Snowman Civil Rights

With everyone going on in our world today I believe it is more important than ever to have those tough conversations when it comes to diversity and equality. I have read many social media posts over the past few days about people who teach young kiddos and they do not believe our students are capable of understanding these concepts or participating in these discussions. In my humble opinion, that is wrong. We need to start as early as we can laying the foundation with our students. And here is proof that they get it and can apply what they have learned.

I am not a teach about Dr. King only the week before the holiday type of person. We have read numerous books about figures in social justice (I looped with my group so this is my 2nd year with them). Today we discussed what civil rights were and why it is important that we all are treated equally. We watched a Brainpop video that included pictures from the past and from protests happening presently.

My students were asked to take that knowledge and apply it to what rights a snowperson would fight for. Snowman civil rights-what would their posters looks like?

We did not specifically talk about the posters from the news-this student knew that already.

She said she thought the snowman deserved life in the snow.

We need to make this stop. If we don't make this stop we are going to be mean persons but if we do everything we could be good people.

We should not be mean to people because it can be harder, even you can get hurt . We should not hit people we should treat them as a good person.

Not exactly a "civil right" but she said it was what she would like to have a right. :) 

I don't like that.

He drew a segregated school. 

I have always believed in introducing my students to diverse characters and conversations about current events. But now more than ever I think this is so important. Even with our young ones.

Community Service Projects

Community service is a very important thing I believe we should be modeling for our students. My 1st graders think the world revolves around them so using the concept of empathy I like to conciously teach them about things they can do to help their community. Now of course the pandemic has limited what we can do this year. We can't collect food or socks for the homeless like we usually do. But my students have a talent for making things that are cute. 

We made cards for all the nurses that I know must be so overwhelmed today. 

These were from my virtual students using Pear Deck, my in class kiddos made some too. We are going to put them in the mail to local hospitals and hopefully brighten someone's day.

Creating a Community

We have been studying maps in our Social Studies lessons. I asked my students to create their own communities. To name them, what landmarks and locations would be included. I challenge my students every day to be creative and unique in their ideas-activities like this make me so happy. Lots of different ideas. I don't have pics of the inclass ones but here are some from my at home virtual students.

Chick fil-a, Starbucks and Cheetos-the important things. :) 

An example of another way to assess what students know. Ask them to create, to invent.

Unanswered Questions

This is one of the concepts from Kaplan's Depth and Complexity that really confuses my students. My young kiddos aren't used to thinking in questions. I mean, think about it-how often are they really asked to question anything? I read once an idea: instead of posting objectives and I can statements-we post questions about what it is we are learning. Many students need practice in asking good questions.

In our daily routine we look at a photograph and ask questions about it. What don't we know.

In the beginning they ask basic questions: is that a tornado? What is that? But as we model examples of good questions, their questions get better too: is this Texas? Did anyone get hurt? I wonder what you are supposed to do if a tornado like that is coming toward you?

We also use it when finish a unit on something. What is something we still don't know about rainbows? Or after a story-we talk a lot about author's purpose but some books like The Giving Tree for example, I wonder what Silverstein's intentions were in writing it-did he want to show unconditional love or an example of selfishness? What happened to characters after we leave them? I wonder what happened to Wilbur from Charlotte's Web? I wonder what happened to Templeton?

I've seen teachers use this as just asking questions-but that's not quite right. Unanswered questions are ones we cannot simply Google the answers to-we don't know the answer, the challenge is in coming up with the questions.`

Classroom Resolutions

Well this has definitely been a year! We started virtually for the first month of school and then parents had the choice of whether to send their students to school or keep them home learning virtually. My class was split exactly in half. I learned a LOT this year. I feel like sometimes we get obstacles in our life to challenge us and make us better teachers.

Reflecting on this year so far, there are many things I will carry on in my practice even when we are fully face-to-face.

1) SEL-we start our day every day with a read-aloud relating to SEL skills-empathy, managing emotions, managing anger, friendship skills. My district put this into our schedule in the beginning and I can feel a difference in my students and the community we have been allowed to develop. If you have a membership to Kindle Unlimited there are so many options there.

2) Virtual field trips:

Not a great picture, I know but the stars represent everywhere we have visited so far. Every Friday we learn about a different country-we virtually visited:  France, China, Chile, Australia, New York, Disneyland, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Brazil, India and the students read Easter Island on the map and requested a visit there. My favorite part is that I even learn new things about these places.

3) Pear Deck-I know I have posted about Pear Deck before but it has just been a lifesaver for me this year. I prepare my whole day's lessons-reading, math, writing, science and social studies in the Google slides. I can add a part where students can write/type a response. It has been a great way for me to easily get grades this year.  We project it on the Smartboard for students in class at the same time my students at home are following along. Students in class reponsd on dry erase boards, students at home on the Pear Deck. I LOVE it and will continue to use it in the future.

I resolve to continue to do these things moving forward. Choosing my One Word for this year (a word you will develop your year around) was difficult this year. I feel like there are a lot of things I could have chosen. But my word is "THRIVE". We will not just survive the school year but we will thrive. 

What are some of your classroom resolutions this year?

Teaching Creativity

It is something contested by scientists-can creativity be taught or is it just something we are born with. I believe the former and I will tell you why. Teaching in early childhood, often students enter our classrooms not knowing what it means to be creative. They try to answer questions with what they think the adults want to hear. From day 1 (my first vocabulary words for them are creative and unique)--creativity is something I encourage.

When we do activities they are open -ended. I'm not a cut-out-all-the-pieces-and-the-kids-glue-it-together kind of teacher. I give them the materials and their products come from their vision. Skies don't have to be blue and grass doesn't have to be green in my class.

Another thing I do is an activity where I give students a task. Often I give them letters of the alphabet, split them up into groups and ask them to come up with: animals that begin with the letter s or foods that begin with specific letters. The goal of this activity is that they only get a point if their group came up with an idea no one else thought of. The most creative. So the automatic animal that begins with s for 1st Graders is of course, snake. But the lesson is to dig a little bit deeper. This applies to their work as well. You don't have to write the first thing that pops into your head-try to think of something no one has thought of.

We are in a unique situation this year. I looped with my students from Kinder to 1st. So I have had the opportunity to see them grow in this area. Yesterday we did an activity where I gave them a word and they had to say what came next. So for example: hot __________________. Now we just did a unit with the hot chocolate theme so I knew some would say that but some dug a little deeper. Then a student said Hot Cheetos and we talked about how hot can also mean spicy. How we can think about the different things words can mean.

"fire"

"fireplace"

"weather"

I was a proud teacher yesterday hearing all the creative responses. At one point every student said something different for an answer. I truly believe creativity can be taught if we take the time to encourage it in our classrooms.

Multiple Perspectives for Winter

I LOVE using multiple perspectives with young kids because I truly believe it helps develop in them the concept of empathy. Young kids believe the world revolves around them and that their experiences are the only ones that matter. These activities help broaden their horizons.

Here in Texas my kiddos have not seen snow first hand-we are learning about it though. I asked them to imagine being a snowflake. What would that feel like? What would you wish for? What would you see? Here is what my virtual students wrote in their Pear Decks: