Keeping the love alive for the standards

Every get bored with the standards?

Do you get bored with the standards sometimes? Here are some thoughts and ideas about keeping the love alive.

Thanks to the contributions of Katie Bradford!

PS I know some of these ideas seem "obvious", but I wanted to make a list for myself to go to when I am feeling this way.

Joy in our hearts

Joy in the room

Joy in the learning

Finding the Good and Encouraging the Growth

I had a rough day the other day and by the end of the day I felt discouraged.  But I had my wits about me enough to remember that it WAS a good day.  I started writing things on my white board that brought joy to me and moments where my students shone.  I just kept writing and writing and writing (19 items when I stopped).  And guess what?  I turned that frown upside down. (Yes, I did just say that.) This whole thinking-of-the-good thing works.  Most days, anyway.  When I remember to apply it.  

It is SO easy for the hard things to creep in and exhaust me and wear me out.  That's the natural default.  There are plenty of things in my environment that can get me down.  To find the good and lobby for the good and see the good takes intentionality.  I'm in.    

As far as correcting mistakes goes, I see that one of them is going to take a while to sort out.  

Sticking to the plan and sticking to the times.  

I am basically following the allotted time slots.  Most certainly getting my 90 minutes of reading every day. 

I have to point out the good of it. (see above) I get so engrossed in what I am doing that I go over.  But because of that I really must set a timer for EVERYthing.  

It is so easy for me to slip into a place of self-doubt.  Reflecting helps keep me grounded.  Putting my thoughts in writing is helping me:

• notice my areas of growth and make plans for change.
• celebrate the things that are going well.
• work towards my goals and stay accountable. 

It's a bit like sitting down and having a cup of coffee with an honest and encouraging friend.  And who doesn't love that?

Joy in our hearts

Joy in the room

Joy in the learning

The Joy of Reflection #morereadaloudsin2018

Ah, the joy of reflecting.  No, but really.  Friday was a busy day that didn't go exactly as I had planned.  Yay!  An opportunity for reflection.  

I realized that two mistakes keep appearing before me:

1.  I do not give enough examples of what I want from them before sending them loose.
2.  If something is going well I sometimes let it go on longer than the allotted time.  

Guess what? Both happened on Friday.  So when I say things didn't go exactly as planned, obviously a big chunk of that is on me.  It usually is.  

So, what to do?
1.  Give more examples than you think necessary.  Over-teach, if you will.  More modeling, more I do and we do.  
2.  Keep to the schedule.  Because almost always the "Let's go a little longer because they are doing so well" mentality backfires on me.  Stop while it is going well.  

The solutions are simple.  The implementation will not be.  I will be back to reflect on this reflection!  

Joy in our hearts

Joy in the room

Joy in the learning

One Read Aloud a Day in 2018

I did not accomplish my goal this week.  😕 One student asked me on Friday, "Will you read us a story?  About snow?"  (We just finished up a unit on snow).  So, there's one little affirmation that I am moving in the right direction.  This whole reflecting thing is becoming meaningful to me as I grow as a learner and a teacher.

Plan for next week: 
Read the story every morning when I meet with your students for 10 minutes.  I am actually wondering how I can make it more like a read aloud kids get at home.  I'll sit on the floor for sure, but what else?  

📖📚📕

We are starting a new unit based on folktales, fables, and legends.  I have a BIG pile of books.  New books, new energy, for sure!  

Happy Reading!

Joy in our hearts

Joy in the room

Joy in the learning

Fluency in Seesaw

Last week I chose poems about snow to put into Seesaw for Team Awesome 174 to work on fluency.  I tried to go over each poem with the small groups, but there was still some issues with word understanding and pronunciation.  I think next time I will record all of the poems so they know how to pronounce the words.  I will also stop to define words as necessary. 

I can have students or parents or other parents do the reading!  (If I can plan ahead!)  Sorry--I gotta run and get on that.

Here is one example of how a student worked on fluency last week.  

Read 1:

Read 3:

(I wrote this post before our PD on Wednesday.  There will be a part 2 to this post.)

Pushed a little too far?

