What My Blog Says

In response to the post @whatedsaid made, I decided to create a Wordle showing what my blog says.

I am glad to see the most common word is students since this is a reflective blog after all.

International Mindedness in the Holiday Season

Sendai, Japan in the winter

I began thinking about this post topic today while reading the section about perception in Engaging Minds. I was particularly moved when the authors talked about how a participant in the research study brought to attention Christian symbols in the school. (p. 53) They talked about how we can sometimes dismiss these claims as not getting into the spirit. But it is really?

The winter holidays here in Japan look a lot like they do in the U.S. There are decorations all around, people are out and about shopping, and there are lights put up all over the place. Every year our school does some caroling with traditional and non-traditional songs. They are even sung in different languages. It can make one feel as if everyone is on the same wave length about what it all means.

My class is currently in the middle of learning about Fairy Tales, and for part of this unit I want the kids to practice acting and performing. So, before the unit started I decided to use some cardboard tubes to make a forest.

I had some 3D shapes hanging in my room from the last inquiry about geometry, and wondering what to do with them, the trees, the holidays and the shapes came together - I decided to make one of the trees into the shape of an evergreen and hang the shapes from it.

I made it, taped it to the wall, and hung the decorations one evening after all the students had gone home so the next morning they came in and were excited. This brought up all sorts of connections they had to the holidays - about what they do in the holidays, the decorations they have in their houses, and their own trees.

This is when I looked at one boy right in front of me. This boy is a from a devout Muslim family. So devout in fact, that a few weeks prior had to cancel school lunch for a day because it contained pork. (That's when I learned why he usually brings a lunch from home.) He is also a textbook TCK (Third Culture Kid) with parents from different countries and the family living in a third.

Realizing he probably does not have a tree at home, I asked him what his family does around this time. Do they have any decorations?

He said they have a wreath.

That was perfect I thought. It was a way we could use the hands we had made in our unit on culture. The kids traced their hands on paper the color of the flags where they are from. We used the hands to make a wreath that we are hanging in the front of the room.

• This brought up a good observation from the same boy referred to above about how all the colors of the hands we made have the colors red, white, and blue even though the students took colors from many different flags. (It also gave me an idea to do a graph of the colors in the worlds flags since we are studying graphing in Math now.

Planting the Seeds

One thing I want to do more of is cross-unit projects. I would like to start a project in one unit, and be able to use the same thing for further learning in the next unit.

Act 1
Way back in September I had my students try something I knew way way over their heads, but I wanted to see how they would tackle a challenge. I asked them to make a sphere with these geometric shapes I have.

All in all they did a good job. After all, they are only in first and second grade.

The first group was generally in going in the right direction by making a box-type thing. Their problem was that it was too heavy and kept falling in on itself.

The second group started making their sphere using hexagons using the theory that the hexagons were close to circles. (I was hoping they picked them because soccer balls have hexagons on them.)

This group ran into the same sides-were-too-heavy problem that the first group I described ran into, but they got to that point faster than the other group. At this point I asked them what was wrong - the sphere keeps falling down. So I asked them what would help them. they didn't know so I suggested toothpicks.

As I was talking to my coworker about what was going on in my classroom, he suggested making a geodome with newspaper rolls.

My next math unit became geometry.

Act 2
From the seeds of the sphere challenge came a grander project. In our geometry unit, one of the projects of inquiry was to make the geodome. We were able to measure, find out that a triangle is indeed the strongest shape, collaborate, and accomplish something.

Act 3
After that was finished I had this huge structure in my room. One student suggested to make a house, but today, it was used as a prop in our play The Three Little Pigs.

Not exactly the type of connection I am looking to make, but it was good to have.

Outdoor Learning Space

As some teachers and I were waiting outside for the morning bell to ring last spring, I saw students outside taking responsibility for watering the garden. It was unexpected, but highly appreciated. They took time to water every plant and then showed their accountability by making sure they put away the equipment when they were done. I saw students observe plants and nature as well as ask questions about what they were seeing. The students around the green area were each engaged with it at their own levels and interests.

