Tag Archives: community

#classroombookaday UPDATE: Week 4

I cannot believe how much fun we’re having with #classroombookaday, nor how many books we’ve already read!  For all I know, we usually read this many books in 1st grade together (I’ve never officially kept track), but regardless it’s SO GREAT to watch the pictures get added and begin to fill up the door!

This week I think we added almost 20 books and I’m not sure we can pick a favorite!

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I do have to give a huge shoutout to Keira’s mom (loyal blog reader!) who left us some GREAT suggestions when she was at school for Read With Your Roadrunner today that she thought we would love.  And BOY was she right! I had never seen Red: A Crayon’s Story or Clancy the Courageous Cow before today but they will definitely be added to my classroom collection!  Both fit in perfectly (like she said they would!) with our conversations about valuing everyone for their uniqueness and celebrating how everyone can do something really well (even if that thing ends up being a surprise!).  Thanks for the suggestions!  Feel free to share your books with us anytime you want!  (That request goes for anyone, by the way!) 🙂

Principal Read Alouds

We are SUPER lucky to have a literary principal at Robinson School.  Is that the right word for a book-lovin’, read-aloud-givin’, kid-supportin’ administrator who visits to share GREAT NEW BOOKS with students?  Whatever you call it, we’re very blessed.  I know some of it has to do with her past life as a teacher, but she’s also a mom, and a veracious reader herself.  And she wants to share that with us!  LOVE IT!

So…thus far she’s been in 3 times (which is pretty great since we’ve only been in school for 3 weeks!), and shared some great titles with us.

For her first visit she brought Excellent Ed, and helped us think about what we’re already great at, then make goals for things we’re still working on.  This fit in perfectly with our butterflies. 🙂

Then she came back to read Stuck to us and teach us to “try one more time!”  That lesson has come into play loads of times already, even just right afterwards when Nicholas was telling the story about how he learned to tie his shoes when his dad gave him one more demonstration. 🙂

And THEN she came back again today and read us a funny story that we can all pick up when we head to our Book Fair starting tomorrow (great timing, huh??), Mother Bruce. This was a great one, but on the first read I wonder if Mrs. Sisul and I thought it was funnier than Rm. 202 kids did.  Oh well–the adults were entertained! LOL

Oh, and I must mention one more thing about this whole principal read aloud thing…I love Mrs. Sisul’s excitement for literacy and books and how she inspires my kiddos to be readers when she comes so jazzed up about books (and yes, that is definitely the right word for it!), but what I love even more is that she takes her time to show Robinson kids they matter by doing this, too.  Goodness knows principals have tens of thousands of things to do in a day (all of which are important), but I appreciate that she makes time for kids first.  My Rm. 202 friends know Mrs. Sisul as a friend, a reader, an adult with a connection, a lover of humor, someone with grit and most of all a person.  She’s not just a disciplinarian or a stranger in the office that no one ever sees–she’s a part of our community and we LOVE to have her visit.  🙂

Ok, Mrs. Sisul–what will you bring us next??   (Please don’t make us wait until November for the next Mother Bruce book!! 🙂 )

No Voice Day!

Today was kind of tricky.  I have an unfortunate beginning-of-the-year-my-kids-got-me-sick cold, and it’s taken my voice. 😦  Luckily my throat doesn’t hurt (no, I don’t have strep–don’t worry, friends!), but it’s hard to not talk when you’re a teacher. LOL  The hardest thing–especially when we’re in the midst of a #classroombookaday challenge–is the read alouds.  I couldn’t NOT read aloud today (especially when there are texts that go with subjects as well as the ones just for fun), so I figured we’d “read” them on YouTube instead.  I know it’s not really rocket science, but it’s the first time I’d done it, so I was kind of excited about it.

Today was a 3-book day, and two of them were videos.  We started the day with How Full is Your Bucket? for Kids, which is one that kiddos know from kindergarten.  It’s a great story, and is a super book to use with kids anyway, but this one was chosen also because we’ve been having some empty buckets at the end of the day lately. 😦  Everyone needed a reminder. 🙂

Check it out, in case you haven’t ever read it (or even if you have!):

Another one we “read” like this was The Night of the Veggie Monster which is a mentor text for our Small Moments writing unit we’re starting.  It’s so funny and is a story every kid can relate to personally.

