Snowflake Ethics

I asked my students to think about whether it was right or wrong that snowflakes melt. This group still confuses "ethics" with "facts" right now. It's right because that's what happens. I'm trying to get them to the point where they can see the differences more philosophically-some are there, but some still have a ways to go.

Wrong because people like to play with snowflakes.

It is right because the sun is hot.

Spoken like a true Texan.

Right because I will slip on a snowflake.

Right that the snowflake melts to make snow.

My favorite one: Right so it can rise up. We talked about the water cycle but I never thought about it as reincarnation for snowflakes.

Hibernation Dreams

In science we are talking about animals-different categories and what they need to live. As kind of a sidebar to that conversation we got into which animals hibernate. I asked the kiddos to write about what they would dream about if they were a bear in hibernation. This is what they came up with:

Hey, that's what I'm dreaming now too! :)

I thought this was very creative.

About my mom.

about animals.

If you can't have fun in dreams.....

We did just read "Bear Snores On".

Isn't that what we all dream. :)

And I dream about eating Ben and Jerry's--makes sense.

dream about bears.

Snowflake Rules

One of our GT icons is "Rules"-it has to do with making generalizations, organizing criteria. For our purposes, it's making note of what ALWAYS happens for something, kind of like catergorization. We have done the rules for arctic animals-they have to have a way of staying warm, they have predators, etc. then the students use those rules they made to create a new kind of arctic animal. One that would fall into that same category.

 This time we hypothesized some rules for snowflakes. Now, keep in mind-even though we do get light snow from time to time, these kids were about 2 last time it happened here in our part of Texas. So for all intents and purposes, they haven't actually seen it that they remember.

A rule for a snowflake-should melt and snowflakes should come in the cold place.

...have to turn into snow.

Starry Starry Night

I have always been passionate about art. I took an Art History class as an elective my senior year of college; if it had been my freshman year, I might have seriously considered changing majors! I just loved it-learning about what the artists meant by what they painted or trying to make an interpretation myself. It's cliche, I know, but one of my favorite artists is Van Gogh. This is actually a counted-cross stitch I made years ago (when we had Hurricane Ike come through, this was one of the possessions in my car-it took me such a long time to complete it--I consider it a prized possession!). The miracle is, I still really like the painting! :)

Anyway, I love doing art projects with the kiddos. They will even say "I'm afraid I'll make a mistake" and I share with them Scott Adams' quote "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." They love the fact that there are no rules when it comes to art. They will say-can I mix these 2 colors together or can I paint my sky green?----my answer always is: You are the artist.

So we looked at the painting "Starry, Starry Night". The students painted their interpretation of that painting on half the paper and on the other half they painted what "Snowy, Snowy Night" would look like according to Van Gogh. The best thing happened at the end of the day yesterday. We had the paintings laying out to dry and I had a bunch of kids in my room after school for a Student Council meeting. One of the now 4th Graders that I had in Kindergarten said "oh wow, you guys painted Starry, Starry Night--I remember doing that in your class". And most of the time you think the lessons are not sinking in-that was 4 years ago and she still remembers! :)

Winter Rigor Ideas

We've been working on our Winter Unit-- which always seems ironic to do in Texas; our winter weather is 80 degrees right now. Our poor kids have never seen real snow. There have been 2 times in the 10 years that I've been here where we actually saw flurries-you Yankees wouldn't believe it, the whole city shuts down. One year the flurries started (literally just flurries, the snowflakes all melted when they hit the ground) and all the parents came and picked up their kids early-I had 4 kids left by 1:00!. I grew up in Pennsylvania and luckily have many pics of the snowmen, snow forts, sledding and ice skating that used to keep us out of trouble during those winter months.

Anyway, some ideas to add some rigor and depth to a winter unit:

1) Writing from the perspective of a snowflake (what it feels like, what they see, etc.). Compare that to the
     perspective of a raindrop.

2) Invent new use for snow.

3) What are the rules for snowflakes?

4) What other materials could we use to make snow, since we don't have "real" snow here in Texas. (Some of them said feathers, polar bear fur, clouds, pillows-I'll post those pics next week).

