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Mother's Day 2016

I was looking for a simple yet unique gift for the students to make for Mother's Day. After creating a string art piece for our Ladies' Night Out fundraiser, I thought the students would like to create a string art on a smaller scale for their moms. My grade-level partner recently moved into a new house that has a barn on the property and in that barn...was a bunch of barn wood she was looking to get rid of. Lucky us!!!!! We cut the boards into 6 in x 6 in pieces and drilled holes to mark out where we would put the nails to make a heart shape. I was not brave this year and just pounded in the nails myself while watching one of our nightly shows. Before I started the project with students, I had lengths of yarn cut so that time would not be wasted and I could help students with their project rather than cut yarn. Before we started the string art, I had the students write a note to their moms on the back of the wood with a Sharpie marker. Some of them got really creative with a cute little poem and I am not talking about "Roses are red, violets are blue..." I personally tied the string to the first nail then had the students outline the heart with the yearn before filling in the middle. When they filled in the middle of the heart, they chose their own pattern. Some students chose to keep the yarn in a straight line pattern, some did a checker print, some strung the yarn so that it had the same ending point with every wrap they made, and some students just strung the yarn any which way they felt like. There is not a wrong way to do it, so that made this project desirable for young kids. I posted a pic of the finished project below. Overall, this was a very easy project to do with students and the moms LOVED it. The most time consuming part was marking and drilling the holes.

Young Entrepreneurs

We recently finished our economics unit in social studies. I had a lot of interested little entrepreneurs who craved information about the world of business and economics. We had a lot of fun with this unit and learned a ton! We learned about opportunity cost through ice cream and cake. We learned about human, natural, and capital resources through creating our own S'more business. We put all of our learning together in our business plan project in which the students developed a business plan from a big idea they had. (We might have the next Shark Tank finalist in our midst.)

We really liked the opportunity cost activity in our classroom. In all learning that we do, I try to relate what I am teaching students with real-life examples they understand. I was pretty sure that my students would understand ice cream and cake (I do!), so I used that as the examples in our opportunity cost activity. I am positive I had students engaged in learning with the mention of ice cream...and I am positive I had most students drooling by mentioning cake. For this lesson, I started with a share aloud to get the students thinking about choices they make in their daily lives even as kids. I asked the students that if they had to choose between spending a day with their family at the beach or going to the movie theater with friends, which would they choose and why? Amazingly, many students chose going to the beach with their family citing reasons such as spending family time together and having a picnic. (Insert awwww here) Then I followed with a close reading passage that introduced the idea of opportunity cost. Next we put our learning to the test by creating opportunity cost flip books. Students were asked to draw an illustration of ice cream and cake on the front of the flaps. Then they wrote the advantages and opportunity cost for choosing each item. These made me chuckle, so we had to share them in our small groups. Our group leaders made sure that everyone had a voice in the group and had a chance to share their flip books. I posted some pics of one of the flip books a student created. Our learning objectives were met with ice cream and cake! Who knew?!

Reading Block in a Multiage Classroom

Teaching a multiage has been a rewarding, challenging, and fun experience. It does require a lot of hardwork, a lot of time, and thinking outside the box. When I tell people that I teach in a multiage classroom, the responses are usually, "How does that work? What is a multiage? How do you teach such different curriculums in one classroom?" There is one word that answers all 3 of these questions and many more. The word is DIFFERENTIATION. I differentiate for every child in my classroom. What does that mean? What does that look like?

This is my 4th year teaching in a multiage classroom (3 years in a 3rd/4th multiage and 1 year in a 1st/2nd multiage), 7th year teaching overall, and 7th year using differentiation in my classroom. I have previous experiences long-term subbing in a 1st/2nd multiage classroom as well (which I am very thankful for). Based on all of these experiences, I have built the classroom and program I have today. Of the 4 years I have taught in a multiage classroom, I have never done the same thing twice (yes, it would be way easier, but I need something to do in the summer, right?). I reflect daily and take notes on what works and what needs to be tweaked for the next year.

This year when I was asked to teach a 1st/2nd multiage, I thought back to a couple of years ago when I taught a 3rd/4th multiage. I thought about what worked and what didn't work. What I liked and thought was valuable and what was not worth the time. I also did some research on other multiage classrooms to see how those teachers structured their school day (I am always looking for new multiage resources). With all of this information, I created the outline for our multiage classroom.

Going into the school year, I had a basic outline for what our reading block was going to look like. I knew I was going to teach reading in small, differentiated groups with whole group mini-lessons sprinkled throughout. I was not sure how many groups I would need until I met my students and did some assessing. With the assessment data, I was able to place my students into 3 flexible, differentiated groups that would work with the students' strengths and weaknesses. If throughout the school year I find that a student's needs change, I can easily slide them into another group that will fit those needs. For example, I had a couple of students who needed to be challenged a little more, so I bumped them into a different small group that would challenge them. I NEVER label these groups. I just call them Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3.

This is my second year using the Reading Mastery reading program in my classroom. This program has been perfect for my differentiated, small groups and we have had excellent results with this program. Below is a copy of our reading block schedule: (FYI: Dictation is our daily spelling lesson. I do not give traditional spelling tests at the end of the week; however, we do work in-depth with words to become familiar with spelling patterns, Our spelling program is included in the Reading Mastery program we use.)

