Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Our Olympic Inquiry
We are beginning a new inquiry surrounding the Winter Olympic Games. Students worked in small groups to unscramble three guiding questions that will help drive this inquiry. I really enjoyed listening to each group's conversation as they experimented with the order of various words.
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| 1. What does courage look like to you and how do people exhibit courage? 2. What personal qualities help or hinder the formation of friendships? 3. How and in what ways do athletes show respect for one another and for themselves? |
We also looked at some of the symbols of the Olympics. Students created a chart to record their research and thinking.
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Featuring an "App"-tastic Teacher
Elementary teachers in our school division have finally received 7 Student iPads to use in classrooms. We are all very excited! Although we have just received our student iPads, we have had our very own "Teacher" iPad since September. This has allowed us to get familiar with these devices, explore a variety of apps and become more confident users.
One of my colleagues, Trish Richardson, teaches a primary Gr. 1/2/3 Multiage class at our school. Trish loves two things for sure - ART and COFFEE! It made perfect sense that she discovered an app called Percolator and shared it at a recent staff meeting.
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| Mrs. Richardson sharing a "percolated" art piece. |
This app takes your photos and turns them into fancy mosaics. They refer to this process as "percolating". Like a coffee perk boils water, this app produces different sized bubbles or circles on your image. You can adjust the size of the circles and add different colour themes.
Trish took pictures of her students' artwork. Using Airplay, she showed how each picture was transformed on her Smartboard. Her students loved watching their art pieces being "perfectly brewed" before their eyes.
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| Image Before |
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| Percolated Image |
Friday, 29 November 2013
Parent Conferences, Tweets and Hashtags
Recently, I found a wonderful idea via Twitter! Someone posted a photo of parents filling out a paper tweet to show support for their child's progress. These paper tweets acted as a "ticket out the door". Thank you, Twitter! Thank you to the person who shared it!
Our classroom has an actual twitter account that is connected to our classroom blog. We like to share our learning with others. It's fun to see what other classrooms are up to from around the world. We decided to brainstorm possible hashtags for parents to use in their paper tweet.
I really enjoyed listening to my students explain the purpose of a hashtag during conferences. Naturally, some parents were quite versed in all things Twitter. Others, however, were learning all about it for the first time! Below you will see our paper "Twitter Board" and samples of parent tweets. One thing to note - we weren't worried about the 140 character limit! Grab your copy of the paper tweets here.
Students were so proud to receive words of encouragement from their families. Now it is my turn! I will tweet this post from my twitter account. I guess you could say I am retweeting the paper tweets from parents.
Sunday, 10 November 2013
Public Conferencing
Finding the right words to describe the great things that students do in their writing is a goal of mine. I have been following Regie Routman's advice, not only from her multiple books but from the time she spent in my classroom, coaching me last year. This year, as a whole staff, we have been sharing ideas about the various ways teachers confer with students about writing. There are many ways to do this and all are valuable. However, I really want to get better at conferring within a large group.
I try to celebrate the writing from all of my students. It does take a lot of time and there is no way I can get through all of them in one day. What I have learned is, it is best to first select a couple of students who are quite strong writers. These students read their piece first. Then it is my turn to read through the entire piece. Afterwards, I will go line by line and share with the class the writers' strengths. Starting these types of conferences with stronger writers also raises the bar for other students. They end up getting ideas to try out in their own writing. Usually, I give a suggestion about what they might add or remove to push their thinking further. That can also be a difficult task. For the most part, suggestions have been made regarding word choice or adding or deleting sentences to help the overall meaning of their piece. I am starting to get better at helping a student notice that the order of their sentences can make a difference to the flow and rhythm of their piece. To be honest, students watching the conference will often add their thoughts too - which is always very helpful. I like this open conversation because we are beginning to share ideas like a true writing community. Public conferences or whole class shares model the conversations that I want my students to do on their own with peers. It just takes time and practice.
Modelling techniques for revising and editing is also very time consuming, but it pays off in the end. I've been having students share how they made revisions using the document camera. They have also been using the document camera to edit their writing based on the criteria we set as a class. I find this really helps them to be more successful and purposeful when they work on editing independently or with a partner.
