also how we were learning it. See, more than just the what, I strive to include the thinking behind the why of what we do. I am hoping to share the methods to my madness and help parents (and other interested readers) understand why I make the educational choices I do. I have heard from MANY a parent that these tidbits I share with them are priceless and useful conversation starters with their students. Rather than just asking “What did you do at school today?”, the question can become, “Tell me about….” or “What did you learn when you were…?” For 5th graders who chose not to share, and for 1st graders who sometimes have already forgotten what to share by the time they get home, the benefits are clear.

3) COLLABORATION and CONVERSATION

Aside from desiring to share information with families, I use my blog as a platform to share information and reflection with other teachers. I strive to write in a way that is both interesting and inviting, and in a way that will spark a conversation. It doesn’t always happen, but my hope is that a thoughtful conversation can be started in response to something I write, and that knew knowledge or understanding can be gained by those involved. I am pretty active on Twitter, and have been throughout my blogging journey, as well. Honestly, some of the greatest lessons I have learned as a teacher in the last 3 1/2 years have come through collaboration and conversations that stemmed from a connection made either on Twitter or through comments on this blog. Reading others’ blogs inspires me to try new things or think about something in a new way, and I strive to be that same catalyst for change for others. I am energized by working with and learning from others, and I especially love when I can add something to a conversation that might result in a new or improved learning experience for both a teacher and their students.

4) RELAXATION

Like I mentioned in the post about why I write (in general), writing is fun for me! When I started my writing journey as a teacher in 2005, it was to be able to have a resource with which to teach my student writers (i.e. using my Writer’s Notebook entries as mentor texts during mini-lessons and conferences), and to better understand exactly what the act of writing entails from a learner. What I found out along the way is that I really like it, and it is kind of my go-to stress reliever. Everyone has that one thing they do when they are worried, stressed or uneasy–for me it’s writing. And just like the words I put in my Writers’ Notebook, I enjoy writing the stories I tell here. For some, the idea of spending countless hours outside of school writing about what they did while they are at school seems crazy. I’ve had many teachers tell me they don’t even think they’d be able to find time to do it anyway. For me it’s a necessity, and actually makes the work I do while I’m in my classroom a little better. Well, and ok, I’ll admit that I’ve been called crazy before, so maybe there’s a little bit of that thrown in there, too. 🙂

Thanks to @dwarlick for the inspiration for this post, and for you for reading it! Now I ask you–why do you blog? And hey, if you don’t, why not? I’ve love to hear from you and start a conversation! 🙂

Interactive Writing Explained

**Disclaimer–I am SO excited to share this post and have been thinking about the right way to write it for a LONG time! My kiddos worked SO hard on the writing in this story and are rockstars in my book. THANKS FOR READING!!**

If you have been here for a while then you know that this year is my first year in first grade in a LONG, LONG time! I got my start there more than a decade ago, then moved on to work with “big” kids for a while and am back to my roots. Much has changed, but I’m finding that many things have stayed the same–some things are just good teaching. Best practice. Good stuff for kids. Interactive writing is one of those things. I learned how to do it back then and am being reminded of it’s importance and power with kids today. Let me explain. 🙂

First of all a definition: interactive writing is a writing experience (often whole group) where teacher and students “share the pen” to create meaningful text together. The teacher, using what she knows about students and their current understandings about letters, sounds, words, etc., purposefully chooses kids to add certain parts to the composition, building on their knowledge and helping them make connections to new skills and concepts. This is not done haphazardly, and is best done with planning ahead of time–although I have had some amazing experiences with IW that happens “on the fly.” Ideally, the texts you compose together because touchstones for future learning; revising and revisiting are part of the process. Continue reading →

Robinson Nonfiction Hunt

Our class has been working with nonfiction text in a variety of meaningful ways. Last week we took a walk around Robinson to see how many examples of nonfiction writing we could find. We gathered a list of what we found, and talked about the purposes of these different texts. Besides being really great detectives, I was uber-impressed with how my Rm. 202 friends were able to go on a 20 MINUTE walk through the hallways without bothering anyone’s learning! That is definitely an example of following the Robinson Road Rule of Respecting Others, and only happened because everyone was being gritty. WAY TO GO, 1ST GRADE FRIENDS!

Check out our adventure with some pictures. 🙂

Landen works hard to add to his nonfiction text list on a post it after he finds something in the hallway.

Ella Marie led our super-silent first grade line down the 4th grade hall as we began our hunt.

We stopped at the end of each hallway so that friends could record what they saw.

The 5th grade hallway had a WEALTH of interesting nonfiction text.

Peyton stops to write a note about a diorama he saw in the 5th grade hall.

This nonfiction writing helped us celebrate Veteran’s Day and was found outside the gym. Besides the title, all of those flags have words to patriotic songs on them.

Kindergarten was using nonfiction in a really meaningful way! They lost something important and needed help in finding it. Update: Their flag was found and returned to them! I bet they’re glad they wrote that news flash!

Stay tuned for more ways that we’re working on understanding nonfiction texts as both readers and writers. What an important genre to read, write and dig into as first graders (and way beyond that!).

Teeth #4, 5 and 6–all in one day!!

Here is a news flash we wrote together today:

WHAT AN EXCITING DAY IN RM. 202! THREE TEETH IN ONE DAY!!

Small Moments

We have been moving and grooving in first grade–in more ways than one. We’ve been moving our bodies, but also moving our minds as we are learning about what good writers do.

In our district, and at our school, we use a wealth of knowledge and resources to teach our content. Right now we are utilizing a FABULOUS unit of study from Lucy Calkins, all about personal narratives–which she calls Small Moments.

So far, we’ve set the stage for our Writer’s Workshop, by learning the procedures, as well as important things like where we keep the paper and other supplies in our writing center. We are just a few days in and have already talked about:

how writers remember the story by telling it out loud first, thinking about the beginning, middle and end
how writers remember the story by touching and telling the story across the pages of their booklet, sketching the pictures first, then writing the words
how writers can go back and add in details they forgot the first time, using carats to add words, or just writing more to the end
how writers can tell the difference between a WATERMELON story or the SEEDS inside it (which are the small moments we are focusing on)
how writers stretch out words they don’t know how to spell, and use the words around the room and the word wall to help them
how writers need each other–writers worked with a partner to add details by answering questions their partners were wondering about (like who, when, where, why, etc..)

It’s been really amazing to see the progress both in writers’ ability and their willingness to try new things in just the short days we’ve been working together.

Evan, Millie and Ava are hard at work on their writing. Don’t forget your name and number on the top! We’re working on learning the date, too. 🙂

Charlie’s getting started by sketching his picture first, then adding the words to the beginning of his story.

Check out how Landen’s being a super-smart first grade writer and using the alphabet chart to figure out the sounds in his words!

C.J. uses the alphabet chart, too, as he adds words to his pictures. Jacob is hard at work getting his ideas down, too!

See Thomas using his rubber band to stretch out a word? Peyton checks out the chart, and Lauren is busy working on a story about a princess. 🙂

During our Writer’s Workshop, writers can work wherever they think they can do their best work. Ella Marie found a studio spot all by herself at the kitchen table.

Makayla and Briannia are working on their Small Moments at Table 3.

Millie shows off her word wall skills as she writes Joshua’s name. There are rings with the word wall words that hang under the regular words that kiddos can take to their tables.

We have an anchor chart to help us remember the steps to writing a story. We have been adding steps to it along the way.

Our writing folders help keep us organized: the green means it’s a story that we’re still working on and the red is for stories we’re finished with for now. The file folder in there will come later, but will be for the project kiddos are working on right now.

Becoming a Writer: It Starts Here!

It’s no secret that I LOVE writing. Besides just doing it, I read about it, talk about it and LOVE teaching it. I am sure you’ve read those posts here, and if you haven’t, why you take a minute and do so? It’ll be worth your while, I promise! (In addition to the posts I linked, you could check out the writing tab or category for more about what writing looks like in my classroom).

So it’s also no secret that I was a little sad about leaving what “big kid” writers do. When I first learned about my move back to primary, I lamented the lessons I wouldn’t teach about using the Writer’s Notebook, conversations I wouldn’t have and craft lessons that I wouldn’t be able to include in my Writer’s Workshop; first grade writing is more about becoming a writer than being a writer. In short, I felt like I was leaving a little bit of myself in 5th grade–a part of me that I would really miss.

And yet, the more days I spend with my little writers the more I’m remembering the joy of teaching beginning writers. The wonder and amazement that they come to my lessons with is priceless. The smiles on their faces as they share stories of learning to ride a bike, tackle a scary roller coaster or ride to school and wave to someone out the window of the bus. As we are learning strategies that real writers use in their work, I can see them file those in their toolboxes to pull out later in their writing. I am already seeing progress in the way friends are adding details to their pictures, adding sounds to their words and ideas to their writing.

The most exciting part of being on this end of a student’s writing journey is the influence I have in helping them learn to see themselves as writers–and maybe even like it! There were times that 5th grade writing was frustrating because there was such a hurdle to cross in getting them to believe they could do it. Unfortunately, back then my friends had 5 years of believing the WEREN’T writers or that they HATED writing to try to overcome in the short amount of time of time we had together. Now, I get to help these little friends start to see the power in their words and encourage them to do great things with them–for today and for years to come!

And so yeah…I’m kinda pumped about it. 🙂

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Category Archives: Writing