Setting the Tone

Today was our sixth day of school.  Over the past week, we have done a lot towards establishing expectations and setting the tone for our classroom.  An important part of that is creating our social contract. I wrote about that last year here.  All classes in our school do this.  This was part of our training from Capturing Kids' Hearts.  This is the third year we have done this with children at all grade levels, and I could really see the benefit from that previous exposure.  I divided my class into small groups.  I asked four questions.

1. How do teachers want to be treated by students?
2. How do you want teachers to treat you?
3. How do you want to be treated by other students?
4. How do other students want to be treated by you?

Working together they brainstorm words that answered these questions, and what a fabulous job they did.

The more times a word was listed, the more important it is to the class.  I used Wordle.net.  This is a great tool for this project, because the more times you enter a word, the larger the font.  Those words stand out immediately.

Everyone in the class signs the social contract.  I like to jazz this up a bit.  Since everyone had a "hand" in creating the social contract, I had them trace their hand on drawing paper.  They were to write their name on it, and make it fancy, and then decorate the hand print however they wanted to.  I got that idea from, you guessed it, Pinterest.  I had seen hand prints used as a wreath.  I wanted to see their names, so we arranged them all over the poster board.  

I am really pleased with the way this came out.  It will hang on the inside of our classroom door for the entire school year.  From time to time, I remind them of the contract we made.  This is a great tool for setting the tone to safe and productive classroom environment.

The Book Whisperer

Over the summer I read The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller.  Many people in my PLN (Personal Learning Network) have talked about this book, and it has been on my list of books to read for a while. When I saw it on the shelf at the public library, that clinched it.  It is just the inspiration I needed.  I am now reading it a second time, and making notes.  Donalyn Miller writes

"Providing students with the opportunity to choose their own books to read empowers and encourages them.  It strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control. Readers without power to make their own choices are unmotivated." 

This is certainly not a new concept.  In fact I used to teach this way, though maybe not as well.  We used to read all the time.  I did readers workshop.  We were always engaged in lots of great books.   But over the last couple years, and especially last year, I felt that I lost my way.  Last year my school district adopted Houghton Mifflin, Journeys.  There was more and more pressure to limit reading instruction to the reading series, and to narrow the instructional focus to tested common core standards.  The pretesting and post testing schedule was relentless, and I saw my students shut down more and more.

Last year was not a good year for me.  Missing more than five weeks of school, because of an accident and broken bones, certainly did not help, but it was more than that.  I feel strongly that in our desire to increase "rigor" which is a word I hate, by the way, and make students and teachers accountable, we have taken the joy and excitement out of learning.

My goal is to put it back.  So this year I am working to balance the requirements of my school district with what I know kids really need.  I have to teach my conscience.  The whole reason I got into teaching was to share my love of learning.  I think The Book Whisperer is the road map I need to get back on track.  I will be writing other posts about this book, as I learn from it and try new things in my classroom.

We just started school on Thursday.  Our homework that first night was to complete a reading survey that Ms. Miller includes in her book on pages 202-203.  It is the Reading Interest-A-Lyzer, based on the Interest-A-Lyzer by Joseph S. Renzulli.  I started trying to make a copy of the survey from the book, and then I had the good sense to Google it.  I found a downloadable copy here.  This is going to give me a starting place for learning about my students as readers.

Here are some of my other goals for the year:

• Immersion:  Students need to be surrounded with books of all kinds and given time and opportunity to read them every day.  

• Conversations about reading, what is being read and what students are getting from their books need to be an on-going event.

• Demonstrations:  Teach daily reading lessons using authentic texts like books, articles, and textbooks, designing every lesson around the skills that readers really need to develop reading proficiency. 

• Expectations:  expect students to read every day and to read a large volume of books. The goal for the year is 40 books.  I will allow them to count the books we read together as part of that number.  

• Responsibility:  Students need to make some of their own choices when pursuing learning goals.  Set reading requirements at a certain number of books per genre, but students have the freedom to choose which books.

• Employment:  give students time to practice and apply the skills taught.

• Responses: provide immediate non-threatening response on student progress.

At this point in time, I'm not sure how all of that will look, but I am excited about this journey.

Each Monday I participate in #4thChat on Twitter.  I was a little concerned about setting the reading goal at 40 books.  It seemed high for a fourth grader, so I was asking some of the other 4th grade teachers what they required.  Donalyn Miller responded in a tweet that I should set the goal at 40 books.  We live in a pretty spectacular world, when you can get advice directly from the author of the book you are reading. You gotta love technology!

Have you read The Book Whisperer?  If so, how have you used it in your classroom?

