It's Been Awhile!

I am ashamed to say it has been a month since I did a typical post. Life is busy and work is busier and I have no good excuses of why I haven't kept it up this last month. My class is continuing to do amazing things and March Break should have been a great time to do some sharing but I didn't. The goal is still the same, to post once a week but it just hasn't happened. Moving on:

I went to workout this week with a group I started with about a month ago, I have some knee issues and have just finished physio about a month ago, and haven't done any real workouts or sports in about 6 months. Needless to say the workouts are grinding but to reach my goals I continue to go, even if while I'm there I am continually saying I hate this. I came home this Thursday, especially discouraged after the last part of the workout I literally could not finish. (Apparently I can not run for five minutes, then hold a kettle bell for the 6th minute of running and then continue the running). Long story short, I came home upset that I couldn't do it, embarrassed that the other people in the class had witnessed it and generally feeling my own LIMITATIONS. How does this apply and relate to education you ask?

I'm getting there, so I come home upset, and I mention to my significant other that I hate knowing my own limitations. It got me thinking about my students. . . .and their struggles, what do they feel are their limitations, what do they become upset about? Am I supporting their struggles enough, understanding what it is they need, and the encouragement and support necessary for their success? Am I doing enough to change their mind that they don't have limitations?

So going back to my discussion with the significant other, I mentioned to him about my own limitations, his response? "What limitations? It's not a limitation Kat, you can't say you have limitations because you can't do something YET. You will get there, it just takes time to get there."

I am going to think of my classroom the same way, when students are frustrated or upset about what they don't understand or haven't mastered I am going to remind them of YET. It will happen and they will get there! I also think I need to think of my own discouragement and make sure that I am being that cheerleader for each student, they can all get there, it just might not be YET.

I have some pictures I thought I'd post of some cool stuff my kids have been doing:

I teach 4/5 Drama and I found an activity in the Drama Schemes, Themes and Dreams about sequencing involving a wordless picture book. I colour copied 8 pictures from the book, made sure they were randomly stacked and had groups decide what story was being told, writing up their own story. I wasn't sure how it would go, it's a high energy group but they really got into it and the discussion was excellent! Each story was different, the coolest thing was seeing how each group interpreted the pictures! Here are some shots:

 

 

Our school parent association came up with the cool idea of a book swap. Students bring in any books they are done reading to donate, each class has their own total, depending how many books each class donates decides how many new books each student could choose. It was crazy how many books were donated at our school with 300 students. My class got to all pick 4 books each, amazing :) Can't wait for next year!

 

Last thing I wanted to show you was the anchor chart my class created after a read aloud called "The Streets are Free," we used the reading strategies we've already covered this year for several days to create a chart about what the book meant to us. I am actually considering having students do their own mini version after another read aloud, it would be a great assessment opportunity and may be an excellent discussion starter. We are moving on to inferencing this week and I am excited to see what the kids will think up!

 

 

 

 

Have a great week!

 

Kathleen :)

 

My Very First Linky Party!

Not very much to say, I joined a Linky Party, I was supposed to be doing some marking but got side tracked. I hopefully will have some new images to post this week about Twiducate and some other stuff going on! I hope everyone had a great weekend and if you are a Canadian Blogger, join up to the All Canadian Linky Party!

Apologies as I don't know how to use the image to link right to the blog, so you'll have to click on the All Canadian Linky Party words, it's baby steps right!

Have a great week :)

PS I need to make a button so I have a cool image when I join Linky Parties!

Twiducate and Persuasive Feedback

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a long time! It was report card season and shortly after that life just got super busy in my classroom, tonight I finally have some down time and want to get back to the blog. I want to thank everyone who is reading/supporting/pinning my blog. It's the best feeling in the world!

So what is new in Room 108?