I try to celebrate the writing from all of my students. It does take a lot of time and there is no way I can get through all of them in one day. What I have learned is, it is best to first select a couple of students who are quite strong writers. These students read their piece first. Then it is my turn to read through the entire piece. Afterwards, I will go line by line and share with the class the writers' strengths. Starting these types of conferences with stronger writers also raises the bar for other students. They end up getting ideas to try out in their own writing. Usually, I give a suggestion about what they might add or remove to push their thinking further. That can also be a difficult task. For the most part, suggestions have been made regarding word choice or adding or deleting sentences to help the overall meaning of their piece. I am starting to get better at helping a student notice that the order of their sentences can make a difference to the flow and rhythm of their piece. To be honest, students watching the conference will often add their thoughts too - which is always very helpful. I like this open conversation because we are beginning to share ideas like a true writing community. Public conferences or whole class shares model the conversations that I want my students to do on their own with peers. It just takes time and practice.
Modelling techniques for revising and editing is also very time consuming, but it pays off in the end. I've been having students share how they made revisions using the document camera. They have also been using the document camera to edit their writing based on the criteria we set as a class. I find this really helps them to be more successful and purposeful when they work on editing independently or with a partner.
Friday, 18 October 2013
Reading is Thinking: Inferring
Recently, we have been talking about inferring. We feel that inferring is "reading between the lines". To infer, you use what you know (previous life experiences) with the text or illustration. Inferring is a critical thinking skill allowing students to dig more deeply into the various texts they choose to read. I love teaching this strategy so that students can have more meaningful conversations in their book clubs later on in the year.
We started with a book called Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen. The illustrations in the story are rich with facial expressions and body language. I posted some of them in the classroom and students made their thinking public using post-its.
Next, students worked in small groups looking at various comics. In each comic, a portion of it was covered. Students had to use what they knew about the characters, they used their own experiences and observed the body language and facial expressions within the comic to make an inference. They definitely loved this activity!
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
Wild About Literacy
“Wild
About Books” by Judy Sierra is the perfect book to share with students at the
beginning of the year. The rhyming text is loads of fun and students at the
Grade 4/5 level can appreciate Sierra’s clever writing style. One of her lines
reads, “She even found waterproof books for the otter, who never went swimming
without Harry Potter.” I love the overall message of the book – everyone can be
readers and writers. It also shows students that reading and writing go hand in
hand. In the book, as soon as the animals start reading, they also begin
writing their own stories.
Students use two special books in
my classroom that revolve around reading and writing. One is a BLB – a “Book
Lover’s Book”. This holds onto all of the thinking students have about all
sorts of books. Below is a guided entry we created as a class following a
discussion of real reading. There is so much thinking that occurs when we read.
This visual is the perfect reminder for students.
Students
also keep a Writer’s Notebook to collect and document all of their writing. One
of the first entries that I get students to complete independently is a
collection of thoughts around the theme – “What’s True for Me About Writing”. I
found it particularly interesting that one of my Grade Five students (who I had
in Grade 4 last year) mentioned Regie Routman as a source for his ideas for
writing!
Thursday, 2 May 2013
A Digital Text on Citizenship
Here is our digital text surrounding our Citizenship Inquiry. We hope you enjoy!
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We have been discussing how important it is to be a responsible user of technology - especially when online. I decided to show a video crea...
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We have been working very hard this week getting back into the swing of things. I decided to read the story, Finding the Green Stone by Al... -
We continue to discuss and analyze a variety of texts as a whole class, in small groups and individually. I want students to read a text us... -
Studying the work of various authors is an important component to my writing program. As a young girl, I loved reading these little boo... -
To begin our inquiry, we read a wide variety of books (picture books, chapter books and non-fiction) to get us thinking and to allow thoug... -
Recently, I found a wonderful idea via Twitter! Someone posted a photo of parents filling out a paper tweet to show support for their child... -
Explain Everything is the perfect tool to capture students' thinking. I wanted students to assess their dream writing by taking photog... -
I can’t believe it! In two days, Regie Routman will be in my classroom for a weeklong residency at Strathmillan School! I am so... -
The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics is now over, however, our inquiry, "Going for Gold", continues! We have been reading many books an... -
How can I create a caring, nurturing environment for all of my students while meeting their individual needs? Through art and writing of c...