Schoolhouse Centennial

Our school is celebrating it's 100th anniversary this school year.  The original part of the school building was built in 1914.  There have been two additions since that time.

In recognition of 100 years, each child and staff member received a centennial t-shirt on the second day of school.  We all wore them to our beginning of year assembly.  Afterwards, we went outside and had our picture taken by a photographer from our school district.  What an awesome start to the school year!

Photo taken by Des Moines Public Schools

Our building was remodeled nine years ago.  At that time new windows, air conditioning, and an elevator were installed.  I was on the committee that planned the renovation, and we worked hard to maintain the integrity of the building.  I love the original woodwork and hardwood floors.  It is a beautiful building.  We look pretty good for being 100 years old.

This will be my 24th year at this school, and I really love it here.  We have the best school song anywhere.  It was written about ten years ago by Judi Brown, who was our art teacher at the time, and the students.  She worked with each class, so that all the students and staff had a hand in writing this song.  We don't have many assemblies, but when we do, we always sing it.

I can already tell that this is going to be a Turtley Awesome school year.

This shirt was worn by one of my girls.  I wish I had thought of this.  I think I'm going to have to add this caption to our classroom door.

A Herd of Turtles

Tomorrow is officially the first day back to school for teachers, but most of us have already been in our classrooms numerous times.  One of the things I accomplished this week was making and installing my door display.  Doing these creative tasks gets me excited for back to school.  I always like to have a display on or around my door that includes student names.  Last year it was owls, and this year I opted for turtles.

I am partial to turtles.  I have them all over my yard as yard art. I have them in my home. I have them in my classroom.  For me turtles represent patience and tenacity. I started thinking about using them on my door at a math PD this summer when I saw that Common Core Standards talked about teaching children to persevere in problem solving.

First I had to figure out how to make them. I am not an artist, so I broke out my scrapbooking drawing books and Googled "How to draw turtles."  Using those ideas I practiced drawing turtles.  I wanted a cartoon turtle that was friendly looking.  After sketching several I came up with four that I liked best.

I went over the lines with a black permanent marker and erased all the stray pencil lines.  I cut them out and mounted them on cardstock,  then I photocopied them to make my pattern.

I made two copies of my pattern.  The first I copied onto various shades of green and brown cardstock for the turtle bodies.

The second set of patterns I cut apart in order to make a shell pattern for each turtle.  These I ran onto various shades of pattern scrapbook paper.  I have a lot of money invested in scrapbook supplies, and I am trying to use up my stash.

Then it was just a matter of cutting out the turtles and shells and gluing them together.  I glued the patterned shell right on top of the solid card stock turtle.

Stick Out Your Neck and Learn!  Take Risks, Try New Things, Persevere, Be Patient, Do Your Best.

I took them to school and arranged them on the door.  On the inside of the door, we will hang our class contract.

Welcome to 4th Grade

Yesterday I designed my welcome cards for my new group of students.  All classroom teachers in our building send a letter or card to everyone in their incoming class.  We have done this for a long time, and all our students look forward to hearing from their new teacher before classes begin.   I designed my cards using the program, The Print Shop by Broderbund.  I use Print Shop for lots of things.  This year I decided to use one of my photos from my photo blog for the cover.  For several years I have done a photo a day project, though I haven't kept up very well this year.  If you're interested you can see my photos at http://barbaraspics365.blogspot.com/.  

On the back of the card, I include a suggested supply list.  Inside I tell students about some of the things we will be studying during the year and give them the link to our classroom website.  This gives families the opportunity to explore our website ahead of time.  I also remind them about open house, which is held prior to the beginning of classes.

The advantage of using Print Shop for this project is that I have a template I can work from, without having to start from scratch every year.  I pull up the old file, change fonts, alter dates and details, and decide on a new cover design.  You can use art from the Print Shop program, but usually I don't.  Last year I used www.imagechef.com to make a word mosaic using the students names.  You can see that here.  Other years I have used my Stampin Up stamps to create a design. You can see that and read about some of the other ways I use Print Shop here at at my old blog, Day In the Classroom

I am pleased with the way they came out this year, and it always gets me excited about going back to school.  I really do enjoy the creative parts of setting of my classroom.  I will mail my cards on Monday.  I like to have them arrive about a week before school begins.

Edmodocon 2013

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to participate in a world wide conference with 25,000 attendees from 170 countries.  I didn't spend long hours in airports or on trains to get there.  I did it from the comfort of my own living room.  Edmodocon took place on the west coast, but almost all of us were on-line attendees.  Even some of the presenters gave their presentations from distant locations.

If you are not familiar with Edmodo, it is a website that works much like Facebook, but it is for educational use, and it is safe and secure to use with students.  Students use a code to access the group.  No one else can get in.  Here is a very quick overview of the website.




