In My Community: A Little PBL

We had a unit on community as part of our curriculum.  Ideally I would have incorporated maps into this unit as well, but too many snow days and needing to move on with the rest of the K team didn't make this possible. I have plans for maps later in the spring.

We started off our study of community by listing places in a community and more specifically, in our community.  After our initial conversation, students were able to add to the list throughout the day as they thought of other places.

Students then worked in 4 groups to create a community.  They began the project in their groups by making a list of places they needed to have in their communities.

After making their list, kiddos set to work making their communities.  I provided a large piece of white poster board, squares and rectangles in various colors of card stock and long rectangles of black paper (for roads).  I also had 1/2 sheets of construction paper available for grass, water and parking lots/driveways.  Crayons, scissors and glue were also available.

The roads were put down first to lay the foundation for the community.

After creating their buildings, my kiddos began to put their communities together.  Our awesome literacy coach showed me a way to get the buildings to stand up.  Students bent a paperclip into an "L" shape then taped it to the back of each building.  The taller buildings took 2 paperclips to stand up.

The buildings were taped to the the poster board to prevent them from being moved around the when the communities were displayed in the hallway.

Completed communities were displayed in the hallway for just over a week.  Kiddos created a name for their community and a welcome sign to display with the community.  Families were invited to visit during the school day or after school to see their kiddos' work.  A "guest book" was available for them to leave comments for students.

Welcome to Car City.  You can see the paperclip stand-up "trick" in this picture.  The gray parking lot is behind the mall :)

Welcome to Blue City.  This crew made just add family members and animals to their community.  

Welcome to Pondton.  Sorry for the blurry picture on this one.  This group had a field with animals in the middle of their community.

Welcome to Big City.  It definitely was a "big city"; pretty much every available space was filled with a road or a building!

Book Study: Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites Chapter 3 {Field Trips}

I'm linking up with Deedee from Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten and I'm excited to share my learning from Chapter 3 with you.  I love a good field trip!  Yes, they can be stressful to plan and organize, keep track of the kids and make sure everything goes smoothly, but they are so worth it for our kiddos!

I know field trips are a fantastic way for students to learn. In our district, field trips are a grade level/district decision.    One field trip our kindergarten classes go on each year is a trip to the Nature Center run by our local college.  We are an urban district, so this trip to the Nature Center is some of our students' first trip to the country.  It is always interesting to hear their reactions.

The last 2 or 3 years, we have visited a house about 3 blocks from school that is a former Underground Railroad house.  We visited different rooms in the house and did lessons on long ago and today.  It has not been mentioned this year, but I'm hoping that we can continue this trip since it is in walking distance.

In the past, we have also walked to the fire station, local library and a grocery store for a tour.  These trips weren't consistent from year to year.  The last 2 years we have visited our local college for a tour and lunch in the cafeteria.  The goal of that trip was to get our kiddos excited about college at an early age.

I've used DonorsChoose to sponsor field trips to a Children's Science Center about 45 minutes from school as well as a trip to the Cleveland Zoo.  Both of these trips took place on a Saturday with parents transporting their own students.  I used DonorsChoose to pay for each child and for 1 adult per family.  On average, I had around 50% of my families attend.

For the past 4 years, donors on DonorsChoose have also sponsored a trip to our local "paint your own pottery" studio.  This is an evening trip that parents have to transport their child to.  My kiddos who come love this experience every year!

In September/October, my team has been inviting our students to join us at the apple orchard.  We usually do this on a Sunday afternoon and in the past 8 years, it has been cold and/or rainy most times. The trip goes really well with our fall unit.  Students and families can pick apples and pumpkins after the short presentation by the orchard staff.

So what do I want to learn from this chapter?  I would love to give my students even more experiences.   I would like to look into some virtual options to "take" my kiddos students I can't actually take them out of the classroom.  I'd love to hear your ideas to bring my students experiences.  How do you bring real world learning to your students?

Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites: Chapters 1 & 2

I'm so excited to be joining in the book study on the book Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites by Marcia Tate.  Kickin' It In Kindergarten is hosting the first two chapters.  I'm a little late to the party, but better late than never, right?

