Open-Ended Questions

I have written about my love of using open-ended questions before. I have worked with colleagues who don't like them-harder to grade, more time-consuming to think of. But I love being able to see my kiddos apply what they have learned. I love challenging them to think beyond just choosing choice a, b or c.

We talked about Dr. King this week and the Civil Rights Movement. So I added 2 questions on their weekly assessment. Can you tell they learned what I wanted them to?

I Have a Dream.....

I love doing class books that we can send home to parents each month. It's amazing to me the growth I see in my students. The first one we do in about October and many students I have to work with one-on-one to help them build that confidence in sounding out their words. This month I just gave them the paper and 90% of them wrote just what you see completely on their own!

I read a lot of comments from Kinder teachers that think teaching about MLK and the civil rights movement is too far above their heads, that they don't really understand. I actually find the opposite is true. My students are fascinated by how different things were in the past just love Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I read Martin's Big Words, which is one of my favorites. Discovery Education has a video of the story that is beautifully read and scored. We listen to the famous speech. Then we talk about all the things going on in society today and how might it be different if Dr. King were alive today. I asked them to write about what their "I have a dream...." speech would say. These are the responses:

...that homeless people can get food free.

...that the world is colorful

...that my mom had a gardener.

...that all pets can get along.

I had to laugh at this one-even a 5-year old is tired of hearing about the Powerball! 

I have a dream there are no lotteries.

that penguins can fly.

that everyone will have food for free.

...that homeless people can go in buildings.

that there are no storms.

that someone should think what the decision is

that all boys should be nice to the girls.

Adding Rigor to Journal Prompts

I think most of us use writing journals in our classrooms. One thing that's difficult for me is coming up with fresh journal prompts throughout the year. I know I could have them write about their favorite food or their favorite animal--and there's nothing wrong with that. But you know me, I want them to dig a little deeper. 

So if you are looking for some ideas of ways to add a little rigor to your journal writing-here are some ideas. 

1) Instead of just "what is your favorite.....", why not ask "if you could BE any animal, food, holiday, etc. what would you be and why". They use these questions in job interviews for a reason!

2) What if we didn't have.....? For example, clocks, names, electricity, school-what would be different?

3)  Why do we have.....birthday parties (this was a hard one for my kiddos), pets, desserts, etc.

4)  Why don't we....have school every day, wear the same clothes every day, celebrate holidays every day?

5)  What would you do if... you woke up with blue hair, saw someone steal something, you couldn't hear anything?

6)  Is it right that.... snow melts, leaves fall off the trees, we keep animals in zoos, some people are rich and some aren't?

7) What is ALWAYS true about... fairy tales, shoes, cars, schools, moms (love doing this one for Mother's Day).

8) How would you create a new kind of.....candy, nursing home, Christmas tree, school, car, fairy tale?

9) What might happen if.....your teacher was an elephant, you woke up 100 years in the past, you visited another country?

10) Give them a quote and ask them to interpret it: 

If you have any other ways you challenge your kiddos in writing-I'd love to hear them! :)

Classroom Community

So one of the things I decided over break to focus on when we returned was classroom community. I believe in doing a lot of group activities, however, since my kiddos don't really enter the classroom with "groupwork" skills-it's something I feel like we have to practice. Our first activity was a cup stacking activity. I gave each group 25 cups and asked them to make the tallest structure they could. There were no other rules. I suggested they talk to each other first and decide what the group plan was and then begin building.

It was so interesting to walk around and watch them make their structures. I honestly started thinking about my experience as an adult working in groups of teachers and who each reminded me of.

One group was done in like 30 seconds. No discussion or anything-they just wanted to win and began building right away.

This group did not ever get together as a group. 

The kids just kept working on their own individual towers.

This group looked to see what the group who was done did 

and tried it themselves-however, theirs kept falling down.

And this was my winning group. They definitely thought outside the box-didn't pay attention to what others were doing, just worked to figure out a way for it to stand up without falling down.

