Fairburn celebrated College Awareness Month with some fun activities, including a door decorating contest. I admit, Room 17 took liberties with the meaning of "door," opting to decorate one entire facade of our bungalow. Many thanks to our head room mom, Sabra, for getting the pompoms from Party City! I got the cute and clever idea of using students' "selfies" from a first grade teacher on Pinterest.
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Last week I went to a teacher workshop on arts integration that was absolutely brilliant. I learned so many strategies that I am excited to implement. In fact, I was so fired up, that I decided to submit a grant request on DonorsChoose.org for creative dance materials. As well as being a teacher to my students, I also happen to be a ballet dancer who can play the piano. As such, I see the exciting possibilities that I can make available to my students who need opportunities to explore creative and critical thinking through the arts, especially dance and music. I teach in a school in which the student population is culturally and linguistically diverse, and services a community that includes families from all over the world. This year I have 25 bright and enthusiastic second graders in my class, most of whom are learning English as a second language. Four children started out the school year with literally no English skills at all. Many times I have seen my students looking lost and frustrated that they cannot read certain words, or articulate an idea in writing, or tell me what they are thinking. Despite language barriers, these children are remarkably patient, diligent, and persistent in their efforts to learn English. I am often touched by the level of care and kindness with which all my students help each other in our quest to learn. It comes as no surprise that these children absolutely love the arts. When I introduce a painting project or play music for them on the piano, I can see their heightened interest and excitement. I intend to use the streamers, play scarves, ribbons, and play silks with the children as creative tools for movement. No matter what their language ability, students will be able to listen to a piece of music and articulate the feeling, mood, or idea behind it using these tools. For example, one activity involves having my students listen to a section of Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals," and, using scarves, create a dance that conveys the idea of fish gently gliding through the water. Another lesson I hope to teach has us listen to Carl Orff's "Primo Vere: Ecce Gratum," and manipulate scarves to express the musical phrasing of the piece. They will also be able to listen to music and think of a story behind it that they would be able to tell through movement and scarves, silks, or ribbons as useful props. These activities are highly participatory, strengthen active listening, develop gross motor skills, and can build community by having children work together. I want my students to do much more than sit for long periods of time at their desks while I teach. Children need to move! Music and dance are engaging channels through which my students can access the curriculum in ways that can be fun and non-threatening. Using scarves, streamers, and beanbags will allow them to focus their creative energy in ways that are highly participatory, strengthen active listening, develop gross motor skills, and build community by having children work together. Visit my DonorsChoose.org project page for more details. Our beloved Room 17 mascot, Eddie the Otter, is alive and well, and I never would have guessed how deeply he has endeared himself to my students. I thought of giving a brief update about our furry friend, because he has become such an integral part of our community. I first introduced Eddie as a cute little friend who could motivate my students towards good behavior. Eddie only stays with students who work quietly, follow the classroom rules, and are kind to others. If I forget to give Eddie to a student in the morning, I will undoubtedly be asked by someone in the class, "Who gets Eddie today?" Now into our 151st day of school, the children are still excited to receive Eddie as their desk buddy. Of course, Eddie dislikes unfocused behavior, disrespect, too much talking, and loud noise, so he will occasionally leave a student if he observes any of those things. I later expanded Eddie's role in our class to include writing in a fictitious journal about his daily experiences at school with us. Students reflected on his feelings in response to a variety of things that happen during the day. This is a great writing minilesson that teaches the diary format, and is a highly interactive activity in which I and the students literally share the pen when writing sentences, words, and adding punctuation. We end up editing a lot as well and helping each other with spelling. Here is sample we wrote from Eddie's point of view: January 17, 2014 What became fascinating for me was how the students began to exercise some empathy when they reflected on how Eddie might feel sad, happy, anxious, or excited about certain events. Things got really interesting one day, several months ago, when a student told me during class, "Ms. Long, so-and-so told me that Eddie hates me!" I promptly took Eddie away from the student who said these mean words. As a teacher, I try not to get upset when things don't go smoothly in my classroom (sometimes easier said than done!), and instead look for a way to turn it into a positive learning experience for me and my students. The next day, I told the class that Eddie was very unhappy that someone had put mean words into his mouth. "Eddie is in our class to help us, to be a kind friend, and to encourage us and make us feel comfortable here." I explained that Eddie would be going on a long vacation to the Monterey Bay, away from Room 17 (okay, I had actually tucked him away in a safe, secret place), and wouldn't be coming back for a couple of weeks. My students listened intently, and were aghast at this news. We proceeded to write a farewell "postcard" from Eddie's point of view, which went like this: February 6, 2014 One girl actually came to me later that day when school was dismissed to say, "Can you tell Eddie I miss him?"
