Tag Archives: learning

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:

IMG_3614

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! 🙂

Screens Arrive in Rm. 202!

Remember back in 2012 when I did an iPad Scout with my 5th graders?  Seems like forever ago, and we’ve come a LONG WAY since then.

For instance, I’ve now taught another 5th grade, as well as 1st and 2nd graders with iPads and it’s amazing how much these kiddos know about how to do things, how to troubleshoot, how to help each other and also what ideas they come up with that I hadn’t even considered!

So as we were ready to pull out our iPads for the first time this year, I was interested in how much I would need to explain before we could get going.  So I asked a simple question as our warm-up this week:

IMG_3613

I’m not sure if you can read what’s on that chart, but these kiddos came in to Rm. 202 with some SUPER smart thinking about how to be safe, productive and smart with their iPads.  They told me things like wash your hands, put it on a table when you’re not using it (and not the floor!), use your headphones, be quiet, ask the teacher and do what you’re supposed to do.  I mean come on–those are all the things I was going to say!  It was so easy to begin our work much more quickly since kindy had put in so much time and work previously.  GOTTA APPRECIATE THAT!

When my next question got lots of “yes” hands, I was again super happy.  Aside from just knowing how to take care of their new device, they also knew how to do things with it!  Aside from just knowing basics like being able to turn it on, put it to sleep, swipe the screen to get started (when it is sleeping), etc., they knew about apps that I wanted them to use (for example, Notability and eBackpack–the LMS we use in our district) and how to take pictures and then use those pictures to demonstrate learning.  I’ll give more examples of that in later posts (like how we went on a letter hunt and built our names!), but for now we just have two words for our kindergarten teachers:

I really cannot express my appreciation more for how easy they have made my job of getting starting with iPads this year.  They are ready and they are excited!  And I’M EXCITED to see where we’ll be able to go with this sturdy foundation that’s already been built.  🙂

DIY T-Shirt Book Bags!

Over the summer, at a ELA/STEM learning institute we attended for our district, Ms. Turken and I were talking about what we could do to better encourage at-home reading this year in 1st grade.  While we do not necessarily require homework, being a better reader (and becoming a reader at all!) happens by reading.  Lots of reading.  We brainstormed how we could do more to get loads and loads of books in kids hands so they could practice each night with their families.  We remembered a connection we had to books at school, but we needed a way to get them home…

So I sent out a call to my friends on Twitter and Facebook (because that’s what teachers do when they have a question, right?), and very quickly I had lots of suggestions.  Mrs. Horn, a friend and teacher at another school in our district, suggested this DIY t-shirt book bag from Mommypotamus.  It’s a no-sew project, so we figured it would be easy, and since we planned on having kids make their bags, we knew they’d be really excited to use them every day!

Ms. Turken’s class was able to make their bags ahead of us, and came to show off/model them as they were finished.  Boy was I excited when a friend of mine asked, “Hey–do we get to make those, too?” and when I said yes, she smiled so big and did a little cheer.

Friday was finally our day. 🙂

And so of course I left ALL OF THE T-SHIRTS WE WERE GOING TO USE FOR THE PROJECT at school on Thursday night.  Nice, right?  Luckily, though, I was able to find just the right number of unused shirts to upcyle into beautiful book bags.  Double nice, right?  Whew–saved by the big pile of junk in my closet. 🙂

FullSizeRender 20-min

Before we could make our bags (which required lots of knot-tying), I had to do a little bit of prep work:

Take a shirt…
..turn it inside out and cut off the sleeves…
…and cut a scoop-neck rounded shape where the collar is.
Measure how tall you need your bag to be and cut the bottom into strips.
Tie them in tight knots all along the bottom…
…and voila! Book bag!!

In order to better facilitate such an involved project (it was simple, but still required some supervision to make sure the knots ended up in the right place), Ms. Mimlitz and I (remember her from our Outside Adventures?  She is the totally amazing TA who works with all of our first grade friends!) pulled small groups while everyone else was working on must-dos and can-dos for the morning.

And I MUST give a shout-out to my small friend Keira, because she took to this project so quickly and ably that I gave her her very own group to lead!  She was truly a gift that morning and helped so many friends get their bags finished.  WAY TO GO, kiddo!

The plan once we are all finished (there were a few kiddos not there on Friday) is to fill our book bags every week with lots of great titles and read, read, read!  Until then, check out how PROUD and EXCITED these first grade makers are with their creations!

I am SO GLAD we decided to take on this project, and once again–first graders rock!!

Do You Really Want a Turtle?

By the second day of school, my new Rm. 202 friends were already asking me about why we didn’t have a class pet.  What??  Were they serious?  They had found out about Mrs. L’s turtle, Javy (because of a sibling we have in 4th grade), and many had seen Ms. Turken’s water turtle, Bradford, who lives next door to us in Rm. 203.  And so already my friends were turtle-crazy.

The problem?  It was the second day of school, I didn’t have a turtle, nor did I really know anything about them (or had we decided yet as a class if we needed one or could take care of it!).  So Ms. Turken and I devised a little plan: her class was going to learn about turtles anyway, because of Bradford and their interest in them, and they could teach us about what we might need to know about what would be the best kind of turtle to have as a pet (I had noticed that Mrs. L’s turtle–who is actually a “cousin” to Bradford–is a box turtle, as opposed to Bradford, who is a water turtle): box or water.

Well, they worked and researched and wondered and wrote and last Friday they were ready to share their information with us.  They came over after lunch on our half day to present their research.  We were SUPER impressed with how organized and professional they were with their words and how well they used the microphone, stood so we could see them, and were so quiet and listening when it wasn’t their turn.  Again a group of first graders was knocking my socks off!

Like I said, Rm. 203 friends were SUPER turtle researchers and taught us a lot.  And yes, now our turtle craze is even greater than before.  We even found this book to read together to teach us more:

Screenshot 2016-09-02 17.17.06

And luckily, I now also have a connection to a turtle.  Updates to follow on whether or not a turtle joins the Rm. 202 family to come….:)

 

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!

Screenshot 2016-09-03 09.55.36

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!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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

 

 

 

#classroombookaday Update

Wanted to share our door one week since we started our #classroombookaday challenge started.  I am SO inspired when I see it, and am loving the comments that people are giving us as they walk by and look at it.  It also just makes me smile. 🙂  We have added  13 books this week! IMG_3785

Meet Mrs. Cohen!

We have been lucky to have Mrs. Cohen at our school for many, many years.  I have actually been lucky enough to work with her when she was a teacher’s assistant in my 4th grade classroom, then I worked with her as a parent (I had her daughter in 5th grade!), she was most recently an administrative assistant in our office, and now we’ve the most blessed that she’s moved up to be our school counselor!!  What great fun to experience so many dimensions of a person and be so encouraged by their work in so many ways.

Well…since my first grade friends were in our school last year, most of them already know Mrs. Cohen.  But since they know her from the office, it was really important for them to be reintroduced to her in her new role.  In order to do that, she spent the last week or so visiting each classroom, bringing with her a really great lesson (differentiated perfectly for each level of kiddos) about what they can expect from her this year.

Our lesson involved a magic bag.  Kiddos got to pull things out of her bag and we’d guess (then she’d tell us) what each represented about her job, or how she’d use them throughout the day.

It’s a little hard to see all the things being pulled out of her bag, so I’ll tell you about them…

  1. Tissues–because some times you might have emotions that make you cry, happy or sad!
  2. Book–often reading a book with a kiddo is a great way to work through things
  3. Foosball–Can you believe Mrs. Cohen has a FOOSBALL table in her office??  Need I say more?
  4. Lunch boxes–sometimes Mrs. Cohen has lunch with friends; I want to be so lucky!
  5. Bouncy ball–sometimes Mrs. Cohen spends time at recess with Robinson kiddos!
  6. Ear–a great counselor like Mrs. Cohen has super listening ears and wants to hear what Robinson kids have to say (she brought that ear from her Mrs. Potato Head, which is how she introduced herself to our kindergarten friends)
  7. Heart–she’s got a big one with lots of love to share!
  8. Smile–who doesn’t love someone smiling at them and sharing a kind word?
  9. Hand–she gives GREAT high-fives!
  10. Feet (not pictured)–sometimes a kiddo might just need to take a walk, to burn off some steam, to calm down, to think through things, or just to talk.  Mrs. Cohen is available for those kinds of times. 🙂

WOW–what lucky Roadrunners we are to be able to have such a caring, thoughtful, resourceful, creative and FUN counselor to take care of us. 🙂  I’m glad I get to spend everyday at Robinson with my friend, Mrs. Cohen! How about you??

#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.

Screenshot 2016-08-28 17.31.21

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:

IMG_3508

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!

Screenshot 2016-08-28 17.58.43

Alphabet_chart

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: First Grade Menagerie

As I look over the pictures I’ve taken the last 8 days, as well as think about what we’ve been doing during our first days, I’ve found some things that don’t really fit into their own blog post, but are all connected because they’re all about the friends in Rm. 202.  Hope you’ll stay to check out the first grade menagerie I have to share. 🙂

First Grade Victory Dances!

If you’ve been here since the beginning of our first grade journey, you’ll remembering reading the welcome post I put up for my new friends.  Well, I got two fabulous videos from two very brave first graders that I keep forgetting to share.  So forget now I no more!

Keira

Callahan

Who’s That Smiley 1st Grader?

I had a picture posted on our welcome screen for a couple of days, with a question of who they thought the smiling face might be.  Strangely (at least I thought!), not many figured out that it was me.  None of them thought it looked like me.  Well, I guess when you add 30 years and change the hair it messes people up. LOL

IMG_2957

My favorite part of this picture? It was the year I decided I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up!  My first grade teacher Mrs. LeGrand was pretty much the most amazing lady I had ever met and I wanted to become her some day.  I am not sure I did that–but I think (hope) I have become my own version of a great teacher! 🙂

Day 2 Plusses/Deltas Reflection

We don’t have the opportunity to sit down to “officially” reflect (although we almost always talk about how things went), but this was a fun one to talk about.  After we worked super hard on our 2nd day together, we sat down to practice more with “plusses and deltas” and we were SO EXCITED to see the things we were able to write down.  We also talked about how easily we could work the next day to solve the struggles we had on Day 2. To be able to see brand new first graders doing such fabulous things so early in the year together was so commendable.  Way to go, Rm. 202 friends!

IMG_3076

Grit and Growth Mindset  AT RECESS!!

The other day at recess, Cal came running to me to show me something he can do now that he couldn’t do before.  He told me he’s been working for a really long time and now he can do it!  Way to keep trying, friend!

Ok…there are other things I could add, but really–what could follow that awesome video?  🙂

#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!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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. 🙂