Just for kicks when we were done and reflected on what worked and what didn't, we tried again to make the smallest tower using all the cups and the cups had to be touching each other.

The kids liked the activity-they actually wanted to do it again yesterday and I plan to continue doing things like this in addition to their regular group work to help them practice those skills.

Resolutions

So yesterday was the first day back for the kiddos and I think they genuinely missed school! :) They were full of stories and descriptions of presents and trips. They asked about what Santa brought Ruby (bagel treats, in case you wanted to know).

Our vocabulary word was "resolution". We talked about what it meant. I gave them some examples of resolutions grown-ups make. Then I asked them to write about their resolutions in their journals. I didn't take any picks but I thought I'd share some of their answers.

My New Year's resolution is to.....

have a baby.

be a scientist.

be a veterinarian.

go to Wal-Mart

Now there were a few who got it and said.....

work on writing not all uppercase letters.

read more.

listen to Miss Trayers.

I'm not sure I was successful in getting across the true meaning of resolutions. They took it more as what do I want to be when I grow up. :)

My resolutions? So glad you asked. 

1) Try to waste less time in having to redirect behavior. I have a new conduct system to try.

2) Spend more time on handwriting skills.

3) Do a better job with making school fun for the kiddos.

4) Do a better job doing regular science experiments. (I teach science objectives every week, but often don't have hands-on activities to go with them).

5) Be more organized!!! I cringed at the pics from our last parent activity-we were a mess.

I hope everyone is enjoying their kiddos as much as I am back from vacation!

Always Be a Beginner

I know this time of year is good for reflection. We have some time to really step back and look at what's working in our classrooms and what isn't. We have time to catch up on things-not only the things like cutting out new workstations but catching up on reading the blogs, etc. that I neglect especially when things get busy.

I also have been catching up on watching things from my DVR. I'm one of those people who has to delete things just to have the 5% I need to tape my Judge Judy every day. :) I'm down to 25% right now-I've been so productive! One of the things I often record-and don't laugh-is Oprah's Master Class segments. She interviews celebrities and asks them about their key to success and their life history. I was watching Justin Timberlake's segment-of all people and he said something that really struck me. He said you always have to be a beginner. In other words, try new things, things that may be out of your wheelhouse and learn to do that, rather than just do what you are already good at over and over.

I really like that thought. I couldn't have articulated it before-but that is how I see myself. I do try to learn about new technologies or read the new research. I'm one of those people who will ask questions if I don't understand. I think that's really important in our field and something not all teachers are willing to do. I can't tell you how many meetings or PD's I've attended where people will say "why reinvent the wheel?"--because that old wheel doesn't necessarily work anymore! People have been teaching for a long time, but classrooms today are much different than even just 10 years ago. You have to take those risks to keep things fresh not only for yourself but for the students. 

So as we enter into 2016-that's one thing that I'm really going to keep in mind. How can I try new things to accomplish what we need to accomplish. And I will definitely share my new discoveries, as always!

Happy New Year to everyone!!!!

Portraits of Me

I believe art instruction is really important in education. Unfortunately the powers-that-be do not agree with me. (I only I ruled the world :). We have an art teacher that the kids are supposed to see once per week-however that is not a constant. Whenever one of our ancillary teachers is absent or something is going on like Winter Program practice-their schedules get disrupted. My kiddos have not officially been to Art Class since Halloween!

So I have to make up for that in my classroom. We ask our kids to be creative in endeavors like writing-but we never teach them what that means. What better way to foster creativity than with art projects! We do portraits periodically throughout the year-painting them, coloring them, making them out of snack foods. We are supposed to introduce the concept of photoessays according to our curriculum (I know!). One way I do that is to take pictures of them making all different kinds of faces and then ask them to write about themselves. We did just that the last week of school. Here are some examples:

My favorite one! "I am so glorious"---yes, she is! :)

I know no sentences (it was the last week of school, they were checking out a little bit work-wise) but I still like the way she put her project together!

I make funny faces.

I'm not sure what the first one says but I am happy and I am serious I think are the last two.