Mystery Skype–For Real!

You might remember that last year we prepared for a Mystery Skype by Skyping with Ms. Turken’s class INSIDE of our school.  We were ready and had a plan, but then our Skype that we had scheduled fell through.  Somehow we didn’t get another on the books until this year.  So a week or so ago we did a Mystery NUMBER Skype with Ms. Bartin’s class at Keysor–the next step above someone in our school is in our school district. hee hee

Then, when I tweeted about how much fun we’d had, I asked for any takers on another Mystery Skype.  We quickly got a bite from Mrs. LaRose’s 2nd graders!  We quickly put a day and time on the schedule and I got busy getting my class ready for the big time.

Since a few years ago when I did this with 5th graders, I have made some new “friends” on Twitter and knew that they would be the right ones to go to for help.  Paul Solarz, 5th grade teacher extraordinaire and author of Learn Like a Pirate has some GREAT Mystery Skype resources, and I used many of them to get us prepared for our conversation.

It started with determining our jobs.  While Mr. Solarz has 5th graders and does most of his Mystery Skype work online, we were still able to use many of their listed jobs, modified a little to fit our needs.

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While I think that Mr. Solarz assigns jobs, we had a meeting before we got started and I explained each job, then we decided who should do each one.  If more than the allotted number wanted a specific job, kiddos had to find a way to decide who should do it (many of them played rock-paper-scissors to get to a decision).  In the end, we agreed that the right people were in the right jobs, based on their strengths and personalities.

I was excited (as were they) and even though I had done this many times before, I really didn’t know what to expect because I hadn’t done it with this format in any other session previously.  Because we were ready a little early (ok, I did that on purpose), we were able to practice.  We were able to run through the whole deal twice, with me pretending to be the other class and them trying out their assigned jobs (thanks, Mr. Solarz for that idea–it was SUPER helpful!).  First I was in Illinois (Chicago, actually) and then I was in Florida (ok, fine–Orlando).  If you know me at all, you could probably guess those would have been my choices.  Ok, fine, they probably had a little head start on that, too.  Anyway…

While we were working, I was surprised with how busy everyone was, how well they worked together and how quiet but bustling the room was!  We were even able to host a few teachers who wanted to see what this whole Mystery Skype thing was about without any real trouble.  Thanks for Ja’Mia and Landen for submitting the pictures for this post, and for Khalani for taking the video.

Check out our archives from our first-ever REAL Mystery Skype!

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After we were finished, we sat down to debrief and it was great how excited they all still were–I had them turn and talk so everyone could get all their thoughts out, then they shared some with me.  Here is a little of what kiddos said, some positive and some things we might change:

I liked holding up the “Good job” sign, it made me feel great to see everyone focusing, learning and doing the right thing! -Sara

I thought it was fun and I really wanted to do a good job to help out our class! -Thomas

I liked that I helped find Vermont! -Amber

I didn’t like walking around the whole time. -Landen

I liked my job because I got to remind people. -Ella Marie

I thought it was tricky trying to find a question.  -Emily

I liked it when Nate and Charlie asked about the time zone. -Lawrence

I like that my behavior was good.  I got a “good job” card and I really wanted to do my very best for our class! -Jacob

I liked being a greeter.  I was good at that job because I am friendly. -Joshua

I liked learning things that I didn’t know about our state. -Ava

I liked learning about maps. -Evan

We also debriefed on jobs.  The consensus was that there were too many researchers, and that we needed to add a couple of new ones: Tweeters and Closers.  Mrs. Sisul, our principal, texted me during our session and asked that I make sure to Tweet since she couldn’t make it and I could not believe that I hadn’t even thought about it!  We will definitely find some friends to do that next time, as well as choose two friendly kiddos to close the call and say thanks and good bye.  🙂

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One more thing…it’s very long and it’s kind of shaky–it’s our first time, after all–but I think it gives a great example of all the hustle, bustle and hard work that was happening during our Mystery Skype.  We’d love to hear what you think, especially if you notice anything or have any questions.

