At Robinson, Inspiration is EVERYWHERE!

I love our school for so many reasons. It’s the place I started my career 15 years ago as a student teacher. I had my first classroom here (even though the actual classroom is now the principal’s office!). I have had the opportunity to work with countless mentors and really smart people who make me a better teacher because of what they have shared with me. I’m now getting to share the same amazing school experience with my own son, which is great, and I teach with two of his former teachers! It truly is a fabulous place to spend my days. When I speak of it, I always talk about going to “school,” not going to “work.” 🙂 Another reason I love Robinson is how much there is to inspire you. And this year that inspiration is VISUAL in the form of many murals that have been added over the last months. I took pictures of as many of the great additions as I could today, in order to share more of my happy place with you! I’d love to hear more about your happy place, and the way it inspires you each day! But back to mine. LOL Check out some pictures:

I had to start with this one, as its one of the biggest inspirations I see every day! I think it’s so great that we work on important skills like grit and persistence, helping our kiddos to know how to deal with challenges they face. 🙂

This one is in our 2nd grade hallway and we walk by it every day! What a great reminder. 🙂

5th grade decoration: Be a RAINBOW in someone’s cloud. -Maya Angelou

Also an addition to the 5th grade hallway–their theme this year!

Main hallway upstairs

This is right outside one of our reading specialist’s room. So true!

This is a phrase you will often hear our art teacher, Mrs. Maldonado, say, and now it’s in our 1st grade hallway! Such a true picture of how your attitude affects your outcomes!

This one is near the cafeteria where EVERYONE sees it. Another important lesson to learn.

Sounds like GRIT, eh? 🙂

Newest addition! Beautiful and TRUE!!

Even t-shirts are inspiring at our school! These are quilts made of SpiritWear thru the ages! Great idea!

The Road Rules the foundation of all of what we do at our school, and help our students remember to show respect for themselves, others, learning and the environment (both inside and out!). Many banners like this one “decorate” our hallways. 🙂

Another thing that makes our hallways inspiring is the inclusion of the faces of our kiddos! The smiles are contagious, and the faces are beautiful! These frame collections can be found in many different hallways.

Another REALLY important thing we are about at our school is NO BULLYING! We have these rules posted in many places so no one forgets! We are an Olweus school, and it’s important that we protect and encourage each other to “be a buddy, not a bully!”

Ok, one more. This is both an inspirational thought, and an inspirational kid. 🙂 Gotta love how he wanted to “photobomb” this one! Great job, Riley Bearden! Love you, buddy! (And hope this doesn’t embarrass you!)

Friends–I’ll ask again: what does your “happy place” look like? What inspires you on a daily basis? We’d love to see/hear what your school, home, job, backyard–wherever!–looks like and how it makes you want to do your best. Comment, will you? 🙂

New and Improved in 2015: Journals!

My Writers Notebooks! The first one dates back to August, 2005! If I counted right, I think I’m working on #13 or #14 right now….:)

One of my VERY favorite thing to do with 5th graders (ok, anyone!) is teach them how to write. It starts from the very first time I show them my own notebooks and talk about my writing journey, and continues through when they get their own (which is a very special occasion, indeed!), and then on through everything else they do (which for the last 4 classes has included blogging, too!). I have a passion for the written word (well, and the spoken one, too; I talk WAY too much!), and want my students to see the power they have to change the world with their words!

So…as you probably know, I’ve done many of the same kinds of things with my first graders that I did with my 5th graders (the list-group-label, for instance, that I wrote about last week), and in writing, this continues to be true. So…since one of the biggest things I miss with younger writers is the whole Writers’ Notebook thing, I had to figure out a way to do something similar (both for them and for me!).

When we came back after Winter Break, it was time to start some new things. This is my FAVORITE time of year because of the fresh feeling there is all around–it’s cold outside, the year has just started, your kiddos are more than half-way to the next grade (so they’ve grown up a ton since Day 1!), and there’s a renewed energy because of the well-deserved rest you’ve just had. One of the first “new and improved” things for 2015 for my kiddos was journals.

Ok, now the idea of a journal wasn’t new–they had them in kindergarten. But they hadn’t yet had a journal with ME and learned MY definition of how to use them (which I was hoping would take on some first-grade version of the Writers’ Notebooks I love!). I let them get really excited on our first day by reminding them of that big ‘ole zebra-print box of my notebooks. We looked at them and read through some entries, and admired all the pictures that tell about my life over the years. And just as I heard them say how much they wanted to have a notebook like that–VOILA!–I gave them their very own 1st grade version! Now they knew (because I explained) that they’d be using these in a little bit different way then when they were in WNBs in future years, but they were excited nonetheless. It was theirs, it was new and it was…ready to be decorated! Check out what our journals look like now, all spiffied up!

After the cover was taken care of, we talked about what should go inside. Like with many new adventures, I asked them what they thought writers put in their journals. We talked about why people keep journals. We brainstormed a list of possibilities. I have to admit–I was impressed! They had many of the things I’d hoped they’d say, or that I was thinking of teaching them about, and heck–they mentioned many of the things 5th GRADERS put in their notebooks. Geniuses, I tell ya!

Our brainstorming list of ideas for how we could use our journals. This is a GREAT list already, and we’re just getting started!

Before they left to officially write on their first page, I modeled what an entry would like, with the date and their thinking. Then they were off!

My hope in sharing this particular story was that, even at 6-7YO, they’d see how “journal-worthy” things happen to them all the time. A story doesn’t have to be spectacular, or big, or even special to be remembered. Even a trip to Target can give you material for your writing!

They have had a chance to write in them many times over the last couple of weeks and I LOVE how enthusiastic they are about filling them up with their thoughts! There are times when we have official “journal writing” time, but often kiddos will get them out during a break or at choice time, which I love! The best part was when a friend asked me the other day if he could take it home to write in it there! He didn’t know how BIG of a deal it is to learn that writing takes place EVERYWHERE–not just at school–nor did he know how he’ll be the subject of a lesson soon when yes, indeed, they are allowed to take these babies home to work on their writing lives outside our classroom!

SO PROUD OF YOU, RM. 202 FRIENDS!

Teaching Others with Non-Fiction Text

During 2nd quarter, we spent MANY HOURS working on how to effectively write teaching books for our readers. We worked on countless moves smart writers make to ensure that their readers are interested, as well as informed, when they are finished. We talked about what questions to ask, how to add details with twin sentences, how to put details in the pictures and diagrams to help further inform our readers, how to include important text features like a table of contents and a glossary (and some even had an index!), as well as the importance of making our reading legible, understandable and readable by our friends. We worked on capital letters, ending punctuation, spelling word wall words correctly, spelling other words with enough sounds that our friends could figure them out, as well as making sure we didn’t have reversals or parts that were messy.

Once we were FINALLY finished with our masterpieces, we had an AMAZING writing celebration with our friends from Ms. Turken’s room next door. We often do things with them (including our recess every morning!), and we’re glad when they join in on our fun. Actually, we took turns with each others’ books–we went to their class and they taught us, then they came to our room and we taught them! What a great chance to share our expertise–and our amazing writing work–with our friends! This was a meaningful and exciting experience!

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Happy Holidays!

I hope it’s not too late to share pictures from our Winter Party! I don’t have many, but they’re too cute to share. Thanks to Mrs. Fitzhenry and her many helpers for making it a super duper fun way to spend our last afternoon together before a long (and well deserved, I’d say!) Winter Break. You can tell by the smiles that Rm. 202 friends agreed!

Do You See Letters in Pretzels?

Thursday was an important day in our room. It was Charlie’s 1/2-Birthday. And yes, I am regretting now that I don’t have pictures of everyone’s birthdays that we’ve celebrated so far. SORRY FRIENDS! And honestly, the reason I have pictures of this celebration is because of what happened.

Long story short is that we were given YUMMY soft pretzels from a local shop near our school. In true 1st grade fashion, letters started appearing everywhere.

Look, an A!

Mine’s an O!

Then kids started seeing all sorts of other amazing things, too!

I’m pretty sure that Evan’s lifting weights here. 🙂

Say cheese!

Makayla saw a candy cane!

So did Lauren!

Thomas found another one!

Then Charlie showed us that 7 1/2 really means he’s an old man now, and he needed a cane to help him walk! Silly!

What a fun afternoon! This is another one of the millions of reasons why I LOVE spending my days with first graders! You just never know what’s gonna happen. 🙂

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! 🙂

New Caddies for a New Year!

We had a work day at the end of Winter Break, and I went into school for a few hours to prepare for my kiddos coming on the next Monday. I could have (or maybe I should have) stayed the whole day cleaning out and organizing, but I only had one thing on my list that HAD to be done: cleaning out supply caddies! There is just something about having fresh new pencils, brand new pens, and the rest of the supplies in the right place that makes everything better. You know what they say: A clutter room makes for a cluttered mind. Cluttered table caddies do the same thing! Here’s to a new, organized year!

Beautiful, isn’t it? I took this picture so that kiddos would remember what goes where. Now I just have to remember to print some to go IN the caddies so they can be used….:)

I’m not sure which is better–clean caddies on the tables or clean caddies all in a row on the windowsill waiting for first graders to start the new year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM RM. 202!

I Know an Old Lady, Do You?

During 2nd quarter, one of our big ideas during Reader’s Workshop was comparing various versions of the same text. An easy one–as well as a favorite–was I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. We found 3 versions initially and read them (and then found a couple more!), creating a chart to represent all the parts of the story.

I Know an Old Lady retold by G. Brian Karas: Somehow I managed to only have a picture of our “lady” without her labels! We spent much time labeling all of those things in her belly!

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucile Colandro: This one shows our super work at labels using interactive writing. Plus, this old lady is super stylish with a belt, some glasses and a bow in her hair. :)

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro: This one shows our super work at labels using interactive writing. Plus, this old lady is super stylish with a belt, some glasses and a bow in her hair. 🙂

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Pie by Alison Jackson: This may be my favorite lady yet! Check out that 10-layer cake in her stomach!

After we had read our stories, we dug in to start comparing and contrasting the stories. We talked about how to do this in an organized way, and so kiddos were introduced to the Venn Diagram. Well, reintroduced to the idea, but the name and the was new. We had a 1st draft that ended up too messy to use, but it worked for us to understand how the diagram worked.

Once we knew how to put the pieces together, kiddos worked in pairs to write the parts that were the same and different. Again, what we had learned during many interactive writing lessons lately paid off!

Another great example of interactive writing as well as great ideas for how the stories were the same and different! Super smart first grade thinking!

Close up of I Know an Old Lady

Close up of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves

Close up of I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Pie and the “same” sections of the diagram

Of which stories have you read different versions? Share some suggestions with us! 🙂

Marshmallows or Whipped Cream?

This post is just one picture and a quick link. As 2nd quarter ended and Winter Break neared, we were enjoying the chapter book Who’s Stealing the 12 Days of Christmas? by Martha Freeman (like I have in previous years with 4th-5th graders). There’s a part of the book where we just HAVE to enjoy some hot cocoa along with the characters, so we did on the Wednesday of our last week. I just LOVE this picture of Briannia with her hot chocolate! And for the record, she chose BOTH marshmallows and whipped cream! YUM! Isn’t she the cutest? 🙂

Check out the original post about this fun activity from a couple of years ago here and learn more about what we did. 🙂

List-Group-Label: MAPS

Or “This protocol worked really well with 5th graders and I was dying to see how it would work with my first graders.” The answer? Read to find out! 🙂

When I taught 5th grade, I read about a protocol called List-Group-Label for organizing ideas and learning new vocabulary. Originally the structure was applied to geometry vocab, but I’ve used it with topics in Science and now Social Studies, as well.

First, we needed to explore. So I gave them some maps. And if you have known me for longer than 5 minutes you could probably guess the kinds of maps they were given. Any guesses? See if you can figure it out in the pictures…

(Can you see? It’s the Happiest Place on Earth!)

After they had a chance to explore their maps–well 4 different ones actually–they came to a blank chart like this one and were supposed to add their ideas about what all of the maps had in common:

After they had worked for a little bit…

It looked more like this:

That’s the LIST part of list-group-label. Now, normally with big kids, I have them group the post-its by how they are similar, but for many reasons, I led this next step with my kiddos. After I grouped them, the chart looked like this:

See how they’re in groups now? It was great to see how many similar ideas kiddos came up with! They were spot on with their noticings!

Next came the LABEL step, so I made the post-its into a web so we could see the groups as well as write the labels:

Working together as a class, we decided what each group had in common, and what statement we could make about maps and how they work based on the information. I was IMPRESSED!! These kids had loads of background knowledge about maps and their features, which made our use and study of them easier. This is one reason I LOVE this protocol–it quickly gives me a good idea of the class’ schema on a topic, which helps me know where to go next. They are doing the work and making the connections, which is meaningful work, and they are having fun! Win, win, win for everyone!

Our finished web about maps! Pretty comprehensive, wouldn’t you say? 🙂

Now, I have to focus in on one bubble of this web for a second. Look at this one:

This particular bubble has a great story. One of our friends was gone on the day that we first studied our maps, but returned on the day we were reviewing the web we had made. She said, “Wait, there’s something else you should add!” She proceeded to describe “that thing that’s on there that tells you which way you’re going. You know, like ‘Never Eat Soggy Waffles!’ ” “Of course!” we all thought, and we added a bubble about compass roses. The best part? The chart originally had a big empty space here, so it was like it was waiting for this super-smart addition!

Well, as is always the case in our room, this conversation sparked a great idea for the next step: we needed signs in our room that told us which way was which way. Kiddos quickly got to work in small groups creating direction signs for our walls. Another “best part” of this project? Every single sound in the words NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, and WEST can be figured out by first graders using word wall words, resources in the room or knowledge about sound chunks. ANOTHER win-win as we could connect literacy to our social studies work! 🙂

What smart suggestions for ways to improve our room and give us new resources to help us learn! I LOVE what they look like, too, and how they add to the “kid” feel of our room. KID WORK everywhere! 🙂 Great work, Rm. 202 friends!

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20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

Starting a 3rd Grade Journey