Tag Archives: blog

I’ve Got Some Questions…

I have been navigating this cyberspace for 7 years now.  I’ve had many great experiences, learned and shared many things, and met many great people.  I’ve changed my view along the way and rethought my audience, but have always tried to write things that were engaging to my readers.  Often I could gauge that engagement by how many people commented on my posts, and/or how often readers connected with me on Twitter or Facebook regarding my writing.

So…while I honestly write as a means of reflection, I also strive to make this blog a conversation around teaching and learning.  And I’ve found that recently I seem to be writing to myself…I figure there are many reasons that might be happening, but am hoping that maybe you’ll help me more specifically with figuring out some of them by answering some questions.  I’d LOVE to learn more about what you, my blog reader, is thinking!

  1. What kinds of blogs do you read and revisit often?
  2. What kinds of blogs do you comment on, and what makes you want to do that?
  3. Do you find yourself reading blogs/posts that are more word-focused, video-focused, photo-focused, or some combination of all of those?
  4. If you write a blog, what do you do to help invite conversations and interactions?
  5. What other suggestions do you have?

PLEASE, please, please take a few minutes to let me know what you’re thinking!  I’m a learner at heart, and this is an important place for that to happen!  Can’t wait to hear from you, friends! 🙂

 

So I Have This Thing…

So I have this thing where I can’t write about something on the blog until after it’s finished.  Like the whole thing.  Even if it’s a Writing unit, a Social Studies project that takes 6 weeks or a Math investigation that is 10 days long.  I guess part of the reason is I want to make sure I have all of the parts to tell the full story–the beginning, middle and end–as well as to make sure that I’ve figured out the angle, the focus or the Big Idea I want to make sure to highlight.  I want to have identified the problem and then share the solution.  I want to have taken all the right pictures (which I have now learned the hard way have to be compressed before I upload them!) and figured out just the right words to write so that the most people want to read–and then comment on!–the post.  You get it the idea.  I want it to be perfect.

But unfortunately what happens when I work like that is that often time gets away from me.  I wait too long and a whole list of things occur: a teachable moment goes uncelebrated and the story goes untold, I forget the best parts of the story because too much time passes, I lose momentum, or even worse I end up with SO MUCH to write that then I can’t do it.  And then my blog sits untouched since mid-December, with many amazing learning experiences not shared.  And the funny thing is it’s taken me what seems like FOREVER to figure out that maybe that’s not working.  Yeah, I guess I’m kind of a slow learner.

So I’m not sure where that leaves me then.  I could go back and (with the help of the pictures I’ve taken) catch up on the 1,000 things that have happened since a month ago (ouch!); I could just shared the “finished” things that have occurred this week and celebrate the amazing things my students are learning–as well as what they are teaching; or I could just start writing about things in a new way and not worry so much about making sure that every post, every “story” is complete before I tell it.  Often, it’s the middle, the messy parts, the while-it’s-happening stuff that is the most interesting anyway.  It’s the things I learn when I’m not expecting them that are the most enlightening.  It’s the lessons that don’t go the way their supposed to that often have the most impact, and it’s when I stretch myself out of my comfort zone and try things a new way that often I find I wonder why I didn’t do that a long time before.

I guess I just made the decision then.  I am resolving to try something new this year (but I still say I don’t make New Years’ Resolutions), and tell stories at whatever stage of completion that they are in.  I pledge to share the ugly parts of learning as well as the well-planned, perfectly-executed, went-just-the-way-I-wanted-them-to parts (yeah…there’s much more of the previous than the latter anyway, so it’ll give me lots more to write about!).  I guess I already try to share the whole story anyway, but I’ll try to make sure I am ok with just little bits at a time instead of just the final product.  It’s the process not the product anyway, right?

Thanks for listening to my rambling, especially if this is the first time you’ve been back to our blog in a while and were expecting something different (which makes me wonder–what do you expect when you come here?  I’d love to know! Leave me a comment. 🙂 ).  I hope to make this a time to turn over a little bit of a new leaf and start the year with a fresh commitment to share the amazingness that happens in Rm. 202 every day.  I hope you stay around to join us for the ride.  It will definitely be fun, and probably pretty messy.  Great combination, I’d say! 🙂

First Grade Blogs about Kindness

Did you know that sometimes at the end of the school year, kids FORGET that they’re supposed to be nice to each other and follow the rules at their school? That happened to us.  So, we sat down and made a chart of #nicethingstodoandsay to help us remember how to show that we care about each other.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

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We figured that if we could use this chart to help us, then you could, too!  So we decided to share it–with our Robinson friends, and even people outside of our school.  With kids AND with grown-ups!  Anyone can read it and use it to help them show someone they care about them.

We know we are going to use this list. What about you? How will YOU show that someone else matters? What #nicethingstodoandsay will you choose?  Leave us a comment, or tweet to us at @jbeardensclass to tell us how it’s working out for you!

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: Screen Shot 2015-03-07 at 8.10.06 PMOnce 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.

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.

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 lately.

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.

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. :)

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.

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!

Ava and Amelia wrote about how we use Dreambox to learn as mathematicians every day!

Landen and Diego knew right away they wanted to explain our math warm-ups!

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!).

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!!!  🙂