Who’s in YOUR Village?

I don’t even remember when I first heard that saying “It takes a village…,” but goodness knows I live it and breathe it in so many ways at this point in my life.  Whether that means my personal life at home with kids or my professional life at school with my other kids (which is what this post is about), I could definitely not do it all alone.

So when I read someone else’s post a few months ago, it got me asking and answering that question “Who’s in YOUR village?” for myself.  And this is my answer.  At least for this season of life. 🙂

And so a few words for the few that help make my school life bearable and even fun!

1.) My hubby

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Ok, so there’s about a thousand things I could say about why I love this guy and how he helps make my life possible, but two of the biggest reasons are that he gets me and he gets my job. We’ve been together (between dating and being married) for 23 years and it’s been super amazing how we’ve both grown over the years into new and different people, but have grown in the same direction.  I love that he gets my weird moods and what that “thinking face” I make means, and how he knows just when I need him to bring me a Diet Dr. Pepper (and he does this without being asked–love it!).  Also, he’s a teacher, so while there’s WAY too much shop talk at our house, he can TOTALLY relate to lesson plans, report cards, parent conferences (from both sides now!), how the school week really starts (and the weekend really ends! :() on Sunday about 5 when we have to start getting ready for school again, and that some times I just need to either 1) talk to NO ONE for a while when I get home or 2) talk to an ADULT and have a conversation with someone other than an 8YO.  Anyhow, he’s kind of a catch and I’m really lucky that he’s on my team. 🙂 Love you, Grant!

2.) My friends

It’s always to hard when you start to write a list, because two things usually happen: you leave someone/something off because you mean to, or you leave someone/something off inadvertently.  I’m not really sure which is worse, because especially when you’re listing friends (which, ok, doesn’t usually happen after high school) it seems harsh.  And now I’m going to write a list.  And hope that it doesn’t make anybody upset. Oh, and it’s in no specific order. 🙂

IMG_0143 2.JPGShannon–What can I say except God put her in my life at just the right time and the friendship that has blossomed in the last two years has been nothing short of amazing.  Besides being an amazing teacher, she’s kind, loving, understanding, funny and challenges me in a respectful way.  Shannon cares about me as a person as much as an educator and takes such interest in my life, regardless of the topic.  What’s important to me is important to her, too.  She understands that I might do things in a different way than everyone else (and she would sometimes, too!), that I have to think (often for a llloooonnnggg time) before I can answer with my opinion or ideas, and she accepts and love me for those things.  She has the most intense belief in her students as learners and works to make them better people when they leave her classroom (and I know this firsthand–she was my son’s teacher and he blossomed in her care!).  She inspires me to be a better teacher just by doing what she naturally does. It makes TOTAL sense that her last name is Appelbaum, because she truly does plant seeds and grow children.

Rachael–IMG_3020Yeah, I know that’s a picture of a dog.  It’s Rosie, actually, but it’s the only picture Rae would let me post of her.  Aside from that silliness, Rachael is a pretty fabulous person. 🙂  She also came into my life at a perfect time; after being an acquaintance for a very long time, our paths finally crossed on a teaching team.  We quickly found out we have much in common (and much that we don’t because she’s so much nicer, calmer, and more considerate than me, LOL), and that we get along really well.  One of my favorite things about her is how she loves on my kids; Allie and Riley love her bunches and love to spend time with her as much as I do.  She asks thoughtful questions, encourages at just the right time in the right way, and has probably the biggest heart of anyone I know.  She has a way of seeing such good and potential in people (little people, too!) and inspires me to be a better version of me.  It’s true when she says she’s for students.

