#edcampstl (2015)

This past Saturday I attended my 4th EdCamp. It was, as expected, a great day of personalized, “me-led” learning. I’ve written about EdCamp before, and this year was a similar experience. The highlight for me this time around was getting to see the Makerspace that is present (and very well used!) in Grand Center Arts Academy. At past Edcamps (last year even, I think), I learned more about how a Makerspace can be a great place for kids to problem-solve, challenge themselves and work on design thinking. I have even tried it a little bit in my own classroom. I took lots of pictures of the way GCAA used their space, as well as of the signage they have around their room. Boring, I know, but this is a way for me to document their learning so that I can find a way to do the same in Rm. 202 (or maybe even some other place in Robinson School!).

Such a great idea–makerspaces and design spaces have domain-specific words that kids need to know.

Ideas for design challenges

This speaks EXACTLY to what’s going on at Robinson these days!

This is a bad pic, but was supposed to capture the size of the room–it’s huge!

Love this!

I can TOTALLY make this happen–lots of tubs of junk and recyclables to build and create with.

I wish there was a way to explain EdCamp in writing. I am sure there probably is, but for me the best way for you to learn about it is to see for yourself. The day is what you make of it: the sessions you present, the sessions you participate in, the people you talk to, the connections you make. And if you’re lucky like me, you can do it all with people you love:

Smile! This is my amazing brother, Chuck Baker, who is a math teacher extraordinaire and now helps plan EdCampSTL, and my awesome hubby, Grant, who teaches 5th grade and encourages me to do new things with kids. EdCamp is great, but it’s even better with friends!

Happy Valentines’ Day!

This special day brought another special reason to celebrate in Rm. 202! Thanks to Ms. Ross (Millie’s mom) for coordinating and for the others who came to help us have so much fun! We even got to meet Evan’s grandparents! Check out some pictures from our party!

Looks like fun, huh?

I saved a couple more to highlight on their own….

Ms. Ross came prepared with some Valentine stories to share at the end while we were waiting for dismissal. Amelia Bedelia is a great choice for Valentines’ Day!

Ok, technically these pics have nothing to do with Rm. 202, but they were cute and fun to share. Plus I kinda like the kid in the Heartbreaker shirt….

Photo of the Day: Another Lost Tooth!

He didn’t lose this one at school, but it is gone nonetheless! Evan worked long and hard to get this one to come out. What did the tooth fairy bring you, buddy?

JAM World Record 2015

Remember the other day when I told you about Global School Play Day? It was SO great and I’m so glad we participated. Well, a few days later, I saw another tweet (I think someone actually sent it to me knowing I’d be game!) about the JAM World Record. And yep, I was indeed game. We love to move and groove, and who doesn’t want to break a world record with a million-and-a-half of their closest friends? 🙂 We joined in today and it was such a great time!

We voted and decided to follow the routine they provided on the website, rather than go to our beloved GoNoodle for movement. The routine was kind of hard, but we were gritty and moved, moved, moved for our participation in the world record.

Yay! Rm. 202 is moving and shaking through 2015! Did you participate? We’d love to hear about your JAM day!

Jokes of the Day–Week of February 9-13, 2015

Ok, so this may not end up being a weekly thing like math warm-ups, and it might not be anything that people even want to read, but for those that do–here you go! Last week I FINALLY got to participate in #1stchat on Twitter. I have wanted to “attend” all year, but the timing had proven to be a really hard one for me to be at my computer (it’s 7 CT on Sunday nights–bedtime!!). For whatever reason, it worked out for me and boy was I SUPER excited to have been able to learn and grow with my #1stchat friends! The topics were many, but one theme that came up was Morning Meeting and how we use this tool to set the stage for a positive learning day. One thing I shared was the in our class we do a joke of the day. It is just a part of the morning welcome screen I have up on the ActivBoard when my firsties come in, and has easily become part of the routine.

(the punchline is under that rectangle and so I just move it when we’re ready to see the answer!)