Tohoku International School, located in Sendai, Japan, has a small student population. As with every good school, we are constantly working to make learning meaningful and exciting for our students. Last year teachers on the elementary team got together and made plans for a way to utilize the space behind our school that was not being used. It was decided we would make five small gardens, one for each class in elementary and one for the secondary students, plus a physical activity space and a shaded area. A few teachers, Mr. Dwyer and Ms. Risker, had experience with gardening and they shared their knowledge with everyone else to get us started.

The older elementary students were given the task of planning how we would layout the gardens. This was a great way to incorporate the geometric concepts of area, perimeter, and measurement authentically. Students also learned about the environment. They were able to observe how plants start as seeds and how they grow. Over the course of the summer and into the autumn, they could see the plant develop seeds and then see the end of the life cycle. For me, the most impressive learning that happened was the sense of responsibility that was developed. Some students took it upon themselves to start taking care of the garden: including the watering and weeding. It was exactly the characteristics that we, as a school, are trying to instill into our students.

The garden has not only been a learning experience for the students, but I found myself learning along the way as well. As we were preparing the soil, one student found a large white larvae in the scoop of dirt. I asked around to see what it was until one of the maintenance men told me that it was a kabuto mushi … or maybe a different kind of beetle. The only way we could find out what kind of beetles they were was by keeping them in our room and taking care of them. Then with the help of my class, I had to find out how to take care of them. My own class was not the only one involved with this, all classes were able to come in and observe them, touch them, and ask questions about them. I had students and teachers bring in materials about beetles in both Japanese and English so we could talk about them and see if what we read matched what we were seeing; to see if what we were doing was the right was to raise them.

As with all great inquiry experiences, the garden allowed us to question - What should the design of the garden look like? Which way should the rows go? What should we plant?, What will grow in Sendai?, think - How will the rows affect the way the plants grow? What would the best seeds be to plant?, discover - When making the garden we found dozens of kabuto beetle larvae that we kept in an aquarium in the classroom, and investigate - The students were able to experiment with how they planted seeds and were able to see the fruits of their labor.

Not only is the garden a great addition to our school curriculum, we also used the opportunity to center our summer school program around the garden. The green area has since expanded to include Bug City, an area that we have set aside to grow free to attract insects (which we call microbeasts). Bug City has in turn taken on a life all its own and has attracted so many bugs that it is now attracting birds and we have now a mini ecosystem in addition to the garden areas.

We have just planted the second round of crops. This time we planted a winter vegetable, daikon, or Asian radishes, and the learning cycle has started again. For many of us, it is the first time we are seeing diakon sprout and start to grow and new questions are emerging. I cannot wait to see how this space will continue to evolve. One of my favorite parts of education is seeing students take what they have learned and experiment, tinker, and play with those concepts for themselves with their own time. The green area gives them the impetus to do that.

More, More, More

This year I have tried taking more time for reflection on learning.

At the end of our first unit, all those moons ago, I tried a switch to a different way of having the students do their portfolios. I tried using one of Kath Murdoch's reflection sheets - Targeting Your Learning. I chose this particular one because I thought the coloring and the targets looked the most friendly for grade ones and twos.


That first time I had the students reflect on their work in this way, many of the students had forgotten the assignments they had chosen to reflect on. From there I decided to have them reflect right after they complete a task. Of course, there is not always time to do that, but the more we do it, the smoother it goes.

For my next unit, I want my students to even more reflection on their learning, as well as reflection about how they learn.

The Interactive Wall

The math attached to my new unit, Fairy Tales, is Data Handling and Probability.

I came in ready to start the math portion of the unit getting to know what the students knew about graphs, but after I visited the kindergarten room, I came away with the idea for a name graph.

The name graph picture showed squares with letters on it lined up like a bar graph (like what is shown above).

Especially after seeing what they knew (or thought they knew) about graphs, this was appealing since it was straight-forward and seemed like a good way to get them into graphing.

But this graph has been more than I had expected. It is allowing me to:

• have the students start to learn how to develop questions from data
• go into addition and subtraction concepts. My question for them today was, "How many ways can you get ten letters with the names?" My next will be to assign a point value for each letter and have them add and subtract with them.
• introduce averaging (thank you CD!)
• introduce multiplication and division concepts
• get them engaged
• find and sort

My next step after I use this graph for a while is to include other classes and have them predict outcomes.

What I did not do, and I wish I had, was ask them the questions I did before we did the graph. For example, I wish I had asked them how many students have the same number of letters in our class and watched them try to figure it out. They should know that graphs are good because of their visual nature.

I will correct that mistake that when we expand to graphing another class.

What's a Wop?

Many moons ago now when it was still warm out and the students would come in from recess looking like they just got out of a pool, I tried an idea [I got from one of the Japanese teachers] to help my students better grasp word families; words with the same pattern.

This beginning was a great way to assess where my students were. Could they see the pattern? Did they know words that ended in __op?

As this was the beginning of the year, I put up on the board the pattern "__op". Then I asked the students to give me a letter to fill in the word.

While the students were giving me ideas, I put them on the board. While I was doing this, I was explaining the words they did not know. I did this until they gave me a word that made no sense. As soon as they gave me that word (this time it was wop), I put it on the board and told them that a wop was an animal and they had to draw it.

They all looked at me as if I were crazy and doing something really unfair. They complained that they did not know what it looked like. I again told them that did not matter and that anything they drew would be OK. I told them to use their imaginations. This was really hard for them after always being asked to draw something they had seen before.

After they drew their version of the wop, I told then to add to the picture some of the other words that we came up with.

This is a Wop.

This was the first time I did it, and I tried it again a few days after this, but it was not as good. I am going to try this again though. Maybe I need to leave more time in between when I do the activities to make it more successful.

Teaching Search to First and Second Graders

After hearing about these search lessons on thethinkingstick.com, I had to try it. I have been meaning to write a reflection on my experience for a while now; better late than never.

I was excited to see what my students knew about a search engine. After seeing how proficient some kindergartners were with an iPad, flipping around and finding pictures with ease, I was prepared to be pleasantly surprised by my own class.

Something I did not anticipate however, was that our school network blocked the ads from Google (at least that's what I assume was happening since no ads showed up). So, I modified the lesson a little bit.

I started by showing them the different aspects of a search results page. Since I am teaching grade 1-2, I focused on the "Images" tab and how to find images. The above picture is a search I did today, and this did not happen last time, but if I was doing the lesson today, I would also talk about the information to the right of the results. (I would also talk about the good and bad of Google changing things weekly.)

To find ads, I went to Pitara Biographies for Kids. There are lots of ads on this site.

At another time we were talking about the continents, and I asked the kids to draw the continents. They used the school's iPads, and mostly focused on using Google's Image Search.

The earlier students can become familiar with how to search, the

What Kids Say

Today I was showing my kids some pictures from our sports day yesterday, and one boy commented on this photo by saying, "It's good but it's all boketeru [blurry]."

I tried to explain to him that the blur was a good thing because it makes it easier to see the subject.

He just smiled at me.

The Power of Music

I love music. I have been listening to music and have enjoyed singing for as long as I can remember. I picked up the guitar in college, and for several years in my twenties, I was in a band. Music has played a significant role in my life.

I know the power of music and I wanted to incorporate it more into my teaching this year. I have done more singing and dancing with my students, but wanted to write some memoriable and catchy songs related to our units. Easier said than done.

Now we are looking at the Earth and learning about the continents. The studnets had been having trouble remembering their names and suddenly I remembered that there is a continents song. I went on Youtube and found it. I am amazed at how much they like it, and how quickly they remembered the vocabulary.

I really need to write a song for my next unit.

For Them

Today was our sports day. It was a half day of fun outside playing games. Parents came, teachers participated, and the kids had fun. I think we could have gotten a lot done this morning based on what we did in the afternoon.

But we did it for the kids.

I spent a few hours tonight going through the two hundred and some pictures I took today. I had to sort through them, edit them, and move them so I can access them tomorrow.

While I was finishing up I thought of the other things I could have done with my time. But then I thought of the kids faces when they watch the video of themselves having fun. I thought of the memories they will have of today.

It was for them.

Digging Up the Past

I am trying to incorporate more hands-on activities this year; more building, more constructing, more tinkering.

To demonstrate how paleontologists retrieve bones from the ground, I put some plastic dinosaur bones in some plastic trays and buried them in dirt.

I had the trays out for a while before we did this, so the students all knew what was in them after digging in them themselves, but the purpose of this activity was not to find what was inside, but rather to be scientists and to use the clues we find to paint a picture.

I was also able to show them how to make a grid, as shown below, so they could record exactly (or as accurately as first and second graders can) what they saw.

	1	2	3
A
B
C

I have more bones buried in the garden which I want to use as an activity to build on this one. That is, if the weather ever clears up.

Field Trip to the Past

Yesterday we went on a fild trip for our unit Finding Out About the Past.

In our inquiry into how the Earth changes and the different animals from the past, we talked about how scientists find clues in the ground and piece together a story.

I wanted the students to see an actual site, and fortunately there are several historical villages around Sendai and the Tohoku region from the Jomon Period.

 This was the first time I took them out on a field trip, and they had such interesting questions. Next time we go I think I will have them either write them down, or better yet, record them so we can talk about them later.

Since we are currently studying geometry, we discussed the shapes they saw in the houses. The highlight of that was when they drew the houses, one girl drew a heart on hers.

The world needs more hearts.

Rearranging

There is not enough time in the day. There is too much to do. There is so much more I want to do with my students.

I find myself saying this a lot lately. I am not sure where the time goes. I certainly do not feel like I am wasting classroom time, but I do feel like I could be spending it better.

We just returned from autumn break, and during that time I reevaluated our weekly schedule. I decided to try adding more time for Language Arts during the week, and then have bigger chunks of time on Fridays for Unit Studies.

Today was the first day I tried it out, and it was refreshing how much I felt like we got done today.

It is funny how rearranging classes can have that affect.

Beginnings

I am really excited to be starting our new unit. We just started our unit, Finding Out About the Past and we are going to be starting geometry to go along with it.

Last unit I challenged my students to make a sphere using only 2D shapes. The spheres never worked out well because they kept collapsing in on themselves. For one group, I suggested using toothpicks instead.

They got this far and I gave it to one student to take home and complete.

That gave me an idea for geometry. I gave the students toothpicks and told them to make shapes. After they completed 2D shapes, I asked if they could turn it into a 3D shape.

All the students started by making triangles. Then a few of them made square-based pyramids or triangular prisms.

I asked them to make a model of their work that included the name of the shape and the shapes that it is made of.

When it came time for snack, they opted to keep working instead of taking a break.

Ignition

It happened before I even knew it. The lesson I had planned for was being delayed because it required the assistant who was tending to her sick child at home. These things happen in the dynamic environment that is a school.

I am always amazed -- and sometimes disheartened -- by the power  a few have to influence the many in some classrooms. This year my student population is in the single digits, and I am teaching younger kids, so I am seeing it more.

But when it is positive, it can be a great thing.

Today I asked some of my students to read quietly while the others worked on a word family "slider". After a few minutes one of the more dominate girls in the class told me she didn't want to read and asked if she could create a book instead.
 

How could I say no to that?

Right after I said yes, other students decided that sounded like a good idea and they started writing a book too. Hopefully this fire will continue to burn long enough so we can make something for our library's newly created Young Publisher's Club.

Before, Between, After

During my prep period today, I wandered into the kindergarten room on my way back from the office.They were working on the words before, between, and after. These are words my class needs review on as well, so I stayed for the lesson.

The problems they had with these words were the same issues that my own students were having. The shapes were arranged on the white board and the students were asked where shapes were in relation with each other using the words before, between, and after.

Time after time the students would use the opposite word the teacher was looking for. 

I looked around for some clues as to why the students were getting the words mixed up. The first reason I thought of was a cultural one. Japanese writing is originally right to left, so I wondered if there was something else about Japan that was influencing them. I quickly dismissed this theory when an American boy made the same mistake as his Japanese counterparts.

Then I wondered if the way they line up to leave the room is influencing their understanding of before and after. The way they line up is how they were explaining before and after.

Center Time

Today was the first day I tried doing centers in my class this year. I was not sure how they would take to it, but being the global risk taker I am, I went for it. 

I thought the math centers went really well. I was able to have the students work on some skills I thought they needed some extra practice with. The students were all engaged throughout the lesson and best part was that they enjoyed it.


My colleague down the hall reminded me to have the groups share what they learned with each other - something I will remember for next time.

Dice Roll Fact Families

Angry Birds Counting by 3's

Number Flower

It was interesting to watch my class tackle the puzzle below last week.
I put them into pairs and read the directions to them. Then I let them go off and try it.


At first they were all very noisy shouting for help and I heard a lot of, "I don't get it". That was all very uncomfortable for me. I want my students to be independent problem solvers, and I don't want to be a crutch.

Then I gave the class a hint, or reminded them, that you can only use one number once. Suddenly, one student said aloud, "I got it!" and group after group started working on the puzzle.

I really enjoyed seeing the tension that this puzzle caused my students. I also enjoyed talking to the most vocal  of the "Can't Doers" and asking about her thoughts.

Are you Ready? I Am

It was a long and tiring day followed by a meeting. In the meeting I was being told how to fill out an expense report that I did not understand, and I was so tired that I felt like just doing it and then asking questions later.

While I was walking out of the building I wondered how many times my students felt like I did. I wondered what are some things to look for in the students to see when they are zapped? I wondered what are some good educational activities for really tired kids.

This afternoon I experienced some zapped kids in my own classroom. I have been trying this year to give my students a little more breathing room, so today I gave them the last 30 minutes to read. In hindsight, I think I should have had them play some games.

How often do I try to push when they are not ready only because I am running on my own schedule?

Math Assessment

We give the students an internal math assessment three times a year. While looking at the assessments, I noticed that one of the first grade girls made an interesting mistake.

The problem was something like this:

33, 43, 53, ___, ___, ___

She filled in:

33, 43, 53, 36, 37, 38

I looked at that for a while and wondered what she was thinking when she answered that way. She can count after all.

Then I noticed that if you turn 43 around you get 34.

And then if you turn 53 around you get 35.

If that is what she did, she got the problem right. Too bad you cannot write numbers however you want.

Thinking Time

I started playing tennis about a year ago. I suppose I should say that I started taking tennis lessons about a year ago.

Yesterday during the lesson I had a lot on my mind. I was thinking about how I would continue to use my class's interest in the book Mr. Topsy-Turvy. The book is silly, and the students really enjoyed it, so I took it as an opportunity to talk about topsy turvy things. In the process it was great to see the kids really working their brains to turn sentences around the wrong way. (If they know the wrong way, then they won't say it that way my theory goes, but I have mixed feelings about it.)

I was thinking about the weekend and I was thinking about my tennis game and concentrating on the instruction I was being given. I was thinking about lunch because I was hungry. I had a lot going on in my head.

Except for when the coach says in his best English, "Drinking time!", the tennis lessons are all in Japanese, so I have to concentrate more than my fellow students. On top of that, they play futsol right next to us.

Then when we were practicing our serves -- more intense concentration -- the coach told me that he would be leaving at the end of the month, which was rather shocking. In addition, the assistant coach is also leaving, although not together per se. (They wait until the last minute to make announcements in Japan.)

So after the coach gave his announcement I needed some time to think about them leaving and I had questions like: What would they do from now? Where would they work? But of course I couldn't ask them because they are personal. I was also thinking about the proper response in Japanese. What should I say?

This all got me thinking more. I started thinking about my own class and how they are all ESL/ELL/EAL learners. All of them.

This year I have been more conscious of  giving the first and second graders time to think. I hope I am giving them enough. Just because they don't react right away doesn't mean they are not thinking about what we are talking about.

And now I am wondering what else I can do besides oral answers in English.  Maybe having them draw or write in their own languages might also help [those that need it].

Can You Make a Sphere From 2-D Shapes?

This is a question I posed to my class this week.

Our current unit's central idea is: We are from all over the world. Now we live together in Sendai. I wanted to do more art projects this year with my class (with art being the traditional definition) and I thought that linking Sendai's famous Tanabata Festival to math would be a thought-provoking project for the class.

Since tanabata decorations are streamers with a ball on top (I thought they were shooting stars, but apparently they are flowers) my idea was to have the students make it all.

One group started by making circles, having mistaken a circle for a ball, or sphere. But it was a really cool pattern. So I reminded them what the project was again and sent them on their way.

I went over to the other group (who were protecting their sphere like it was something out of Skunk Works)  where I found them working on good ideas, but they were all working separately. I understand that some  people work better alone, but I want these kids to build their collaboration skills, so I encouraged them to work together.

I went back to the other group to find that they started using hexagons. Wow, I thought. It is like a soccer ball. Thinking that they were thinking the same thing, I asked why they were using hexagons. Their answer was that they resembled circles. I really liked how they are putting trapezoids together to make hexagons as well as the rhombi. 

They attempted to roll the hexagon sheet into a ball, but it collapsed on itself.

I think we will have to use some different materials.


Just seen on T.V. -
Doubling the size of a wheel makes it twice as heavy.
Really? I have to test that property.

Does 2+4 = 4+2?

Today we were talking about the many different addends for a certain sum. On the whiteboard I put up ____ + ____ = 6 and I had the students come up with different possibilities.

I think their answers were along the lines of
3,3
4,2
5,1
6,0
2,4

I looked at the last one and I thought to myself, are 4 and 2, the same as 2 and 4?

So I posed this problem to the class: Suppose we are looking at our own class were our equation is ___ + ___ = 8. What are the two addends for our own class?

Again I got answers like:
4,4
5,3
3,5
7,1
8,0

My thought was 3 and 5 since we have three second graders and five second graders. But when I started asking the students about why they thought of those number combinations, I was impressed.

The boy who said 4,4 was thinking of 4 boys and 4 girls. Someone else said the combination was 8,0 because we were all Grade 1-2 students.

I was hoping someone would talk about our nationalities, but maybe it is better that did not happen. Nationality can be a sensitive topic.

After asking some more questions, we found out that we have four 7-year-olds and four 6-year-olds.

I wish we had more time today. We should look more into these sums.

The Four Color Problem

While reading The Elephant in the Classroom, I came across an interesting problem called "The Four Color Problem".

In the 1850's an Englishman named Francis Guthrie was put in charge of making a map of England and all its counties. He came up with a solution that you only need 4 colors to color a map so that there are no adjacent areas with the same color.

I gave this problem to my third and fourth graders last year, and they solved in in 10 minutes. I should have made more parts to it.

This year I tried the same activity (I am going to make some more) to see if they could do it.

It was fun to watch them puzzle over it at first, and then run with it when they figured it out.

iMovie Role Play

Our school just got iMove on 5 of our 20 iPads. The Grade 5-6 class made some really cool trailers on them and I was green with envy.

After kicking the idea around for a little while, I decided to try it out with my class.

The video evolved several times from when I first thought of it. At first I was going to use puppets to make a video of the kids themselves. But I decided against that when I saw how much time it would take them and how much time I would have to leave the rest of the class alone.

Then I decided to do a general movie trailer for our class. A kind of introduction for the world. I also wanted to see if iMovie was something that we will be able to use this year.

I am happy to say that it was better than I had expected.

I am not that happy with the final product, but I am happy with what the students showed they could do, and with a few things I figured out.

The project started out by brainstorming words that describe us. As with the class needs/rules, there was a lot more steering. That will happen a lot this year with this group of grade 1-2's.

The kids did come up with some impressive words though. We had teamwork, thinking, helping, our ESLRs, and some others I can't remember. (This is becoming a problem as I have used an iPad for photo "note-taking" and then I don't remember which iPad I used. One more reason for me to get one for myself.)

I also saw how having the kids act out vocabulary words is a great way for them to show the meaning. It was amazing that the students used the ESLRs in the brainstorming session, but could not give very good examples of what they were. Role playing allowed me [or will allow me] to grab their attention because they were so into the movie.

I can't wait to have them make their own movies. I would love them to create trailers for books.

I hope iMove will be OK on Monday and let me upload the movie to Youtube.

Just Do It

I don't normally inflate myself or try to point out what I did, but I am going to this time because I want this lesson to stick with me.

That was my idea.

This morning I was talking with the Grade 5-6 guy, and I looked out and noticed the corn was all smashed. We talked about it a little bit, and I mentioned, in my mind at least I don't remember if I had said it out loud or not, that he should take his kids out and look at it.

He did. I didn't.

From what I saw it was awesome. His kids were engaged. They had fun. They learned. We did a math assessment - that we didn't even finish.

Now, my class of Grade 1-2s would have had a completely different learning experience. After all, I brought out one of my students and asked him what happened to the corn and he said ants ate it. But I think that we could have learned a lot just asking questions and asking, why?

Here is the exchange I had with him:

Me: Why do you think ants ate it?

Him: Because there are ants there.

Me: Could ants push the corn down?

Him: Yes

At that point I am sure other kids would have challenged him.

I missed one of the greatest teaching chances I have seen in a while, and the lesson I learned today is to never pass up an opportunity like that again.

Manipulative Math Vocabulary

This is my first year in a new class [Grades 1 &2]. The former Grade 1-2 teacher is right next door, also in a new class so I can consult her when I need to, but there are some things I need to learn on my own.

One thing I have had to learn on my own  -- in fact anyone would have to learn this on their own -- is the students vocabulary levels.

After the first few days I saw the they all were having trouble with the words: greater than, less than, equal, before, after, below, and between. Needless to say, without knowing the meanings of words, the math lessons involving those terms were difficult for all in the classroom.

I am thinking of next week getting them to know and understand those words more fully. As a start, today I had a lesson where I tried to combine manipulatives and the vocabulary.

Say what?

1. I started by giving the ma sheet of paper with some words they were having trouble with.

2. I then played a little word recognition game with them where I said the words and they slapped the word. (No Picture)

3. After that we cut out the words.

4. I then took some small blocks and had them work with partners. I would call out a word and they would show me with the blocks and the word. See below.

This one is "between".

It was an OK lesson. Reflecting on it right now, I would have them write their own cards. Next time I will also push them to make more sentences.

What else?


Twitter writing tip.

@danielscib
Look for common mistakes or those that interfere most with meaning or organization. Teach those points in a small group.

Class Needs

I was doing some planning on the day before school when I saw a Tweet from @whatedsaid about the the beginning of the school year.

I did/do not really know what my new grade level can do, but I knew there were some ideas I could not apply to a class of first and second graders. I did think that we could spend some time talking about how they learn and what they need to learn.

I stood at the whiteboard and asked them, "What do you need to learn?" At first I was getting answers about physical materials -- which is not what I was looking for -- but I wrote all the ideas on the board while trying to guide the students.

After one student said "Responsible" things started flowing (although immediately it was just the students regurgitating the school ESLRs.

Eventually we came to a list that we agreed on and I put the list in Wordle.

The Story Behind the Abstract Art in the Hall

Last June we had a morning where the students went to their future teacher for the morning.

To prepare for that morning, I asked the art teacher to draw something on a big piece of cardboard I had. She drew a scene with dinosaurs in it.

I then cut the cardboard into different pieces to make a puzzle. During the "carousel morning", we painted the cardboard pieces.

The students did not know what the puzzle was, so they had no inhibitions about how they painted the parts of their puzzle; all they could see were some lines.

I wanted to have them put the puzzle together on that June morning, but the paint did not dry in time. 

The puzzle turned out to be a good first day activity. It was great to see them all [all 6 of them at the time we are now up to 7] working together to put the puzzle together. Unfortunately when I went to take a picture for the blog, I tried to shoot through the Tumblr app, but I had internet issues and I did not even think to simply take a picture with the iPad camera.

It's too bad, it was a great sight.

After they put the puzzle together, I wondered what I would do with it. I wanted to put it on the wall, but it is fairly big so I did not want to use precious bulletin board space on it. So I taped it together in the back.

Then I thought of hanging it outside my room since there was nothing out there yet anyway. Somehow I got the idea to use these heavy-duty magnets with hooks I have laying around. I used two for the base, and two to hold the top.

At least it is colorful.

Creativity in a Box

While I was working in advertising after graduating from university, I took a course on account management at a small hands-on mentoring school. It was an awesome class taught by people in the profession. One quote that we were told that has always stuck with me was:

Creatives can be more creative the smaller the box they are in.

Here "creatives" means the people in the art department. What the instructor was saying was that when you give boundaries to people when giving them a task, it pushes their creativity further.

I often feel this way when planning units (at least right now). I wonder if it would be better for the school to hand teachers a unit plan with the investigation points, central idea, and the standards they want covered already filled in so teachers can focus on activities and lessons.

That's how I feel today.


*Note: This was written from me being at a school where the only control over my unit is the standards I put in them.

Using the Cloud for School Documents

Before this year I had a problem. I would often work on files at home, and then need to transfer them by email to school. It was not so bad (but not so good either) when working with documents, but when working with photos, I would have to use a flash drive.

Last fall I downloaded a file sharing program onto my PC at school. At first I only used it occasionally to transfer photos from home to school. Then report card time came around, and the capability to directly transfer between computers saved me a lot of time. The advantage I found with email over services like Box.com and Dropbox is with email, you have an archive of the previous versions without having to change the file names.

I would really like for the school to start using either Google Documents or SkyDrive more. SkyDrive has the Microsoft name, so it has better compatibility with MS Documents, but it is still a little awkward to use when editing uploaded documents online. Google Documents has similar issues, but I feel it is more flexible than SkyDrive.

This year I am teaching younger kids, so I am not sure how, where, or when I can use the cloud with my students in my lessons. I have some ideas right now, but I need to see what they are capable of first.

This fall, however, I want to try to find another school that I can link up with to write a story together.

Everyday Practice

"Practice makes perfect."

I don't really like that quote because I believe it leaves several other factors that allow for people to excel.

But practice, and especially consistent practice, is essential for success. There is a reason that people studying karate practice punching hundreds of times everyday.

The problem comes when you have kids who don't enjoy practicing. It is the teacher's job to get the motivated and to make activities fun and exciting, but that is not always enough.

A few years ago I had a student who was positive in her outlook about school, but she was reluctant and lacked confidence. She was writing very little at the time. I tried to encourage her at school, but she was not improving as much as I believed she could.

Before

After

With some encouragement and (a lot of help from her parents who made sure she was writing at home) this girl went from writing a few sentences per journal entry to now writing two or more pages.

But it wasn't only the volume that increased; her sentences are now more detailed, she is developing her own voice, and most importantly for me, her entries flow and make more sense.

The best part about this particular student is that I stopped having to hound her for her journal, after a while she was hounding me to have me check it!