The revelation then hit me: Eddie had become real to these children. We are almost near the end of the year, and Eddie has long since returned to us. The children know the rules well on how to care for Eddie if they want to be his guardian for the day. I see children cuddle with him while they read, prop him up on their desks to show him "listening" to a lesson, and make him wave good-bye to me at the end of the day. He helps the children remember kindness and compassion for others. I am indebted to our otter friend for all he has done for me and my students. Thanks to the fun teacher blog, Simply Skilled In Second, Room 17 was able to dive into the new year with a thoughtful and colorful activity, the 2014 flip flap book. Essentially a booklet made of different-sized overlapping pages, this flip flap book encouraged the class to reflect on highlights and favorite memories of last year and to think about resolutions for the new year. I started off introducing the idea of new year's resolutions with a read-aloud I found on YouTube of the children's book, Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller (I was so thankful to have this video, since I didn't have my own copy of the book on hand). After the read aloud, we made a list of our new year's resolutions on the Smartboard. Among my favorites were, "I resolve to use my iPad less," "I resolve to practice more piano," and "I resolve to read more!" Students then recorded their new year's resolutions in their flip flap books.
In Room 17 we listen to a lot of music while we work. We write about it, talk about it, and even dance to it. I have been thrilled that this year's group of second graders has proved quite enthusiastic about listening to classical music--I would say, more so than any other year I've taught. I first noticed it sometime at the beginning of the school year. I had set my iPod one morning during math time to one of my favorite albums, "Voice of the Violin," which features the incomparable violinist, Joshua Bell. I have played this album for my students in years past without them making a single comment. Imagine my delight and surprise when several students started shushing others who were talking and saying, "Ssshh!! Quiet, I want to hear the music!" A few others asked me, "Ms. Long, what is that music? I really like it!" My students have fallen in love with one piece in this album in particular - Dvorak's "Song to the Moon" from the opera Rusalka. Who'd have thought, in a youth world of Beyoncé and Bieber? The kids keep asking me to play this track on my iPod over and over during worktime. I don't mind in the least, I love it too (as well as the violinist!) (-; Spurred on by my students' interest in classical music, I began to think of
I'll be perfectly honest, I was never a fan of Halloween. However, as I teacher, I capitalize on the idea of Halloween as much as I can and use it as an opportunity to spice up my instruction and pique students' interest. One of my primary vehicles is through literature, and I shared some of my favorite books, both funny and spooky, in a previous post. I also include poetry as well, and during the month of October Room 17 had fun memorizing and reciting the traditional "In A Dark, Dark Wood" and "I'm Not Scared!" by Karen Baiker. Practicing these poems develops fluency in reading and confidence in speaking in front of an audience. Something wonderful happened a couple weekends ago when I happily rediscovered some material from my old lesson plan files. It was a copy of an excerpt from Shakespeare's Macbeth, the witches' chant "Double, double, toil and trouble." I used to give this to fourth graders to memorize, and I thought, why not try it with my 2nd graders? I gave a very brief and general summary of the Macbeth story, and concluded by sharing film composer John Williams' rendition of "Double, double, toil and trouble" from the movie "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." You can listen to this catchy and delightfully wicked song here: We later used this goodie from Shakespeare as inspiration for writing our own recipes for magic potions. Besides this piece of music, I draw on other music that has long been associated with Halloween, including "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saëns and "Toccata and Fugue in d" by Johan Sebastian Bach. "Danse Macabre" was a particular favorite this year, and we had a devilishly good time doing some impromptu writing while listening to it. We even got to dance to it, thanks to our wonderful dance instructor, Ms. Devon Wall, who taught us how to freeze into all sorts of marvelous shapes with our bodies based on a broom, a trick-or-treat bag, a witch's hat, and a jack-o-lantern. Of course, there must be visual art in the mix. Students used chalk pastels to make spider web drawings and the following week, pumpkin patch landscapes with oil pastel: We wrapped up our Halloween funfest by making origami ghosts. They were deemed "simple" on the YouTube video where I learned it, but was quite a bit more complicated for my 2nd graders. Even so, they still found it engaging and, despite a bit of frustration, seemed determined to get all the steps down. Thankfully, I had two parent volunteers who were able to help the children with the trickier folds. The bubbling excitement from the students from all these activities is quite contagious. It almost made me like Halloween . . . almost!