I have used Edmodo for the past three years.  I was already aware that I had barely tapped it's potential. We have used it mainly for book discussion and to do webquests.   Edmodocon made me aware of just how much potential there really is, and it's amazing!

Edmodo is a fantastic way to engage and empower students to take responsibility for their own learning. I witnessed my students enthusiam for using Edmodo in May.   Last year was not a very good school year for me.  Because of an accident, I missed more than five weeks of school recovering from a fractured ankle and foot.  We had a new reading series and lots of curriculum changes, and my school district is heavy into testing, so I was very stressed.  For those reasons, I did not introduce my students to Edmodo until almost the end of the year, after all the testing was done.

We had a story in our reading book about spiders, so my goal was to do a webquest, and give the kids an opportunity to research and read about spiders.  I showed one reading group how to use the website.  They taught the rest of the class.  When the first group was learning, the rest of the class was practically climbing over their desks to see what we were doing in reading group.  For the next three days, students shared their learning, carried on discussions about spiders, and figured out how to post links to the websites they were finding, so that everyone could see them.  The class was totally engaged!

This was an epiphany for me.  This is why I teach!  I made a pledge to myself, that in spite of district requirements for pretesting, post testing, common core or whatever, I will keep these kinds of learning experience at the forefront of my students' educational experiences.  One of my goals for the summer was to learn how to use Edmodo more effectively, and to introduce it to students and parents early in the new school year.

At Edmodocon, Patrick Fogharty talked about shifting students into collaborative and creative roles, and that is exactly what I want to do.   One idea I really liked was to have students create videos to teach the class.  I can see that working well with math.  It would also be a great way to share book talks and book recommendations with the class.

My first goal, when I get back to school, will be to make sure we have the Edmodo app on all our iPads and that we have shortcuts on all the laptops.

Here are just some of the possibilities that I need to explore:

• Use Edmodo to communicate with parents.  Provide parents with a code that enables them to see what their student is doing and saying.
• Edmodo has a Classroom Planner to organize projects and due dates. Use it.
• Digital Citizenship resources are available. Use them to plan lessons the first weeks of school.
• Use badges to award students for their hard work.
• Use Google Docs, Evernote and Edmodo together.
• Embed Padlet (which used to be called Wallwisher) for brainstorming and discussion.
• Give quizzes using Edmodo
• Use Edmodo for homework, and run a computer lab for students without internet access
• Explore some of the new apps that Edmodo has added, including Go-Animate (though to be honest, this is probably too expensive for me to invest in)
• Explore Gobstopper, which is an e-reader.
• Participate in the Global Read Aloud
• Join some of the Edmodo on-line communities
• Collaborate on a project with students from another school

That's a lot!  That ought to keep us busy.  Are you an Edmodo user?  What are your favorite projects and uses for this fantastic website?

New Floor Plan

Yesterday, I went into my classroom for the first time since I closed it up in June.  My goals for the day were to put the supplies away,  and to arrange the room.

Putting supplies away didn't take long, because there weren't many of them.  I did check in the office, and fortunately, I do have more coming.  The kids will bring in lots more.  Our students bring notebook and copy paper, dry erase markers, notebooks and composition books, pencils, pens, and glue.  Oh yes, and most important tissue!  Each grade level decides on their own supply list.  I ask for only the basics, but it is always enough to get us through the year.  The only thing I usually have to ask for during the year is tissue, because some years we go through a lot of that.

The trick this year is trying to figure out where to put 30 student desks.  That is five more kids than I had last year.  I have been in this same classroom for nine years.  For the first time last year, I moved my reading table to the center of the room and arranged all the student desks around it.  I really liked this set up, because it put me closer to everyone.  When I was working at the table with a small group, either for reading or math, I could much more easily monitor what was going on in the rest of the room.  I just didn't see how I could do that with 30 student desks.

I like the arrangement I came up with.  I still have room to walk between pods, that is when there is no one here.  We'll see how it works when the chairs are pulled out, and kids are sitting in them.

I kind of like setting up my classroom for fall.  Everything is clean and uncluttered.  Our newly polished hard wood floors gleam.  Our custodians are fantastic!  It is the opportunity to try out new ideas.  We will have open house before school begins, so my strategy is always do the surface stuff that makes it look like I know where everything is and am ready to begin.

Next step, create the cards I will send home to students welcoming them to 4th grade.  I want to get those mailed by the end of next week.  There are also lots of other creative jobs I do at home, like making name tags, desk tags, bulletin board design, and a display for the door.  I make them at home, and when I get to school, I can easily install them.

August 19th is our official back to school date for teachers, but we will all be in there lots of times before that.