Let the learning begin...

Do you have plans for learning this year? I know that often my students directly benefit from my professional development. Last year, Karen challenged me to share my bits of my own blogging experience with my second graders. Their journey into first, reading many kid blogs, then creating their individual voices (using kidblog), sharing ideas, problem solving to figure out the tool, connecting, questioning and complimenting each other through commenting within our classroom community was amazing. There are moments where I wish I could keep learning with them and further our blogging journey, but I am also happy to be back with first graders and excited to figure out how it will work. Franki at A Year Of Reading has set the bar with her plan for the year. She loves learning and often her commitment to her own learning is inspiring. So, I thought I would also share my plans for professional development. Here goes...

In October I will be learning with Christian Long who will be speaking about Designing a 21st Century Learning Environment for Elementary Learners. His session is hosted by Literacy Connection.

In November, I will be headed to Orlando for NCTE's Annual Convention for 2010: Teacher's and Students Together: Living Literate Lives. After reading In Pictures and In Words, I will be anxious to attend Katie W Ray's session: Writers and Readers Explore Art to Understand Meaning Making. I also am interested in listening to Mark Overmeyer and panel speak about formative assessment and feedback in the elementary writing workshop. I am sure there is more but I have just briefly searched online for sessions. Cathy M, Ann Marie, Kathy C. and I will be presenting on picture book possibilities.

In February, I will attend our district's annual literacy conference. I am very much looking forward to hearing author Amy Krouse Rosenthal and the many professional speakers who will be attending.

Lastly, I am anxious to be apart of the Dublin cohort for Powerful Learning Practice this year. I am hoping that working, talking and sharing with others in this community will help me begin to wrap my brain around ways I can strengthen 21st teaching and learning in my own classroom.

the Band book by Ilanit Oliver

Not sure if silly bands are all over the arms of your students but they been pretty popular here in Ohio. Lee Kolbert of Geekymomma's blog posted a response to her feelings about banning the bands here last spring. They don't bother me so much. I know kids like adults are interested in the latest trends and silly bands seem to be the new toy to chat about at recess, trade on the bus and wear everywhere. This weekend I found the Band book at Sam's Club and picked a couple up for the classroom. If they love wearing them, I figure they'll enjoy reading about them.

I shared the book with the siblings of the boys soccer team to see what kids thought of it. The 2nd and 3rd grade girls sat for half the game with it. This book is filled with 30 questions

about bands, like...What is the rarest band you have? What is your favorite band? If you had to

give up one of your bands, which one would it be? The actual book begins: It's time to get silly. Then, throughout the book the bands come to life all as they are embedded in photo-

graphs of school places and situations. For example, on one page the octopus and alligator band are hanging upside down on the monkey bars with a speech bubble from the alligator that reads, "Dude, I can totally feel the blood rushing to my head." The silly photos and expressions are typical of intermediate and middle school kids.

At the back of the book there are 10 pages of "band check off lists" where kids can check off the bands they have. If not for your classroom, this may make a great gift for the holidays!

Buzz Boy and Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold

I loved reading the ninth book in the Fly Guy series. I love that it is about (superheroes). I also love that Tedd introduces us to yet another side of Buzz: he likes to write and read!!!! What more could a teacher ask for than a book about a boy with imagination that writes his adventure ideas into a book! In Tedd Arnold's newest Fly Guy book, Buzz Boy and Fly Guy, Buzz excitedly reads a story he created to his friend Fly Guy. Buzz's story, The Amazing Adventures of Buzz Boy and Fly Guy, is comic-book like with three chapters that detail the superheroes plans to cleverly out wit pirates who have taken them to a dragon cave. With super-strength, superloudness, a superskeleton key and the ability to fly, the superheroes prevail. The story ends with Buzz asking Fly Guy if he wants to read it again ( love it)!!! Looking forward to reading it on Tuesday!

Listening for what next

After a week with my students, I have learned so much about each one of them by simply making time to talk with them. I think the biggest chunk I have for real conversation that I can also tie to instruction is during writer's workshop. Today I had conversations with 4 boys sitting at a table sharing ideas.

One was illustrating a new story he shared during morning meeting about a party he went to at church. He was excited about the fact that his grandpa was in charge of the popcorn machine. His illustrations vividly depicted the details of the story he shared orally.

Another boy was balancing a pencil on his kness and I knew he was ready to have some help talking through some ideas. He sat a bit blank after I asked him if he had stories about his weekend in mind. So, we read through some stories in his folder from last week (a great strategy for triggering ideas, editing and revision without kids realizing it early on). He proudly pulled out a story he wrote by himself about how he went to the beach. He noticed he didn't have the word beach so, he stretched through the b-e and I taught him /ch/. After reading through his older stories, he sat a bit blank again. I tried to connect back to the book I had read before workshop about a little monster's day at school. I asked him if he wanted to write about a favorite part of school. And he said no. I sat and he sat. And then after a minute, he blurted out..."I did see a toad at the park!" But then he sat defeated, " I don't know how to draw a toad." I reminded him about the lesson I had taught last week about being brave with pictures (try your best and keep going). He seemed to pep up a bit. Then I walked him over to the non-fiction books and told him we have books with pictures of toads that might help. He found one and he was looking as a happy as he did when he thought about writing about the toad.

I knew I could leave him to begin another conversation. I asked him to share with everyone about what happened to him as a writer and we had great conversation about his struggles and bravery during share.

The third conversation was with a writer who had drawn an aquarium with two fish and a snail on his paper. I listened to the conversation he was having with the boy next to him and it wasn't so much about his illustration so I asked him about it. He told me a ton about his idea. From the big fish eating the other fish until 2 were left to how he drew his snail like the one (Gary) in Sponge Bob. I asked him to share his story with everyone during share. The kids loved hearing about his pets and their adventures!

The fourth conversation I had was with a boy who wrote about playing soccer. He had drawn many players on the field including himself. When I asked him about the story, briefly told me about kicking the ball and how another played bumped into him on the field. Then, He told me about how he used to do karate but isn't doing it anymore because he pushed someone. He told me about how he took swimming lessons and liked them. I listened to everything knowing that not only was I getting to know him as a writer but I was establishing trust and understanding.

From these 4 writers, and a little help from Lucy Calkins, I planned my lesson for tomorrow.

First to read Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillan. This book I think will be a great read for all of us as we remember the story of the aquarium from the day before. It also is told in a day to day diary sort of fashion by the goldfish himself. (secretly hoping just exposure to the text will invite kids play with this structure). I will likely read it before workshop.

Second to focus our mini-lesson on telling as much of a story as we can with illustrations. Knowing most of this group of kiddos isn't yet diving into text, I am feeling like I want to get as much as I can out of kid's work with illustrations. I am going to model how writers tell many details in the story by using the pictures. (I am going to tell my story about watching Brody). Bob Graham does this so well in one of my favorite books: How to Heal A Broken Wing. This is a great mentor for breaking a picture into scenes ( Thanks Katie W Ray from In Pictures and In Words). I'll attempt to do this with my story. I 'll also remember how to give kids time to talk through their stories with a partner so their ideas are heard.

Sharing Stories

One of the most valuable moments of my day is when my students and I share stories. Sharing pieces of ourselves really helps us know one another, connect and understand each other. These moments in my classroom are also key for linking oral telling with ideas that kids can get onto paper.

This week to help model how writers find stories, I shared moments in my life that I thought they might connect with. I shared a story about the huge grasshopper that jumped onto my window screen while I was doing the dishes, when my son Joey fell off his bike on

our way back from a soccer game and the swarm of kids who meet at our house nightly to catch grasshoppers and crickets.

Today, I captured some moments after my Saturday exercise class that I will share with them next week. I walked into to find my nephew, Brody on the kitchen counter in his bumbo (never had bumbos when my kids were little...how cool is this sitting device). When I saw him I couldn't stop smiling.

First he looked hysterical all propped up in this weird but clever green mold and second because I love babies (especially my nephew Brody and niece Vivian who are too cute for words). As he sat in the bumbo, he smiled at me, spit up a bit and then my son put a sock on his head and we all laughed. Then he lovingly took off the sock and gave him a kiss.

I immediately thought of taking pictures of these moments so that I can share these with my students and of course my family. I know the visuals will help my first graders see

my story and hopefully help them catch stories they want to tell. And, I also think by showing them the blog post, I will introduce them to the notion of the blogging and explain that they will soon have opportunities to share their stories in the same way!

Integrating Play

It has been back to school for me the last two days and what a great two days they have been. I feel like it is really hard to plan even a week out in these first few days. In fact, I really live day by day this first week. (I should probably be fine tuning my plans instead of posting but I have to walk away from it sometime).

This year I am trying to utilize the time kids have for working together, sharing,

communicating and problem solving in authentic situations. The kids have opportunities at recess and free choice play but I am often not available to guide them through problems that arise. When they need help it is often too late for me to ask kids to model for other kids how to use their words and take turns or to even help resolve situations. So this year I have integrating a structured play time in between reading and writing workshops. I have structured the play areas so that I initially decide what is played with, who plays where, and how many kids can play at certain area for the first few weeks. I explained to the kids that I want them to have a chance to play with different toys and different friends so that they feel comfortable with our stuff and each other.

Some of the ideas that I am using for play areas are toys the kids enjoyed in K (after consulting my friend Maureen), dramatic play items I have brought from home, letters/pictures and tangible word manipulatives that I will build learning with later and ideas that amazing teachers like Scott at Brick by Brick have inspired me to try. So far the kids have been loving it.

This week I introduced the play areas with Can I Play Too by Mo Willems? We talked

about how Elephant and Piggie are the type of friends who make sure everyone is included.

This set the tone for kids to play in small groups. Some of them played side by side on Monday, but today I saw

one group ( at the animals and blocks area) create a zoo and each person contributed to the building today.

Other kids were loving the straws and connectors. These toys (thanks Maureen) are a favorite. Kids created drums, fishing poles and buildings with these simple pieces.

I found some alphabet beads and bought some plastic line from United Art and Ed to create

an ABC play area. The line allowed each kid a place to house their letters and I gathered so much information about what kids knew about letter and words in a short period of play time. For example, one little girl started creating words she knew but many of the letters that she had to manipulate onto the line were placed backward. Other kids just wanted to string a bunch of letters and ask if they created a word. One little one asked for my picture and word cards so that she could copy words correctly. I gathered lots of informal data through play.

Tomorrow is our fourth day of school and I can't wait to see what they create next!

Swim! Swim! by Lerch (James Proimos)

I read Swim! Swim! at Cover to Cover earlier this summer. I was drawn to the animation-like pictures, the many comic-like panels on the pages and the voice of this determined fish (who tells the story completely in word bubbles...I was thinking great text to show in writing workshop) named Lurch. Lurch is in search of a friend. He is not afraid to ask anyone or anything in his bowl if they will be his friend. With no luck, he declares, "It's official. No one loves me." Then, a super surprising ending and help from a cat turns his loneliness into love!

I think Swim! Swim! will be a great book to read aloud the first week of school when kids are forming new friendships and feeling a little alone. It will be a simple text and message to share with young kids about the importance of helping each other.