3.) My team

1443305819373I still laugh about the story behind this picture.  It literally happened because as we were starting the day one morning someone said, “Hey, this is the first time we’ve all been in the same place together in a long time!” (Guess it had been a busy week!).  I said, “Well then grab a camera!” and of course, a selfie followed.  No, it’s not the best picture of any of us, but it speaks to a moment in time and for sure shows the joy that’s on our faces each day when we’re at school. No, every day is not perfect, but for sure we work through those rocky parts together.  This is my first year on this team, and it was well established before I came into it.  In many ways this scared me, as I am probably not what you’d call an “established” person; I tend to fly by the seat of my pants, make plans and change them, respond to the moment and see what happens–well at least at school I do. LOL  Instead of being scary, though, the organization, structure and flow of the way our team works has added so much to the way I teach and learn.  We each bring something different to the table (including unit plans for each subject that each one of us is responsible for creating and then sharing with everyone else), and there is always laughter when we’re together.  We’re different in many ways and that works so well.  I love Team Tuesday lunches, even though it took me until January to remember to have lunch there that day so I could join in; I love that someone else sends copies for me to the copy center because I don’t usually think that far ahead; I love that these ladies think so fondly of everyone at our school and send holiday cards to ALL of the support staff (I never knew 2nd grade did this!); I love that they understand and respect how I might not always be the first to follow the crowd.  I will get there eventually–usually–but might also put my own twist or spin on something and that is ok.  We care about each other, talk about many things other than school, and have each others’ backs.  That’s good for the soul. 🙂

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 4.) My kiddos (and their families!)

These are the friends I’m here for, after all, right?  These kiddos are perhaps some of the best little people I’ve met in a long time!  This is my first (well, and second since we’ve been together for 2 years) class of primary students for almost 10 years and they’ve been a breath of fresh air.  I had forgotten how eager young minds can be to learn new things, how they come into pretty much everything with zest and anticipation and I love how these learners are willing to try each new and kooky thing I suggest we do.  Even better than that, they have some super ideas of their own that I think they know and trust that I will in turn be willing to let them try.  We are truly a big, happy family (who sometimes bicker like siblings LOL), and we’re in this together.  And I can’t mention these amazing students without of course mentioning their families.  The support and love I get from them is unmatchable, and the way they help and support their kiddos is inspiring.  I am lucky.

5.) Robinson

As much as I have these few close people on my team to hold me up, I can truly do what I do because of WHERE I do it.  My school (because of our principal and the rest of the staff) is truly a magical place to work and play everyday.  It’s been my home for the last 16 years, and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.  While the teachers have changed over the time I’ve been teaching there, the culture and “feel” of our school remains the same because our mission remains constant: we’re here for our kids and we are willing to do whatever it takes to help each and every one learn.  We care about kids–all of them and the whole child–and it shows.  There is always mention of how welcoming and warm our building is, and it’s definitely not because of the 1930s era heating system (I kid).  You can feel the warmth and love that resonates from all the people who work and learn inside the walls of 803 S. Couch.

So…who’s in YOUR village?

Dot Day 2015

A  little while ago we celebrated a special day along with many thousands of other kids and teachers around the world: Dot Day. The idea is simple: read and enjoy the book The Dot with your class and then explore the story creatively–in any way you want.  Easy peasey, right?  Sign us up!!

Screenshot 2015-10-11 20.25.47So we read the story, and talked about what it meant to “make your mark.”  And since we’re Roadrunners, kiddos brought up the ideas of grit, growth mindset and making mistakes.  Who knew there was so much to learn in a story about a girl and a painting?  Ok, so I knew it was all in there. Hee hee.  I’m just super impressed that my students came up with it before I even told them.  Way to go, Rm. 202 friends!

After we were done reading and talking, I set them loose to work their magic.  With paint.  Or markers.  Or colored pencils, or crayons–whatever they wanted to use to show their creativity was fine by me.  And show us they did!

Check it out:

We weren’t done there, though.  Nope.  Had to do some writing about it, of course!  So kiddos were given a sheet to help them think through how they would explain their work.  Basically I wanted to give kiddos the support with sentence starters (if they needed it), as well as the structure of understanding what they could actually explain about the process (sometimes 2nd graders just want to tell you one sentence and be done).

Kiddos were instructed to complete a rough draft (which was made of four parts: When I read The Dot, it made me think of….; So I decided to make…; I used…; and I want to make my mark by…).  On the second day of work we had to have a conversation about what it meant to be “done,” because like I mentioned before, some kiddos thought just saying “I used paint” would be a thorough explanation of what they did.  I showed them my sheet–all filled out–and we discussed the thinking I did in order to decide what to say, as well as how to use the organizer correctly.  The lesson here was simple: if you are given 4 lines to write your ideas upon, then you should write 4 lines of words.  Well, it seemed simple at least, but was not so obvious as you might think.  Once they finally had a rough draft, they were then to work by themselves or with their elbow partner to revise and edit their work before creating their final draft on special “Dot” paper.  This was perfectly tied into the writing cycle we were working through and was a nice picture of how writing doesn’t just happen during one set time of day.

It took us a week to all finish our writing, and then we were ready to share.  I was happy to see how well it all fit in our hallway, using the windows and the one vertical part of the wall.  Perfect space-wise, and perfect because we (and everyone who walks through our hallway) get to be inspired by our dots every day!

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Robinson has GRIT! (and drums!)

On one of the last days before our Spring Break started, we were visited by a music teacher from a nearby university, and some of his students.  Best of all, they brought DRUMS with them!  Our kiddos were able to learn about the drums, about the music you could play with them and then they got to try it out, too!

And then, when I came to pick up my class, they asked for teachers to get in on the action, too!  I’m so glad my friend Peyton was up there for that round with me, because he definitely helped me know what to do.  That rhythm was harder to follow than you’d think!  Way to go, Robinson musicians–Robinson does indeed have GRIT!

First Grade Math-Warm Ups: Week of February 2-6, 2015

Seems like I am always giving a reason for why our week was crazy.  This week was the same way!  Wednesday we participated in Global School Play Day, so didn’t have math, and yesterday my 3-times-longer-than-usual commute (because of snow and ice on the road) meant that I didn’t get to school in time to write one, and then add in our first day with our iPad Minis yesterday as well and VOILA, you’ve got crazy!  See what I mean?  But hey, there were 3 warm-ups this week, so here we go!

Monday

It only seemed right to have a Super Bowl themed warm-up the morning after the big game!  Still working on adding 2-digit numbers efficiently with this one. 🙂

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Tuesday

The problem yesterday actually brought up a great (but unexpected question) as a friend only read the first sentence and then assumed she knew what it was asking.  She thought that it was asking her to SUBTRACT the numbers because she figured the last part asked by how many points the Patriots had won.  We were able to talk about how important reading the whole problem was, as well as how different bits of information can produce many different kinds of problems depending on the questions you ask.  They’re not quite ready to think this way yet, but I gave them a challenging warm-up on Tuesday asking them to think about the questions they could ask (oh, and thanks for not commenting on the ages mentioned in this problem–thankfully no one said anything about how OLD Mrs. Bearden is!!).

CAM01521Friday

You’ll notice that this one doesn’t have any post-its on it.  I was actually home with a sick little girl on Friday, but snapped a picture as I put it up to leave for the sub to talk through with my friends.  This one was based on both our 2-digit addition work and a conversation we were having the other day about how many 1st graders there are.  How would you solve it?  What model would you use to record your thinking?

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The 100th Day–YAY!! (Part 1)

Whew!  Our 100th day of school was today!  Boy am I tired!  WE WERE BUSY!!

I’ve been thinking about how to spend that day (and mainly trying to figure out how to both “celebrate” and still be rigorous and meaningful in my choices), and had landed on several ideas I was pretty excited about.  The good news?  We were able to use my idea list today.  The bad news (well, just the other news I guess…)?  We just did one of those things.  Let me explain. 🙂

If you were writing down a list of what we accomplished today, it would just say “blogging.”  I even had a kiddo say, “All we did was blog today, Mrs. Bearden.”  What?  That’s ALL we did?  In a word, yes, but MAN was there a TON of learning and thinking involved in that day of blogging!  I am SUPER AMAZED at what we were able to do today.

I started the day by telling my friends that I had prepared several challenges for them to do and that we could spend the day with those things.  We usually start our day with writing, so I shared the writing challenge first, with plans to share the rest of the challenges as we went on through the day.  The first thing we planned to work on was a blogging challenge.

With it being the 100th day of school, and the fact that we just went live with our blogs yesterday, I knew they’d appreciate a challenge around the “bigness” of 100 things on their blog.  I suggested we try to write 100 blog posts or comments.  Or they could challenge themselves to write a post using 100 words (which would be a HUGE STRETCH from the 2-3 sentence posts we’ve written so far).  As I had hoped and expected, they were SUPER excited to get started, and were totally up to the challenge!

Our next step was to figure out how we could make it happen.  This was a great conversation filled with much mathematical knowledge of groups of 10, counting on by 10s (as I told them we had 17 posts right then and wondered how many there would be if we added 100 more today), and splitting 10s into 5s to figure out new groups (someone said they knew that if it took 10 10s to make 100, it would take 20 5s since 5+5=10).   We divided (without knowing it) 100 by the 20 people in the room (including me!), and as we went through the challenge we did lots of adding and subtracting to figure how many more we needed and how many we had at any given point.

We got started, and you know what?  I don’t have many pictures of the work we did.  I was as busy as they were, answering questions, moderating posts and comments and helping everyone as needed.  So with 20 people, 12 iPads and 5 MacBooks between us, we were able to complete 100 BLOG POSTS AND COMMENTS today!! YIPPEE!!  It took us almost all day, but we did it!  And when we were finished, we had this to say:

(Hopefully you can tell they’re saying, “I00 BLOGS ROCK!!”

Now, I go back to that part about “all we did was blog all day,” because even though I didn’t mean to, at one point I even questioned whether I had done enough with the day.  We didn’t have a big long list of activities to show for our time together.  No one took home anything different than a normal day.  We didn’t have any thing to prove we worked hard and stretched our thinking today.  We did, however, have this:

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It’s a little hard to see, but these are the charts where we kept tally of all of the posts/comments we finished. We counted them by 10s, 1s, and 2s at several points during the day as we figured out what we’d done and how much we had to go. It hangs outside our room for others to see. I’m hoping it will elicit questions for my kids (and for me) about how we spend our100th day! We have a great story to tell!

(ok, we did have a few pictures of the day!)

We also have a Kidblog dashboard that looks like this:

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Yesterday we had 17 posts and 0 comments! Check out those numbers as of tonight! We have only been on our blogs since yesterday morning–crazy, right? We’re rocking and rolling already!!

And perhaps even better, we have memories.  We have encouragement that came from our friends–“We can do this!”–when we wanted to give up.  We have full buckets from the words our friends wrote about our stories.  We have new knowledge about how to work the iPads and laptops on our own.  We have that feeling that comes with accomplishing a goal.  We have successful problem solving that happens when we’re allowed to figure things out for ourselves or talk with our classmates.  We have practice with creating meaningful writing for a REAL audience; we worked hard to make our words look right, sound right and make sense.  We have practice with letters, sounds and words and we have momentum to go forward with our writing.  AND we have a great list of things that we didn’t finish today that we’ll use to continue our learning tomorrow! hee hee

So as I reflected, I thought it would be a great visual (for me at least) to look at our district’s rubrics and match up how today’s work addressed the expectations therein.  Check out how many ways this simple blogging challenge touched our 1st grade standards:

Reading

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Writing

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Speaking and Listening

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Learning Behaviors and Study Skills

Screen Shot 2015-01-28 at 8.09.33 PMScreen Shot 2015-01-28 at 9.07.58 PMScreen Shot 2015-01-28 at 9.08.08 PMScreen Shot 2015-01-28 at 9.08.20 PMScreen Shot 2015-01-28 at 9.08.28 PMScreen Shot 2015-01-28 at 9.08.36 PM  So needless to say I am tired tonight!  I’m pretty sure my kids are, too! The amount of grit they had to use to make today happen and accomplish the HUGE goal set before them was great.  And while I know that I am a little biased, I’d say that today was definitely a day we can say we worked to get a little closer to helping Rm. 202 kids meet this mission of Robinson School:

CAM01331What did you do for your 100th day?  What have you heard from Rm. 202 kids about their day?  Please share your thoughts with us!  We’re learning how blogging is all about the conversation, and we’d love to start a conversation with YOU! 🙂

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.  :)

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. 🙂

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

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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!"

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!)

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? 🙂

Interactive Writing Explained

**Disclaimer–I am SO excited to share this post and have been thinking about the right way to write it for a LONG time!  My kiddos worked SO hard on the writing in this story and are rockstars in my book.  THANKS FOR READING!!**

If you have been here for a while then you know that this year is my first year in first grade in a LONG, LONG time!  I got my start there more than a decade ago, then moved on to work with “big” kids for a while and am back to my roots.  Much has changed, but I’m finding that many things have stayed the same–some things are just good teaching.  Best practice.  Good stuff for kids.  Interactive writing is one of those things.  I learned how to do it back then and am being reminded of it’s importance and power with kids today.  Let me explain. 🙂

First of all a definition: interactive writing is a writing experience (often whole group) where teacher and students “share the pen” to create meaningful text together.  The teacher, using what she knows about students and their current understandings about letters, sounds, words, etc., purposefully chooses kids to add certain parts to the composition, building on their knowledge and helping them make connections to new skills and concepts.  This is not done haphazardly, and is best done with planning ahead of time–although I have had some amazing experiences with IW that happens “on the fly.”  Ideally, the texts you compose together because touchstones for future learning; revising and revisiting are part of the process. Continue reading

Ten Black Dots

One of the great things that happens at the beginning of first grade is a series of Kingore lessons that Mrs. Berger comes to do with all of our classes.  We gather together 6 times, doing a variety of different types of thinking over the course of the lessons.  The first one was related to the book Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews.

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In short, the lesson asks kids to think outside the box, and create a picture using 10 black dots (or in our case they were red or green circles!).

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First Mrs. Berger read the book to us.

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I had to try it out first. And man…it’s hard work thinking like that on your feet in front of a rug full of kiddos! She didn’t tell me she was going to ask me to do this, so the “thinking face” I have on is a real one!

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I started by putting my dots all in a group, and suddenly an idea came into my head.

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Mrs. Berger challenged me to add some details so that my audience could tell for sure what my picture was. I added some lines on my circle. Can you tell what it is yet?

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A few more details…

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My finished Ten Dot picture: a pizza! I know–kind of an obvious choice. This was a HARD job! Wait til you see what our kiddos came up with….:)

Kiddos were then asked to count out 10 dots from a bag, and get to work on their own Ten Dot creation.  I’m excited to share their CREATIVE thinking:

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How is that for a showcase of some AMAZING thinking?!  I’m trying not to be embarrassed that I made a pizza….:)  GREAT job, Rm. 202 kids!

Did You Bring Your GRIT?? WE DID!!

First, a moment of cute that happened last weekend:

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Don’t you just wanna squeeze those cheeks??

Ok, so back to that GRIT question…

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We are now smack-dab in the midst of state testing, so GRIT, stamina and focus are essential this week!  This is a poster hanging in our room right now to remind us to believe in ourselves, try our best and show what we know.  That’s what assessments are for, after all, right? 🙂

Here are some other motivators from around our room:

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Ms. Shifflett helped us out and got creative with paint the other day. 🙂

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Another one. 🙂

Covered up some vocabulary words with encouraging ones!

Covered up some vocabulary words with encouraging ones!

There's a calendar under there...

There’s a calendar under there…

Even Mrs. Sisul got in on the fun!  What encouraging words to remind us that we got it!

Even Mrs. Sisul got in on the fun! What encouraging words to remind us that we got it!

I have to say how PROUD I am of how much grit, stamina and focus I am seeing as my kiddos work this week!  I am seeing examples of all of the smart testing strategies we’ve been talking about in action and I KNOW that we are SHOWING WHAT WE KNOW!  PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK, RM. 202!  You are ROCKING this test!