The newest activity we've taken on is using Twiducate, a program created by a teacher from Blenheim Ontario, you can follow him on Twitter at @MrAspinall. The program I stumbled upon after it was suggested on a resource board I follow. I had spoken to my students about twitter after we looked at a reading from Teaching Kids News (one of my favourite resources at the moment!) about protests, including Idle No More. We discussed how the movement got its name and what the movement is truly about. We also discussed how various movements can be confused because of the media and what we have to do to ensure we get the whole picture. Long story short we ended up discussing hashtags on Twitter, leading to a discussion about social media and pros and cons as students. After mentioning Twitter I harmlessly mentioned Twiducate and that I was considering using it in the classroom. Students immediately were hooked and began inquiring as to when this would happen, I signed us up a week ago, sent home a permission form allowing students to bring in phones and other electronic devices to use and dived in! (We are using classroom computers and school netbooks for students who do not want/have an electronic device to bring in).

Twiducate is a twitter like program that creates a "walled garden" where only students in the class are allowed. No outsiders can join, the teacher controls passwords and can monitor all discussion and look up what each student has typed. I set mine to not allow edit and deleting to teach students how their comments and statements on the internet can not be taken back. We have only used it once, allowing students to try it out, with several persuasive prompts to start a conversation. I am in the process of figuring out how I can weave it in to class more often. The good and bad: my students LOVE it, are totally hooked, love that it is a spot for just our class to chat and have conversation. I have been able to explain that comments on Twiducate are similar to classroom discussions. If you wouldn't say it in the classroom then you should not say it on Twiducate. The bad? They LOVE it, if I had a dollar for every time a student asks if we are using Twiducate each day I would be a rich lady! I will keep you posted on how it goes this week!

Okay here is the part of the post with the pictures! (The next time we use Twiducate I'll post some so you can check it out :) ) We have been working very hard on our persuasive writing. I have really been making an effort to use the gradual release of responsibility. We examined persuasive writing pieces, created a success criteria for our persuasive writing and then created a rubric for our persuasive writing. Sidebar: A great way to create a rubric that students take ownership in! So the next step after co-writing a persuasive letter was to write one in groups, students used their success criteria and rubric to assist them, you saw those letters in an earlier post. So the next step was to write one in pairs (or the odd group of 3). Students were again reminded to use the success criteria and rubric as a guide. Groups were allowed to choose whatever they wanted and wrote their persuasive writing either on chart paper or letter size. Groups then handed in their work, I then took the rubric we co created and shrunk it so there was four to a page. I placed the pieces of work around the room, each with a envelope, pieces that were on smaller paper I put in plastic sleeves to keep from ripping. I instructed students to go around and choose 4 other pieces of writing other than their own to mark, using the rubric we had created. After they had marked a piece of writing, they put their rubric in the envelope and placed a checkmark on the outside of the envelope to let people know  how many rubrics were done on that piece. This was to ensure that each work had many "markers."

The next day each group was given their work back along with the envelope of rubrics from friends. Students could also write feedback on the back of rubrics and did not have to sign their names. Students were given time to read over the feedback, and were anxious to see what others thought of their work!

Then students were given a post it each (so one post it per student) to decide on one thing they would change to "bump up" their work after looking through the feedback. Students were then asked to place their finished post its on the smartboard so a discussion could take place about what were the major items our persuasive pieces were missing.

I should point out this less than half my class's post its on the board. It went really well, we had rich discussions about what we are doing well and what we are forgetting!

This feedback activity was two weeks ago and we are one week in to our final work, we've had two days in the computer lab to look for info to back up our opinions, and 2 days of writing workshop, students are to have their argument organizer completed for tomorrow as we move on to the draft/conference phase of writing.

I will admit that it has been difficult to be patient with the process. I will be the first to say I am usually someone who probably taught writing styles too quickly and let students be independent too fast. After speaking with a colleague with their approach I am taking a much slower approach but I am finding the quality of work is much better and students have a much better understanding of what their work needs to achieve a Level 3 (B).

I'm sorry about the big break from blogging but I'm hoping that life has got a little more calm and I can get back to sharing my classroom adventures!

Have a great week :)

Kathleen :)

PS I would love to hear any ideas you have for Twiducate or feedback for your writing program!

RESET

Last week was a long week. . .which was disappointing because it started with a snow day! I wasn't sure what had got in to the munchkins but the week went from bad to worse. By Friday they had rotary with two other teachers that went very badly. Instead of going to gym right away I thought we needed to have a little community chat time. I spoke to my class about how to treat others in the classroom, other adults in the school, other people in the community. . . I spoke to them about how much I love them and tell my friends and family about how amazing and wonderful they are in every thing they do. I spoke to them about how they are awesome kids and their behaviour that day was disappointing to say the least.

I hate to have those chats with the kids. You realize there are kids sitting there who had nothing to do with it, and other kids who you wonder if they took anything in.

Sometimes when I give little pep talk/"I'm disappointed" speeches I'm not really sure where I'm going, this was one of those times. At one point I said "We're going to start over." I mentioned that it doesn't always happen in life but we would start again on Monday. We would "RESET." We finished our conversation and quietly walked down to the gym. Slowly students came up and whispered "I'm sorry for disappointing you Ms. Bond" and after several students, one put up his hand for a high five and I said "RESET".  After that moment I high fived each student, repeating "RESET." It was so random but meant so much to me and the kids and our little classroom community.

I knew that today could go just like last week had so I met them at the door today with another high five and an echo of "RESET." I might start all my days with high fives now, it was such a small gesture the word and the high five together but the kids bought in and we had a wonderful day today! Days like today remind of why I do what I love :)

Okay now for a couple pictures to even out the overly emotional post for today!

This first pic of an idea given to me by literacy coach Jackie Sweeney, we read the book We Are The Elders and as a "Before" activity for shared reading I colour scanned the pictures and broke students in to pairs to comment on whatever came to mind looking at their picture, writing down ideas all around the picture. They then presented their ideas to the class. It resulted in a rich discussion and I loved students' expressions when they were given their picture and they exclaimed, "YES, WE GOT A GOOD ONE!!!"

 

This next picture is a variation on an idea taken from Jennifer Runde's Site "Runde's Room" (see button on right hand side). The idea is simple, you look at a piece of work for peer feedback or teacher feedback and anything that is done well or deserves praise is highlighted in yellow or "Glow." Then you use green highlighter to highlight parts for "Grow." Grow meaning areas for improvement. I loved the idea but didn't have yellow or green highlighters so we decided to use neon post its I received in my staff sock from a teacher elf I still have not figured out! We posted all our persuasive letters on wind turbines around the room. I reminded them to use the success criteria we already had posted and had students fill out two GLOW and GROW post its to put on someone else's work. Myself and then an occasional teacher the next day discussed the post-its and we levelled each piece of work during a discussion. I glued the post its on to the letters to ensure none would fall off in the hall. I was really happy with the conversations students were having about their group letters and even more delighted to see the debate over what changed one piece of work from a Level 2 (C) to a Level 3 (B)!

 

 

 

Have a great week everyone :)

 

Kathleen

Some Visuals To Check Out!

I'm going to post some pics that I've meant to post before but haven't been able to! They are the anchor charts we used this past week and last. Any questions, ask :)

The 5 Ws of Persuasive Writing, idea suggested from Melissa Hughes

January Choice Board, containing various writing forms, used during our independent writing time.

My first attempt at success criteria with students, didn't go too bad and it's definitely helping us understand what we need to include!

This was taken from our first reading on Wind Turbines, examining text features.

 

The next pics are the beginnings of our lapbooks, they are really coming along!

 

This is from the Grade 5 Ancient Roman Lapbook

This is the outside of the Grade 6 Lapbook

This is the inside of the Grade 6 lapbook

 

This last one has to do with our making connections reading strategy we are working on. Each time we make connections we put them on post its and ask ourselves "SO WHAT!" to make it clear that just making a connection isn't enough. The idea of SO WHAT was given to me from our school literacy coach Jackie Sweeney. Each connection we decide if the writer gave enough of a connection to take the idea further than the literal. The goal is to get my students to make a connection along with explaining how it helped them understand the text or what the bigger idea is. We are working on it but this is what our board looked like after Day 1, I'll post what it looks like now, it's a slower process than first thought!

 

 

Okay I'm officially done for tonight!

 

Kathleen :)

All lapbook resources come from Dynamic 2 Moms website :)

Student Empathy and Anchor Charts!

I feel like it's been forever since I posted. . . .maybe that is because this week was one of the longest I've had in a while! I hurt myself at soccer on Sunday and struggled this week, not only physically but emotionally as well, unsure of how bad I had hurt myself. I went to work Monday not only because I wasn't done a unit that needed a mark by Friday for reports but because I knew my kids would cheer me up. They did, and reminded me of why I love my kids. Their empathy and caring is unparalleled. Whether it is worrying about me walking around the classroom (when I should be resting my knee), discussing how we could raise money for homeless people(after we finish a shared reading) or spontaneously deciding we must honour Martin Luther King (after a read aloud) their empathy is amazing, in a time when many claim youth have none.

Where have I been? Report cards were due yesterday and I go in to a hermit mode, thank goodness for the support of my spouse! I basically teach, do reports and sleep the whole week, but they are done! Unfortunately there has been no blog posts so hopefully I can get back on track! I had an interesting week, ending with a visit from the superintendent to our school and a visit at another school in the county, it's always so cool to see how other schools and classrooms run things!

What have we been up to this week? We have continued our work on wind turbines as we try to write persuasive letters explaining our position. We started a new shared reading this week as a front load lesson before reading an article about protests, specifically Idle No More which has been in the news a lot. I scanned the pictures from the picture book in and got a copy of the text to give as a shared reading. I actually think my students were more engaged with a smartboard size pictures and a copy of the text to highlight/write on, and follow along. It's definitely something I'm going to do more of! I saw that some of the bloggers I follow were doing an anchor linky party. I wasn't sure how to join up but took some pictures of the anchor charts we used in our room the last couple weeks, they may be good ideas for someone! On a side note, if someone could show me how to link up to a linky party that would be super cool!

I can't get my blog to upload pictures so I'll have to do a whole post of pictures later!

That's all :) Hopefully back to doing a couple posts a week :)

Lapbooks and Wind Turbines

I haven't posted in awhile and thought it was time to let people know what I've been up to this week with the kids! The last couple days of the week were busy and chaotic with a smaller class on Friday. Two major things have started in my classroom:

1. Lap Books

I started looking for something different online for my students to do, the social studies units we finished up but it was dry. Last year I did more rich tasks including an election simulation. I decided not to this year as some students would be repeating the same activity and there wasn't an actual election this year. That being said, if there is any chance of one, we'll sign up again through a great organization in Canada called Student Vote. Okay back to the main subject, we started lap books on Friday, the Grade 5s working on Ancient Romans and the 6s working on the Iroquois Confederation. The lapbook consists of small foldables all contained within a folder. The best part is the kids who were absent Friday will be led through the process by the kids who were present Friday, a cool opportunity for students in my class to be the teacher. I wish I had taken a picture of what we did so far but I will take one this week and put it up. I googled social studies lapbook and came up with a ton of resources, I can take NO credit for the idea or work we are using, just some google searches leading to some awesome websites! Best part of starting the lap books: students, after gluing in their piece were re-reading the information and admiring their work (that never happens with normal notes and handouts!)

2. Wind Turbines

I did a shared reading last week based on the reading strategy of making connections, we used a shared reading promoting wind turbines, discussing the persuasive opinions and text features of the reading. I was going to move on to something else when a visiting literacy coach suggested we look at the other side of the issue and pulled up some article suggestions.  This week we will examine the other side of wind turbines, look at the persuasive techniques used and try to make connections again, explaining our ideas fully. I am really glad I decided to go with this topic as there are wind turbines in our county, many students mentioned they had driven by them, or knew someone that lived by one. The best type of discussions are the ones students can relate to on some level and is relevant to them. I can't wait to see where the discussion leads us this week!

3 A couple resources that I mentioned and bookmarked, check them out!

Click here for a great lap book blog!

Click here to check out Student Vote!

Can't wait to see what this week brings, have a good week everybody :)

Kathleen :)

PS I may not be posting much for the next little while....it's report card season :)