Team Awesome 174 has been talking a lot about transmediation as of late.  (Transmediation: the process of translating a work/text into a different medium.  It may utilize more than one media form.)

But I think I may have pushed the team a little too far this week.  Here are some of the things ways we have been transmediating:

1. Reading a text and sketch-noting (drawing pictures and diagrams and labels)
2. Watching a video and taking notes with words and illustrations and labels
3.  Taking a difficult text and acting it out (spoiler alert: this did not go well)

We are currently researching the benefits of Flocabulary in order to present a convincing argument as to why it is worth the money invested.  Here is the document I tried to have them turn into "acting":

Research Summary Link

I was excited about trying this text because I thought it was just beyond their reach but still accessible.  Well, it may have been, but the whole acting thing?  Fail on this round.  

To transmediate information, you have to understand the information in the first place.  This article was too much for them to turn into acting.  "I don't get it." was the cry of the crowd.  

It was one of those moments you think, "Oh, but you will.  Just a few more examples..."  Yah, no.  That didn't happen.  But no regrets here.  I think it might work on a more appropriate text.  I know that acting out a fiction text helps students remember it and understand it better.  Now I want to figure out how to best do that with nonfiction text.  

In this case I do believe I failed forward.  Which is different than failing-because-I-did-not-plan-or-think-things-through-adequately.  

My reflection question is this:  How could I have taken these new concepts and helped my students understand them in a deeper way?  We went over the paragraphs together.  We sketch-noted one of the paragraphs.  I divvied the concepts up to different groups to conquer.  All of those things helped us move in the right direction.  BUT I think maybe these things would have helped as well:

1. Do an intentional close read with the text.  

2. Support complex/new ideas with images, videos, and other multimedia options

3. Give adequate examples for each paragraph.  

We got to where we wanted to go.  But next time I do believe we can go further.  

Joy in our hearts

Joy in the room

Joy in the learning

Harder than I thought it would be...

Getting a read aloud in every day was harder than I thought it would be.  I had to be very intentional about getting those read alouds in every day.  But, boy-howdy!  It was SO lovely!  I love love love reading stories to my students.  And from their body language, I can tell they love it too.  

I told the kiddos about my goal so that they can help keep me accountable.  Next week I'd like for the student of the day to tweet out our read aloud of the day, but that does take a lot of intentionality.  I'm hoping once I get them trained it will be easy peasy.  Now that I am typing, maybe it would be best to train one student well, and then in a week or two, have that student train the next tweeter.

Here are the books I read aloud this week:

In writing this week Team Awesome 174 had some choices about what they wanted to write about this week.  Acrostic poems about winter, cold, ice, snow, and other cold things was one of the options. 

With this (classic) story by Ezra Jack Keats we talked about how stories can be about simple things that happen in a simple way.  Students could also write stories about their own experiences with snow.  

With this book, we worked on finding the main idea on each page.  Students recorded their thoughts  in Seesaw.

With this book, we worked on transmediating the information from this book into our own words and images.
(taking notes for nonfiction writing)

Gotta keep the ball rolling on this...does not take a lot of work or effort, but it does take a lot of intentionality. (apparently the word of the day) I'm up for it! Read on!

Joy in the room
Joy in our hearts

Joy in the learning

More Read Alouds in 2018

I love love love reading to my students.  But I also know that there are a bazillion other things I need to do with my kiddos.  But one of my WIG (Wildly Important Goals) for 2018 is to read aloud to my students every single day.  How am I going to do that?  What are my short goals and how will I stay accountable?

1.  One read aloud a day will be written in my plans for either reading or writing time.  I might not get the whole book read, but my instruction must be grounded in a text.

2.  Another way I can do a read aloud is by posting stories on Seesaw or reading during guided reading.  

3.  How will I stay accountable?  Once a week I will post what books I have read to my students in the previous week.  I am going to choose Thursdays to do that.  I am going to go pencil that in my calendar right now.

Right now we are studying snow, so that will be the theme of my text selections.  Can I count articles as read aloud?  Hmmmm.....I will have to think about that.  

Here's to more read aloud in 2018!