Kiddos were so excited about this kind of read aloud that I might start to incorporate it more frequently just as a change of pace. 🙂

I’m wondering…

Kids:  What did you like best about these stories today?

Parents: What did your learner tell you about our #classroombookaday choices today? 

Teachers: How do you use videos for read aloud?  What suggestions do you have?

Thanks for sharing your voice!

 

What’s in a Name? (One More Time!)

Picture books, Notability with pictures, inch tiles, Legos, games and paint??  Who knew there were so many ways to practice writing, reading and CELEBRATING our names?  Well, Rm. 202 kiddos knew, because they’ve been doing loads of things with names lately!

As we continued our study, I shared another great book from the unit Mrs. Wessel shared with me:

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This is a great story for many reasons.  It’s a story about a refugee family, where the little boy is struggling with fitting in, and many keep mispronouncing his name.  He feels like he’s “lost his name in America.”  He comes up with a great idea for how to help his classmates (and teacher!) learn his name, and it includes pictures.  I also love this book because it features main characters of color.  We’ve been talking about (and reading!) books in our room lately with African-American characters and authors (as well as some that are of other backgrounds), and how important it is that kiddos see themselves in the books they read!

Well, along with reading this gem of a book, we send kiddos home with a little job to do.  It’s a suggestion from the What’s in a Name unitWhat’s in a Name unit that was shared with me, and was too good not to try.

The sheet asked families to share their stories about the origins of student names, any family connections, info about meaning and nicknames, as well as what the kiddos thought were interesting about their names.  What fun it was to go around the circle and share personal stories about kiddos’ names, and watch their faces light up as we talked about THEM and THEIR special details.  We heard about things we never would have learned without this activity, and I think in many ways the special thoughts (and giggles) we shared here will continue to help weave us together as the beautiful quilt we will become.  All different and unique, from different places and made of different cloths, but tightly stitched together with respect, experience and love. 🙂

After we shared the book and some stories, kiddos got busy creating art like Sangoel did (his name is pronounced Sun-goal, by the way).  I gave each kiddo a slip of paper with their name written on it and they were to use a variety of mediums to create a colorful representation of themselves.  Many chose to use what they had learned about the meanings of their names (Aadish means “sun,” Allie means “nobility” and Ayonna means “beautiful flower,” for instance), and others just added their favorite colors and patterns or images of things they like.  Regardless of their choices, we will add this to the collection of beautiful things in our room that remind us of who we are and how special each one of us is. 🙂  Plus they look pretty great hanging in the hall right now.  I LOVE our bulletin board out there!

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What’s in a Name?–Continued

We started talking about names last week and are continuing the conversation as we build our community together.

We’ve continued reading great books together,

and discussing the importance of our names and how they tell something about us as people.  They are the first words we learn, they are letters we know, and they connect us to people in our families and our pasts.  They are OURS!!

We worked on name building challenges as well, with inch tiles and with Legos (thanks for that idea, Ms. Lewis!), and we were able to document our work with our iPads (thanks Kirkwood School District!).  We are learning more about how to show what we know, use GRIT when things are hard, share our ideas and questions with our friends, ask someone else before the teacher, and how to send that documentation (pictures, notes, etc.) to Mrs. Bearden in eBackpack.  Seems simple, but it’s hard work in Rm. 202!

Inch Tiles Name Challenge

Kiddos were to build their name with inch tiles.  They were challenged to try their last name if they got their first name quickly.  It was fun and interesting to watch how each kiddo came at this challenge differently, which tiles they used and if they used capital or lowercase letters.  They took pictures of their work when they were finished.

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Lego Name Building Challenge

This time learners were challenged to build their name with Legos (one, two or all three–or four–of their names!).  Then they were to have a friend take their picture with their creation.  We’re still learning to take photos, so some of them are a little blurry. 🙂  The most interesting thing to me about this challenge was how many kiddos build their names in 2D, just putting the Legos flat on the table or floor, rather than 3D, putting them together and building their names UP instead of out (but yes, you will see in the pictures that a few friends tried it that way!).  There were no specifications related to this, but I will probably add that parameter for everyone next time. 🙂

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I have to take a minute and highlight a strategy that we discovered during our Lego building.  I went over to Kaiden at one point and saw this:

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If you can tell, he had only built the LAST four letters of his name.  I asked him to tell me about his thinking and he told me:

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We had to stop the rest of the class and have him share his thinking–this was a great example of what to do when you’re stuck, when you want to quit or you don’t know where to start: do the part you DO know how to do and keep thinking about the part you DON’T YET know how to do.  Often you’ll figure it out while you’re working.  GREAT JOB OF USING GRIT, KAIDEN!!

 

 

What’s in a Name?

We already have done many interesting and fun things as we’ve started this new year together.  And as we get into more “real” learning (yes, I know all learning is important and in many ways the “soft” skills might be more important, but I digress….had to call it something!), I am looking for ways to continue to stress the themes we’ve started with: everyone is valuable, we are different and we are the same, we support each other, we are all starting in different places and that’s ok–we’re all growing and learning together!

So when I saw this unit shared by our friend and AMAZING coach (and I don’t use the word AMAZING lightly) Amy Wessel, I knew I needed to find a way to use it–it matched up with all of those goals I already had in place.  Plus it was interesting and fun and we LOVE those things!

Ok, so I didn’t follow the unit completely as written, but I did utilize the book list as well as the ideas for “homework” to use with families.

Let me tell you the story…

As you’ve already seen from our #classroombookaday tweets and posts, we are a class the LOVES to read and often bases lessons/discussions on a good book.  So of course as we started to talk about our names, I went to the book list shared by Ms. Wessel, as well as some others I had found on my own at my library (which is another AMAZING thing!).

Together we read Hello, My Name is Octicorn (which isn’t so much about names as it is about accepting those who are different than us and making new friends but has NAME in the name LOL) and Thunder Boy, Jr. (which was surprisingly about a boy who has the same name as his dad and wanted his OWN name that told about him).

Then, since I wanted them to get into those iPads that had shown up in our room, we went on a little letter hunt around our room.  They were supposed to find all the letters of their name, take pictures of them, then crop the images and upload them into Notability to build their name (which is similar to the directions from our Outdoor Adventure Writing Outdoor Adventure Writing from the other day, too).  THEN they were to take a screenshot of that image and later send it to me in eBackpack so I could see it (and share it here!).  Oh, and they were supposed to take a selfie to use as their lock screen (which is how we tell everyone’s iPads apart when they’re laying around).  See?  Told you they know how to do LOADS of things already!!

They’re a little messy, but I did write/draw the directions for them, since it really was a long list of things to remember and do:

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They did a great job of following the directions, talking to each other when they needed help (I had to encourage this with some friends, as they are still learning that I am not the only one with the answers!), and sharing things they found out with the rest of the class.   These images will become the Home screen on their iPads for now.   Check out some of our creations!

What a great start!  Can’t wait to share more! 🙂

Outside Adventures!

On Tuesday we spent the morning outside.  Shortly after our morning announcements, the pledge, Morning Meeting, and a quick Pinkalicious story shared by Rachel and read by Ms. Mimlitz , we headed across the street with our iPads in hand with some important work to do.

Once we get settled under a grove of really big, shady trees, we read a couple of books together (which is part of our regular routine, especially now that we’re keeping track of our books with #classroombookaday), and played a rousing game of Simon Says.

Next, I gave some directions for collecting some important information.  Kids had been a bit distracted by all the nature around them anyway, so their next job was to “collect” the most interesting things as pictures on their iPads.  After walking a big circle around the area to show kids their limits, I set them loose.  They were given about 15 minutes to check out all they could find and WOW was there a lot to look at!  There were even some kind horticulturalists working nearby that pointed out some things for us to see!

During this time we had an emergency drill (which was handy since we were in our emergency drill spot anyway), and since it was probably already 90 degrees and we were HOT, we headed back inside shortly thereafter.

But we weren’t finished!  The next step was for kiddos to crop their pictures, zooming in on the MOST INTERESTING part of the photo.  I wanted them to really think about why they had taken the picture, as well as what the story was about that image.

These were the next directions.  And let me tell you (and I’ll elaborate about this later on, too) that it is a little UNBELIEVABLE that kiddos know how to do this already at this point in first grade!

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Kiddos did some great work, and we will build on this as we work together this year.

Check out our Outside Adventure WRITING!!  Like I said (and I’m sure I’ll continue saying it!), what these kiddos can do with their devices already is nothing short of amazing!

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Thanks for reading!  Please leave us a comment and join the conversation!

 

 

 

#FDOFG: …and 123s

We worked on letters letters this week, and also got some math into the mix, too!

One way was with one of our first morning math warm-ups (which I will start to share about later).  I asked a short, simple question with infinite answers, allowing every kiddo to share their initial thinking about what math would be this year.

IMG_3517 The variety of answers was great, with no one having to use the prompt I taught them of “I don’t know yet, but here’s what I’m thinking now…”  I love that someone’s answer was “math is fun!”  Many kiddos said “numbers” and many others gave examples of kinds of math like adding/subtracting or wrote equations.  I was impressed that they were not scared by this question, even though we were only on day 9 of 1st grade!

After we discussed this warm-up, I gave everyone an activity that would allow them to show me (and the class) a little bit about themselves as people and themselves as mathematicians.  Now…it is a very infrequent thing for me to ask everyone to do the very same thing at the very same time in the very same way.  But since it is early in the year, and we 1) don’t have our iPads yet (which is how we often differentiate opportunities), and 2) it’s still early in the year and we don’t have all of our routines established yet, this seemed like a time and place to ask the whole class to try something together.

The general idea was based on a math poster that was shared in our school’s Sharetank on Facebook by Mrs. Hill ((a 5th grade teacher):

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Ms. Turken made the template we used in 1st grade, and it was most of the same questions as this 5th grade version, but you’ll see that our equations were a little different. 🙂

After kiddos were finished with their Math About Me posters, I put them in pairs for them to have their first go at a math game.  We had not had a chance to prep for this, but since it didn’t include a die or an iPad, I was pretty sure they could handle it without much instruction.  Once I explained how to play Turn Over Ten, they got busy and did a pretty great job of quietly playing while the rest of us finished.

Now for what I learned…

*The idea of using numbers to tell about yourself is a GREAT idea, but I should have done it in a different way.  This was a bit formulaic for 1st graders, had a lot of directions, and they needed a lot more help than I had first anticipated.

*Most kiddos had the same answers for the number, and made the equations in a similar way, too, although they did vary a little in the order their labels and cards went on the paper.

*This was DEFINITELY more of a lesson in following directions than a community building or math task.  We didn’t even have a chance to share our answers when we were finished.

*I did not clearly explain why we were doing this, which made it much less meaningful to my students, and therefore probably was not the best use of our time.

*My class works really well when they are busy with an individual, partner or small group task, and can do a lot of things independently already, even at this point of the year.

*Most kiddos are willing and able to talk to each other to clarify directions, ask for help and encourage each other when they don’t know what to do.

*They were able to transition very easily from a project to a game.  They followed the directions, worked quietly and were focused on doing the right thing with their partner!

*We have a pretty strong foundation on which to build the rest of our mathematical thinking this year, and kiddos are excited to get started on “real” stuff!

And just like them, I am also excited to get into the “real stuff,” too!  Let’s go Rm. 202 mathematicians!

 

 

#FDOFG: ABCs…

The alphabet is a important feature in any first grade class.  And with every primary class I’ve taught, I’ve had some version of the alphabet hanging in our room, ranging from kid-created with paper, kid-created with markers on card stock, and even back to my first year when I proudly hung the brand spanking new one I bought from Bradburns.  There is also usually a smaller alphabet chart for use at tables when kids are writing on their own; this is usually also just a preprinted sheet that I got years ago from our reading teacher or that I found online.

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As this year has started, though, it seems that I’ve been rethinking many of the things I’m choosing to do as I return to 1st grade again (after a year in 2nd with my looping class last year!).  I am trying to be very mindful of the ways this class is different than my first graders even two years ago, tweaking things to work best for them as learners (instead of doing the same things in the same way as previous years).  The alphabet is included in those things.

I know that there has been a connection to ABC books, or to how writers use letters/sounds or come conversations about the word wall (which also has letters on it), but for some reason I’ve never written about that part of our community building, nor do I remember specifically how I’ve presented it.  Weird, right?  Guess it wasn’t very meaningful or exciting to my kiddos, either.  LOL

Well, luckily, since I was thinking about it differently (and perhaps more deeply), I remember what we did this year (ok, and it helps that we just did this the other day. HA!).

We started with a conversation around our Word Wall, which at this point just has our names on it as the only words.  We met on the blue rug in front of the WW, and discussed the letters, the words they noticed, how they might use the word wall to help them with reading/writing, and then enjoyed some ABC books together:

Both of these texts are poems, and are funny and fun to read.  Doreen Cronin is a favorite author of most kiddos, and Lisa Campbell Ernst is a favorite of mine. 🙂  Our classroom library has author boxes featuring both of these writers, as well, so the choices were meant to lead them to other books they might enjoy, too.

After we read, I explained that our work next would include them getting a letter, and then drawing any corresponding picture that starts with that letter on the bottom.  Differently than usually, I allowed kiddos to check out the books we had read or any other ABC books in our room, as well, if they need inspiration.  I’m not sure whey I’ve never provided that scaffold before; guess something about it seemed like I was stealing a struggle or giving them the answers.  Actually, I think it allowed everyone an entry point into the activity, even those with a less developed knowledge of letters and sounds.

With all of the other changes/tweaks I’ve made this year, it made sense to me that our alphabet ended up being a little bit different than in previous years.  Some of our letters had “traditional” sound/symbol match ups (like apple for A and ball for B), but some of them are completely unique to our Rm. 202 2016 alphabet, and that is super cool.

Did you check out the Q and Z?  These are Star Wars related letters, because of a special ABC book we have in our box:

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so Q and Z may not be something you’ve heard of before.  Let me show you their inspiration pages:

Those made me laugh at first, and I even considered having them rethink them, because of how obscure the references were, but then I realized that this would be a great opportunity to embrace something that could be truly “ours.”  Betcha there isn’t another first grade class around that has Queen Amidala and Zam on their alphabet!!

Then, this time I decided to take this whole “the-alphabet-is-special-to-us” idea one step further–I created our own table-top alphabet chart based on our wall version!  It just made sense that the sound/symbol matches could be consistent and (at least in the beginning) take away confusion some kiddos might have as they try to use the system.  I’m really excited at how it turned out!

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I don’t know yet how this will work with kiddos (I just finished making it!), but I’m excited to see how it goes, and to compare the usefulness of this tool with versions we’ve had in the past.  Crossing my fingers that it works as well for Rm. 202 friends as I hope it will!

#FDOFG–Favorite Book Museum!

For many years, I’ve been celebrating reading and helping readers get to know each other better–and therefore build our classroom community–by using a Reading Museum.  While the difficulty and actual procedures are different depending on what grade I’m teaching (I’ve tried this protocol with 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th graders), the purpose is the same: help kids see themselves and their classmates as readers and make connections between interests and books!

Before I even get to the “how-we-did-this” part, I HAVE to share this amazing picture from just before we started.  It’s super cute because it has a carpetful of first graders and gives me chills and makes me want to squeal (yes, actually!) because of all the books!  Just indulge me for a moment then we’ll move on…

IMG_3235See?  What did I tell you??  TOO. MUCH.  Ok, let’s get to the other good stuff. 🙂

As a “homework” assignment over the weekend kiddos were asked to find their favorite book and bring it to school with them on Monday.  After we collected them and took this AMAZING picture, we talked about the purpose of our Reading Museum–as well as what in the world a museum even is (for those that might night have ever visited one).  We discussed museum etiquette and then they got busy putting together their “exhibits” (the idea for which came from my friend and teaching partner Ms. Turken who does so many fabulous things in Rm. 203 next door–thanks for sharing your smart thinking friend!), so we could learn from each other.

Kiddos were given a “placemat” and then added their book, their name, and some sort of response to their book: a picture of their favorite character, their favorite part, the reason why they liked it, a picture of the cover, etc.

So I do have to admit…the actual museum visit part was much shorter than I thought that it would have been, but I actually think part of it was my directions (I talked too much and too long so they were confused about what to do), and also because they were so interested in actually READING the books with their friends that they weren’t so much interested in just walking around and just looking at the covers.  #ohwell #lessonslearned #rememberinghowfirstgraderswork #betterlucknexttimemrsbearden #lol

Still, it was a pretty successful time, as books were shared, connections were made and BOOKS WERE READ!!

And since I know you can’t see what we actually shared in those teeny pictures, here are all of our exhibits.  Enjoy the slideshow!

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Ok…one more bunch of pictures, based on another super smart Ms. Turken idea: we took a picture with each kiddo and their book and they now adorn our book boxes! GENIUS!  And nope, no pics of that yet, but here’s what they look like in color on the blog (rather than in black-and-white in our room):

Wow!  That was a lot.  Thanks for hanging in there!  Kiddos were so excited and so cute–they will be so excited I shared this and SO EXCITED that you read about their smart book thinking. 🙂