Connected Learning Instead of Homework

MaryLee and Franki are hosting a literacy event this Thursday in honor of Share a Story Shape a Future 2011 Event : Unwrapping the Gift of Literacy.

I'm sharing my thoughts about how to connect learning from school to home (doesn't connected learning sound better than homework).

What is homework? I think when we stop to really think about the words separately: home work or mixed around: work at home, the terms feel, well a little uninviting. Who wants to do work at home? When I get home, I want to relax (though I don't most the time ), laugh with my family, unwind and talk about my day with them. I want my student students to do the same and (because they are primary kiddos) share a book they have been loving in the classroom. I also know the realities of after school activities, sports, music lessons, etc.. These take up time for kids (and parents). So as a parent and a teacher I am often thinking about (1)what is realistic for kids to do at home, (2)what will they be motivated to do do at home after a long day at school, (3) how can I help them discover or further discover what they love and (4) how can I help connect their learning at school with what they explore at home. I came up with some short story examples of what I am noticing to be effective ways to provide connected learning (my new word for homework) for my own kids at home and classroom.

As a parent I find the best way I can support connected learning begins after I have conversations with my kids: Just last week, I was chatting with my 5th grader about his day and the next thing I knew he was on you tube exploring the visiting musician, Baba Jubal who had inspired him that day. He couldn't stop talking about the rhythms he was learning with other 5th graders for a school program where he would play a drum he created in art class. He wanted to know more about Baba Jubal and googled him finding another school's performance and music created by him. This was fascinating to me that from this brief, "What did you do today?" exploded into the 5th grader teaching me everything he was excited to be learning about with Baba Jubal.

What did you read today? led to a great conversation with my 4th grader about how much he enjoys the newest issues of Sports Illustrated for Kids. He explained to me how the magazine has changed since our subscription at home ended. He asked me what happened to our subscription (it ran out and I just renewed) because he had been missing getting his favorite reading at home. Fortunately, he has not missed out in the classroom as many of the other kids bring in their magazines in for all to enjoy. This was an opportunity for me to think about how I could keep him satisfied at home with these same resources he is enjoying in the classroom. My 5th grader joined in and began talking about how he reads SI for kids online every so often during reading workshop. So we hopped online and found the SI Kids Blog and other new options for reading that matched his interests.

What are you writing about? led my youngest son taking me to his class blog where I had an opportunity to see the piece he has been working on about a toy boat. His told about the boat he made of legos that he was inspired to create after reading Randall de Seve and Loren Long's Toy Boat. He writes to his readers:

My toy boat is awesome because it is made out of legos. I tied a rope around my toy boat. when I got the rope. I got the rope on the day befor chrisrtmas eve. I pulled it around the house.I got the idea from the book, Toy Boat by Randall de Seve. My rope is 5 feet long and my toy boat is one and a hafe feet long.

After reading this with him, I realized that his is inspired by books. He loves creating things at home after being inspired, and then has opportunities to write about his ideas and share them with others (including me).

As a teacher I want to find ways to connect students (and parents) with our learning at school:

Connecting Readers:

Reading Bags:I often tell parents who ask about homework that the best "homework" they can do with their kids is to read and talk with them about learning. To support reading at home, students bring home a book of their choice each night. Kids often take books out of my hands after I read them aloud and place them in their reading bag for the evening. I'll be honest and tell you that I don't use a formal reading log with such young readers. Instead I just want them concentrating on sharing and loving the book in their bag.

Reading Online: Many of the books I share and read in class, I am beginning to find online in one way shape or form. So as I introduce the kids to a book trailer or youtube video of a story, I link it to our class web page (which I have modeled and used in class throughout the year) so kids can access learning at home. Many of my students share how much they get online and read these at home. They are now in the habit of making sure anything I show up on the projector is linked to our web page because they know they can go home and think about it again.

Connecting Writers:

Blogs : Our class blog works as a way encourage students to continue their ideas for writing at home because their posts are accessible online with their username and password. One way I support kids independence with learning is to share posts by other kids who are finding ideas and writing at home. I think we have to show and share with our kids at school about how learning is a ongoing and lifelong. One student started to post at home about the books he checked out of the library, another student shared what she loved about her sister, both inspiring new ideas for writers to think about at home and school.

Connecting Visuals of Our Own Class Learning:

Kids love to see pictures and video of all the creations, celebrations and happenings in the classroom. This

this year, I have been using posterous host all of our small group play performances, pictures of kids

enjoying activities in math and content areas and communicating to parents about what is happening at

school. This has been yet another place for kids to read, watch and talk with their parents about the

learning in our classroom. It doesn't feel like a traditional place for homework but rather a fun place to

connect conversation about our classroom to home.

Ultimately, I want my own children and students to begin to understand how to seek out what they love. My

wish is that they begin find books they want to read and they write about topics that interest them. I hope I

can provide conversations and connections that help kids become lifelong learners.

What have you been reading and writing?

It has been awhile since I have had time to breathe and more importantly, blog. February is a great month but always busy with quite a few family b-days, snow days and our annual Dublin Lit Conference. I have to admit that I get a little down because of the cold weather here in Ohio that often lingers through March. To help myself stay out of the dumps, I decided to join Franki's e-reader challenge and have a good book to look forward to as well as think about the pros and cons of reading digitally. I have Across the Universe on my iPad and I am LOVING IT. Today I just joined the e book club on good reads.

To keep upbeat in the classroom, my students and I have been studying authors as mentors this month and I choose someone this year that I love: Bob Shea. I was a little leary of picking a picture book author who has mainly published fiction because I think fiction is hard to teach young kids to write but I let go of those fears knowing my purpose for this study was for kids to really look at Bob's craft as a writer. I was happily surprised as my kids noticed so many interesting crafts like repetitive language that we also studied in our pattern book study at the beginning of the year and new observations like how Bob uses different colors for different character talk in Dinosaur Vs. Bedtime. Thinking about the decisions Bob makes in his books and naming these has helped my own students think purposefully about the decisions they are making in their own stories. I showed my students Bob Shea as he shares who and why he wrote Dinosaur Vs. Bedtime in this youtube video. This video had many kids thinking about why they were writing their stories and who they were writing them for.

During the last days of the study, we studied Race You to Bed for the purposes of thinking about (what I call "wow" words) precise language or words that help he reader experience the story and the writer share exactly what he feels. My students and I have been talking all year about how we learn new words in conversations, listening to stories, reading together and reading on our own. We have a nice list of words that we have caught during these times throughout the year (like when Ava helped us think about the word blended as she shared a story about how her dog Buckeye blended into the darkness of her bedroom). We also have words that students have tried in their own writing that have "wowed" us. Long story short, after kids noticed words like zip, splash and how sometimes words like "scratch an itchy rash to bed" really work together to make us feel the story, I invited kids to try writing "wow" words in their own pieces. Just noticing words helped their own awareness and begin to understand how they can strengthen their writing.

Now that it is the end of the month, I am honestly, still feeling too busy and unsettled. But, I have a book to look forward to along with satisfaction and peace that blogging brings to me when I can. I miss writing and sharing when I can't. I think that is a good thing.

Characters Outside of Our Classroom

Who are your favorite characters?

My first graders have been reading books about their favorites and last week I promised we would paint our most loved friends. It wasn't surprising that Elephant and Piggie made it up to the bulletin board. It is one of the baskets of books that is always empty because kids always want these in their own book bins. I am very excited for the newest in this series, I Broke My Trunk, out next week !

Bossy Bear is another favorite of many of the boys. He is an overly bossy character who demands things his way but is challenged to change after making a friend, turtle. Turtle tells Bossy Bear that he is bossy but he doesn't have to be!

You may be able to make out Fancy Nancy at the end of the bulletin board. She is loved by some of my girls. They enjoy hearing the picture books in her series and often check out the little paperback (I can read) readers from our library.

Also featured under Nancy, is the Gingerbread Girl. Before a small group of students performed the Gingerbread Man play for the class, we read just about every version we could find ( The Gingerbread Boy, Gingerbread Baby, Gingerbread Friends as well as watched the movie on Speakaboos. The kids have become very familiar with the characters in these stories and many of the girls have loved the spunky phrase repeated by the Gingerbread Girl:" Run, run with a leap and a twirl, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Girl!"

Amelia Bedelia's picture book stories have been the favorite of one of my transitional readers. She often will sit and read aloud to a small group of kids (pretending to be teacher) at recess or free choice time. I have yet to read one of these as a read aloud because I know at the beginning of the year, many of my kids would need some scaffolding and talking through some of Bedelia's confusions. Ameila Bedelia's First Valentine will likely be read next week as the holiday approaches and we begin to know more about other student's favorite characters.

The last character that has made it up to our bulletin board thus far is Mouse from I Miss You Mouse by Greg Foley. Mouse is a kind friend and character in Foley's picture book series. This series is another perfect for first graders. It is a small amount of text with pictures and flaps that grab the reader. Once read aloud, these books also live in kid hands.

These are not all of our favorites but are certainly a strong representation. What characters are your kids loving?

Cat Secrets by Jeff Czekaj

It seems like sometime since I have posted about a new favorite book that has grabbed my readers and my writers. So today I want to tell you about a book that Franki told me about. This book is called Cat Secrets by Jeff Czekaj.

When I purchased it, I noticed that Jeff Czekaj had written another book I blogged about last year called Hip and Hop Don't Stop, another fun book about friendship. Check out his website and blog!

Cat Secrets is a fun and interactive book ONLY for cats. So, you can imagine the laughter that erupts after reading aloud "Stop! Stop reading right now. This book is for CATS only!" And then you can imagine the meows as you read, "Okay, if you are really a cat, let's hear you meow." Hopefully you are beginning to understand how this book hooks readers. I noticed too, after reading it during a writing workshop lesson, that it inspired lots of writers with ideas for their own book of secrets. We have many versions of Dog Secrets in process. Don't leave without checking out the trailer for the book. I can't wait to show it to my kids tomorrow!

Happy 100th Day!

Yesterday, we celebrated the 100th day of school. This is such a an exciting day for us because we have shared 100 days together as learners.

It is a day for reading about characters like Jake from Jake's 100th Day of School who learns about and receives compassion from his principal when he leaves his 100th day collection at home.

It is a day when we can ask kids to think about 100 and how to build, count and create 100.

It is a day that each of us has special ways we like to join with our students in sharing in the excitement of learning.

This year, we decided to read to 100 people for the 100th day of school. It seemed like perfect timing as we had recently finished publishing stories in writer's workshop and needed to have a share celebration. Just asking my students about how as a class we could read to 100 people was great thinking. After discussing (and physically counting 5 bears for each of the 20 students in our class) how to read to 100 people, we were off to read with third grade, second grade and K classes in the building. Some students were nervous to read (and just talk) with someone new, so we talked through their fears. Afterwards, I heard one student say, "Mrs. DiCesare, I am not shy anymore!" I was amazed at how different children took away different learning in this simple act of sharing a story.

Hoping you'll share some 100th day favorites and that you have an exciting 100th when your day comes!

iPad Apps for Kids in the Classroom

My sister and her family came home with an iPad this weekend. So, when she mentioned that my 9 month old nephew loved playing the piano app, I had to see how little Brody interacted with it. Today when he came to visit, we handed him the iPad and he started playing and singing. I think it is pretty amazing after having interacted with it for just a day.

This had me thinking about adding apps to my iPad and iTouch for my kids at school. My students have different needs and interests so I have found a few that I am thinking will help kids with specifics they need to practice. I have also found some universal apps that work for young kids in general.

Fine Motor Needs: I have a few students who are still mastering the fine motor capabilities needed to form letters correctly. I like the app iwritewords. It is an app that truly focuses on letter formation (handwriting). It has uppercase letters, lowercase letters, number or word options for kids to practice. Once an option is chosen, a small crab appears on the screen with a series of bubbles following that prompt the student to touch the screen and follow the path of the letter. The letter name is announced and some type of praise (not a huge fan b/c gets a little annoying hearing "good job" and "that's great" over and over again) After tracing the path of the letter, it becomes a little square that you can help dance to the bottom right of the screen before another letter appears. Here is a video of a kiddo playing with the word option. I think teaching kids to draw and write about things that happen to them is best practice for emergent writers, this app is an option for my kids who need fine motor practice.

