Edcamp Des Moines

Yesterday, I spent the day at Edcamp Des Moines, and a very awesome day it was.  I have been to Edcamp twice before, both times at Edcamp Omaha.  It is always a day packed with learning and inspiration.  Edcamps take place all over the country.  If you have never attended an Edcamp, I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity.

The day begins with people gathering in a central location.  There are no pre-arranged sessions, the topics are decided at the beginning of the day.  People who are interested in presenting or just talking about a topic sign up in a time slot.  As the schedule fills up, people consider which sessions they would like to participate in.

Most sessions that I have attended may begin with the "presenter" sharing information, but they quickly open up to the participants sharing and contributing their own ideas and knowledge.  This is a kind of respect for all participants that I would like to see present in school district PD.  You always end up learning as much from the other people in the session as you do from the presenter.  That's what makes Edcamp so powerful.

Twitter Handles for just some of the educators who showed up on this Saturday in September.

Edcamp is not just about technology, though I always get great ideas about new websites and apps from these sessions.  This year I attended sessions on

• How are you incorporating your passions into your classroom?
• Engaging all students, even the ones who don't know they want to be engaged.
• Less Us, More Them;  Student Engagement
• How Are You Pirating?  (based on the book Teach Like a Pirate)

You can see there was a definite theme in the sessions I chose.  I am really interested in bringing more creativity into my classroom, and even though I tend to be a very autocratic teacher, I am working toward making it more student centered.

So this is what teachers do on a Saturday.  Here is a link to the Edcamp Wiki:  http://edcamp.wikispaces.com/   Check out an Edcamp near you!

Book Talks and Reading Conferences

We have been in school for three weeks now, and I feel like we are making progress with our reading.  I am working to implement ideas from The Book Whisperer into my instruction, so this week I started meeting with students for reading conferences.   I am required by my school district to teach the little readers that go with the Houghton Mifflin Journeys, so it is difficult to get these in.  I am trying to find a balance between district curriculum and keeping our focus on reading good books that will really engage my students as readers. Since I have thirty students divided into four reading groups, this is not an easy task.

Each day, I had one reading group use their small group time to give an impromptu book talk about one of the books they were reading.  I had also planned to meet with two students at the end of each day for book conferences, but most days I ran out of time.  Instead, I used all of my small group time on Friday to catch up on conferences.

For the reading conferences, I had students bring their reading notebooks and the books they were currently reading.  Instead of sitting in my usual spot at the end of the table, I sat with the students along the side.  I called two students at a time.

Each time I met with a group, I observed the same thing.  The kids started out cautiously, expecting me to quiz or grill them about the books they were reading.  When they realized that our goal was to just talk about the books.  I saw them begin to visibly relax and participate in a discussion about the books they are reading and have read.  This was true during the book talk time and during the conferences.

It made me aware of how much of the time, I am not listening to what kids think and have to say.  It is an eye opener as to how we block kids from being fully engaged in the learning and how rarely they are actually invited into a conversation about the things they are learning.  I know that I am a good teacher, but much of the time I am so intent on helping my students achieve learning goals, that I don't permit them to help shape the path that we are traveling to get there.

I am so thankful that I read The Book Whisperer this summer, and I am enjoying the way it is transforming my teaching.  It's important to stop and smell the roses along the way.  Not only do my students benefit, but I am benefiting as well.

Six Favorite Tools for Classroom Management

Tomorrow will be day twelve of our school year.  The testing if done for now, reading groups are meeting, and we are settling into our routines and schedule.  I am pleased with my group and the way they are taking responsibility for their work.  We have already completed our Top Ten Facts project, and students are taking turns presenting their poster.  I wrote about the Top Ten Facts Posters here on my Day In the Classroom blog.  Now that I have the computers back in my classroom, I am introducing my students to blogging, with paper blogs.

Sometimes it is difficult to remember all the tools I need to set up at the beginning of a new school year, and this year I added one or two new ones. Some are high tech, and some are definitely not.  Here are some of my favorites.

1.  Creative Ways to Line Up
With 30 students, I like to break up the group for many tasks.  That was made easier by this idea I saw on Pinterest for Creative Ways to Line Up.  You can download the cards and list by visiting I Love To Teach.

2.  Class Dojo
For behavior management, I like to use Class Dojo.  With Class Dojo, you create an avatar for each student.  You award positive points for good choices, and deduct points for poor choices.  If you are interested in learning more about it, you can read my post from last year here.  I just read a blog post criticizing this tool, but like anything it can be used well to reinforce the behaviors you want, or it can be used poorly in a punitive way.  I like it because I can give specific reminders or praise in a calm way.  By the end of the day or week, I have a record of specific behavior choices.  My school has an award system called Paw Prints, and I award them based on the points students earn on Class Dojo.  You can share this information with parents if you choose too.  Sometimes it can be enlightening.  Patterns may emerge, or sometimes I realize how many times I am giving reminders to some students.   My kids like it!  I don't usually project the avatars onto the screen during work time, but the kids like it when I do.

3. The Name Box
We do lots of partner and group work, so I am always looking for different ways to group students.  I have some high tech and low tech approaches to this task.  I set up my name box this week.  I use this all the time to form groups or call on people.

