Weekly Blog Post Goal

Well, I have a lot of great classroom reflections to write about and no time to write! I will make it up by writing two blog posts this weekend! Here is a preview:

Writing Workshop:

Self-directed learning:

Learn how to draw/shade

Become faster runner for 5K in October

Research a gymnast

Create an original Lego structure with multiple parts (a town)

Self Directed Learning: Getting Started

Very excited about incorporating self-directed learning into my curriculum. I work with two awesome fifth grade teachers who embraced the idea when I shared it with them. Great to not be doing this alone! 

We had two sessions where we got all the fifth graders together to brainstorm ideas and do an activity to see what a project might look like.

Now we are working with the students in our homeroom only. The students filled out a survey about their strengths, interests, life experiences, etc. They also listed whether they had an idea for a topic and project.

I have met with 8 students the past two days. Each initial student conference lasts about 10 minutes. It is time consuming in the beginning, but once they get going, the conferences will simply be me checking in on progress and facilitating learning/process. 

Meeting with these eight students the past two days has been amazing! They are so thoughtful and so thrilled to be able to direct their own learning! They all will write reflections in their blogs, on Kidsblog, every week or so. The only homework my students do is reading and working on their self-directed learning project/blog. 

I feel the need to share the students' projects so far:

- learning how to sculpt/ researching  

   techniques/ maybe display at town    

   library or sell and donate money to a 

   charity

- learn the parts of a computer/take apart 

   a computer/ IMovie to document 

   process

- research recycling and energy 

   conservation/ create an informational 

   stop motion animation movie about it 

   with Lego Animator

- learn how to sew on sewing machine, learn how to use patterns, document learning in pictures

- Learn about history of codes and different kinds of codes and create an informational book about it.

- Research history of S.W.A.T. and specifics of the job/ maybe create a PowerPoint 

- Research the history of women in Lacrosse/famous women players/ not sure of final product yet

- Train to run 5k and track times/ research how to get faster/ not sure of final product yet 

** All the projects will include research and an authentic math component

What an incredible start! More information to come!

More Space for Our Space: Follow Up

This post is a follow up to my July 24th summer post about rearranging my classroom for learning.

First of all, I am adjusting well to not having my own teacher desk. It opened up so much space in the room. Last night, I realized another benefit...no desk to clean off for Back to School Night! I have an area in the room to store any materials for lessons coming up and files for my students' work. I also have a small white wheelie file cabinet that is my storage for what used to be in my desk. I threw out a lot and gave things away if I hadn't used them in the past couple of years. I have a place for everything and, so far, everything in its place. Seriously, for the first time in all my years of teaching, I had no piles to hide away or mess to clean in preparation for Back to School Night. Surprisingly liberating!

The students do not have their own desks and it is working out really well. There is no clutter or mess coming out of their desks. They know where their materials go and binders, etc. are organized and out of the way when not in use. 

There were a few issues in the beginning and we discussed them as a class and adjusted the storage to make it work more smoothly. They had great ideas and  it brought them together early on as a team working to make our room a better place for learning.

Now, unlike last year, there is a large library area to hang out in and read. The students love the flexibility of bringing the carpets anywhere around the room to read and work.

I am so glad that I jumped into the deep end with the room decisions I made this summer. 

Room 16 Soundtrack

This week has been crazy. I had intake conferences in the a.m. before school and after school this week plus a staff meeting this afternoon. Intake conferences are valuable to learn about my students and show that I care about creating a partnership between home and school, but they are time consuming. In addition, I have been working to get my math workshop prepared for launch next Monday. When I have more time, I will write about that! We start self directed learning tomorrow and the fifth grade team loved the idea. We are all doing it and kids from different fifth grade classes may decide to work together if they have common interests. Fun collaboration!

So, with all this going on, it is Thursday, and I don't have a blog entry ready, revised and edited. I have three drafted, but need more time with them. 

I have decided to reflect on one aspect of my classroom that is off and running. Music! I am teaching like a pirate and using songs for many different purposes in my classroom. I will write more details about the purposes and benefits of using music regularly in the classroom in another blog when I have more time. In this entry, I am simply going to list my class favorites so far. All are available on ITunes! These are songs my fifth graders love, and I highly recommend them! I continue to search for great songs for quiet seatwork time, as well as for transitions and movement breaks. The search continues!

- Vivaldi/Four Seasons

- Come With Me Now/Kongos

- Dynamite/ Taio Cruz

- Happy/ Pharrell Williams

- ABC/ Jackson 5

- I Want You Back/ Jackson 5

- My School Rocks/ Phat Jams

- We Are One/ Phat Jams

- Pompeii/ Bastille

- Safe and Sound/ Capital Cities

- Shining Star/ Earth, Wind, and Fire

- Everything is Awesome/JoLi (Lego movie)

- Ooh Child/The Five Stairsteps/ Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack)

- Without You/ David Guetta (became a whole class sing along today while they cut their times tables flash cards!)

Day Two: Settling In

We had a stellar day one, and our day two was fun as well. This year, I am incorporating graphica into my curriculum. Inspired by Adventures in Graphica by Terry Thompson, I plan to use graphica in my reading, writing and math instruction (these are the only subjects I teach).

The kids were partnered up and given a humorous comic strip. I printed all the comic strips from gocomics.com for free and laminated them. I am creating an ongoing comics accordion file for kids to enjoy. 

Back to the activity. The assignment was to read their comic strip, then create their own version. Some of the students created the story that came right before their strip and some wrote what happened right after their strip. Some mimicked the story and some were inspired by the joke in their strip and thought of a joke they wanted to portray. Lots of creativity, and I learned who perseveres and who gets flustered with a little challenge. 

Some students had been concerned that they couldn't draw. As a debrief activity, before students shared their work, I read Ish by Peter Reynolds. I won't summarize the book here, but it is easily the most important book I have found for read aloud. This led to our first mindset discussion of the year. I will send the message constantly that hard work and practice will make their work better. No one is born able to do everything perfectly. Room to grow is a good thing! We will refer back to Ish all year long! 

I was amazed by the teamwork and creativity here!!

Below are the templates they could choose from after planning was done. Eventually, they will create their own. Found these on Pinterest after searching "comic strip templates."

Later in the day, we had our investigate the room/materials time. They were able to try out the board games, word games, math manipulatives, craft materials and classroom library. It was the last hour of the day and a getting to know each other, free time extravaganza. Kids worked well together and had realizations about the materials in the room. For instance, many asked if they could take some of the learning games to lunch with them in the future. Others asked if these materials would be available for the many indoor recess times that we have in our New England climate. Of course, the answer was, "Yes!"

Students chose where to go the entire time and learned who in the room had similar interests. I saw students appreciating each other's sense of humor and abilities.

This picture of two of my students hovering over a comic book just makes me smile.

Investigating the games and other materials:

Many were drawn to the tangrams. One student traced them to create a beautiful abstract geometric design.

I wish I has taken more pictures, but I felt that I was not being 100% present with my kids if I was taking pics the entire time! I had some great one on one time with students, as well as time with groups of them. Very valuable investment of classroom time!

In this post, I only highlighted two activities. The entire day was active and collaborative, and we are ready for a productive school year!

Oops! Addition to Day One BlogPost

I forgot the activity we did during snack. Straight from Responsive Classroom, the kids sit in groups and come up with at least five things that they all have in common. I challenge them to be creative with the categories. Then groups share out. Very valuable when students realize, despite their differences, there are connections and things they have in common.

The First Day of School 2014-2015

DAY ONE

After greeting the students outside the classroom door and working to memorize their names, we went inside to start the day. I told the students to find their name on the tables/desks and put their materials there. They have no idea yet that these will not be their spots for long! Their next direction was to silently line up in order by their birthdays (Responsive Classroom). This is a great time to observe the students. Which students take the lead and which are willing to follow. Who creates a new, innovative way to silently communicate their birth date? Do they help each other, support each other, etc. 

Playing throughout this activity was Safe and Sound by Capital Cities and Pompeii by Bastille. The music helped the students to have fun and loosen up while doing the challenging, silent activity.  Dave Burgess, Teach Like a Pirate author, stresses music as a powerful hook. It worked perfectly for this activity. On my IPhone, I have a playlist for quiet work times and a playlist for dance breaks and transitions. I bought a small, but powerful Bluetooth speaker for under $30 at Best Buy, so that I can control the music from my IPhone no matter where I am in the room.

The other purpose for this lineup is to form groups for cubbies. There are four sections of cubbies in the hallway and each group had to come up with a name for their group and design a poster to be put up in their cubby area. They had a lot of unique ideas and worked well together. Their posters are getting laminated and will be up on Tuesday.

Before we started the cubby poster work, we had a ceremony of sorts. They sat at the spot where their desk tag was and I had them pull off the tag and rip it up while playing a heavy metal version of Over the Rainbow by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Later, a parent shared that tearing up the name tag was the first thing their child talked about when they walked out of the classroom at the end of the day. Funny! It was a symbol of no assigned seats.

The next activity, after making the cubby posters, was making play doh creations that reflect an interest or show something about them. We then circled up and shared. 

FYI: comedy/tragedy symbol :-)

After sharing their creations in a circle, we put the room back together and started the process of getting materials and supplies organized. This year, the goal is a place for everything and everything in its place. Students do not have their own desks, so I bought some bins and cleared some shelves!

Social Studies binders

Writing Binders and pencil pouches underneath. Only need pouches when traveling to Science and Social Studies. When in homeroom, there are caddies at each table/group of desks with communal supplies in them.

A bin for each student. These hold folders, spirals, math workbook, mini composition book (gratitude journal) and still room for a book to read!

I framed this as our classroom, and they need to contribute ideas of how to make the organization piece work for them. They came up with putting the board games elsewhere so that the pouches could be near the binders. Smart!!

We did grab some carpet time to read You're Finally Here. Tomorrow we will read Ish. Ish is probably the most important read aloud all year!

Dismissal was at 12:45, so with lunch in the schedule, that was pretty much all we fit in. Had to pass out a ridiculous amount of notices as well. :-) 

Going to be a great year and working hard to keep my commitment to at least one post a week!