I started this earlier this fall after reading much about how important laughter and joy are in the classroom. I was working on my school improvement project to complete my Masters’ program; the theme was encouraging grit, perseverance and engagement in the classroom. We’ve found that starting with a good laugh (and then continuing that on throughout the day) is good medicine for all! So…since many seemed interested in the idea, I figured I’d share what we’re doing in Rm. 202, hoping it would help someone else! Whether you start this in your classroom–or your house, for that matter!–or not, I appreciate your reading my journey. 🙂

Before I even start, I feel like I should say that most of these jokes are not new, nor or they necessarily funny (I teach 1st graders, remember–their humor is different than most!). I get most of my jokes from jokesbykids.com, which is a huge database of kid-friendly riddles, knock-knock jokes and other funny things, but also so from my own kids (who are 4 and 7), or from books we’re reading (and since I started writing this post, I’ve gotten a tip to try out Ellen’s classic jokes–thanks for the recommendation, @amerced!). I am not, nor will I ever be, funny enough to write any of my own. I’ll leave that job to someone more qualified than I!

Monday

What does a teddy bear eat?

Nothing! It’s already stuffed!

(this one is courtesy of my daughter, Allison–she learned it at school and thinks it’s SUPER funny!!)

Tuesday

What goes up when the rain comes down?

Umbrellas!

(I have seen this one on jokesbykids, but also from Allie’s school. Just for the record, my friends DID NOT think this was funny! Their answers were much better, like FLOODS and RAINBOWS! So, buyer beware–might not be 1st grade worthy material. LOL)

Wednesday

What’s brown, hairy and wears sunglasses?

A coconut on vacation!

(had to try out the Ellen tip–that’s a pretty good one for kids, I’d say! Well, except that half of them said, “That’s not funny…” Tough crowd. We had a conversation about opinions and how jokes are subjective.)

Thursday

What’s a frog’s favorite soda?

Croak-a-Cola!

(ok…so I had to explain this one, too! Man, I guess I need to get better at my joke choices.)

Do you have a funny joke to share with my students? Perhaps if I used more that were FROM kids, the kids in Rm. 202 would think there were funnier (because apparently the adults who write jokes have no senses of humor)….I’ll keep trying either way. 🙂

We were out of school for a PD day on Friday, so this week there were only 4 jokes. I’m really loving the ones from Ellen. There are about 250 of them on there, so it looks like I have at least 2 school years’ worth to work through! Happy joke telling! 🙂

Global School Play Day 2015

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a tweet about Global School Play Day. Being one who truly believes in play as an important learning tool for kids (and adults!), and being one who likes to jump in with both feet when I see something that looks like fun (like I did with World Read Aloud Day, for instance), I knew that this was something I wanted to try. And honestly, we have choice time and recess every day anyway, so it wasn’t that far out of our norm.

Before the special day, I told kids to bring something they could play with during our time, but the rules were it couldn’t be electronic or have batteries. There were a couple of “whys?” but really it wasn’t any big deal to them. I wish I had taken a picture of all of their toys in the bucket when they brought them in, but what I thought was funny was that most everyone brought something stuffed–My Little Ponies, dogs, cats, and all other sorts of animals. There were some cars, a couple of American Girls and 2 Barbies who attended our GSPD as well. 🙂

We reserved the afternoon for our official time, as we had some exciting and necessary work to do in the morning with our current studies in reading and math. Before we got started with our fun, we had a little chat about why we were even doing it. They had great ideas, like for them to learn to take care of their things, as well as how to solve problems and how to play together. All were right, and I had some additional ideas of my own:

1. Negotiation: By participating in free play, children get to learn how and practice what it is like to initiate play with someone else, as well as negotiate with that playmate about what to do, where to do it and how to do it. They get to learn give-and-take, as well as how to work with others in a positive way (because unfortunately, if you choose NOT to do it positively, your friend may not want to play with you anymore!).

2. Problem Solving: Much like negotiation with friends, kiddos learn and practice problem solving in many ways when they play. From what to do when the Legos don’t go together they way you want or you don’t have enough big blocks to build your castle, or even where to put the pieces of the puzzle you’re working on, problem solving is a crucial part of play. Even choosing what to play at any given moment is a kind of problem solving in itself. Letting kids figure these things out for themselves helps build and encourage grit and perseverance.

3. Winning (and losing!) Graciously: Child-directed play (including playing games) allows kiddos to learn how to win–and also to lose–graciously. We all know an adult who didn’t get the chance to learn this when they were younger, and now has such a hard time knowing what to do when things don’t go their way. That same adult might have a really hard time not being overly proud or boastful when things do. Allowing (or even planning for) situations where students DON’T win are crucial! Life is not fair, things don’t always go as planned and sometimes someone else does better than you. How great that kiddos have a chance to learn to deal with these disappointments when the stakes are low, so that when they are higher, they’ll know the appropriate choices to make. And yes, winning is a good thing that can happen occasionally, too (and how great that kids can learn how to deal with their happiness without sacrificing the feelings of others).

4. Creativity: A big pile of paper, blocks, Legos, cars or any other open-ended toys allows for such a great development of creativity in kids! Being able to figure out what that pile of “stuff” can become is a great practice in trial-and-error, trying new things or even working with a friend to put two great ideas together to make an even better one. This practice of creativity in free play can easily be transferred to learning, then, when a kiddo is given open-ended opportunities for both gaining information and showing what they’ve learned. When they’ve had a chance to try out new things and take risks in a safe, play environment, many students will be more willing to take the same creative risks with their learning.

5. Beating Boredom: I guess this one is another idea that’s related to some others on this list, but being given free time to play is a great way to figure out how to entertain yourself (either alone or with a friend) and keep a kiddo from being “bored.” Knowing what to do when there’s [seemingly] nothing to do is a life skill, really.

6. Respect, kindness and including others: Play is a great opportunity for kiddos to practice skills they’re learning about showing others respect, using kind words and helping make sure everyone is included. Helping kids pay attention to who doesn’t have a playmate is a lesson in empathy and is definitely a bucket-filler for a friend who longs to be involved but is perhaps unable to initiate themselves. Knowing how to speak to others kindly is a skill that can never be mastered and can always be improved upon.

7. Fun!: Um, how have I not mentioned that playing is TOTALLY FUN!? Yep. Should have mentioned that one first. 🙂

8. Organization and Care: Emily was the first to mention it, and I hadn’t really thought of it until she said it, but yes, I think that kiddos can learn about and practice putting things away, organizing and caring for property (theirs and others’) when they’re playing. Great idea, kiddo!

Ok, so enough of my rambling…I know what you really came to see were the pictures of Rm. 202 kiddos PLAYING!! Here you go!!

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Sweet Words

I had to be out on Friday with a sick little girl, and so let my kiddos in the able hands of a really great sub. We’ve had her before and I remember that she had them write me a note about their day to leave for me. I hadn’t forgotten about it, though, until I walked in this morning and saw this on the easel:

This note would be super special anyway because it came from my awesome class, it was super duper special because it meant they had an AWESOME day even though I wasn’t there, AND it has a hashtag. We had noticed it last week and added to our punctuation study chart, and Lauren suggested they put one on the letter. That’s amazing. And it’s an awesome hashtag, too, isn’t it?

Way to go, Rm. 202 friends–you are awesome!!

We’re 1:1!

A few years ago, I was part of an iPad Scout as our school district made decisions about how best to implement a 1:1 initiative. Since then, they decided to go with iPad Minis for everyone (well, except for K this year, who is utilizing the iPad 2s the teachers used to have), and now it’s finally first grade’s turn!!

Since we’re a little ahead in Rm. 202 technologically speaking (partly because of my scout experience), we were the first class to get our Minis! Check out the faces here–they say it all!

Ok, but I’m getting ahead of myself…there was much work that happened before we could take this picture. Let me explain.

As a member of our district’s Technology Leadership Group, I have the opportunity to learn and grow with other tech-minded friends, and share resources for our tech-learning journey. So as I got started with iPads in 1st grade (which is very different than getting started with them in 5th grade!), I was glad to have help from my friend Jen Bartin, who has had several years of experience with using them well in 2nd grade. She shared her version of iPad Boot Camp, and it was just what we needed.

So before we even THOUGHT about unpacking the box of bright red goodies, we had to talk about the expectations. More than anything else, these little friends of mine need to be on teh same page as me about why we have them, how we will use them and how we will be safe as we do that. The first thing we did, then, was read and discuss the student iPad agreement:

This conversation was a bit long, and probably one of the most boring things we’ve done in a long time, but SUPER IMPORTANT to our work. They seemed to get it, and are dedicated to doing the right thing. That last line seemed to weigh heavily on them. They understand their choices and consequences are related. 🙂

We spent the rest of the day learning some logistical things, like turning the iPad on and off, using the lock button for the screen, creating shortcuts to some important places on the home screen, and turning off the clickety-click sounds the keyboard makes. While it is really important to me not to be solely app-focused, there are some good ones that we will use often, like Raz-Kids, which we have been using already on our class iPads and laptops. This was an easy one to get them going on and is a great way to build our reading skills. We also learned how to use the Kidblog app (which is a little different than the way the website works) to work on a post related to our history study in Social Studies. Dreambox–another app we use regularly–is also our iPads and we checked it out before we had choice time. It’s not usual that we’re all doing the same thing at the same time, but hey, if we want to, now we can!

