Avid Readers

Last summer I read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.  I picked it up at a Scholastic Warehouse sale because it was cheap and I had read some good reviews on other blogs.  I did a blog post last summer when I originally read the book.

I wanted to give a little update about a year after having read the book.  A little disclaimer: I have a "high ability cluster" this year in my class, so my "results" are not typical of my classroom.  I'd like to think my reading had some effect though!

We started off with bags of books on day 1 this year.  I loaded them with As and Bs from Reading A-Z.  My strategy behind this was I don't know how they will treat books and how many have handled them in the past.  If they can't read the words, they can read the pictures.  I set the expectation that everyone would "read" their books during our "quiet reading time".  We tracked our stamina (about 6 seconds that first day if I remember correctly) and we were on our way to becoming readers.

As we started to get more into it and students started being able to independently track text 1-1, I started adding leveled books from my classroom library to students' bags.  By the end of October, we were at about 5 minutes of quiet reading time.  Last year, I introduced the quiet reading concept in October.  This year, my students were asking when we didn't have quiet reading time why we didn't get it. (insert "HOORAY!")

By January, most of my kiddos were pushing a C-D guided reading level and were picking up sight words like crazy.  We continued with our independent reading daily and the expectation that if you finish early, you get out your books and read.  Students recorded themselves reading their "book bag books" on the iPad for me to watch every other week.

I met with my guided reading groups daily and was really seeing some progress.  My kiddos were getting excited about books!  By March, they were asking for more time to read.  Their stamina was about 15 minutes at this point, and they wanted to know when we could read some more.  Due to some scheduling beyond my control around this time, I had to cut our dedicated block of reading full group, but I did replace it with a "read to self" type center during my reading rotations.

My kiddos cannot get enough of books.  They are spontaneously sharing recommendations with each other and have asked to take books home (they receive 2 Reading A-Z books on their level weekly).  This guy below even got comfortable with his DRA book today :).

In the book, Miller states over and over to set the expectation for kids to always have books available for themselves to read.  They should have a book anytime they have down time.  This expectation is clear in our classroom; my kiddos don't even ask anymore what to do when they are done, the books automatically come out and there is a low reading buzz.

We were going on a field trip last week that was about 35 minutes away.  We have never gone on a trip this far since I have taught kindergarten, and I couldn't imagine what they might get into on the bus that long (didn't want to think about it).  I allowed them to each choose 4 new books that morning and told them they could take them on the bus to read on the way there.  They thought it was cool that I was telling them they could take books out of our classroom to read on the bus.  Behavior on the bus was amazing, and it was so fun to watch and listen to them read to themselves and one another.  Some of my colleagues thought I was nuts, but it was such a blessing to see them so excited about books.

I am incredibly proud of my kiddos' reading progress this year, but more than that, I love that they love books.  My teacher heart is so happy to hear that they want to go to the library over the summer and love to read to each other.  I'm looking forward to our last few days together and am planning to add in lots of "quiet reading time" and not-so-quiet-reading-time so we can share our books with each other.

How do you grow readers in your classroom?  What are some of your students' favorite books?  We are always looking for recommendations!

Photo Collages

My end of the year gift to my students varies every year, but it usually involves pictures in some way.  Some years it is a DVD, others it is a little picture book in the form of a scrapbook and one year it was a class picture with a cute border (must have been a really busy May that year!).

This year I thought I was making a DVD, but realized 2 things: one-I hadn't watched for DVDs to go on sale and didn't want to pay full price; two- as I went to upload my field trip pictures last week, my iPhoto sadly said it was out of space.  DVD just not in the cards this year.

During the TpT sale last week, I purchased an end of the year memory book for my kiddos to complete.  I decided that I'd go back to my Powerpoint created picture collages and incorporate them throughout the book.  While searching for a free way to edit pictures online, I found fotor.com.  Not only could I edit pictures, but I could quickly and easily make photo collages!

You can choose anywhere between 2 and 8+ pictures per collage. 

Choose "open" then "computer" to choose your photo.

Once you upload your photos, you can drag them into the collage or click "fill" and it will fill your selected photos in for you.  I saved each collage to my desktop and will print tomorrow to include in their end of the year books.

I liked Fotor.com because I did not have to create an account, and it was easy to save my creation to my computer.

What do you use to create collages or edit pictures?

Teacher Appreciation Day

It has been quite a while since I've been here writing.  School and other commitments seem to be getting the better of my evenings!  Hoping to find more time to fill you in on the end of our year once things start to calm down.

I wanted to share a quick teacher appreciation idea that my students made for the other teachers on our team and our specialists.  It just so happened to be Nurse's Day too, so we made one for our nurse as well.  Inspiration came from this pin.  A parent suggested that my kiddos make something for all teachers for teacher appreciation day, but we settled on a more manageable number!

I found the pots (plastic) at the Dollar Tree along with the gum drops, crinkle paper, skewers and 1 pack of cookies.  The other 2 packs of cookies were from Aldi.  In the bottom of the pot, I put Model Magic clay left over from another project.  For 8 "bouquets", I spent about $10.

After showing my kiddos how to make a flower, they did the project completely independently.  It was a great little project for them, and those on the receiving end appreciated it too.

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