I only just now discovered National Day on Writing, the United States' national celebration of writing which first took place on October 20, 2009. How cool is that? The celebration invites Americans to consider the role of writing in everyday life. Here are a few witty student responses to the question: Why do we have to write today? For a more detailed list of student answers, visit Edutopia. These are brilliant!
This month in Room 17, we're currently learning how to craft spooky stories. We've been practicing "snapshots," parts of a narrative that describe characters, objects, and settings with rich sensory detail. And this afternoon, we delved into how to craft an engaging lead, or beginning that can hook an audience into reading the rest of the story. Here were a few examples from my students, followed by the specific writing technique they used: "My eyes opened. It was a gooey, squishy, smooth jello monster." (snapshot) "'Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" screamed Nicole. "Help!"' (dialogue) "Shablaam!! Show dashed through the ice outside and cracked my window." (sound effect) "In the dark I saw a one-eyed monster." (snapshot) "Ding, dong. 'Who is it?' I asked. 'It's me,' someone said in a scratchy old voice." (dialogue) "My heart was about to pop out of my chest!" (feeling) These story leads are quite a dramatic improvement from "One day . . ." or "Once upon a time . . . ." We had Author's Chair after our writer's workshop and many of my children were so enthusiastic about sharing the different writing techniques they used, it was impossible to squeeze them all in. Can't wait to see what else these young writers create with their imaginations. Last spring, a student gave me a little stuffed animal otter, which my class named Eddie. A sudden brainstorm hit me and I decided to use Eddie as a tool for classroom management. "Eddie the otter enjoys spending time with quiet students," I announced one morning, and thus began the morning routine of giving him to a different child each day to keep at their desk, as long as that student remained quiet and followed directions. If a child became too talkative or showed any form of misbehavior, our fuzzy friend was promptly taken away and placed back on the teacher's desk, or handed to another student. Eddie truly has become an integral member of the Room 17 community. I know this because, if I ever forget to give him to a student, someone in the class will inevitably ask, "Who gets Eddie today?" This year, I've been able to expand Eddie's involvement in the classroom into the realm of writing. He has become Room 17's favorite writing topic. We started off by developing his character with a circle map, with me modeling my own: After thinking of ideas to describe Eddie, we then began regular writing sessions about Eddie in the form of journal entries. We call them The Chronicles of Eddie the Otter. I gather the class on the carpet, and explain to them about diaries and journals, and the format of a diary entry with a date, greeting, and closing. On chart paper, I do a form of interactive writing with the children, eliciting ideas for sentences we could write from Eddie's point of view, as if he were actually writing in his own diary. I even call on students to come up and write words or add punctuation themselves to a sentence or paragraph, involving them directly and physically with the writing. I encourage the students to think like powerful writers, using vivid and concrete details to describe Eddie's day. Here are a couple samples: As independent writing practice, I occasionally have the class copy a diary entry and illustrate it. They've also written their own individual entries "by Eddie" in their own writing journals, and each one is so different! We've only done five or so entries for Eddie as a class thus far. I'm very curious to see where The Chronicles of Eddie the Otter will take me and my students as we continue our writing adventures with him into the year.
One of my favorite beginning-of-the-year activities is the heart map. It's quite a visual, graphic, artsy, and simple way for children to express things that are near and dear to them, and a sneaky but engaging way of fitting in some writing as well. Moreover, I find heart maps to be valuable for me as the teacher, for me to learn about my new students. After completing our heart maps we share them with each other. A wonderful ice breaker activity, and we save them to use for future writing pieces. Here are some beautiful, detailed samples by my very own second graders:
To give everyone a virtual tour of Room 17 and some ideas of what students do every day, I will be highlighting special features of our classroom.
The Boggle Board is one of those activities children can choose to "play" with whenever they finish their work early. They simply get a worksheet I've made to list all the words they can possibly spell using adjoining letters that connect in any direction (horizontally, vertically, diagonally; no skipping over letters allowed). It's a great way to practice spelling and vocabulary skills. I try to change the letters once a week. Students can also play Boggle online. |
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