As I mentioned in my post, we’ve got guest authors on the blog this weekend! Here’s a post by Evan and Joshua. I know they’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on their work! 🙂
Guest Authors: Ella Marie and Sara–History Projects!
As I mentioned in my post, we’ve got guest authors on the blog this weekend! Here’s a post by Ella Marie and Sara. I know they’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on their work! 🙂
Rm. 202 Kids Take Over!
Ok, so let me start like this: I always have a plan. I know the things we need to work on, the way I want us to do that (and probably the ways I don’t!), and it’s “penciled in” for everyday. But the great part about that plan is that it is flexible. There is ALWAYS another option if we (the kids or me!) see that we need to go another way. A better way, perhaps. This is just what happened on Friday. I can’t WAIT to tell you about it. 🙂 Friday morning’s recess was great–it was the first time in WEEKS that the temperature had gotten over freezing–and we took full advantage of the sunny playground. I won’t tell you the whole story here, but in short, Millie and Makayla found a collection of things while we were outside that I thought was “blog-worthy” enough to tell you all about. “But why should I tell their story?” I thought to myself, and at that moment decided they could be guest authors on our blog (and that that would become our plan when we came inside from recess). “But shouldn’t everyone have a chance to do that?” I thought next. That’s when the light-bulb moment happened. As soon as we got in from recess we sat down to do something we’ve done many times before: create our chart that we’d use for our Class Meeting later in the day. What they didn’t know (until I told them next), was that we’d be doing something else very cool with it BEFORE our actual class meeting. Here’s what the list looked like after we brainstormed a bit: 
Once I explained the idea, it wasn’t long before kiddos had paired up and chosen their topics. But we weren’t ready yet. The next conversation was about how writing on my blog would be different than writing on their Kid Blogs. The first difference was audience. They figured out that rather than kids being the main readers, parents, principals (including our own beloved Mrs. Sisul!), teachers, authors, librarians and other adults (many that we don’t even know!) are the main readers of this blog. We discussed how that would mean we’d need to “up” our game to make the posts ready for 20somethingkids. Kylie was quick to add in that when I blog I use lots of pictures, and that my posts usually tell the “why” of the story–so that teachers can use our ideas with their own students. We agreed that we should probably use that same kind of thinking in our guest posts. At this point I just had to sit back and appreciate the amazingness of Rm. 202 kiddos. I smile when I listen to their wheels turn and their ideas flow; when I get out of the way, they make some pretty fabulous things happen on their own! Ok, so after our purpose and audience was set, and we had decided on our platform (which would be Notability since they all knew how to use it and I could easily copy it into WordPress), I set them loose. And left them alone. And watched them dig in and work hard and “buzz” with that sound that happens when kids are engaged and learning. They had a real purpose, a global audience of real people to write for, and lots of great learning from the week to share about. I got out of the way and let them be amazing.
Ella Marie and Sara discuss what they will tell blog readers about our history projects from this week.
Emily and Jacob draft their post about our class picture from earlier in the day.
Kylie and Lauren chose to write about the races kids have starting running at our morning recess.
Makayla and Millie (who’s work at recess sparked the whole idea in the first place!) write about a really cool collection of “B” things they found outside on the playground.
Peyton, C.J. and Thomas work hard to explain how we use writing journals in our room every day. They are EXPERTS at putting great ideas in their journals and were perfect for this topic. 🙂
Evan and Joshua chose to tell blog readers about PE and why they like it.
Ava and Amelia wrote about how we use Dreambox to learn as mathematicians every day!
Landen and Nate knew right away they wanted to explain our math warm-ups!
Charlie and Diego worked to tell about our current chapter book The One and Only Ivan (we are LOVING it, by the way!).
I am SO excited to share their work with you! Rm. 202 kiddos–I’m SO PROUD OF YOU!!! 🙂
Awesomesauce!
Just a picture of a Rm. 202 friend and our fabulous principal!
How cute are they? Ava and Mrs. Sisul with matching feathers earrings! Started our Thursday out with a smile, for sure! 🙂
Jokes of the Day–Week of March 2-6, 2015
This week had some really funny ones–and two that were submitted by kiddos (I think this is becoming a trend 🙂 )! Be prepared to giggle. 🙂
Monday
What do you call a lazy baby kangaroo?
A pouch potato!