5) Compare the perspective of an igloo to that of your house/apartment.

6) What are the rules for arctic animals? Using those rules invent your own arctic animal.

7) Look at Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night painting (one of my  faves)-recreate it- but make it Snowy, Snowy Night.

8) Ethics-is it right or wrong that snowflakes melt? Is it right or wrong that penguins can't fly?

9) Perspective of a penguin compared to that of an owl.

10)  Over Time-a snowflake's life

Things That....

I have about 25% of my kids who are officially LEP students; I have several others who didn't qualify but do come from homes where another language is spoken by their family. So I've really tried to focus on getting vocabulary instruction in anywhere I can. I do a powerpoint every morning to warm-up for our reading instruction on my new toy-Smartboards came with the new school :). The last thing we do is I put up a category, have them turn to a partner and take turns naming as many things as they can that belong in that category. I always feel like I'm hosting $25,000 pyramid or Family Fued! Then I have the answers I thought of fly in and then they can share any others they come up with.

I love to stump them. We for example, we did "things with buttons"-they names all kinds of clothing but didn't think about remote controls or televisions. I try to make it go along with the story we are reading or our theme. We have been talking about winter a lot, so "things you can make with snow"-being Texans they had no idea for example, that you could make snow ice cream! Some examples for categories:

Things that don't exist
Things that you tie
Things you find in a grocery store
Things made from milk
Things you drink
Things that are round
Things you pet
Things that glow
Things you can do with your feet
Things you mix
Things in the sky
Things that smell bad/good
Things that taste sweet
Things that grow (they never think of people)
Things you bake
Things that are hot/cold/warm
Thing you get in the mail
Things you can do in the ocean
Things you build
Things you write
Things you can jump over
Things that can melt
Things that make you laugh/cry

Resolutions

I always think it's funny for teachers to celebrate New Year's in January--there should be a holiday just for us in May! That's really when the new year begins in the classroom. :)

I do try to be reflective and look back on the year so far, to see what I can change for the all-important second half of the game. This has been a challenging year for me. A lot of the tricks that have worked in the past are not working for me this year. Some days I go home feeling pretty defeated. Of course that just means we change what play we are going to run and get right back in the game. (Can you tell I was watching Friday Night Lights on DVD over the break?)

Anyway, here's my to-do list for the upcoming rest of the school year:

1) Connect with parents better. I always have staff kids in my class (my record has been 4 at one time). I find myself stopping them in hall to share an anecdote or dropping an e-mail--"Johnny cracked us up today, guess what he said", etc. I am going to try to start e-mailing or sending a positive note to all my parents on a weekly basis.

2) Focus on my small group instruction. We moved, then had a week of testing :(, then report card assessments I needed to do individually. The students are definitely going to have to get back to that individualized instruction, especially in reading.

3) Have more fun! I love to incorporate art and music into our activities-it just seemed like that would be frowned upon in our test-prep mode. The kids are definitely going to be getting their hands dirty!

4) Doing more cooperative group activities. I think I shied away from this a bit this year because my kids can't get past hanging up their backpacks in the morning without fighting over a certain hook! Seriously, they will argue over who is last in line-will argue over anything. They need that experience with working in groups on a project.

5) This one is more for my administration--track my data better. I know,  it just sounds ridiculous coming from a Kindergarten teacher but we have weekly assessments they want broken down by objective and what percentage mastered which objective. 10 years ago it was who could cut and who could play nicely with others; now it's how many words per minute they read for fluency. We have to do what we have to do-so I need to find a more effective way of doing that.

Just thought I'd share what I was thinking about. I asked the kids to write their resolutions before the break-pertaining to academics-gave them examples of learning how to read better, add, etc. My favorite one was the little girl who wrote she wanted to learn how to bowl! :) Now that could be data I can track! I just don't think she'd want me to be the one to teach her that skill-I get my bowling and golf mixed up-golf scores are high and bowling scores are low.

Hope everyone has a very Happy New Year! Can you believe it's going to be 2012 already!