Some Ideas Have to Ruminate...

Makerspace, Project Based Learning, NGSS, and other ruminations

So, it's been over a year since I was on here. And I've been having a great time becoming a primary teacher. The wonder, the immediate gratification of student growth, the joy of being 7 in the world...I needed it.

But now I've got to make some of the changes I started thinking about 2-3 years ago. I need to find that motivation to just TRY IT. Find my groove. Our flow (see my previous post today.) We have to give back to the world and the only thing in our way is my hesitation. 

Last year, around Christmas, I blogged about starting primary genius hour but then, well, curriculum, timelines, units, new classes happened. And I didn't remember what I wanted to do. But now I've got 2 and half months left to give this class as much of an experience as I can. So, staying in my comfort zone, we'll be doing some STEM challenges to dip our toes in the process. (To be clear, I'm the one who needs to dip -- I'm sure the class would be fine jumping.)

Last spring (and currently), the first grade team had students invent something to solve a problem over spring break. Then we had an invention fair to peruse all our ideas. It was awesome. And then my class did a bridge project (and I plan to do it again) with a partner. That was it. 
And now...
I've had this product since last year but I wasn't ready. The stars aligned that our ELA curriculum is talking about sound and then construction... feels like engineering opportunities. Structured for me. I always like to see examples before creating my own version and having someone come up with this piece freed me up to think about logistics.

Teach Outside the Box

To begin, how would we manage a project over several days in a very busy classroom? A project that is open-ended (somewhat) and required students to keep track of their own progress? Well, shoeboxes. Counter space. Boxes of supplies. Do I control how many of each? Do I have a check out/ store set up or unlimited? (I think limited resources is the best way to force creativity. Maybe I'll change my mind.) 

So-- the shoeboxes. Check. These will be something we can stack or at least put away and are sturdy enough to survive first grade accidents. I hope. Also, the toilet paper tubes, cups, string, dried beans, random stuff I've got in my teacher closet...

First Grade NGSS topics

To help push me along on this passion, I have been on a science curriculum exploration with the other small districts in my area around Next Generation Science Standards  and have been trying to help our Foss Kits with phenomena and engineering components. My class has had experience all year with exploring tools and open-ended exploration through morning tubs, explore time, and daily 3 math tubs. They needed the free explore but now most would like some direction. Some challenge. And I think dipping my toes into engineering is going to meet that need.

Finding My Pirate Flow, Year 2

I do. I really do drink a lot of coffee. It takes a lot of caffeinated power to teach these tiny pirates and find the flow a thousand times a day. Do you hear me? 

Although this is my second year in first grade and I'm finally getting to do some of my favorites from last year, it doesn't mean pulling out my plans and ho-hum recreations. It means I am 100% in. 100% pirate. 100% in character, dancing, singing, connecting curriculum (I need that coffee), and building community. My class this year is nothing like my group last year, in demographics or academics. I have to meet their specific needs and I am thankful each day that I have almost 2 decades behind me so each decision doesn't use my whole attention. Finding the flow uses my whole attention. Heaven forbid I have a stuffed up head cold to mess with our chi.

 

 I did laminate last year. Quite a bit. But those pirate ships, pirate letters, eye patches, pirate sets, and pirate vocabulary? New. Just like this class' reaction to the pirate takeover a few weeks ago. They were tickled. They were suspicious it was me. They've been finding their inner pirate both during and after readers' theater. It's awesome. But not the same as last year. And it shouldn't be. My excitement and anticipation of 'Pirate Week' needed to be new for this group. We didn't do all the things I did last year. And we did some new things. I checked out some new books from the library about pirates and navigation and learned what a mizzenmast is and added it to my pirate vocabulary. I also continued the pirate theme for 3 weeks, all the way to spring break, forgoing activities I did last year and making more connections to pirates (and you can connect literally any study to pirates -- we turned the patterns in the sky to pirate navigation vs. astronaut navigation skills and it was awesome.) We even turned the next two weeks of R-controlled vowels into different ways pirates talk.

ar resource from The Brown Bag Teacher

I love when it all comes together. That's the flow, when each decision blends so perfectly with the other tasks we are doing, even though none of our curricula align. I love that feeling where we are doing skills for the greater picture, in this case, pirates.Will they remember that we used a topic sentence, detail-detail-detail, conclusion to "wrap it all up"? Or will they remember that we learned to draw a pirate ship, most importantly the "poop deck"? 