Word Practice: ABC Magnetic Alphabet: This app is like a small blackboard that you can drag magnetic looking letters onto. My fifth grader can't get enough of it as I am typing. He has written silly notes to his brothers and is using the picture icons to write silly sentences. I am thinking of using this as an option for practicing the high frequency words we have in our study.

Letter Play and Learning: Interactive Alphabet I think is my favorite. It has entertained everyone in my family (young and old). My first impression was that it was just a bunch of abc flash cards but to me it feels more like a game. You can begin with any letter and each letter has something for you to play with on the screen. The music is upbeat and inviting and each page is read to you. For example: "N is for Noodles, /N/ Noodles."

Then, you can touch the chopsticks on the screen and move the noodles up and down. Once you play with one letter, you want to know what you will find with the next one.

Stories:

Really, great stories (at a good price) would be the most universal and loved app for young readers in the classroom. Stories with pictures and narration support the literacy needs of all our kids. Here are a few options I have found...

Tales2Go: This app allows kids access to many categories of audiobooks. It is filled with classics including The Gingerbread Man, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Caps for Sale. I am using it as an option for my students as they come in to read in the morning. Having the fairytales at their fingertips has been a great as small groups of my students are performing fairytale plays for one another this month. They can re-listen to the tales their friends have performed .

Josh and Emma Go To the Beach: This app is the story of two kids who spend time finding treasures at the beach. The story is filled with questions that guide the reader to play with the pictures on the pages. At the end of the story, the reader can touch the treasures and count them back into the bucket. The book has an auto-play and speech option.

Wheels on the Bus: This app has probably been the most popular with the kids who have picked up the iPad this week. It can be sung to you in many languages and also has the option for you to record yourself singing or reading it. I think the interactive part of this app is most inviting. You actually use your finger to make the bus move, open the doors, move the wipers an touch the people to move up and down.

Kids are interested in new, fun and interactive learning. The iPad is all that and more. I have been bringing my family iPad in to share with my students and they are loving it. Wouldn't it be nice if every classroom could own at least one?

Trying to Know Ourselves

I've been thinking about how important it is to know yourself. Or maybe, it is more the importance of being able to think and reflect about why we do the things we do. Then I started thinking, why am I having these thoughts? Maybe it is because I have some people pleasing flaws that steer my mind to obsess over if what I said or did in a situation. I sometimes overly worry, was I too harsh or hurtful? Most of the time my words/actions aren't overly anything because I am often harder on myself than I need to be. Maybe it is because of a conversation I had today with a friend who is trying to figure out how to be more balanced. As she shared her thinking, I thought about how I am often stopping to evaluate my priorities to feel more balanced. I have to weigh what I need with what my family needs with what my students need with, yeah, the list goes on... Or, maybe it is because I am trying to write about word learning in the classroom and I can't stop thinking about how important it is to share assessment data with kids. Sharing what I find out about my students from assessments even in the context of a simple conversation can help my kids become more aware of what they know (or need to know). All of these thoughts (I am hoping) connect to the story I want to share next.

Last night we visited old friends who have younger children, a little boy (Jonah, 4) and a little girl (Reese, 5). Before walking in their home, I reminded my two boys (one son was at soccer) who are 8 and 11, about how big they might seem to the younger kids. I asked them to give the younger kids some of their time and to play with them. After hearing a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos finish up, I decided to see how it was going in the play room. As I was walked in, I saw little Reese look up at my oldest son, who is towered over this petite Kindergartner and say with the sweetest voice, "Can you read?" I watched my son's eyes connect with mine first confused (because the 11 yr old was thinking, duh, of course I can read) then as I smiled he got it. He looked back at her and at the twinkle in her eye able to wisely smile back appreciating her amazement. "Yeah, I can." he said. In that moment I was amazed at little Reese and her appreciation for reading. She knows its possibilities and that she wants to be a reader. I know this because I could hear the wonderment in her voice and knew she understood the magnitude of reading just in the mere fact that she asked this deep question.

This little one is beginning to ask smart questions that will help her know herself and what a good habit to be in. She reminded me of how important it is to keep asking questions of myself and of others when it comes to trying to know myself each day. In first grade, we also have been in the habit of trying to know ourselves. We end the day with time to think and elaborate (if time) on a question that you might want to reflect about. "What went well for you today?"

(photo from Creative Commons by Ken Bosma)