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. 🙂

Jokes of the Day–Week of February 17-20, 2015

This week is another short one, but started out with a funny joke nonetheless! I even have an extra one that was featured on our schoolwide news broadcast today. I don’t know who to credit it to besides the super cute 5th graders who present the news–feel free to share if you know the source!

Tuesday

1st grade joke: Why is Peter Pan always flying? He Neverlands!

KROB news joke: Knock, knock. Who’s there? Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln who? What?? You don’t know who who Abraham Lincoln is?

Wednesday

Which state serves the smallest drinks?

Mini-soda! (Get it? Minnesota?)

Thursday

How do you make an egg laugh?

Tell it a yolk!

Friday

Why did Saturn go to the jewelry store?

To buy a new ring!

(This joke came to me via Jacob, who got it from a Magic School Bus book he was reading yesterday. It was a hit! Thanks for sharing, kiddo!)

Home Visits!

I am sure by now you know that I am returning to first grade, where I began my teaching journey so many years ago (wow–I was just a kid then…), and am super excited about it. I am excited to return to many things that are the same, but am also excited about some “firsts” that will happen in this move back to first. There are several, but first up (hee, hee) it’s home visits.

When Riley was in kindergarten (which is somehow 2 YEARS ago now–how did this happen??), I was excited when we got an email from his teacher about coming for a home visit. I hadn’t heard of our teachers doing them before, and in fact I think that was the first year they started. I remember Ms. Dale showing up at our door (which was awesome in itself because we don’t actually live in the district and she had to drive extra far to see us) with a big smile and a game of Candyland.

Now, for me as a parent, the experience was probably different than most when initially meeting their child’s first teacher; I have worked with Ms. Dale for 14 years and so have a relationship and already knew she’d be an amazing match to my kiddo. We were already comfortable with each other. But for my kiddo, this visit was priceless. HIS teacher was coming to HIS house to meet HIM!! While he was at first really apprehensive (and actually ran away from the door to hide when she knocked!), once I left them alone and they started playing the game, he quickly warmed up to her and they had a great time. The visit was short and sweet, but I know for sure that it set a very positive tone for the rest of their year together. There was much less “worried” talk about school after this and more excited banter about when he’d get to see his teacher again and when he could go to kindergarten. And we had a really cute picture of our little man with one of his new favorite people:

Ok, so that’s not the actual picture we took at our home visit, but I couldn’t NOT include that very special lady–Ms. Dale–in this post. 🙂

So…as a start to kindergarten, this seemed like a fabulous way to begin to connect our family with our new family at Robinson. For both my kiddo and myself, it took away nerves and gave us an opportunity to see his teacher as a person, not just a teacher. But on the other side, I know that it also gave her a chance to connect with Riley on “his turf”–to see where he plays, where he eats, where he sits and reads a book on the couch with his mom. And if we had a dog, I know she’d have met our dog so that when he wrote story after story about that dog Ms. Dale would know who he meant. Instead, she met his little sister. 🙂

As we started planning for our first grade year this fall, I remembered back to this special day with my kiddo and suggested that maybe we try this with our new friends. There is research to show that there are benefits for teachers and families in every grade level and it was exciting to try it with another grade of little ones in our school. The team and our principal thought it was a great idea!

So here we are and I’ve just begun my home visits for this year. I have only gone to a few, but so far I have met 5 kiddos, 3 older brothers, 1 older sister, 2 little sisters, 1 little brother, 3 dogs, countless dolls and horses; played several games of War and Go Fish, read almost 10 books and of course become acquainted with the fabulous parents that are so kindly sharing these lovely children with me this year (hopefully I didn’t forget anyone in this list!). It’s been great to see how comfortable they all have been, and how proud they seem to be that THEIR teacher is in THEIR house sitting on THEIR couch. I love how I’m already able to picture these little learners in my classroom, too; I know this will add another important level to the way I put our classroom together this year since it will be for kids I actually know–not just faceless names on a classlist. And as I was telling one of those kiddos as I sat on her green couch the other day, I am excited for how this will alleviate some of my first day jitters (yes, even teachers get those!) because instead of wondering who will walk in my door, I’ll be ready to welcome old friends to our new home. I’m pretty jazzed about that part.

So I have to say a HUGE thank you to those of you who have already welcomed me into your homes, and to those of you I haven’t met yet—I’m coming! And I’m excited! See you soon! 🙂

Finishing Strong

Every year the last weeks of school come and life starts going CRAZY FAST!! It seems that I have time to take pictures of things, but not to write about the things I take pictures of (wait, do I say that at the end of every year? I should go back and look….)!

So…since I hate to leave things all messy and untied, I’ll end the year the way I began it–with a highlights reel. Here’s to the last few BUSY weeks of 5th grade with some of the BEST kids around. Have a great summer, friends of Rm. 202!

Check it out. 🙂

MATH OUTSIDE

In April we had a whole school Outdoor Learning Day, with the focus being on how to get kids outside more often. I had to take Ms. Turken’s lead and try math outside. On this particular day, we were working on division problems with a little bit of a “scavenger hunt” around the playground. Funny how just a change of environment can make for so much less whining about long division!!

ACES DAY

Ok, so granted, this picture TOTALLY doesn’t do this day justice, but imagine our whole school with All Children Exercising Simultaneously to some really great music, with really cool routines created by our 5th graders, and that’s ACES Day. Always a fun one!

ADOPT-A-PILOT

This year, as with the previous few years, our class (along with the other 5th grades) adopted a pilot through a program with Southwest Airlines. He is our own First Commander Marcus Smith, whose kiddos go to Robinson and who is a beloved Kirkwood resident. Here are some pics from our culminating activity–a paper airplane flying contest!!

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ROBINSON NIGHT AT THE BALLPARK

Ok, so I admit it, these are not The 20somethingkids that you were expecting to see, but they are pics of my kids nonetheless! This was a great night of fun at the Cards game, where our Honor Choir–along with the choir from Tillman–got to sing the National Anthem! SO fun to see Cardinal and Kirkwood red everywhere you look! Go Cards!

SPRING SING

This year Mrs. Kesler helped every grade level get something ready for our first ever Robinson Spring Sing! While I expected greatness because of what I know about both Mrs. Kesler and our Robinson kiddos, I was BLOWN AWAY by how amazing it was! (And like the ACES Day section, I feel REALLY bad about not posting a video, but I couldn’t get a good quality one!! I know, bummer….don’t be mad, ok? 🙂 ) Can’t wait for Spring Sing Take 2 next year!

: Mr. Cochran and Mrs. Kesler playing along with the singers.

: Abbi totally rocked it in her solo at the beginning of our song “It’s All Good!”

: Gotta love to see your talented teachers on stage, too! Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Dix, Mrs. Kesler and Mrs. Hong led us in a sing-a-long to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Fun!

: We’re a pretty great bunch, huh?

FIFTH GRADE CELEBRATION

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the parents who made this night of food, friends and fun possible for us! What a touching way to say Goodbye to 5th Grade! Those shirts are perhaps the best part–we can take our memories with us! And they looked really great when we all wore them on our last-day field trip!

20% TIME PROJECTS

One thing I hadn’t yet tried, but was SO EXCITED to do this year was 20% time. Some schools call it Genius Hour, and it’s not really equated to 20% of our time, but you hopefully get the idea that it’s a project that kiddos could do that was completely of their interest. Some friends had some extra time in the last few weeks to investigate something of their choosing, and MAN WERE THEY EXCITED!! We had so many fabulous projects, and spent our afternoon after Field Day presenting our new learning. It is so cool how interested they all were in the new expertise their friends had to share!

Abbi learned some new techniques for taking fabulous photos.

Jacob researched how to make chocolate…

…and then made us some to sample!

Cate explaining her clothing designs!

Sam sharing his learning about radio waves.

Another one of Abbi’s…

Ok, so apparently the theme of this post is “I don’t have pictures or videos of everything I want to tell you about”–and somehow that happened here, too. I wish I could show you the smoothies that Owen made for us, the posters that Max made about radio waves and how they transmit music, the dance that Cate and Mia choreographed and then taught the class, the Keynote the Grace created to show how she learned to do makeup (including a before and after picture of how she tried it out on her sister!) or the demonstration Tom did about the most effective jump shot in basketball, but I don’t have them. Just know that THIS IS ONE TALENTED GROUP OF KIDDOS WHO DIDN’T DISAPPOINT WITH WHAT THEY SHARED WITH US!!

Well, as they say in the movies (or at least Looney Tunes, right?)–that’s all folks! It’s been a wild ride since our first Fifth Grade and Fearless post, and I wouldn’t have changed a minute! Here’s to a great year in middle school and MANY more years of changing the world after that! Remember your GRIT and all that you learned about respecting yourself and others at Robinson and GO GET ‘EM! I MISS YOU ALREADY!!

Flip That Room!

There seems to be a theme in my 5th grade class….(I’m not sure if I should take it personally, or just be really impressed that my kiddos are so creative….).

Today was a day full of lots of things: learning, noise, fun, business, reading, noise, creating, collaborating, noise. But luckily most of it was not just what I call “noise noise.” Much of the noise we made today was “learning noise.” Noise that indicates lots of thinking and creating and sharing is happening. And yes, it was loud. But sometimes that’s just how we roll. Especially when there are 25 of us in the room all talking at once!

So back to the theme I mentioned….we had to stop at one point today and regroup a little bit. Writer’s Workshop was a wee bit rocky, and so rather than fight against the trouble we were having, we stopped, gathered together and agreed to try that lesson again another day.

Instead, I had them help me with a problem. I told them that I need their help to figure out how I could help them best be learners during our last few days of 5th grade. We have work left to do, and we want to try to have a little bit of fun, too. They had some great thinking, which culminated in the idea that parts of our classroom (or how they were using it) were not really working for us. We agreed that we could work together to fix that problem and create a space that we could do some amazing end-of-the-year work in for a few more weeks.

We started with every kiddo creating their own dream plan of what our classroom would look like. Then kiddos met in their tribes, presenting their plan to the 4-5 kiddos in their group. From their, the tribes created a new plan incorporating the best features from each individual plan. Then we shared out as a class, and voted on the one we thought would work best for us.

Here’s what is sounded like during that time. Remember, it’s loud, but it’s not. just. noise. They are busy solving problems!

Can’t wait to share the final product next week! Seems like another theme this week is that I forget to take “after” pictures! Stay tuned!

How Do You Feel Cared For?

This week we were revisting some EQs from earlier this year as a means of reflecting on our behavior, as well as how we’re doing as a community. One that was really interesting was “How do you feel cared for?” There were so many different answers, and I wanted to see them all together, so I made a Tagxedo of our responses. Here’s how it turned out:

What do you notice? Do you notice any patterns? How would YOU answer this question? 🙂

Headbandz: Part 2

I know. It’s been FOREVER since I was here. And even after a blogging challenge. 😦

Oh well, I’m here now, right? That’s gotta be worth something. Here’s to a FABULOUS October on the blog.

Remember when I told you about how we played 5th Grade Headbandz? Well, I didn’t get to tell you about what we did next.

After everyone had figured out whose name they had on their head, we were ready for step 2, which was really the fun part. Each student had a picture (that we had taken on the first day) that was put in the middle of a 12 x 18 poster. They got to write their name under it, and then we all got to write on it, too. We rotated around to each others’ posters and wrote the things we like about them. Especially now that we’ve been doing 3 Things, we know each other in better ways, and had more personal comments to make. I do a version of this right at the end of the year, but have never thought of doing it at the beginning. I’m really excited to see how differently we’ll be able to talk about each others’ strengths by the time we’ve spent the whole year getting to know each other!

Check out pics of our posters!

Headbandz: 5th Grade Style

This blogging challenge has been a good motivation for me to keep up with the loads of things that have been going on that I want to tell you about. And yes, you may have noticed that I am taking a few liberties with how I define it. But hey, rules were meant to be broken, right? (Uh oh…kids, cover your ears…:) ). But so far, I have (including this one) the same number of posts as the days of the month. That equals a win for me.

We’re still doing many great things together to build our 5th grade community. In my mind, community building is really a year-long thing, not just a beginning-of-the-year thing, but for sure we hit it hard right now. So the other day, we played a game that my team had put on our original plan: Headbandz (which was an idea shared by Ms. Turken–she is full of so many amazing things to do!). If you have ever played this game, then you know it’s a ton of fun. We actually have a Disney version of the game here (not surprised, I’m sure!) where you have to guess which Disney character you are. And the headbands are shaped like Mickey ears, which is really cute. 🙂

Ok, but back to our 5th grade version: each kiddo had the name of another student in our class taped to their forehead and the goal was to figure out who it was. The basic rules are that you can only ask yes/no questions, and those questions should be related to the person, not their name (so asking about the way it’s spelled or how long it is, etc., is not allowed).

Once everyone had their name, we got started. And I know I keep relating this game to Headbanz, but Ke’Von reminded us as we got started that it’s really just a real-life version of Guess Who–I totally hadn’t thought of that, and it was perfect!

And yes, in case you were wondering, I played, too. So did Mr. Shelton, but somehow I didn’t get a good picture of him.

I loved how much fun they had with this. They asked to play again, and many mentioned that it was one for their favorite things from the week! We did something really cool related to this next, but I’ll have to tell you about it in another post because I don’t have good pictures of it on my computer yet. What a great reason to come back and visit soon!

Marshmallow Challenge 2.0

Last year, when my friend Genie told me about the Marshmallow Challenge, I was on board from minute 1. I knew I would do it again this year, too, but just maybe a little later than my original plan from last year, based on our new plans for doing community building. So this year, we waited a little longer, and today was Marshmallow Challenge day.

Just like last year, we worked within these guidelines:

Ok, well almost the same rules. I realized when I opened the box that I had thin spaghetti, so I gave them 5 extra pieces. 🙂 The rest was the same.

First we reviewed our norms and the directions, then I set the timer and they set off to work.

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At the end of the 18 minutes, everyone stepped away….and….we saw all but one of the towers fall. 😦

Now, while the stated goal of the challenge is to build a tower that stays standing, the real goal of the activity is to work well enough with your group that that other goal can happen. So what we needed to find out is what happened that made it hard for us to achieve our goal today. We met on the carpet to discuss plusses (things that we did that HELPED us do well, or that went well) and deltas (things we would CHANGE to make it better next time).

Here’s the chart we made:

We talked about our thoughts, and whether or not it was a coincidence that the 1 group whose tower stood is also the only group who put any plusses on our list. Obviously, it was not a coincidence.

So my next question was “So what do we do next? What do we do with this information?” The answer (from more than one person) was “Clean up?” Well…yes, but that was not quite the level of problem solving I was hoping to hear.

So now I’m asking myself, what do I do with this info? We’ve obviously still got a ways to go before most of us are ready to do something this tricky. Today’s challenge, and the debrief that followed is telling me we still need to work on how to accept and appreciate the perspectives of others and not just consider our own. We still need to work on using kind, patient voices with our classmates. We still need to learn how to include everyone in an activity and give everyone an equal say. We still need to learn to be gritty when something is hard or doesn’t work right on the first try.

So that’s what we’ll do. And while we were not quite ready to take the Marshmallow Challenge today, someday–probably sooner than later–we will be. And we’ll do it again. 🙂

Oh, but one more thing. Here’s a pic of the group who was able to build a standing tower. Way to go, friends!

Can’t wait to share this again when we have our Marshmallow Challenge 2.0–Take 2!

20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

Starting a 3rd Grade Journey

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