4.  Instant Classroom
Using Instant Classroom is a high tech approach.  You will find it at www.instantclassroom.com and you can use it to group students

or select students for a task.

I will warn you that sometimes this website is a little slow, but we like to use it on good days.


5.  Partner Wheels

Another tool I like for picking partners is my Partner Wheel.  This is another idea I found on Pinterest, and I blogged about it here.  I haven't made my wheel for this year, but here is a picture of the one I had for a previous year.

6.  Planbook.com

Then there is my most favorite of all, and that is www.planbook.com.  I love using an on-line planbook.  I like the fact that I can access it at home or from school.  The website has great tutorials to help you set up your planbook.  I always print mine off, so that there is a copy available to a substitute, and I like to check things off as I go.

Some of my favorite features are the templates.  You can set up templates so those things that you need to put in your plans all the time are automatically there.  I also love the fact that if I don't get to something that I had planned to do, I can extend the lesson plan for the next day, or bump the whole plan over to the next day.  Since I always over plan,  I use this feature all the time.  It means I don't have to keep rewriting the same lesson plans.  It is also inexpensive, just $12 a year.  If you've never tried it, check it out.  You can try it for the first thirty days free.  I wrote more about Using an On-line Planbook here.

Setting Up Our Reading Notebooks

We've been in school for just a week and a half now, and the class has had an opportunity to become familiar with our classroom library.  Our next step was to set up our Reading Notebooks.  I always use a reading notebook, but this year I am following Donalynn Miller's suggestions in The Book Whisperer.  I like to use composition notebooks instead of spirals, because you don't have the problem with the wire in the spiral notebooks unraveling and getting tangled up.  In the front pages of our notebooks we set up 

• A tally List for the genres.  Students tally the books they have read as they go, and keep track of the genre requirements.
• They keep a reading list, and record books they have read, attempted and abandoned.  Each entry includes the title, author, date the book was finished and the students assessment of how difficult the book was to read.
• A Books-to-read list:  Students plan for future reading.  They record sequels that are yet to be published, recommendations, or books they have previewed and want to read later.

For the genre tally list, I found this one on-line.  I had to reduce it to fit into our notebooks. Each student will be required to read at least forty books during the school year.

Our 40 book requirement will include:

• 5 - Realistic fiction
• 2 - Historical Fiction
• 3 - Mystery
• 3 - Adventure
• 1 - Poetry
• 4 - Books recommended by friends, which could be almost anything
• 4 - Fantasy and science fiction
• 1 - Graphic Novel
• 2 - Biography, autobiography or memoir
• 5 - Informational
• 2 - Books by the same author
• 8 - Chapter books of their own choice

Any book over 350 pages can be counted as two books.

I am allowing them to record the books we read together, so they already have Fourth Grade Rats recorded.  We completed our first read aloud on Thursday.

That is followed by two pages that we will use as we learn about the characteristics of the various reading genres.

I used the reading list and books to read list from the Fountus and Pinnell's, Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3 to 6.  Students will use these pages to plan for future reading, and to keep track of books they are interested in reading.  

  

The rest of the notebook will be used for reading response.  This may be in the form of letters, character sketches, or other tools that I will come up with as we go along.

As suggested in The Book Whisperer, I set up a reading notebook for myself.  Instead of writing reading responses, I will set up a page or pages for each of my students.  Then I will use this space to keep notes from our reading conferences.  If I have space, I think I will write a brief summary of the books I am reading.  That will help me with book discussions.

I have already discovered that having my own reading notebook is a great way to model the tasks I want them to complete.  

I informed the class that I am also setting that goal of reading 40 books for myself.  When the class was doing some silent reading on Thursday, I took some time to choose a book for myself, that I had not read before.  I chose Inkheart by Cornelia Funke.  I didn't realize it before, but one of my advanced readers had also chosen this book.  She was absolutely thrilled when she saw that I was reading it too.  She has checked with me several times since to see how far I am, and to talk about the book.  Experiencing her excitement to connect about a book, was eye opening, and showed me just how beneficial this is going to be for my students.

One of my goals this year is to be open to trying and reading new books myself and in genres I don't usually read.  I've taught fourth grade for fifteen years, and I have lots of favorite books that I enjoy sharing with the class, but I realized that I've been a little stuck, and haven't ventured into some of the newer books.  I'm going to make more of an effort to read books the kids are reading.  It will also enables me to discuss the books with them.

I noticed that one of my struggling readers had checked out Bunnicula to read.  Bunnicula is one of my favorite books, so I decided to use that as our next read aloud.  She was excited that we were going to all read a book that she had selected.  

I am finding myself taking more time to notice the books my students are reading and to engage them in conversation about their books and interests.  I showed them some of the non-fiction books I am reading on subjects I am interested in; knitting, gardening, canning, and Argentina (because my son is going to school there).  Then I asked them to make lists of the non-fiction topics they would be interested in reading about.  I used Tagxedo to make a word cloud of those topics, and I took the list to our school library, where I checked out 23 books on as many topics as I could find.  In this way I can supplement the non-fiction section of my classroom library.

I feel like I am doing a much better job sharing my enthusiasm for reading.  Already the class is doing well at choosing books to read during those transitional times in the classroom.  I already do Daily 5.  I think it's going to be much easier to get that going now that we already have such a great start with our independent reading.