Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites {Chapter 16}

Chapter 16 is being hosted by Sarah at A Rocky Top Teacher.  This chapter is about technology.  Do your kiddos love technology as much as mine?  They pick up on technology skills SO quickly; many of them have been exposed to a wild variety of technology for all of their short little lives.  We didn't have a computer in my house until I was in high school (late 90s), and learning to type was a struggle for me.  Thanks to AOL Instant Messenger and wanting to communicate with my friends, I learned more quickly than I might have otherwise.

"Technology is not the lesson itself, but a tool for teaching the lesson."  (Hiraoka, 2006)  I think sometimes we focusing teaching the technology and the lesson gets lost.  I try to make my students' uses of technology valuable and not just an accumulation of 'screen time'.  I would guess that this would be a goal for many teachers as we know that some students get plenty of less-structured screen time at home.

Students researched farm animals using both PebbleGo and books.  They worked in groups of three to write little books about their animals to share with the class.

One of my favorite websites (with a hefty price) is PebbleGo.  It is a wonderful place for early readers to do research.  The text can be read aloud, highlighting the words as it is read.  Information is well-organized and presented in small chunks.  This year it is able to be used on the iPad, which is a perk for me.  Our building had a subscription that just recently expired last week.  Only a few teachers were using it so it was decided not to keep it.

We have been using a variety of apps like ChatterPix, WordFoto, Doodle Buddy, and Book Creator to share our learning.  When we use Book Creator, we submit our books to one person in our district who then submits them to Apple.  He keeps track of the number of downloads on each book and occasionally updates students on how many downloads we have and where in the world the books have been downloaded.

Our Planting Adventure

With Earth Day right around the corner, I thought it was a good time to plant seeds with my kiddos.  I have a local college student who comes to work with our class twice a week, and this seemed like the perfect job for him.

I purchased clear plastic cups for our planting because I thought my kiddos would be able to see the roots (maybe?) as our plants grew.  We got some new science materials this year, and included in the kit was soil, rye seed and a grow light.

With a little guidance, the seeds were successfully planted and watered.  The next day, a sad thing happened.  During centers, I caught 2 students looking in the cups to see "where the plants were hiding".  By "looking", I mean they were digging through the dirt trying to find the plants because they thought plants should have grown overnight of course.  

I watered the little guys before I left on Friday.  I don't normally have a very green thumb, so we'll see if anything grows after the adventure these little seeds have been on!

Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites {Chapters 14 & 15}

Kim and Megan from Kinder Gals are hosting the link up for Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites Chapters 14 & 15.  These chapters focus on Role Playing and Storytelling.

"As students involve their bodies in the comprehension of concepts and ideas through role plays and skits, they are able to understand the material in new ways." (Sprenger, 2007a)

My kiddos this year love Reader's Theater.  We have many of A Teeny Tiny Teacher's Reader's Theater packs. They are meant for 2 students to work together.  Each student's part is color-coded, making it easy for students to practice without me.

The Housekeeping/Dramatic Play center is one of my kiddos' favorites.  They love pretending to be grown-up.  It is a great play to include academic skills where they don't even realize they are learning along with their play.

I think areas where I could use more role playing are math and science.  We act out story problems when we first start doing them (and addition/subtraction) but why not more after that.  I'm not sure why I just kind of let it go by the wayside.  In science, we have used motions to learn things like the water cycle and have "acted out" the butterfly life cycle.  I know there are more ways we could incorporate role play here as well.  

How do you incorporate role play, drama and story telling in your classroom?

Plant Parts

Our study of plants fell when there was still snow flying, which doesn't really make me think about planting plants!  We decided to hold off until later this month with the planting but to go ahead and study plants in the unit where they were intended.  To learn about the parts of a plant, we made these little "lift-the-flap" sheets.  It is an 11x17 sheet of paper so they had plenty of room.

We started off by doing a directed drawing of sorts by putting each part of the plant in the correct section.  Once the part of the plant was drawn, students labeled that particular section of the plant.