We used our newfound drawing skills to make the backdrop for readers' theater and spent two weeks on our fluency skills before performing for the class. (FYI there is a ton of free pirate stuff on Teacher Pay Teacher).

    

Each day connected to the next and when I started to do what worked so well last year but didn't seem to flow with my new group, I made a new decision about the direction we would be going. ARGH! it was awesome.
I won't be kicking the caffeine any year soon, and hopefully our flow will continue as well!

The Next Adventure -- Primary Genius Hour

I love the process of a new phase of my pedagogy. Love, love, love reflecting on how my own experience as a learner, parent, and teacher come together to send me on my next passion. In fact, I'd say that my life has been blessed with passion projects, from pursuing my love of art and poetry to digging into how people develop number sense from toddlerhood to sixty. And then the miracle that is TpT! It's never been easier for us to share our passion projects in education and legitimize them! Don't even get me started on my newfound love of Pinterest boards! In fact, based on the virtual worlds I belong to, I would say passion projects are the norm among all humans. Or at least dreaming of your project. Again, I've have been blessed to not only dream but to have access to the resources (or is it because I have resources that I dream?) to pursue my interests.

It is in that thought that my next adventure can be found -- Genius Hours and Maker Spaces.  I am so excited and nervous to start this journey with my first graders. Will it be everything I imagine? Probably more and not at all. This is the type of unknown where, no matter what, we will all be better at the end -- and if everything goes as planned, it will really only be a beginning for the students and for myself!!!

Stages of my journey so far...

...needing to differentiate for ranges of intermediate students in a way they could manage and yet individualize led me to create these resources: Create An Amusement Park, Create a Compound,  Create a Machine and First Grade Factory. Create a Machine is the true genesis of my next project-- gathering materials and supplies to have a Maker Space. And then my nephew had a birthday party at this amazing space called Tinkertopia -- holy cow. Watching our kids ages 5-11 create amazing things (jet packs, houses with treadmills and creatures to live in them, and even a marionette puppet) made me realize if I provided materials and time, my students would create. 

...then we went to our daughter's Hi-Cap meeting where we saw a video on Rube Goldberg machines to kick off the theme of this year: Maker Space with purpose toward solving a real world problem. Ah ha! So many things coalesced in my mind and it was like a cartoon light bulb was floating over my head for the rest of the spring. 

...but as I sat listening to the Hi-Cap plans, I realized I wanted all my students to have these experiences. ALL my students -- those who finish early and those who are pulled out for services hours a day. Those who could just move up a couple grades tomorrow and those who are working on the skills of previous grades. Those who ask for extra projects to work on in their homework and those who don't have pencils to do homework, let alone know where they are spending the night or if there will be electricity or dinner in that environment. ALL students should be given those minutes to plan, create, fail, and rise back up. 

... and then, most recently, I realized I needed to not just provide stuff for free create (still very important) but provide time and structure to pursue individual passion. 

...then my goal to have engaged students and not just compliant students has merged into staff professional development and framing our work in ways to engage adults as well. How did we decide to do that? By having staff determine and lead groups based on their passions. 

Genius!

...so my next adventure: Genius Hour in Primary. What will my role be? I'm still researching that. But since it is my passion, I love the process and will enjoy my journey!

Check out my Maker Space and Genius Hour board on Pinterest for a collection of ideas from around the world!

ideas like this piece of awesome!

 

Daily 5 and Daily 3

I did it! I jumped into Daily 5 and Daily 3 choice. Mostly from necessity... I was going slowly crazy with my rotation charts and adjusting them with unexpected hiccups in our schedule. So rather than shining my projector up and changing the slide every 15-20 minutes and while outwardly cool, inwardly very sweaty and pressured....I just scrapped it and made these posters from our I-charts with a documentation sheet and when I feel like switching, we do. I tend to stretch their choice as long as they are engaged productively, (especially during any time where students are being pulled out for extra practice and I have mostly on and above students who need to really dig deep) and pull more than one group/ individual during an especially productive time. 

And it's working! I am less crazed, the kids feel really amazing that they are so responsible they can choose how to organize their math, reading and writing times, and I LOVE giving them that time. 

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

 One key to making this work is less paper prep for me. I must thank The Brown Bag Teacher, Miss Giraffe, Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits, Primary-Bliss and First-Grade-Buddies for some great independent work, including differentiated math and reading center work I can match to my grouping needs, and provide both practice in our current unit and spiral review. 

I feel like this year is going to be a great professional push for me as I learn from other primary teachers and adapt it to my own style!

 I absolutely LOVE the activity sometimes called "Read the Room" or a "Hunt" or "Solve the Room" in math. I have bought several wonderful resources for this on TPT (see above sellers) and my kids are independent and engaged during their Math/ Reading choice when they take a clipboard and walk the room looking for cards to solve. I have even taken it on (in a less cute version--but something I can whip up on a Sunday night on google docs) for specific skills or strategies from our curricula: -ing, math mountains with unknowns, maps with digraphs missing from place names or other features. I know students are using our current skill and I don't have to manage it because they are engaged and differentiated! My struggling readers only need to document the word but my on and above level students have recording sheets that require them to use the words somehow. I've even been able to combine a hunt with another resource, such as an -ing Read the Room with The-King-of-ING by Susan Jones or turning task cards into a Solve the Room instead of a scoot in desks, such as Number Bonds by The Wise Owl. Whoever came up with this idea was a genius!!! Squirrelly students can move and groove but it's also an independent and low key/ low pressure assignment.

Lastly, I took a writing idea from one of my co-teachers in first grade and it is the best-- student have an unfinished picture attached to our writing paper (a different picture each week). They finish the scene and write a story about it. Dinosaurs, aliens, battles, robots -- you never know what their fantasy will be and best of all, every student loves to draw their own idea and I love to see how their writing has improved over the last 3 months! This writing could last all week or only one day. Then there are 4 other drawers of choice writing papers -- extras from past writing weeks, blank paper, lists, expository organizers from previous assignments. The students who live to write are in HEAVEN and the reluctant writers produce at least one fictional story with beginning, middle, end each week. Win for me!

So, in the end, please offer choice. You will LOVE it and be amazed at how your management improves. Here is a link of my google doc for student choice. I ring my chimes, we have 1 minute to get to the carpet, and they choose their next station. Sometimes we have time for strategy lessons while they are on the carpet, sometimes we just go to the next station. Not every choice will happen for every student each day, but you can make some activities must-do's (like my read the room/ solve the room and the writing picture --everyone must do these by the end of the week) and then have may do's. The key to the may do's is that they are not specific to your week but can be adjusted and used in the future. If you are not making copies that don't get used and feeling pressured to use those copies, you and the students will have more successful and meaningful practice in all subject areas. Again, The Brown Bag Teacher is a great resource for these differentiated TpT tools and her blog/ videos are gold. She has been so helpful to me in my journey to take on Daily 5 and Daily 3!

Year 18

I am so thankful to be at a new school, in a new grade, with new curriculum ... and 18 years into my career. 

This year provides a steep learning curve for me, but it is mostly of my own creation. Sure, I have to find my inner kindergarten teacher (thank goodness my first graders are starting to seem like first graders and it is only the third week of school -- kindergarten is not my natural state!) Sure, I have to learn a basal program when I haven't used a basal since student teaching. Sure, I have to navigate new adults and schedules and having my kids at my school with me. But none of this is truly challenging because all of my prior experiences have given me tools for most things in the realm of elementary school. The absolute best gift all these changes have given me is a chance to grow myself in new directions and the freedom of being the only one who is new to all these things on my team. Because our basal is not a new adoption, I have the freedom to play with it and with my own planning and maneuvering of the classroom learning schedules and space. 

So, I turned to the Daily 5. For years I scoffed at Daily 5 or any type of centers and rotations because (especially as an intermediate teacher) being tied to rotations meant constant changing of and managing busy work (see my first blog "What's the Point?") From my observations, all those activities were breaking teachers and not growing students (sorry to everyone who is in deep with Words their Way rotations -- do you have grade level readers and writers after you created all those activities and individualized spelling assessments? Or is everyone basically still at the same place? Did it close the gap?)

And then I landed in primary--first grade. Cue very short stamina. Like 1-2 minutes of reading to self. Max. And I'm a big small group devotee -- how was I supposed to meet with students in meaningful ways without having to constantly redirect everyone else? In intermediate, students had their own schedule of tasks to complete (book club reading and notebook maintenance, independent reading and notebook choice, etc.) so I could meet for 30 uninterrupted minutes with each group at least 2x a week, more for the struggling students. My enrichment students could engage in the wonderful deep conversations that pushed them past grade level expectations with my full attention and guidance as needed. It was lovely. Sigh. And now I have 2 minutes.

 

As I reached out to blogs of primary teachers around the world, Daily 5 kept coming up (see The Brown Bag Teacher, etc). Since the reading and math curriculum are not new to my school, only to me, I have the flexibility to play with it and make it fit my students' needs (no fidelity -- the swear word of all new curriculum adoptions.) So, I started to implement some ideas I'd seen on others' blogs about Daily 5 and what other teachers on my team were doing to rotate students through guided groups. But I needed more. I needed PHILOSOPHY and THEORY. I needed to know why I was rotating students and how I could roll out a better form. So I bought the book on Amazon. 

In this new edition, the authors show how they evolved their teaching over the decades, which I really appreciate because we all go through similar phases of control. I could see myself in their evolution and I could see in Daily 5 where I was trying to go next. I also LOVED the background information on the brain and how they used research to guide their classroom practice. I LOVED that they have choice in not just subject matter but environment (not in a fad way where there is not choice, like some flexible seating interpretations...soapbox.) I LOVED that not all students have to do meaningless word work when they don't need it to grow as readers and writers but that some students will have meaningful word work in their rotation. This is just what I was looking for in my new path. I plan to read slowly and implement Daily 5 in a way that makes sense for me and is not "one more thing" that I will become exhausted and drained by. I think this is going to be my key. I'll let you know!

Go year eighteen!

Sarah's Teaching Points

We hit a stride today!

Today felt like the beginning of a great year. A week into school and students (most, not all) were following multi-step independent work directions, including picking up where we left off yesterday, cleaning up supplies, and using a zero level voice. We were able to be so productive that there was time to introduce...da da da Reading Buddies! 

Thank you Pinterest to the many pins I saw this summer with baskets of reading friends for kids to choose while they are reading. It was so darling to watch them adjust the friend in a just right way to look at their book or set the friend up with their own book. I had to snap some pics.

We have been working on our stamina (thank you Brown Bag Teacher for the graph!) Today with our buddies, we reached 3 minutes 30 seconds before anyone broke our purpose. I really think the buddies kept my firsties purposeful today and stretched some stamina!

Another big leap this week was working on self-reflection as a group and individually. I have always used choice seating for independent work in my intermediate and resource settings, but this year I wanted to have lots of nooks and options as well as our tables to give students as much support for their stamina as possible. The first days of first grade were a big learning curve for me! Firsties had mere minutes of work stamina and lots of individual needs that needed to be met RIGHT NOW. But a mere 7 days later...

We took turns having a whole day during independent work time (not independent reading time, that is a whole different set up) in various types of arrangements. Some students tried out pillows and clipboards, others lap desks, others regular desks that they could sit or stand, others lay on the fluffy green carpet in our library area. I also have a small table and little IKEA chair from my home that my kids have outgrown but is perfect for little bodies, and another IKEA chair under my IKEA leaves, tucked between our cubbies and wall. 

 

 Students would choose a face at the end of the day for how comfortable and productive they felt in their spot of the day. Some students chose not to go back to that spot even after one sitting! I call that metacognition!  We have since introduced "offices" (privacy folders made from 2 file folders stapled together) and students can choose to add that to their seating option. It's almost like we have a menu of options and students can mix and match. 

I am hoping to add a giant baby cradle my daughter kept her dolls in -- management TBD -- and I'd love some yoga balls in crates, but that will be in the future for sure. 

 We've made a lot of charts and reflections over the past week to help us do our best. Yesterday the librarian said we were the best class she'd had and our line received many compliments. 7 days. Not all of us and not each moment (we do return back to our seats often for not following expectations to the carpet or line up.) But 7 days. Seriously.

I also appreciate all the pins for morning tubs. We have used the last 7 days to "purposefully" explore math tools before we need to really purposefully use them for math. I think this set up has created a calm and relaxed entry, for sure.

Thank you Pinterest. It's like the biggest, most collaborative PLC ever.