(courtesy of Ellentv.com)
Tuesday
Why don’t elephants need suitcases?
Because they already have trunks!
(courtesy of Ellentv.com)
Wednesday
(another kangaroo joke!)
Why do kangaroo moms hate it when it rains?
Because their joeys have to play inside.
(courtesy of Ellentv.com)
Thursday
Today’s joke came from Ava, and I’ll warn you–it’s a yucky one!! 🙂
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Sniff mipe.
Sniff mipe who?
What? Gross!
Friday
Kylie gave us this one:
Have you heard the one about the frog who broke his leg?
He was very un-hoppy!
hee hee
First Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of March 2-6, 2015
This week there are 4 warm-ups; we had a special parent visit on Friday morning and so didn’t get to one that day. We’re still working on addition/subtraction and using efficient strategies.
Monday
The hope with the numbers in this problem was that kiddos would recognize the most efficient strategy was to use compensation (and so make the easier problem of 30+61 that they could answer in their heads), but any strategy was fine as long as they could pick one and explain it.
Tuesday
The other day, we discussed all the strategies we know how to use and tried them on the same problem. We also talked about what we could call them so that everyone knows what we’re talking about (this was in response to a question I asked last week with our warm-ups). So I decided that we’d try a specific strategy on a series of problems this week (but it should be noted that, as with the last problem, compensation is the BEST strategy for the numbers as you can create 81+20 and quickly answer using mental math).
Wednesday
Besides talking about how to accurately use the strategy, we had a discussion about the difference between how you solve the problem (the strategy) and how you SHOW how you solved it (the model–in this case an open number line).
Thursday
The thinking behind this problem is helping kiddos connect strategies they know for ADDITION with SUBTRACTION. Many first graders need to be explicitly shown that what works for one works for the other. Practicing using these known strategies can help stretch some past the draw-all-then-mark-off or counting backwards strategies.
These warm-ups got kiddos’ brains really moving this week! Hope they work well for yours, too! Please leave a note and tell us about how you’re using them in your classroom, or how you’re sharing them with others. 🙂
Mystery Skype–INSIDE of Robinson?
On of my favorite finds in recent years is Mystery Skype. I’ve tried it with several classes in several states, and even did a Mystery Skype with my friend Ms. Turken while she was teaching overseas in Ecuador!
As I have written about previously this year, there are many things I have brought from 5th grade with me that I’ve been excited to try with my firsties, and Mystery Skype is one I finally pulled out of the bag this week (mainly because of an invitation from a friend on Twitter to schedule one soon!).
The idea of Mystery Skype is really simple (try to figure out where the other class is located by asking yes/no questions), but it can take some time and practice to get good at it. I knew I needed to practice with my kiddos before our first “real” MS, so I called on my friend Ms. Turken for help again. She was totally game.
I asked her to help us by letting us Skype with her class, and at first I was just going to work out the kinks of having kids come up to the camera, making sure we talked loud enough, etc. Then I thought it could be cool to try to actually do a Mystery Skype…INSIDE of our school! So I asked Ms. Turken to take her kids to a secret place in our building and we would try to figure out where they were located by asking good questions!
Before they called us, we spent some time working out the logistics of how you would even begin to narrow down someone’s location in this big, wide world of ours. Using Google Maps and a map of our school, we had some up-front teaching about continents, countries, states, cities and how to narrow down a location by eliminating the possibilities. We talked about directions and how just asking north, south, east, west can cut out a HUGE part of the world that they are considering. We also talked about landmarks (both natural and man-made), and how these can be helpful in determining a location, as well. When we looked at our Robinson maps, we connected these ideas to the floor our friends might be on, as well as our school “landmarks” they might be near, like the gym, cafeteria, library, elevator or bathrooms. They caught on really quickly, and were excited to get started!
Our friends called us and kiddos got busy! Rm. 202 kids were paired up with a friend, and they worked together to study the map, consider the clues they got from our friends’ answers, and then decide on our next question. Pairs took turns coming up to the computer to ask their question and get the answer.
Our questions went like this:
1. Are you in the basement?–NO
2. Are you on the first floor?–NO
3. Are you on the 2nd floor?–YES (at this point they all knew they could just focus on the sheet that had the 2nd floor on it!)
