Finding a Balance

 

This year I have had a great opportunity to transform my classroom and my teaching. I was awarded a grant to have a Next Generation Classroom of the Future! As soon as I found out, I was unbelievably excited and anxious for the school year to start. I told myself to go for it, not hold back, so I could get the most from this experience.

My classroom was transformed with different furniture for collaboration and group learning. My teacher desk was no longer a part of the classroom setup. I was also armed with lots of new technology—an iPad for each student and teacher, Apple TV, and a Smart TV. We also added eSpark to each iPad. eSpark creates a personalized learning plan for each student. Using data, each student participates in a ‘quest’ (their individual goal), which includes videos, apps, a pre and post quiz. It concludes with a student video to explain what they learned. So far, this journey has been fun, exciting, scary, and at times, overwhelming. I am still finding a balance between old and new, tradition versus technology.

Here are 10 things I have learned so far…

1.    Technology is here to stay and will always have a place in the classroom.

2.    Things CAN be done quicker with technology, but not always!

3.    Kids are less afraid to try something different than adults.

4.    Students have great ideas to help their learning, even at 5 years old!

5.    Being flexible is key!

6.    Stay true to you. I should say it again… Stay true to you!

7.    Trial and Error is not just for your students.

8.    Paper still has its place. :)

9.    Twitter is not just for celebrity gossip.

10.  Trust yourself. Not everyone will understand what you’re doing but it’s important that you believe in your methods and in yourself!

QR Codes are an iPad’s Best Friend!

When planning a Math Number Activity for this week, I wanted to have the students use their iPads, but switch it up a bit. Then I remembered how fun and effective QR codes could be. I decided to create a fall themed (I always love a theme!) number counting QR code activity!

The students had great fun! I hung the codes around the room and they had to scan each code, count the objects, and write the number on the corresponding worksheet. Some of the students enjoyed this activity so much they choose to do it again during activity time (their free playtime)…I know! When the learning is fun, this can happen.

Click here to download the QR Code activity from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store for free!

P.S. It was also Pajama Day! :)

Daily 5 - Read to Self in Kindergarten

Each year I stumbled on the Read to Self portion of Daily 5. Kindergarteners do not necessarily start school knowing letters, sounds, or basic reading skills, so how will they read to self?!?

Here are some tricks I have learned in my experiences:

1.    When introducing Read to Self, bring excitement and enthusiasm to the task. Many times the delivery from a teacher can really excite students making them more willing to follow directions.

2.   Never let the students practice Read to Self with bad habits!!

When students practice Read to Self, they need to do it PERFECTLY! If I see students not focusing, following directions, or distracting others, I immediately ring the chimes to bring the students back to the carpet. We discuss what needs to happen, regroup, and try again. (Anchor charts are always a big help with this!)

There have been many times my students were up to reading for 10 minutes, but a distraction occurred that set our practices back down to 2 minutes. By remembering the acceptable Read to Self procedures, however, we were able to work our minutes back up.

3.   Create comfortable places for the students to use when reading.

This makes a lot of sense…do you read while sitting on a hard chair with a table? No! So why would a child want to? I have added ‘reading rugs’, which are rectangular pieces of material on the floor for the students to lounge on. This year has been a transformation with the Next Gen furniture added to my room and the students are loving it! I am also a fan of the classroom ‘recliner’. This is used with a student chair tipped upside down on the floor. Then, the students add a pillow for some cushion. This is a favorite for many!

4.   Keep track of the minutes read on a Stamina Graph and display this in the classroom.

Currently, my class is still trying to get to the 15 minute mark. We are motivated! I find many students looking at the graph and telling the others that we have to accomplish our goals - just a couple more minutes to go!

Free Download Here

5.   Display a large timer on the board so the students know how much time is left.

I was worried this would be distracting, but it is just the opposite! I see many students look up at the timer, then quickly grab a book because they know they have time for one more!
There are many free apps and websites that are great timers for the classroom:

Timer 1

Timer 2
App Timer 1

App Timer 2

6.   Finally, remember practice makes perfect!

We know this and I tell my students the same thing. I don’t want them to be discouraged and give up. Every day, I refer to the Daily 5 rounds as “practices”. I hope this reminds my students that we are practicing and will continually improve.

Hope you were able to get some ideas!

Good luck on Read to Self with your Kindergartners!

Back to School

Yay for the first and second weeks of Kindergarten!

We spent the first week of school getting to know each other, the classroom, and school. We spent a lot of time talking about treating others the way you want to be treated and the Pleasant Ridge High Five Rules. Week one ended with an assembly on the High Five. The Kindergarteners learned from the third graders what the high five rules are and why we need to follow these rules.

Week two was just as busy! We continued getting to know everyone and remembering each others' names. We started our Math curriculum with lessons on sorting and patterning. We practiced counting to ten and explored how to illustrate the numbers 0-10.

We started practicing handwriting by writing our names starting with an uppercase first letter and lowercase for the rest. When learning how to write letters, we follow the Handwriting without Tears curriculum. This starts with the frog jump capitals. With a little practice, our handwriting is already improving!

During week two, we also started learning the Zoo Phonics Letters, Sounds, and Hand Motions. The children had a lot of fun singing the songs and doing Zoo Aerobics!

Now on to week three! Can't wait for all the fun times to come this year! :)

Persuasive Writing in Kindergarten

I know what you are thinking, “What? Persuasive Writing in Kindergarten?” This was a first for me too. I was a little skeptical, but at the end of the unit I found myself enjoying it and excited to teach persuasive writing. The students' learning of this topic was impressive.

With the new Common Core Standards, Kindergarten Writing is much more than writing letters, writing their name, drawing a picture, or writing a sentence. This year, we have wrote true stories, narratives, and how-to books. Our last writing unit is Persuasive Writing. Once Spring Break passed, it was time to get started on our Persuasive Unit.

Here is how I organized my weekly lessons:

Week 1: Discussion on ‘What is persuading?’ Then, I read The Lorax. We talked about convincing people to do things or buy things. What should you tell them? What can you do? The students tried their first attempt at this and we continued this practice through the week. 

Week 2: Earth Day happened to fall during this week. We discussed taking care of our Earth and what to do when you see someone being wasteful and littering. The students wrote posters and notes telling others to take care of our world and what they should do instead of littering. We continued this practice throughout the week. 

Week 3: We moved to writing letters to others. I explained that writing a letter is a good way to convince people to do something. I used an example of mail I had received trying to get me to donate money. I also read, Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type. The students were motivated and excited to get writing. (They finally understood the words, ‘convince’ and ‘persuade’.) They really enjoyed writing letters to others. They still write letters when they have free time. :) 

 

Week 4 (final week of unit): I started the week by reading, I Wanna Iguana. In this story the little boy, uses letter writing to convince his mom to get him a pet iguana. The pictures and humor are very engaging; it became an instant classroom favorite. The students then wrote their final pieces. I told the students that their writing had to explain exactly what they were asking for and why they wanted it or deserved it. Each student made a poster to illustrate his or her writing.

In the Final Presentations, each student presented their writing as a ‘commercial’. I video recorded each student with a PowerPoint slide behind them illustrating what they were asking for. I emailed these to their families. (Some students even convinced their parents and got what they asked for!)

Overall, this unit was a lot of fun. I know my students understood and were excited to write persuasive pieces (many high school students are not excited for such a task!).  I learned a lot and am excited to do this unit again next year!

Mother's Day Gifts

This year I wanted to change what I have done in the past with my students for their Mother’s Day gift. It took me a while, but I think this year turned out to be very special. :)

1.    I had each student write about his or her mom…

2.    After, on the other side of their paper, each student wrote why they loved their mom. 

3.    I recorded each student reading why they loved their mom using Audioboo. This website is very user friendly. Each student read what they wrote while I was recording. Then, I saved the recording to my account. When you login you can see all the recordings and make a specific QR code from the website. Super easy and very cute!

4.    And finally, the students planted his or her own Petunia for their mother. (What mom doesn’t love a pretty pink flower?!)

Happy Mother’s Day!