 After drawing and labeling, we opened the paper flat to cut on those black lines to have flaps to lift.  We talked about only cutting to the fold or you would not have 1 piece of paper anymore and you would be sad.  To my delight, 100% followed these directions and everyone's paper was intact at the end of day 1!

On day 2, we lifted each flap and wrote a fact about that part of the plant.  I wrote these facts on the SMARTboard for students, and they copied them into the appropriate section on their paper.  We only opened the flap we were working on at the time so the writing didn't go into the next section.  Once we were finished with 1 section, that flap was closed and the next one was opened.

"The stem takes food all around the plant."

On the third day, students had a snack of different plant parts.  They wrote each "part" on the "flap" side of the book.  We didn't label seeds on our paper, but we did taste seeds, so we just wrote these at the bottom of the roots part of our paper.They were surprised to find new vegetables that they thought they didn't like, but learned that, after trying them, they weren't all that bad.  Their favorite seemed to be finding the peas inside the pea pods.

Broccoli: flower, Lettuce: leaves, Celery: stem, Carrot: root, Peas: seeds

Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites {Chapter 13}

Stephanie from Falling Into First is hosting Chapter 13, which is about Reciprocal Teaching and Cooperative Learning.

"Students' memory is strengthened when they are provided with opportunities to teach the entire class, parents or small groups." (Tileston, 2004)

At the beginning of the year, we spend quite a bit of time learning how to learn with others.  We do a lot quick small group and partner activities.  I change who they work with daily in centers at the beginning of the year to help my kiddos get to know one another.

One of my favorite activities at the beginning of this year was a collaborative mural.  I broke my kiddos into 2 groups and gave each group a large sheet of bulletin board paper.  I put several cups of paint and brushes on the table and my only instructions were to share and to create the mural using circles.

Both turned out very differently, but looking back, I can definitely see the personalities shine through.  In the "neon" group, the girls were dominant, whereas in the primary one, it was the boys.  There were an equal number of boys and girls in each group.

Throughout the year, students have a partner on the carpet.  This is their "turn and talk" partner.  I don't change these partners often as long as they are well matched.  This year they've been changed once; last year they were changed multiple times throughout the year.  This partner is the person students turn to throughout lessons to "think-pair-share".

Students worked in groups during our toy drive to advertise, collect and clean the toys.

Generally, when we do cooperative groups, particularly with project-based, these groups change with every project.  Sometimes students are grouped based on interest, other times personality.  I try to have a "high", a "middle" and a "low" in each group.  I like making the groups mixed ability because I feel as though it gives them more of a chance to learn from one another.  Everyone has different life experiences and different ways of approaching a task.

Something I would like to work on is being a little more flexible with grouping.  I have a hard time letting students choose their own partners/groups.  I allow them to choose during who they work with during "free choice centers" (play-based).  I can see the benefit of students choosing their own groups sometimes.  As we go into the end of the year, I plan to to have at least 1 project where students can choose their own groups.  I'm hoping that with the structure up to this point in the year, they will be successful in this little adventure.

How do you encourage cooperative learning in your classroom?  Do you choose the groups/partners or do your students choose themselves?

Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites {Chapter 12}

Sarah from First Grader...at Last! is hosting the link up for Chapter 12, which was about Project-Based and Problem-Based Instruction.

"When students interact with other students in a group while solving problems, both cognitive (basic) and metacognitive (higher-order) thinking skills are stimulated." (Posamentier & Jaye, 2006)

I love project-based learning!  It engages kiddos and can really make them think.

One of the suggestions given in the book was to have students construct their own math problems and have other students solve them.  We have done this many times throughout the year, especially with story problems.  My kiddos love challenging each other and seeing their friends solve their problems.

