999 Tadpoles by Ken Kimura

I love frog stories in first grade because like frogs, first graders are thrown into a world of many.  They need help understanding how community works as they begin living with lots of other students for a full day.  Fine As We Are by Algy Craig Hall (an old favorite)  and this new book I picked up at Barnes and Noble, 999 Tadpoles (don't you love the title... just reading and thinking about 999 is going to be a conversation in itself), both embrace the importance of living and working together.

In 999 Tadpoles, Mother and Father frog take their young frogs on a journey to toward safety in hopes of finding a new home.  In their adventures they learn about the dangers of the world as well as the importance of sticking together. Ken Kimura weaves in humor with his delightful story and the pictures by Yasunari Murakami are simple yet captivating.  I am excited to be adding it to my classroom library for next year.

The Monster Returns by Peter McCarty

I just spotted The Monster Returns by Peter McCarty at the bookstore and was excited to see this second in the picture book series which began with Jeremy Draws a Monster.  Jeremy is a character that makes us think here in first grade. His second book helped us think more about predicting as the kids shared their thoughts about what Jeremy  might do when the Monster sends a note declaring he is back after being drawn away on a bus in the first book .  Jeremy delights us with a imaginative plan that pleases everyone.  This book is as good as the first!

McCarty has also written Henry in Love and I just pre-ordered his newest book titled Chloe which is out May 15.  I am a fan!

What is Not Covered by Common Core

In May I often walk into the classroom feeling overwhelmed by the number of activities, assessments and programs that we have scheduled. With 18 days left, I am living the adage...so much to do, so little time.  My friend Lauren and I have been reminding each other (and our students) to slow down. I think we have to slow down and take time for finishing projects or units of instruction in the midst of assessment. We have to slow down and show our kids how important it is to keep listening to each other even if we would just rather be done.

Beginning to explore common core has also presented some of the same overwhelming feelings at times. Not in the sense that the standards will be "hard" to teach or that some standards will be new, but overwhelming because there is quite a bit to read and absorb when slowing down to begin to understand the purpose and philosophy of the common core.  When visiting corestandards.org, you can read about college and career anchor standards, explore your grade level standards, read about the factors that make up text complexity and it's importance within cc, the process in which the standards were created, how to read the standards and more.  After really just skimming many of these pieces, I found my favorite part of common core.  It is titled "What is not covered by the standards" and found underneath the key considerations tab which is under the introduction.  There are a number of key points underneath this heading help us remember that while standards are important, we as teachers are able to make creative, caring and developmental decisions about the students we teach. Common core does tells us :

1. PLAY is important for all students.
"The Standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach. For instance, the use of play with young children is not specified by the Standards, but it is welcome as a valuable activity in its own right and as a way to help students meet the expectations in this document." 




2.  Be creative!!
"The aim of the Standards is to articulate the fundamentals, not to set out an exhaustive list or a set of restrictions that limits what can be taught beyond what is specified herein."


3. Think about the unique needs of students

• "No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety in abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom. However, the Standards do provide clear signposts along the way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students." 
• and
• "Each grade will include students who are still acquiring English. For those students, it is possible to meet the standards in reading, writing, speaking, and listening without displaying native-like control of conventions and vocabulary."

4.  Think about the whole child 

"Students require a wide-ranging, rigorous academic preparation and, particularly in the early grades, attention to such matters as social, emotional, and physical development and approaches to learning. "

 Even though there is and will likely be exhaustive sources and ideas for use with common core, I feel less overwhelmed by the fact that the writers of this initiative have asked us to consider what it doesn't cover.  Here we find some license to keep differentiating, listening, observing and making decisions about what is best for our students. 

What Makes You Smile?

Last weekend, my husband surprised me for our 15th year wedding anniversary.  He planned an evening away in Granville, Ohio. We stayed at the Granville Inn, enjoyed a carriage ride through town and walked up and down the streets of this beautiful college town.  We browsed the bakery and bought yummy cinnamon sticks for Easter breakfast, and shopped in a small store filled with scented candles, jewelry, where I found this book: What Makes You Smile?

I picked it up and thought how it would (1) be fun to share with even first graders and (2) has possibilities for opinion writing ( and we are immersed in thinking about it right now).  The book begins with an explanation of its purpose and how it is just the beginning of a list of things (list book too and I can use at the beginning of the year as a mentor) that make you smile. Then the writer invites us to start our own list.  We have read a handful of pages over the past two days and kids are loving it, agreeing and sometimes disagreeing with the ideas the author has written like puppies, homemade cookies, slumber parties, running through sprinklers and towels hot from the dryer.  Today, we decided to write our own (opinions) ideas about what makes each of us smile.  We jotted them in less than five minutes and then I read them aloud and the kids loved hearing each other's responses. It has inspired kids to create their own books about what makes them smile and tomorrow we talked about adding our reasons for each to build on supporting our opinions so that we can create a class book. Tonight I will leave you with with a few hoping you'll enjoy or even share what makes you smile. And yes, the 3rd post it on the right says: Chipotle:)

Book Loving Nieces

My sister texted me this message with picture included:

"The girls turned our room into a classroom- sorted all their books by author or genre. Thought u would enjoy."

Doesn't put a smile on your face when a four and six year old adore reading and organizing books as much as we do?

Happy Ending

Tonight I had 45 minutes in between the time I dropped my first son off at soccer and the time I needed to pick another one up.  I hate driving all the way home because by the time I get there, it is time to get back into the car.  I thought about shopping but quickly decided I really don't be needing to spending money so I did what I should have thought of first:  stopped by my sister's house to hang with my family.

My sister and brother -in-law live particularly close to us and to one of the soccer practices. I love to visit my nieces and nephew when my own kids aren't around because they are stuck having to talk and play with me instead my boys whom they adore. I sat and helped little Jilly (6) on the computer, Brody (almost 2) and I made faces at one another giggling and sticking out our tongues and then Audrey (5) came and lounged on my lap watching her favorite cartoon on tv.  And, I caught up with my sister, trading gossip and complaining about life stress. I love how sisters are always there to listen.

It was a gift to be able to end my day with their company. It helped turn my stale mood into one of appreciation.

2 Days into Opinion Writing

It has been two days of reading and talking about what opinions are and  how characters we know have opinions.  I have been trying to point out when we use opinions in the classroom and when I have an opinion about something.  Today, as we were voting about which play we enjoyed watching after another first grade in our building performed some fairy tale plays, one of my students shouted out, "We are telling our opinions!"  Yeah, I thought. This conversation about opinions is sticking.

So, the most natural thing happened after watching these plays.  I pulled out some larger (newer sized paper) pulled out the sharpies (for outlining their pictures and words) and let them write their thoughts about which fairy tale play they enjoyed.  With a quick conversation about how we could begin to tell Mrs. Wilkins' Class how we felt, we brainstormed some beginnings.  Then, I let them go to see what they could do.  All of their pieces are giving me ideas about what I need to teach next.  Some kids were excited to dive into this new genre while others wanted to finish writing they have in their folders.  About 1/2 were excited to share their opinions especially after they asked if we could share our writing with Mrs. Wilkins' performers.

I noticed that the kids who tried opinion writing were the risk takers today and have confidence for trying new things. The pieces that they attempted are pretty strong for a first try. I know that I can help build depth in their topic choices and details as our unit progresses for these kiddos.  I think the kids that tried today are also very auditory so talking and listening to each other then writing comes easier.  Some of my more visual learners will need the support of the mentors that come out of this first try at opinion writing as well as some other ideas that might interest them. They will also need the scaffold of shared/ interactive writing which I am sliding into my word study time. Today, we worked on a class letter in which we are writing our group opinion about our favorite play. Writing the beginning of this together was rich in conversation about everything: ideas for what to write, letter etiquette, accessing and adding high frequency words, punctuation, hearing then segmenting words and writing parts we are learning (hearing e sound in dear and identifying it as ea, cl as the blend in class, and the ed in loved).  But, the writing was lacking the discussion of the apostrophe used for ownership (whoops !). Save that for when we come back to this tomorrow.