4. Are you in the NORTH part of the building?–NO (this is the end where we are)
5. Are you in the EAST part of the building?–YES (this part had 5 classrooms in it, so again we narrowed our focus!)
6. Are you near MRS. FRY’S CLASSROOM?–YES
7. Are you in MRS. HONG’S CLASSROOM?–NO (she is next door to Mrs. Fry)
8. Are you in MRS. FRY’S CLASSROOM?–YES!!! YAY!! WE FOUND THEM!!
After a bit of cheering and a few high-fives, we debriefed on how the experience went, as well as what we’d do for the “real” Mystery Skype session in a few weeks. We used the protocol of “plusses” (things we’d do again) and “deltas” (things we’d change). I’d say they had some pretty great insights!
I especially thought the one “watch their actions” was a good idea. It came because of the question we asked about our friends being “near Mrs. Fry’s room.” Millie noticed that Ms. Turkens’ friends were snickering and covering their mouths when they answered, which told her that they were probably IN her room. We agreed that often watching how someone reacts can give clues.
I was beyond impressed with how well both classes of firsties did, and am continually amazed at how well “little” kids do with “big” kid things like blogging, Twitter and Mystery Skype. I’d say it’s proof that you should never underestimate someone because of their size! WAY TO GO, RM. 202 KIDDOS!
I Hope MY Teeth Don’t Fall Out!
I am pretty sure that we are up to tooth #16 lost in Rm. 202! And yes, I’m starting to get worried that MY teeth will start falling out! This week has been especially fruitful in the tooth-loosing venue, and yesterday was no different. C.J. lost one during Read Aloud and so got to join the Lost Tooth Club in the Nurse’s office!
And you know, I’m expecting to hear about another one from the weekend–Amelia was working really hard on a loose one today (big bites in her apple at lunch!). CRAZY stuff in first grade these days! I’d forgotten how exciting being 7YO is!!
First Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of February 23-28, 2015
More addition this week, friends! We’re still working on choosing efficient strategies (which actually makes me think of a blog post I need to write about the strategies we’re focusing on!–stay tuned!), so these will look similar to warm-ups we’ve had lately.
Monday
The benchmark for subtraction this quarter is the same as last (within 20), only we’re hoping for kiddos to have some more solid strategies for how to do that subtraction effectively and efficiently. Using strategies they already have been using for adding (like counting on by 10s or splitting 10s and 1s) can be helpful as they work more on subtracting. Helping kiddos see the connection between addition and subtraction is also a goal here. 
Tuesday
Wednesday
One strategy some kiddos have been working on is compensation (in short, it’s moving numbers around to make an easier problem that can be done with very few steps or even in your head). Even though some kiddos aren’t yet “there” as far as using it independently or correctly, it’s good for all to see/hear the possibilities for putting numbers together.
Friday
We have been working with “bare” problems for a bit now, and I wanted to throw another story at them. I know, this one’s easy. 🙂
Ok, friends, as I finish up, I have a math question that my team and some others have been chewing on this week: is it important that kiddos know the names of the strategies they are using, or just that they understand how those strategies work? And if the strategies are to be named, does it matter if all kiddos (like in a grade level, for instance) use the same names? I’d love to hear your thoughts! 🙂
Jokes of the Day–Week of February 23-27, 2015
Lots of funny ones this week–and a couple that were submitted by kids! Hope they get your weekend started out on a happy note. 🙂
Monday
Why was the broom always late?
He over-swept!
(joke courtesy of Ellentv.com)
Tuesday
What do you get when you cross a cocker spaniel, a poodle and a ghost?
A cocker-poodle-boo!
(joke courtesy of Ellentv.com)
Wednesday
This joke was courtesy of Ellen, but in honor of my friend C.J. who I KNEW would laugh at it! He did, and so did many other friends, including my 7YO. Gotta love it when I can make those kiddos snicker–they’re hard nuts to crack!
Why shouldn’t you shower with a Pokemon around?
They might Pikachu. 🙂
Thursday
Peyton submitted this one, and when he told it to us, he even used an accent! Great delivery, kiddo!
What did one cowboy say to the other cowboy?
Is your refrigerator running?
Yeah.
Well you better go catch it!
Friday
Lauren got in on the action today:
What did one duck say to the other duck?
We better get “quackin’!”
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that we start our days around here with a giggle. Sets the tone for a great time together. 🙂
20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher 