This week we went to visit Mrs. Berger on Thursday instead of Friday. And this week our Kingore lesson was on pentominoes!!
In case you’ve never heard of them, pentominoes look like this:
Mrs. Berger explained about the pentominoes, and then about our job: use the pieces that are shown and fit them into the outline on each page. This was a tricky deal, and they got harder on each page. We had to use our grit (which smells like cookies, remember??) and try, try again if it didn’t work the first time. We had to turn and rotate our pentominoes so they fit, and often it wasn’t the way we first thought they’d go. We had to use our positive self-talk to remind ourselves that we could do it, and I thnk at one point I even heard someone growl. Ok, well, she said “grrr!” which is maybe what her grit sounds like! LOL
After we finished (which was after about 15 minutes), kiddos got to do whatever they wanted with their pentominoes for a little while. Man, where they creative! Many noticed that two pieces seemed to stick together and they looked like a microphone. This was a big hit.
Then I saw lots of animals, people and just creative shapes emerge.
What fun and challenge we had with Mrs. Berger today! We never cease to stretch our brains when we work with her!
I feel like I owe you an update. I am pretty sure I haven’t share the amazing things happening in our class since Fix-It-Up Friday when we first got serious about our norms and expectations.
Remember this web of mistakes?
Well we did some work and started creating some “We will…” statements that we are committed to living by. The rough drafts started like this:
Over the last few weeks we’ve tried them out and been using them in our conversations. I believe we’ve gotten to our final draft and the norms ended up looking like this:
Don’t they kind of look like super hero words? Like POW! BANG! SPLAT! I’m trying to decide if we should have kiddos illustrate them before we hang them…what do you think? Just not sure if will help or just hinder the message. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the yellow parts as they highlight the important parts of each statement.
Ok, and so what does the title of this post mean–Day 33: Ahhh!?? Well every day we keep track of how many days of school we’ve had, connecting to place value and counting. We add a sticker to a ten-frame that goes on a place value chart and we also write the number of the day.
Ok, so I know–not rocket science and not super exciting, but it was here–on Day 33 (which was last Friday)–that I felt like we’d turned a corner. It was the first day pretty much all year that I felt like we could finally breathe and just say “ahh!!!” Things seem like they are settling down, we are settling in and are becoming a family. We’re working together and we’re finally looking (and more importantly sounding) like a community. It’s pretty great.
BUT I must say it hasn’t come without LOTS of work. We have put in probably at least an hour or more each day teaching, reteaching and practicing what first grade learners look like and sound like. We’ve been learning and using the Robinson Mindset, as well as helping solidify the ideas of our class norms.
One of the most helpful things for us right now has been very concrete, visual versions of the expectations we’ve created together. They hang along the top of our windows, and remind us of what each part of our day LOOKS LIKE and SOUNDS LIKE. We often stop during the middle of a subject or activity and do a reflection on whether this is truly what someone (including us!) would see in the room at that moment. If not, no big deal, the invitation is to FIX IT! Find a way to make things look and sound the right way! We’re right in the middle of our SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES chart, and even have plans for one that demonstrates the line/hallway as well as other places around school.
One more way I know we’re “there?” Kiddos have started using the words we’re practicing! The other day when a friend was interrupting on the rug, Xenia turned to her and kindly said, “We will take turns.” When a friend was not quite with us in a conversation, Ciyah reminded them that “We will listen and follow directions.” What?? This is happening on a regular basis now, as well as friends kindly reminding their friends of what they should be doing instead of whatever undesirable behavior they are engaged in (because “We will remind our friends.”). I am loving how calm things feel and how much more we’re laughing and enjoying each other. The last few days we’ve noted how tired we are at the end of the day–but it’s that good “we’re-pooped-because-we’ve-done-so-many-amazing-learning-things” kind of tried, not the “man-we’re-tired-and-cranky-because-no-one-listened-all-day” kind of tired. Jack suggested that our days have flown by, too, because we’ve been so busy! I don’t know about you but this make my HEART HAPPY!!
Cannot wait to see what the remaining 140something days have in store for us as we have set such a strong foundation for our year! The sky’s the limit in Rm. 202!! Please be sure to come along for the journey. It’s bound to be exciting!!
I was so excited to get my kiddo started on some “techy” type things and so today was a great day–we did our first MYSTERY NUMBER SKYPE! What’s a Mystery Skype you ask? What’s a Mystery Number Skype? (Check those out so you can get the big idea–believe me, they are one of the coolest things we do in Rm. 202!
Well today was the day! I hadn’t really made a big deal about it, which was fine because they didn’t know what it was anyway, but boy did they pick it up quickly! I explained the general idea (we have a number and the other class has a number and we use a 20-Question type game to figure out each others’ numbers), and then we practiced with the number 18. We talked about words we might use (like greater than/less than, tens place/ones place), and ways we could cross off the most numbers at once (we kept track together on a hundreds chart) and then matched up with a partner to plan for what we would ask.
At 9:30 we were ready, and our Skype phone rang!
We answered and got right to work. Our first point of business (after we said hello, of course!) was to figure out who would ask the first question. We did so with rock/paper/scissors!
We won (rock over scissors!) and asked the first question. Eventually we will have jobs for each kiddo, and will keep track of our questions for future reference, but for now we were lucky to have Mrs. Sisul tweet for us! Here’s an example (and you can check out the rest of the session on our class feed at @jbeardensclass) of what happened!
Rm. 202 kiddos did such a great job and were SUPER excited when in just about 5 or 6 questions we got to the point where we could guess their mystery number!
What a great start to our Mystery Skyping journey! We are ready to go and excited for our next call! Who’s in? If you’re interested, please leave us a comment so we can get in touch with you!
What? You didn’t know that? Well it does when you’re talking about Rm. 2o2 kiddos!! And we know so because we’ve been using TONS of it while we work with Mrs. Berger on Fridays.
This week’s visit was about patterns. We met together on the circle rug to try some out together first. We learned about repeating patterns and growing patterns.
Then we got our spots, our personal office and got BUSY! This was definitely something that was UP OUR ALLEYS and you could tell by the sound (it was silent!) and the smell (it smelled like cookies!–remember, that’s our grit!?).
Today was a half-day at our school (because of teacher professional development in the afternoon), and so first grade took advantage of an awkward schedule to have an outdoor adventure! We have been outside with Rm. 202 friends before, but today were had ALL OF FIRST GRADE outside in the Robinson Naturescape learning and exploring together!
The teachers planned a STEM day focused on our current PLTW unit on Light and Sound, adding in the component of the AMAZING outdoor spaces we have in the back of our school. We took out a tub with a variety of tools, like binoculars, magnifying glasses, color tiles, flashlights, mirrors and spectroscopes. Kiddos had the job of exploring outside and discovering something new about light. Eventually we will have to represent that learning (using iPads, drawing or building tools), but for now we were just out and about and having fun with wondering!!
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As you watch the slideshow with your kiddo (if you’re a parent!), ask them these things:
What was your favorite part of being outside today?
What was your favorite tool to use as a scientist? How did you use it?
What did you find outside while you were exploring?
What did you learn about light?
What do you still wonder?
We came in and as a quick way to debrief, I had kiddos share what they were thinking about after their adventure. While you can tell that they were thinking of many things other than light (like dead animals–we found a DEAD RACCOON back there today!!), it was obvious that kiddos were thinking and having fun, and that they LOVE BEING OUTSIDE! I think at least half of my kiddos asked me when we’re going out again. 🙂 I’m excited to see how we can use this chart of great ideas in other parts of our learning soon, like for reading and writing ideas, topics for math and even further thingsto study for STEM or Genius Hour (which we’ll get to later on this year!).
We are super lucky to have loads of new resources for science this year from Project Lead the Way, courtesy of a grant from the Kirkwood School District Foundation. It means we are able to add in so much more hands-on learning, and focus more deeply on engineering, design and coding in STEM this year, which is GREAT!!
Our first STEM unit this year is light and sound and we have been doing some really fun things already.
Before we even got into the unit, we did some things to expose kiddos to the big ideas, and to get them interested. One of those was to invite a Kirkwood Scientist, Mr. Bartin, to our classroom. Ok, well really Ms. Turken invited him to Rm. 203 and we tagged along, but he was here to share some interesting ideas about sounds with first grade.
Then we had some time to explore in non-fiction books from the library that we explored with a partner. Kiddos were responsible to read a light book and a sound book (or one that had both topics together) and then create a representation of something they learned or something that was important from their reading out of play-doh (and somehow I don’t any pictures of their creations! Boo. Believe me–they were great. 🙂 ).
Then once the unit started, it was with a story to help set the stage. This one is about three friends who have a problem: they get lost in the woods while on a walk with their class. 😦
As we work through the rest of the unit, we will learn and explore with light and sound and eventually be presented with a design challenge much like our friends in the story.
We began with some exploring with some everyday objects (that someone might have in their backpack on a hike!):
We are keeping track of our learning in a Launch Log and will be able to go back and review it throughout the unit. We’ve just begun light explorations and will even spend the whole morning tomorrow outside as scientists with common objects like flashlights, magnifying glasses, and more! Can’t wait to share what we learn!
I hope that you have already enjoyed the story of our Dot Day 2016 celebration, but if not, you might want to check that out first, and then you will have an even better idea of how we got here. This is an update–one thing I forgot to share (what??) and our amazing paintings that weren’t ready to share yet. Believe me, these MARKS are amazing!
First our favorite parts of Dot Day (not surprisingly, it was the DOTS for most kiddos!)
Now the BEST part. 🙂 We made dots and watched them splatter…and we wrote about them, too!
Wow–I feel like every week I say “I can’t believe it’s been this long already!” but again, I say I can’t believe it’s been SIX WEEKS of the bookaday challenge. But even more, I can’t believe we’re already at 124 books!! I love that some said today, “I wonder if we’ll get to 1000 soon!” Ok, so maybe it means I need to do some more place value work, but I also think it speaks to the love of reading and books that is growing in Rm. 202. And I love it!
Beyond just sharing the “door picture” like I’ve been doing every week, I want to highlight a little about what has happened with some of the books we read this week, as well as some wonderings that have come up this week as we’ve been reading.
First our latest picture:
I feel like I say this every week now, too, but looking at this just makes me happy!
We started the week reading a book recommended by Mrs. Sisul when she was in our room last time–Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers. We’re already fans of Stuck and Lost and Found, and had wanted to try some others (I have a couple of others in the TBR basket right now actually!). We were supposed to take a vote after we read it and let Mrs. Sisul know if she should share that one with the rest of Robinson, too, and we voted YES!
A quick favorite this week was Are We There, Yeti? by Ashton Anstee, which we actually learned about because of our love of all things Emily Arrow. Oh, come on, you know her–the Dot Day song lady. Well…since we’re subscribed to her YouTube Channel, we know there are loads of other great book/song combinations she’s created, and this was one of them. I’m posting the song below, but beware, it’s very catchy!! I’m planning on using the lyrics to this song as our shared reading text next week, which I think will be really cool.
We added two more Elephant and Piggie books this week (how you can not LOVE those?): I Will Fly Today and Can I Play Too? Both were great, but we laughed especially loud at the joke in CIPT: the friend who wants to play is a snake, and Elephant and Piggie are trying to play ball. Lots of craziness ensues, but the end is a happy one where the snake thanks them for playing “with” their friend. Yep–they throw him! We definitely LOL’d when we saw that one. 🙂 And speaking of Elephant and Piggie (thanks Mo Willems for writing these amazing little gems!), we ended the week with a box from Amazon that had two new books in it!! Thanks Raebers! We’re excited to read I Love New Toy on Monday. 🙂
Kaiden brought in a big pile of books from home this week (I love that kids are starting to do that regularly and share their favorite titles with the rest of us!), and we shared two of them so far: Zoo Looking by Mem Fox and Please, Mr. Panda by Steve Antony.
We have a Mem Fox author box in our library, so Kaiden thought this would be a good one to read to introduce our class to her writing. He brought Please, Mr. Panda because we’ve been working so hard on using kind words and being respectful. That one hdd a great lesson about how it feels when people are rude to you as opposed to how it feels when others use manners. We liked them both and learned form them, too!
I found a great one–The Best Book to Read–at the library on my last visit and was excited to finally share it with my kiddos on Thursday. We had a great conversation about what the “best” book to read would be, and how that means something different to everyone. Mara suggested that every book is the best book to read. She ended up being right! This book also started some great conversations about libraries, and what special places they are, as well as an important discussion about library cards and what amazing treasures those can be! It started a plan for a walking field trip soon! We are so excited!
Lastly, Mrs. Sisul came back again (isn’t it amazing that our principal reads to us!?) to read Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev.
It was on her list during the first rotation of Principal Read Alouds, but I had her save it for a later time. Her visit today was purposely tied to our conversations lately about including everyone, being kind to others, and the fact that I had found an Emily Arrow song about it! Perfect, right?? I know, eventually I might stop gushing about her amazingness, but for now I’ll just share another song. 🙂
For the last few years, I’ve started the year with creating beautiful things to hang in our room. It’s so great to watch as our bare walls fill up with amazing creativity that spills out of our first grade minds!
This project is both fun and meaningful as it’s based on helping kiddos see that while we are all different that’s an amazing thing, and that within those differences we can celebrate ways we are also the same.
As with many things, we started our conversation with books. We read Shades of Black by Sandra Pinkney and Happy in Our Skin by Fran Manushkin together.
We talked about how each of us looks different, has different talents to share and brings many different things to our classroom community. Also, we have many things that are the same because we’re all kids. We all want to be loved, to belong, to contribute, to learn.
We wanted to create beautiful images of our unique and different selves to hang on the wall, and we did so with lots of different creative things in our room. We also borrowed a mirror from our friends in Ms. Turken’s room so we could see some of the close-up details of our faces.
Now they hang along the top of our wall and we can see them smiling on us every day! We are definitely learning to celebrate the beautiful skin we live in, and appreciate how different we all are!
I am pretty sure we have the best school ever, with teachers and community members who plan THE BEST things for our kiddos to do. Case in point–last week we participated in a Bike Rodeo during our PE classes, where everybody brought their bikes to school (or shared if they didn’t have one!) and got to ride around the blacktop! There was an obstacle course, and I heard that kids had a GREAT time going down the big hill on the driveway. There were LOADS of kids who learned to ride without their training wheels, too! Officer Stemmler (our School Resource Officer), Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Moffitt were such troopers as they braved the sun and heat and helped our Roadrunner ride and ride and ride! Thanks to all the parents to helped make it happen, too!
I wish I had pictures of the actual bike riding to share, but these will have to do. Just imagine kids zooming around really fast (see, there’d be blurry pictures anyway) with giant smiles on their faces!
Don’t they kind of look like super hero words? Like POW! BANG! SPLAT! I’m trying to decide if we should have kiddos illustrate them before we hang them…what do you think? Just not sure if will help or just hinder the message. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the yellow parts as they highlight the important parts of each statement.
What a great day we had! 🙂
I feel like I say this every week now, too, but looking at this just makes me happy!
20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher 