Blowing Up Our Word Wall!

Yesterday I was sitting with my friend, Ms. Turken, as we worked on a geometry assessment, figuring out a new schedule and just musing about some first grade topics in general. I had some ideas to throw at her related to my class library, my classroom layout and most importantly the way our Word Wall is being used–or really NOT being used.

We talked about the purpose of a word wall as we understood it, which is to be words that kiddos are accountable to know how to spell. Yeah–it’s full of words that most kids know how to spell and read already. It’s not words that most kids need support with so its use is minimal. That’s where we were in Rm. 202.

I sat down with my class today (in front of the Word Wall, naturally), and asked them what they were thinking. I asked what a Word Wall is for, and I got two decidedly different answers (which was not very surprising, actually). I had one friend tell me it was for sight words that we know, and someone else said, no, it’s for words that we need help with. We talked about how we needed to be clear–and agree upon–what we wanted the wall to be for us. I asked many kiddos if they personally ever use the wall to help them spell. Nope. No. Not really. Yes, but only for names. We agreed that having words like it, is, it, get, and, am, etc., is not helpful. I talked with them about what other kinds of things they might want to have on there, and also went to my word wall word stash to make a few suggestions if they needed help. The word BECAUSE came up (as it has several times in multiple conversations of the last week) as a word that most of us need to reference, and so we agreed it would go up there. Someone suggested color words, then we also talked about number words and other categories. This led to the idea that we could organize the words by type, rather than by alphabet.

I gave them a few minutes to work with a friend (or on their own) to suggest categories or specific words that we might want to put up on our wall. While they worked, I started to take down the letters.

Kids had great ideas for categories of words, like colors, numbers, names (which were already on our Word Wall but that are now in a square together instead of by first letter separately), school words, seasonal words (like Halloween, fall, parade, etc.), and just sight words or other “regular” words that might be tricky.

After school I was able to make a start at putting it back together. It already looks great, and I am SUPER excited with how the kiddos like it and how they begin to use it differently. After all, it is THEIR word wall and should be organized and created in a way that makes sense to THEM. Otherwise it’s just letters that no one pays any attention to.

A fresh start…

Color words and the beginning of “school” words

Number words (yes, I know there’s no eighteen. Somehow I lost it. I’ll fix that. 🙂

Names. I will add girl once it gets printed.

Can’t wait to share more soon! Please tell us what you think! 🙂

Gush, Gush

Or I guess we could call this “Day 33: Ahh!–updated again.” Or even “Isn’t Rm. 202 An Amazing Place to Be?” or “My Students are THE BEST!!”

Ok, I guess you get the picture, right? This post is one of those that I’ve been thinking about writing for a while, mainly because I told my kiddos I needed to tell the rest of the world the amazing things I’ve been telling everyone about them in person lately.

Remember in that “Day 33” post where I was talking about how we have gotten to that place where we can breathe? Let me tell you more.

One thing I remember really appreciating about the class I worked with during my student teaching 16 years ago was how much they got that learning was their job. They were second graders, and granted, it was their second year of a loop (so Heidi Ford had had a whole year already to work her magic with them!!), by regardless they were dedicated to making the most of their time at school. I was amazed every day when kids would whine about going home, lament the fact that they didn’t have homework and delight over every new learning invitation presented to them.

I remember how encouraging the whole class was to each other, how they cheered each other one and how they really helped each other focus on putting their best foot forward and stretching their brains. Pretty sure RM. 107’s motto was “work hard, get smart,” and I love that!

Since I’ve been a teacher, I’ve longed for (and in turn worked towards) a class of eager learners who function with that same fervor. Over the years, I’ve had clusters of kids in every class, but only once or twice can I remember a class that was really together for each other. Who really were selfish and selfless in their learning at the same time. I mean kids who want the most/best for themselves but also truly want that for everyone else, too.

So…I bring this up because I am getting a distinct feeling that this group I have now is just that class. 😊. It took us a long time (and a lot of work!) to get here, but the place we are now is beyond where I’d thought or even hoped we’d be at this point in the year.

Lately I’ve been hearing and seeing things like this:

*As we are trying to quiet down in order to get outside to test our light/sound inventions and kiddos are not doing so very quickly: “Come on, guys! Don’t you see that we are wasting our learning time? If we don’t get outside now we won’t get a chance to try out our inventions and we’ll have to take them apart. This is important and we can’t miss out on learning!”

*As I am trying to get attention after a little-too-loud math workshop, the same friend (along with some help from at least 1 or 2 others): “Guys, Mrs. Bearden is waiting! This is important to listen to her directions. You can come back to what you’re doing later, but you can’t hear what she’s saying later because she’s only saying it now!”

*When kiddos heard that someone didn’t get any work done during their whole math workshop rotation, students faces were marked with amazement, wondering “What? He didn’t do ANYTHING the whole time? How could he miss out on all that math learning? How sad!”

*When someone had an empty writing folder after almost a whole quarter of school, writers wondered what he had been doing all this time. They were sad for him because he wouldn’t have anything to share at our writing celebration, and that he had not been practicing all the things we’d been learning in Writer’s Workshop.

*As kiddos yell out during a read aloud, students quickly raise their hands in the shape of a zero, reminding their friends to keep a quiet voice while we read. Others can be heard saying, “We will take turns” and “We will listen and follow directions,” which are both class norms we’ve agreed upon. 🙂

*During work time this week, I heard a friend say to someone else, “I can’t talk to you right now, I have work to do.”

*That same friend could be heard saying, “Wow, those were sandpaper words when someone said , ‘Those are my crayons!'”

*When a student was trying to talk to me while I was working with another student on an assessment, a friend nearby said, “Remember, she’s not going to talk to you, you’re whining.” Then, as the friend continued working to interrupt, she added, “She’s not going to talk to you, she’s working with that friend.”

*As I start to remind kiddos of appropriate line behavior (before we leave for recess), I hear someone finish my words my saying, “I will…take you to recess when everyone is in a straight, quiet line!”

*When a group that was only supposed to have 2 or 3 kiddos in it ended up with 4, the group calmly figured out which friend should move to another group by deciding to play rock/paper/scissors. When the friend moved to his new group, a friend there said, “Come on over, let’s make a plan!”

I feel like I could probably go on and on with amazing words and actions that kiddos in Rm. 202 are saying and doing right now. It’s been so beautiful to watch how kids are starting to take care of each other, encourage each other (which is another norm), and remind their friends of what we are all about. We had a little trouble this afternoon with crayons (and not sharing them correctly and therefore wasting our writing time), and kiddos were able to reflect on what those actions said about us, whether they were what we are all about in Rm. 202 and whether they help us learn. We agreed and then actually asked me to let them go back to work so they could fix it.

I am loving how kiddos who have previously struggled with distracting behaviors are stepping up and responding positively when their friends ask them to stop, when their friends remind them they quickly change their choices. I am noticing less waiting time, more learning time and just how the overall feel of our room is so relaxed and comfortable. It is truly a special and LOVELY place to spend the day. I am really lucky to be able to work with such an amazing group of kiddos every day. And if you’re a parent of one of those kiddos–thanks so much for all you did and do to help them be their very best!! I appreciate you, too! 🙂

Outdoor Adventures: PLTW Design Challenge!

Hopefully you’ve read about how we’re learning about light and sound and how great PLTW is going in our classroom. (If not, feel free to check it out before you go on with this post–LOL). On Friday we got to the point where we were ready for the design challenge.

We had learned about the design process earlier on in the unit, and also were then reminded of the problem from the story about Angelina, Mylo and Suzi.

Since we had learned and explored about light and sound already, we were ready to answer that question from the end of our book:

If you were Angelina, Mylo and Suzi, how would you help them communicate over a distance to get help?

Luckily for us, we have a fabulous woods and Naturescape in our backyard in which to actually try out this challenge! We will do that on Monday, but first we had to figure out how to answer the question. We got into groups and had a limited list of supplies (which we happened to be carrying in our backpack):

Kiddos had time to design and build their devices and then will test their creations in the woods on Monday.

Callahan and Lucas figured out how to make their device reach higher and shared their thinking:

We also had an unexpected problem-solving situation come up after I talked with my first grade teacher-friend, Ms. Turken. I asked her how the challenge went with her class, and she told me they had these issues:

It was day time, and bright outside, so the light part of the devices didn’t really work
It was during recess and so the “outside sounds” made it hard to hear the sound coming from the lost kiddos and their devices. Also, since our woods are right next to a neighborhood, lawnmowers also made it hard to hear.
There were too many groups–her class had 7 groups to “lose” and then “find”
Only 2 adults were available during the time of their challenge

We decided to take on this problem and see if we could figure out how to use this knowledge (and their struggles!) to make the challenge work the best for us when we took our turn to try it out. We headed out to the woods to have a chat, because I figured it might be easier to think about it in the actual setting.

We gathered on the stage (built by the amazing Riggs Construction!) and talked about our options. I was excited to hear how kiddos were thinking through the problems I presented, thinking about how we could address them with what we know. We had many great suggestions:

Allie thought that we should be sure to focus on the sound part of our devices instead of just the light parts. She said their group had made sure to put both light and sound on their device. 🙂
Many kiddos took the number of groups problem, and thought of ways we could fix it–split our class in half, send one group then another then another to find the “lost” ones, and so one.
We noticed that the time of day we were outside (which was later than when Ms. Turken’s class was outside) was not so loud. There were no kids at recess, no one was mowing and all we heard was the wind in the trees.
Aadish suggested that everyone’s groups all go out into the woods to get “lost” at the same time. We could then try to use our devices to communicate with others, and as we saw each other, groups would join together to look for others. He suggested that the person who knew the woods the best could be the leader of each group.
Keira asked, “But what if everyone wants to be the leader?”
Aadish and the class agreed that maybe we could do the challenge more than once, giving more than one kiddo a turn to be in charge.
We even thought that we could do our evaluation and redesign right there in the woods before our next try to see if we could make our devices communicate even better.

WHEW! WOW! I was tired after all that smart thinking and was super impressed with how they were considering ways to make our experience the best it could be. I know we’re ALL excited to see how it goes when we’re actually in the woods tomorrow! Stay tuned and we’ll tell you all about it!

#classroombookaday UPDATE: Week 7

Another week, another list of great read alouds! For some reason we only read 12 (instead of the almost 20 from most weeks so far), but boy were they good ones and man did we have fun! Here’s what our door looks like as of Friday:

Let me tell you about a few of the highlights from this week:

We added 3 Piggie and Elephant titles to our door, which we LOVE!!
We read another Peter Brown book ( well, 2 of them actually), and we’re becoming fans of another great author. We loved My Teacher is a Monster and noticed lots of great things happening in the illustrations. Then we shared The Curious Garden and LOVED it! And we found The Curious Garden because we’d seen the amazingly beautiful song by Emily Arrow on her YouTube channel. What a great partnership between music and literature!And speaking of The Curious Garden, we had great conversations about grit and growth mindset from that little city garden and the boy who helped it grow!
We added some Olivier Dunrea titles to our list, too, which we found after we first read Ollie the Stomper for shared reading early in the year. Since the first one, we’ve met Gideon, his octopus buddy Otto and a perfect pair of friends named Jasper and Joop. This coming week there’s more on the list to explore!
Another Ame Dyckman title was enjoyed this week– Wolfie the Bunny!
We read our first title for the Global Read Aloud this week and interacted with Nana in the City by Lauren Castillo. We drew and wrote about how we could be brave in our capes. We’re excited for next week’s book–The Troublemaker!
Lastly, we had a really special mystery reader come to our class and share a funny book with us called Naked by Michael Ian Black–Allison Bearden! Do you recognize that name? It’s my cutie-pie kindergarten daughter! She had been reading and rereading Naked, practicing sounding like a storyteller, and I asked her if she wanted to read it to my first graders. She was excited about that idea, and when she showed up, my kiddos were, too!

They were great listeners, Allie was a great reader and Rm. 202 kids were impressed that she could read the words in that book! The next request was that Riley Bearden come down from 4th grade and share a book with them. He’s ready to take on that challenge, so maybe he’ll be here next week on the 20somethingkids blog!

Another great week of reading, inspiring, thinking and book-loving in Rm. 202! Thanks for reading! Do you have a suggestion of a book we could read? We LOVE recommendations from other readers!

Global Read Aloud 2016

Last year I learned about the Global Read Aloud from a Twitter friend of mine named Tam Scharf who lives in Australia. She is a great collaborator and friend to me, despite the fact that we have never really met, have only spoken in person once (well really it was over Skype), and don’t even live on the same continent or teach the same grade (anymore at least–we both taught 5th grade we first “met” in 2011). I love that that story actually describes many teachers who are important parts of my professional learning network.

But anyway….the Global Read Aloud 2016 started this week and we are off to a running start already! We began with a short introduction to what it is,

who we would be studying and what they could look forward to doing over the next 6 weeks. We watched a video and checked out the website of Lauren Castillo, the author and illustrator we’d be studying. Very shortly they were hooked and SUPER excited to join the almost 900,000 kids who would be studying the same books!

This week’s book (as you can see in the video) is Nana in the City, and is all about bravery. After we read and discussed the story, we got busy answering this question:

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We got busy thinking and drawing and I was really impressed (and a little surprised) with what they came up with. Check out our work!

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We are excited to read more and write more and share our thinking! There are some other friends in our school who are also participating and we’re hoping to share our thinking with them, as well. Tomorrow we plan on joining a Twitter chat about Lauren Castillo’s books, too, so we can talk about what we like, what we think and who we are. We may also build cityscapes to teach others about where we live. The opportunities are endless! I’m excited to share more and we go along!! 🙂

Our First MYSTERY NUMBER SKYPE!!

I was so excited to get my kiddo started on some “techy” type things and so today was a great day–we did our first MYSTERY NUMBER SKYPE! What’s a Mystery Skype you ask? What’s a Mystery Number Skype? (Check those out so you can get the big idea–believe me, they are one of the coolest things we do in Rm. 202!

Well today was the day! I hadn’t really made a big deal about it, which was fine because they didn’t know what it was anyway, but boy did they pick it up quickly! I explained the general idea (we have a number and the other class has a number and we use a 20-Question type game to figure out each others’ numbers), and then we practiced with the number 18. We talked about words we might use (like greater than/less than, tens place/ones place), and ways we could cross off the most numbers at once (we kept track together on a hundreds chart) and then matched up with a partner to plan for what we would ask.

At 9:30 we were ready, and our Skype phone rang!

We answered and got right to work. Our first point of business (after we said hello, of course!) was to figure out who would ask the first question. We did so with rock/paper/scissors!

We won (rock over scissors!) and asked the first question. Eventually we will have jobs for each kiddo, and will keep track of our questions for future reference, but for now we were lucky to have Mrs. Sisul tweet for us! Here’s an example (and you can check out the rest of the session on our class feed at @jbeardensclass) of what happened!

@jbeardensclass Wow!! You did great on #mysterynumberskype. Looking at even, odd, greater, less, place value Thanks so much!! #WeareAndover pic.twitter.com/rHqtMjlzEl

— Janie Hachen (@Hachen2nd) October 5, 2016

Rm. 202 kiddos did such a great job and were SUPER excited when in just about 5 or 6 questions we got to the point where we could guess their mystery number!

we’re ready to guess! voting for our guess ~ is your number 66? YES!!! @hachen2nd @jbeardensclass #mysteryskype #mysteryskype HAPPY DANCE!

— Jennifer Sisul (@GRRPrincipal) October 5, 2016

What a great start to our Mystery Skyping journey! We are ready to go and excited for our next call! Who’s in? If you’re interested, please leave us a comment so we can get in touch with you!

Outdoor Adventures!: Light and Sound

Today was a half-day at our school (because of teacher professional development in the afternoon), and so first grade took advantage of an awkward schedule to have an outdoor adventure! We have been outside with Rm. 202 friends before, but today were had ALL OF FIRST GRADE outside in the Robinson Naturescape learning and exploring together!

The teachers planned a STEM day focused on our current PLTW unit on Light and Sound, adding in the component of the AMAZING outdoor spaces we have in the back of our school. We took out a tub with a variety of tools, like binoculars, magnifying glasses, color tiles, flashlights, mirrors and spectroscopes. Kiddos had the job of exploring outside and discovering something new about light. Eventually we will have to represent that learning (using iPads, drawing or building tools), but for now we were just out and about and having fun with wondering!!

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As you watch the slideshow with your kiddo (if you’re a parent!), ask them these things:

What was your favorite part of being outside today?
What was your favorite tool to use as a scientist? How did you use it?
What did you find outside while you were exploring?
What did you learn about light?
What do you still wonder?

We came in and as a quick way to debrief, I had kiddos share what they were thinking about after their adventure. While you can tell that they were thinking of many things other than light (like dead animals–we found a DEAD RACCOON back there today!!), it was obvious that kiddos were thinking and having fun, and that they LOVE BEING OUTSIDE! I think at least half of my kiddos asked me when we’re going out again. 🙂 I’m excited to see how we can use this chart of great ideas in other parts of our learning soon, like for reading and writing ideas, topics for math and even further thingsto study for STEM or Genius Hour (which we’ll get to later on this year!).

fullsizerender-min What a great day we had! 🙂

PLTW: Light and Sound

We are super lucky to have loads of new resources for science this year from Project Lead the Way, courtesy of a grant from the Kirkwood School District Foundation. It means we are able to add in so much more hands-on learning, and focus more deeply on engineering, design and coding in STEM this year, which is GREAT!!

Our first STEM unit this year is light and sound and we have been doing some really fun things already.

Before we even got into the unit, we did some things to expose kiddos to the big ideas, and to get them interested. One of those was to invite a Kirkwood Scientist, Mr. Bartin, to our classroom. Ok, well really Ms. Turken invited him to Rm. 203 and we tagged along, but he was here to share some interesting ideas about sounds with first grade.

Then we had some time to explore in non-fiction books from the library that we explored with a partner. Kiddos were responsible to read a light book and a sound book (or one that had both topics together) and then create a representation of something they learned or something that was important from their reading out of play-doh (and somehow I don’t any pictures of their creations! Boo. Believe me–they were great. 🙂 ).

Then once the unit started, it was with a story to help set the stage. This one is about three friends who have a problem: they get lost in the woods while on a walk with their class. 😦

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As we work through the rest of the unit, we will learn and explore with light and sound and eventually be presented with a design challenge much like our friends in the story.

We began with some exploring with some everyday objects (that someone might have in their backpack on a hike!):

We are keeping track of our learning in a Launch Log and will be able to go back and review it throughout the unit. We’ve just begun light explorations and will even spend the whole morning tomorrow outside as scientists with common objects like flashlights, magnifying glasses, and more! Can’t wait to share what we learn!

Dot Day UPDATE: We Made Our Mark!

I hope that you have already enjoyed the story of our Dot Day 2016 celebration, but if not, you might want to check that out first, and then you will have an even better idea of how we got here. This is an update–one thing I forgot to share (what??) and our amazing paintings that weren’t ready to share yet. Believe me, these MARKS are amazing!

First our favorite parts of Dot Day (not surprisingly, it was the DOTS for most kiddos!)

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