8:10-8:30	8:30-9:00	9:00-9:20
Meet with Group 1 for Phonics, Spelling, and Reading  (The other students will be working in Daily 5) Phonics Lesson: Dictation Lesson: Story:	Meet with Group 2 for Phonics and Spelling  (The other students will be working in Daily 5) Phonics Lesson: Dictation Lesson: Story:	Meet with Group 3 for Phonics and Spelling  (The other students will be working in Daily 5) Phonics Lesson: Dictation Lesson: Story:

9:20-9:35

Reading Mini-Lesson Story: Concept:

9:35-10:05 Reading Interventions- Meet with these students for reading interventions: Intervention being used: Page: The rest of the students will work in Daily 5.

This schedule does not account for grammar and writing. I do have a separate grammar time in our daily schedule in which I teach a quick 10 minute grammar mini-lesson before we move into our writing block. For writing, I use a writer's workshop style schedule. 

As seen in the schedule, while I am working with a small group of students, the other students are engaged at Daily 5 centers. I do teach the Daily 5 expectations according to the book written by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser before students are allowed to work in the centers independently. Every group of students I have ever taught on any grade level have been capable of using Daily 5 independently and have been successful with it, if it has been taught according to the book. I also use differentiation with Daily 5 to meet the needs of every child in my classroom. I do reteach lessons on expectations throughout the school year to keep the students thinking about those expectations. 

These are the basics of the daily reading block in our 1st/2nd multiage classroom. I am able to meet the needs of every student in my classroom and every student is engaged in a valuable lesson or activity at all times helping them to become fluent and independent readers and thinkers. 

January

Listening- I am listening to the wind outside. Yeesh! It just sounds cold!

Reading- I am reading Mindset by Carol Dweck for the second time. (Very powerful book!)

Watching- I am watching Flip or Flop, I love that show!

Loving- I am loving the Christmas Cottage scent burning in my Scentsy burners.

Thinking- I am thinking about skiing. I can't wait to hit the slopes with my kids again. 

Wanting- I am wanting a vanilla latte brewed with my Keurig. 

Needing- I need to sew. I've had a pile on my sewing machine for a while. 

Math Around the Room

It's not a secret that I don't like to sit still for very long. I don't like my students to either. I teach a lot of lessons in short mini-lessons getting students up and moving quicker. Anything more than 10-15 minutes and students are on a one way flight to La La Land, come to think of it, I am too. I plan my lessons around short blocks of time in which I teach a lesson then actively involve the students in their learning. If I can actively involve students in their learning while teaching the lesson (ex: explicit instruction, which is a routine in our classroom)- Bonus! Anything to keep students engaged in their learning. I also designed my classroom around this idea. This year I have tables instead of desks. Students are allowed to work around the classroom with their clipboards instead of sitting at their seats. Centers are always set up in our classroom. I put my teacher's desk into storage several years ago to collect dust. I don't have time to sit at it during the day, nor do I want to. If I am sitting down, I am teaching a small group of students. 

One of my favorite math activities that came in our math program, created by Angie Neal, is math around the room. This is a review activity, so students have already been taught the concepts and have worked with them for a while. For this activity, I will tape cards around the room. I do try to be tricky with some of the cards hoping it is a challenge for students to find them. They get a kick out of finding the cards in crazy places. These cards are similar to flashcards. Sometimes the cards have base ten blocks printed on them, sometimes they have coins, sometimes they have clocks. Students have an answer sheet clipped on their clipboards and they walk around the room trying to find all of the cards and writing down the answers (counting the base ten blocks, coins, writing the time, etc.). When students are done with the activity, we go over the answers together. 

This activity could be developed for just about any concept. It is very similar to Scoot, another favorite activity in our classroom. Who knew learning could be so much fun?!

3-D Communities

 The students in my 2nd grade social studies class have been working on the geography of our community and maps. As a culminating activity, students took on the role of community planners and developed their own communities. Before we started the building, we had to do a lot of planning. (Thank you Hippo Hooray for 2nd Grade for the awesome idea and the community planning sheet freebie) We started out reviewing rural, suburban, and urban communities and what characteristics make them what they are. Then we made a list of important features of every community such as police station, fire station, hospital/doctor's office, school, grocery store, etc. Finally, once we finished our classroom community brainstorming, students completed their community planning sheet. This sheet gave them an outline to go by as they were constructing their communities and it was a nice formative assessment for me to evaluate if students completely understood the ideas we had learned.

Once the planning phase was complete, it was time to construct. This was an in class project; however, I did send a note to parents explaining the project and that their child may need to bring in some supplies from home to build their community. I let students be creative with their constructions and allowed their likes and personalities to come out in their projects. I did not limit their communities to humans only as inhabitants of the communities, which you can see in some of the photos taken. (The first photo is of a community named Taco Kitty Town. Community members include cats and mice.)

Overall, we had a lot of fun with this project and got to show off our community planning skills and knowledge. The students were so excited to take their projects home and show them off.


Ice Cream Town




Trapper Town- Community members live in
log cabins and trap and hunt for a living.