Finding Answers in Interactive Read Aloud

My heart is filled with the faces of the 6 and 7 year old that live and learn in room 108.  They are learning what it means to share, figure out problems they may have with learning or often with each other and they are learning what it means to accept each other for who they are.

Today as I read aloud, I savored the time we had thinking about these same lessons (and doing lots of the thinking work of asking questions) while reading a picture book. Reading aloud is my favorite time of day and because of that, I try to do it as often as I can.  If you are believer in the interactive read aloud (where the kids thinking drives the community's understanding) as I am, you know how much they can learn when they have time to talk throughout the story.

I chose this book today because I have a student who really needs practice letting go of things (little things).

As I read, students shared their thoughts aloud: "She is not afraid anymore" and "Freckleface Strawberry and Windy Pants Patrick are friends now!" I know bullying is an important issue but I think we can sometimes isolate kids when we just define it and over emphasize who is bullying; we need to help kids help each other. I like this book because it embraces how we are more the same than different,  a concept (even young ones) can begin figuring out. So later we read: 

As I read aloud it one little girl said, "I am friends with lots of kids. Not ones that look just like me. I am friends with everyone in here and they don't all have the same kind of hair that I have." Then later someone said:

"Windy Pants Patrick and Freckleface Strawberry listened to their hearts."

These stories have supported the work we are doing as readers who ask and answer questions about text but most importantly they are helping us answer questions about ourselves.

What's First Grade?

A few months ago I was chatting with the most amazing first grade teacher in our district.  I was listening to her talk about how she and her students were creating for a hallway display communicating what first grade meant to them.  I LOVED the idea, asked her if I could use it and tried it on my own.
I started by reading one of my favorite pattern books: 

 Then we had lots of talk about how to answer the question: What's First Grade? Students who were able to narrow in and think about an image or idea shared. They came up with lots of ideas and I challenged them to be purposeful in their illustrations as we had been studying them in writing workshop. I posted it in our hallway for family night.

 Their ideas range from jump rope and running to....

 writing workshop, stories and checking out books.

 Oh and lots and lots of tether ball!!

I think I might have them re-illustrate after break to see if their ideas have changed. 

Finding Learning in Little Things

Just recently my student teacher gave our class a little cactus she brought back from a trip to Arizona.  I was excited to receive a plant for our classroom and began brainstorming all the learning we could tie into this small gift that brought such excitement.  Starting with the care directions, my students began to review what living things need and we had lots of discussion around new science words including :  temperature and measurement.  We read about our cactus, interpreted what we learned and then wrote a guide to remind each other about how to care for it.  Using interactive writing, we all dug into word work and practiced stretching through sounds in words, practicing high frequency words, digraphs, noticing short vowel patterns, compound words and the list goes on. One student added illustrations to the steps we composed during play. And, a few students have written about the cactus on the blog, sharing their thoughts about the new plant on our windowsill.  I love it when something so small can conjure up so much learning.

Collaborative Writing

In a quick conversation with two readers who LOVE to read Life Size Zoo and Sharks, a realization occured: we can teach our classmates about what we are learning on the blog!! Let the posting begin (with some more talk about taking what we learn from reading and then forming a thought out loud in our own words).

After reading some comments from some blogmates, one student declared: "I taught something to a second grader!!"

Photo Posting

It has been way too long since I felt like I have had time to blog.  Life happened, kids activities increased, we moved, the list goes on until I stop and think that I really have not been setting aside time to get to it. And, I miss it.  I miss connecting, sharing ideas and discovering new ideas in the interconnected world of blogging and twitter.  Ruth reminded me at a writing retreat this summer that 10 mins of writing a day can make a difference.  So with her advice in mind as well as my obsession with Ree Drummond (of who I am infatuated with because of her ability to post quick ideas and stories using pictures), I have decided to challenge myself to begin photo posting with a few words to help describe the purpose, process or ideas that accompany the pictures of learning in my classroom. My goal is to post each weekday.  I am beginning tomorrow and look forward to the challenge!

For tonight, I leave you with a happy pic of these page turner bookmarks that my student teacher made for each of my students!! They would make a great holiday gift if you have time on your hands. Here is the link she used to make them.

A Must Read: The Joy of Planning by Franki Sibberson

Planning has been something I've loved but also something I need more time for and practice with as I map out a unit of study or think about planning over longer chunks of the year.  I embrace it because I feel like it is my time to be creative, think about what my kids need and merge that with the curriculum. After reading Franki's newest book: The Joy of Planning, I have been smiling about her fresh look on what she mentions in her intro as "Falling Back in Love with Lesson Planning."  Franki's perspective on planning minilessons while balancing common core and students needs has breathed energy into my own planning.  She is a reflective and thoughtful planner. The questions she uses to plan her study have helped me better explain to my student teacher the importance of these four pieces she uses to organize her studies: reflect on goals for students, gather texts needed, differentiate so kids can enter the study where they are as learners and consider if the assessment matches the goals.

 She begins the book with ten solid beliefs about planning minilessons and how these beliefs have evolved for her.  As I read these, I couldn't help but nod as she mentioned big ideas like interactive, independent, community conversations and planning for the reader.  She says, "The teacher is the person who spends time with the students in her care, and it best suited to create lessons that will meet her students where they are. Because lessons are designed to help build understanding, it is important teachers develop the lessons they teach so they can revise and replan as needed, based on student response."

While Franki wrote this book with 3-6 audience in mind, her thinking is still crucial to K-2 teachers.  First, because we all plan minilessons.  No matter what "grade" we teach, each of the beliefs Franki mentions in her intro help us consider students regardless of grade level. Second, the book is filled with ideas and mentors that accessible to many readers, including primary. With common core, we all will be scaffolding our teaching to address characters, theme, and non-fiction texts.  Third, I love how Franki embraces the use of picture books for many of these lessons. She embraces many texts that students in 3-6 may have encountered in their primary classrooms.

 Last, I love how she loads the book with questions. These questions give us something to consider when trying to plan our own minilessons as well as set the pace for students to drive the thinking. These questions at the end of each of her lessons really are the heart of her thinking.  These questions are also differentiated enough that primary teachers could grab one or modify for their own classroom. In her lesson titled: Talking and Thinking about Characters she uses Today I Will Fly by Mo Willems. She ties the lesson to common core work with "drawing on specific details from text" as she asks her 4th graders to think deeper about how they know the characters Elephant and Piggie. In first grade, we set goals for our students to "describe characters" at the beginning of the year and later to "describe characters using key details in text.  Franki poses a couple questions for her fourth graders: How are Piggie and Elephant the same? How do you know? As primary teachers we might use her questioning strategy to pose:  Who are the characters? How do you know? and later in the year, What do we know about Piggie and Elephant? How do you know?

If you are looking to reflect back about planning in your reader's workshop, this book will certainly be a great text for developing thoughtful minilessons.  It clarifies Franki's planning process and has authentic ideas as well as real questions that have helped me refine my own practice in planning.

New Room, New Spaces

This year I am in a new room. It is a large room, with wonderful space that I was a little intimidated by as I moved my belongings into it this summer. As I unpacked and shopped for new pieces (thanks to IKEA...love that store) I began to love my new room. I thought I would share some pictures and talk through some of the pieces I bought as well as a few changes I have made in my new larger space.

This piece to the left my husband made for me out of rain gutters inspired by the rain gutter shelves I drooled over in Pinterest. The shelf to the right is my favorite buy from IKEA. It has allowed my to showcase books in baskets and stack books on the shelf next to these baskets. I used pictures of authors or characters on the shelves to help organize these books so that kids would know where to return them.

I decided to label my math bins with typed names on each bin. It feels neater and cleaner to me. I also decided to feature the math books in baskets in this area. I also have the plastic drawers ready for the math games I am starting to introduce. I like being able to pull out the drawer and place it on the table so kids can get to the supplies for that game and then slide it back when time to clean up.

I have moved my computers around the room to allow kids to access them throughout the day and to send the message that technology fits into everything we do as learners. I used an old white IKEA table covered with an old map I had to host one computer work area that I am hoping kids will use to research the birds we begin to notice outside the window on PebbleGo.

My wonder bulletin board features many plants and animals we will encounter in our many visits to the Metro Park across the street. I want to use this board to begin conversation about what we will see, notice and wonder about as we frequent the park.

The small stools you see have been the biggest hit this year. The kids love to hang out on these during writing workshop and math time, playing games and writing.

It may be hard to see but I added magnetic letters and pictures above my larger baskets: in this case the characters that we love baskets. The bigger baskets have been tough for kids to move so I pulled out the top shelf so that they could get their arms into the space above these allowing books to get in and out easily.

Last, this is my word work and work play area filled with many hands on letter and word game-type materials. I placed the basket of books for word learning above this shelf and I am loving this space. These are just peeks into these new spaces inside this new room that has brought lots of smiles already to 20 first graders (and me)!