Over the past 3 years, I have really embraced project-based.  Our reading curriculum ends at the end of April, but we go to school through the end of May.  I devote this entire month to different projects.  This year I'm hoping to let students choose their topic that they want to learn more about then teach the rest of the class.   Each year, we have done a habitats project.  Our kiddos graduate the last week of school, so this has been a great way to allow parents to see their projects.  You can read more about these project by following these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Giving to Others, What's on the Menu, Community.

Beyond all the great skills students learn while engaged in project-based instruction, I love to hear their share their learning with others.  With my habitat projects mentioned above, students created "science boards" with information about their habitats.  We invited other classes to come on a gallery walk the day before graduation.  As students from other classes visited their projects, my students answered questions and shared their learning.  When projects are displayed in the hallway, we leave a little "guestbook" for our visitors (usually other staff members) to leave us little notes about our projects.  My kiddos get so excited when we have a new message in the guestbook!

Sharing their projects with others.

In our district, we have an "Aviator Profile".  These are 6 skills we want all students to have before they graduate: collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creative innovators, caring citizens and .  At first, it seemed like just one more thing to think about when planning.  I knew that my kiddos would not use it or understand it unless they took ownership of it.  I put them into small groups, and each group illustrated and described their characteristic.  These hang around the poster with all the characteristics listed.  My kiddos are able to tell you which of the characteristics they worked on during a particular project.

Generally, my PBL has covered language arts and science/social studies standards.  Math is another great place to use PBL, so that is my goal: to incorporate more projects into math.  Have you used PBL in your classroom?  How has it worked for you?

2-D Shape Books and an App

If you have been hanging out around my blog for a bit, you know that we love to use technology in my classroom!  My kiddos thrive on technology, and many times, are much better than me with it.

Our curriculum began introducing 2-D shapes at the beginning of March and introduced one shape per day. My students were good with shapes, but just needed some vocabulary built (corner/vertex, sides, curved line, etc).  I knew that they would pick this up much easier if they didn't just listen to me say it over and over again.

I broke students into 5 groups and assigned each group a shape: circle, square, triangle, rectangle and hexagon.  Each group was responsible for one shape.  Their job was to take their iPad through the room and take pictures of items that were of their shape.  They were then going to write their first iBook without me sitting right there (big step for this girl who sometimes has trouble letting go of control).

Taking pictures of their shapes.

Hexagons were hard to find, so these smarties created their own!

I was absolutely amazed with the results.  Over a period of four 20-30 minute sessions, each group had created a book.  Students were in charge of choosing their own book title and creating the book. They uploaded their own photos, added text and even drew some arrows in some of them.  We use the app Book Creator to make books because it is so kid-friendly.

We'd love for your to download them using your Apple device or just check out the PDFs.  They get so excited when we have new downloads; thanks for checking them out!

1.  Circles-

iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/circles/id976562218?ls=1&mt=11

PDF link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B95ti8YS2xP_YVdKLU9pMzRwMXM&authuser=0

2.  Our Hexagon-

iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/our-hexagon/id976559237?ls=1&mt=11

PDF link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B95ti8YS2xP_a2xoVktyS1hpR28&authuser=0

3.  Things About Rectangles-

iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/things-about-rectangles/id976562664?ls=1&mt=11

PDF link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B95ti8YS2xP_NGF4dnNOM2dfZUk&authuser=0

4.  Triangles-

iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-triangle-book/id976590252?ls=1&mt=11

PDF link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B95ti8YS2xP_dWN6WkhXc3c1cmM&authuser=0

5.  Square Land-

iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/square-land/id976587285?ls=1&mt=11

PDF link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B95ti8YS2xP_dVZpdGR6NXRxX2c&authuser=0

At centers, they are more than happy to play with Timmy Learns: Shapes and Colors app that Mary Amoson from Sharing Kindergarten helped design.  At first I thought it was going to be too easy since we weren't using it until March.  Turns out that they didn't mind because they were so engaged in the "play" aspect of it.  They quickly advanced to the skills they were more in need of and are still asking to use it.  Well worth $1.99!