Chapter 1 was all about brainstorming and discussions in the classroom.  I know many others commented on their classrooms not being quiet places.  There is certainly a lot of chatter going in my classroom too.  I have no problem with noise; I love when they learn from one another.  I struggle when it gets loud and wish it would quiet down, but I remind myself frequently that it is productive noise and that makes it more ok.

Some ways my students engage in conversation are through think-pair-share, partner reading, reading centers and reader's theater.  I love listening to the different things they reason through with their friends.  Some of my favorite learning from them comes during our read aloud each day. Last week we were reading a book about spring and it said that the character went around the corner to look for spring.  I asked my kiddos to think about whether or not you could go around the corner to find spring. One child went into a scientific explanation of spring citing the rotation and tilting of the Earth and sun while another simply said, "It can't turn into spring until God makes it happen."  Out of the mouths of babes!  If I had stopped their conversation, these things wouldn't have happened.

The last couple years I've done quite a bit of Project Based Learning.  This is a wonderful way for students to collaborate and talk to one another.  I encourage them to solve problems within their groups on their own before coming to me.  They do a great job learning from and with one another.

One thing I'd like to add are more partner games and meaningful conversations around math.  I've done better in the past with incorporating talk in Language Arts, but I know that they can learn so much from one another in math too!

Chapter 2: Drawing and Artwork
This is our first year not having an art teacher in our building.  Our art teacher retired last year and our district did not replace her.  Art is not necessarily my strength, in fact, typically it is a struggle for me, but we are making it work!  Pinterest and TpT have definitely made this easier!

Directed drawing is very excited for me.  I love when directions are given that I am able to follow and share with my students.

At the beginning of the year, we tried some collaborative art.  I split the class into 2 groups and give them cups of paint and brushes.  The task was to create art together using circles.  It was great for conversation and for art.  My kiddos love this project, and it was great to see how unique the 2 different groups made their work!

Each week during center time, we have an open-ended art center.  I have one 'suggested' activity that typically goes with our theme.  Beyond that, materials are available for students to just create.  This week, we are beginning to study 2-D shapes.  I put out triangles and suggested that students make a castle out of the triangles.  I told them that they could try to make squares using either 2 or 4 triangles.

My students are so excited when they get to do art, and I know I need to incorporate it more in our classroom.  I'd love to incorporate more art into our everyday.  "Quick draws" where students take a couple quick minutes to draw what they learned/what we're talking about.  At the beginning of the year, I had planned to have students illustrate vocabulary words with a partner.  I haven't done that and I think it would be a great way to add in more of what my students enjoy.

I'd love any suggestion you might have on including more art and conversation in my classroom!

Snow Day Assignment

Has anyone else had snow and cold days over the last couple weeks?  We took day 7 yesterday.  I have not given assignments on snow days in the past, but I thought I'd give it a try.

I was going through my BlogLovin' feed and catching up on reading.  I read a post from Primary Pack about rhyming show and tell.  My kiddos have been asking for show and tell, so I decided this was the perfect activity for them to do on a snow day!

I contacted families via e-mail and Remind.com to tell them about the assignment.  I don't have 100% of families using either type of communication, but between the 2, all families were contacted.  I made the "assignment" optional because I thought if they really wanted show and tell, they will do it.  Students were asked to bring 2 items that rhyme.  My only requirement was that they fit in the child's backpack.

13 out of 18 of my friends brought something for Show and Tell!  I was very impressed with that.  Those that didn't just thought of 2 words that rhymed and shared them with the class when it was their turn.

This was a quick, easy way to add some learning to their unexpected day at home.  I got positive feedback from parents as well.

Do you give your students assignments on snow/cold days?

100 Days Smarter

We celebrated the 100th Day of School on Tuesday.  I didn't plan to make this crazy because we just celebrated Valentine's Day on Friday, and I wanted it to be a little more of a celebration of their skills they've learned thus far in kindergarten.

For a special snack, they had a 1/2 a cheese stick (number 1) and 2 large marshmallows (two 0s).  Maybe I forgot to take a picture of this...oops!  I think you can picture this one in your mind sitting on a brown napkin.

During "real centers", which is what my students call play-based centers (as opposed to "reading" or "math" centers), we had 4 special centers to everyone visited today.  Each center celebrated something we've practiced over the past 100 days.

Center 1 was writing 100 words.  Did most of them get 100 words done?  No.  Did they all try really hard and use spelling strategies, rhyming words and resources around the room?  Yes they did!  This made this activity as success in my book!  They wanted to finish, and in fact, we did take an extra few minutes to work on it together at the end.

Center 2 was building with 100 cups.  Students were in groups of 3-4 and this station practiced their teamwork skills.  We have been building relationships and their ability to get along with one another since the first day of school.  This center was great practice for that and for their problem-solving skills.

Center 3 was building 100 chart.  I took 5 100 charts (each on a different color) and cut them into chunks.  Students had the chance to either work on their own or to work with partner to put the chart "back together".  This was great for their number sense and again, problem solving.  They were SO proud when they finished it.  These will be appearing in our math center because they were such a hit.

The 4th Center was making something out of the number 100.  This brought out students' creativity and problem solving skills.  How can you turn the numbers or draw around them to make something new?  I was surprised by some of their creations.

Insect (the zeros are the eyes)

She folded her "1" to make it smaller.  I thought that was a creative way to use it since I insisted that they had to use 1 one and 2 zeros.

I appreciated how excited my students were today to complete these centers.  I learned today that I didn't need a huge "blowout" party to make them happy to show what they've learned thus far this year.  I enjoyed a more low-key day with some fun ways to show our learning.  How did you celebrate the 100th day?

Silly Rhyming Sentences

I went to a mini PD at my building a couple weeks ago.  The PD was about phonological and phonemic awareness.  I've known the value of both of these areas, but hadn't really thought about how it affected my students this year.  A handful of my students came to me already reading this year and the majority of the rest picked up on reading very quickly.  I did quite a bit of phonemic awareness at the beginning of the year, but when the reading started to take off and guided reading seemed to take over my reading block, it kind of went by the wayside.

To begin the PD, the facilitator had us choose a person in our group and make up a silly rhyme using the person's name.  While we were working on it, she (the facilitator) asked me if I thought my students could do this activity.  I hadn't given it much thought prior to that, but decided that it was most definitely worth a shot!

Students worked in 4 heterogeneous groups to create a silly rhyme using a type of transportation.  The used the lists of transportation students had sorted earlier in the week to choose a type of transportation.  Once the silly rhyme was recorded by one person in the group, each student illustrated the rhyme.  I mounted them to a bright piece of construction paper and they are hung in our room.

"I bet the jet has a pet that is wet."

"A train is on the main track by the lane."

"I see a pet in a jet with a net."

"I see a car going to the bar far away."   My teammates definitely got a kick out of this one.    They struggled to come up with words that rhyme with "car" and they made this up completely independently (let me tell you...I tried to steer them FAR away from the word 'bar'!).

The kiddos loved making up these rhymes and couldn't wait to make more in the writing center.  One kiddos made a book of silly animal rhymes.  It seemed like a great way for higher level kiddos to continue to incorporate rhyming throughout the year!

On the Move

Our last unit was about transportation.  Between snow days and scheduled days off, we finally had a couple five day weeks!  After learning about some different types of transportation and some vocabulary to go with the unit, students worked in groups to sort types of transportation.

Students were given a sheet of paper with "land", "air" and "water" written across the top in 3 separate sections.  I gave them about 5 minutes to think of all the different types of transportation they could come up with and sort them into the correct column.

After completing their lists, each group sharing their paper with the class.  We hung them on our whiteboard to refer to throughout the remainder of the unit.  Their spelling amazes me sometimes.  Thanks to HeidiSongs Phonics Fun DVD, they know so many many vowel & letter combinations.

These small group projects have really been great for building team-work and have made our larger PBL run more smoothly because my kiddos are getting more experience with working with others on a regular basis this year.