Kids checking out Raz-Kids on Thursday!

Yeah, but we weren’t finished there. The last lesson of the day was how to put these little beauties away and how to charge them so they’re ready to use every morning. We already had the cart (that our laptops used to go in), and just had to figure out how to best organize the iPads inside it. I had seen a post this summer that used a dish drainer to hold devices and thought we’d give it a try. I had one on my table (that I was using for something else), but threw it in the cart to see how it would work. Empty, it looked like this:

I know it looks like a big jumble, but the idea is that every cord (which are all already labeled for each kiddo) is in order and will be available for kiddos to pull out easily. Right now (until I buy another tray) there are 13 on the top and 7 using the dividers that were already there. It seemed like a great idea.

And then we started putting them away. I took time to carefully and clearly show each kiddo (two or three at a time) which cord was theirs and where their iPad went in the tray. It took about 10-15 minutes to get 20 in there, and it looked like this once we filled it all up:

And now I’m not so sure. Now all I see is a big jumble of cords. It seems like unless I stand there every time with every kid, it will ALWAYS be a headache. I’m thinking I’m going to scrap the dish drainer idea and install more of those plastic dividers. Any suggestions, friends who are already doing this? I want to have a system that is both functional and completely kid-sustainable. Like with most everything else we do, I don’t want this to be something an adult has to do for them. I want them to take the lead. Thoughts?? 🙂

UPDATE: After a suggestion from Jen Bartin (remember her smart ideas for iPad Boot Camp?) and a reflection on HOW LONG it took to put them away that first time, I decided to chuck the whole “dish drainer” idea and just use the dividers. And it didn’t actually take as long as I was told to put them in. It works better and boy is pretty! What do you think?

So much better, no? This picture makes my heart happy for so many reasons! It’s weird, but I think my favorite part is the stickers. Functional and cute:

Rather than labeling with names, I just put numbers that correlate to our class numbers that we use for almost everything else. This system works so. much. better! 🙂

First Grade Math-Warm Ups: Week of February 2-6, 2015

Seems like I am always giving a reason for why our week was crazy. This week was the same way! Wednesday we participated in Global School Play Day, so didn’t have math, and yesterday my 3-times-longer-than-usual commute (because of snow and ice on the road) meant that I didn’t get to school in time to write one, and then add in our first day with our iPad Minis yesterday as well and VOILA, you’ve got crazy! See what I mean? But hey, there were 3 warm-ups this week, so here we go!

Monday

It only seemed right to have a Super Bowl themed warm-up the morning after the big game! Still working on adding 2-digit numbers efficiently with this one. 🙂

Tuesday

The problem yesterday actually brought up a great (but unexpected question) as a friend only read the first sentence and then assumed she knew what it was asking. She thought that it was asking her to SUBTRACT the numbers because she figured the last part asked by how many points the Patriots had won. We were able to talk about how important reading the whole problem was, as well as how different bits of information can produce many different kinds of problems depending on the questions you ask. They’re not quite ready to think this way yet, but I gave them a challenging warm-up on Tuesday asking them to think about the questions they could ask (oh, and thanks for not commenting on the ages mentioned in this problem–thankfully no one said anything about how OLD Mrs. Bearden is!!).

Friday

You’ll notice that this one doesn’t have any post-its on it. I was actually home with a sick little girl on Friday, but snapped a picture as I put it up to leave for the sub to talk through with my friends. This one was based on both our 2-digit addition work and a conversation we were having the other day about how many 1st graders there are. How would you solve it? What model would you use to record your thinking?

First Grade Bloggers!–Part 2

I started our blogging story yesterday, with how I introduced the whole idea to my first graders. Like I mentioned, they’re pros already!!

After we made our paper blogs, we were ready to talk about comments, and how the whole point of a blog in the first place is the conversation it starts. We talked generally about how to comment, and then studied this document, another great resource I got from @mcteach. It’s called the “Art and Aspirations of a Commenter,” and while I had to paraphrase much of it for 6-7yos, the idea still applies:

We discussed what the parts of a comment were supposed to be, and then tried it on each others’ blogs. Much like we do when we have a gallery walk in math or a writing celebration in writing, everyone laid out their blogs and kids read and wrote: one comment on each post-it, then post-its on paper posts. Check out this amazing video to show how quiet and focused everyone was during this time. Seriously. Believe me. It’s good stuff.