DonorsChoose.org

 

I LOVE DonorsChoose, Starbucks, my grandma, and Jennifer from California!  With their support, my project was fulfilled tonight and I am so excited.  My class is getting some goodies from Lakeshore for math and literacy centers and I know we will use these materials for years.  My sweet grandma (and number one volunteer) started it all and Starbucks finished it.  I am so thankful and can't wait to get coffee tomorrow!

 Magnetic Letters

 

 Clear Alphabet Stamps

Pocket Chart Stand

Creating Sight-Word Sentences Center

Class Set of Dry-Erase Markers  

We are so lucky! I've been so busy putting together my new classroom and will post pictures soon :)

How cool is this?!

Here is a tagxedo created using the text from this blog...so cool!  I LOVE that "writing" was such a big word (which means it's used most often).  I can't wait to use this and the other gems I've picked up from the UCI Writing Project.  BEST way to spend the summer!

Look to the right for more great ideas from UCIWP

UCI Writing Project

Over the next four weeks I am lucky enough to be participating as a Fellow in the UCI Writing Project Summer Institute.  Other than being a mouthful, the project is an opportunity for teachers K-12 to come together, share ideas, share stories, develop as writers and readers, collaborate, present lessons, and become incredibly close in a short amount of time.  So far it is only day two and I already know many of the 20 Fellows well.  I have also picked up a ton of great ideas and strategies that I would love to share.  I will use this space to document my journey through the experience and share the wealth of expertise I am fortunate enough to witness and actively participate in with this amazing group of passionate professionals.

Click on the different topics on the sidebar to see all the gems I've picked up :)

Book Retriever

I just found a cool new app that I cannot wait to use in my classroom!  This app is exactly what I've been looking for.  The app is a simple way to not only organize and catalog your classroom library, but keep track of your books.  Last year was my first year with AR and my classroom library grew a TON.  My kids loved reading books in every spare moment in class, but also begged me to take them home to read again and share with their families.  How can I say no to that?  In the beginning, I tried desperately to keep track of every book coming in and out of the classroom, but it became overwhelming and too time consuming.  By the middle of the year, I just stopped keeping track and was lucky that I had great kids with great families and got back nearly every single book.  Next year I plan on being much more organized and I think this app will do the trick!  It is made for iPhones but works just fine on my iPad.  Once I created an account, all I had to do was scan the barcodes of my books to add them to my library.  Some are already in the system and the rest just needed a title and author.  I could also type in the AR level which was great.  Once I get a class list, I'll add each of my students and can check-in/out my books by simply scanning them!  It's like I have a real library!  I may even make library cards for my kiddos :)  99 cents well worth it!

Super Snake Mini-Unit

It's the last week of school and we are wrapping up all those loose ends.  I am so excited that this summer I will be participating as a Fellow in the UCI writing project.  I've already gone to one meeting (orientation) and left spinning with inspiration and ideas.  As a part of the project, each teacher presents a lesson to the other Fellows.  My area of specialty in the classroom is technology (or so I like to think), so I took this week and last to run through my lesson and collect work samples to present this summer.  It was the perfect time to do a lesson because everything I've been throwing at my kids all year is finally coming together.  This lesson was so much fun and I know my kids loved it too.

First, we had to access our prior knowledge.  I gave each student a half sheet of paper.  I asked them to write/draw anything they knew about snakes.  Most kids drew pictures, some wrote words, and one even drew a bubble map!  The creative juices were flowing so much, I had to reset the timer several times to extend their writing/drawing time.  I expected 5 minutes, but we spent more like 15-20!

After the drawings, we came together on the carpet and used a circle map as 2/3 of a KWL (on the SMART board of course).  I used a different color for before and after.

We also wrote any questions we had as we went.  (They came up with some good ones!)

Next, we went to tag galaxy (very cool website that complies pictures based on tags and creates a 3D moving universe to see them!), watched a video I found, and looked at a PowerPoint presentation another Kinder teacher made.  After each exposure, we pair/shared about what we learned and added to our circle map.  We also revisited the questions we wrote to answer any we could.

 

Then we filled out our a tree map together, while the students wrote on their own.  Theirs had less lines in each column, which I asked them to fill with their favorite facts.

The next day we reviewed the circle map, questions, and tree map.  We looked at the unanswered questions and talked about how we could find the answers.  We decided to use Google (which we have some experience with already).  Once we found the answers, we added information to our maps and were ready to write.

We used a simple formula along with the tree map to create sentences together.  I modeled the first two, then asked for volunteers to write more.  After a few, I sent the kiddos to their seats with a blank sheet of paper.  I told them they could use any kind of thinking map that wanted to, to organize their favorite facts about snakes.  Once they had some ideas down, they could get a lined paper and start writing.

The next step was publishing online.  Students who finished their work (quality work including an illustration), they could go online and create a voki that would narrate their sentences.  They LOVED it.  I later posted the voki avatars on our class website.

(Press Play)

The final step was a quiz with 10 questions about snakes.  The questions were based on vocabulary that we learned throughout the unit.  We used responders to take the quiz (another fun gadget they love) and everyone did very well.  With the instant feedback I get from the program, I was able to address any vocabulary that needed review.

So many things for just a few days!  I love coming up with a lesson from a last minute inspiration, throwing together a bunch of new ideas, and seeing instant results! 

Jellyfish-ing

Lately I've been having quite the love affair with thinking maps and this time of year is perfect for us to use them to really push our writing to the next step and use all the skills we've learned this year.  Our theme right now is "A World of Animals," which my team and I have split up into sea animals, jungle animals, and desert animals.  Last week was sea animals.  We watched tons of videos from United Streaming and YouTube, and filled out thinking maps galore.  Then, we used the maps to write on our very own jellyfish...just in time for Open House, of course!

We started with a KWL and then watched videos.  After watching the videos, we labeled the parts of a jellyfish.

Then, we filled out a brace thinking map to remember what we learned.

During centers, students made their own maps to use for writing.

Finally we made jellyfish and published our writing.

Centers!

So the last few weeks have been super busy (as if that ever changes) and also really fun.  I love this time of year because they are so independent and we get to do so much with all the foundational skills they have learned.  We can write meaningful stories and sentences every day, look at math and numbers in different ways, and discover new books independently!  I LOVE it and am sad when I realize this bliss will only last so long...

One of my big goals for myself and my class this month was to begin to implement centers.  Next year, our school will most likely go from early bird/late bird to AM/PM.  This means our small group rotations will need a massive overhaul because instead of having up to 19 students for groups, we will have 33.  Ouch!  To mentally prepare ourselves, my team has decided to try centers now, when we know our students well and can ease into it with half as many kids.  I was the pioneer, and am having a blast.  Figuring out the "human sudoku" (as I call it) to organize the groups and timing was definitely the most difficult part.  Now that I have that down, the fun begins with creating centers.  My goal was to create centers that have no true end, that my students could work on for a week or more, and that challenges everyone.  It was/is an intimidating endeavor but the results so far have been amazing!  My kids are grouped heterogeneously so they work together to complete many of the centers.  This may be my favorite part because they are doing such an incredible job helping each other... not sharing answers or being bossy...they are true mentors for each other now!  Not to mention the fact that at the end of the day, I find myself prepping less and teaching less.  I know that sounds terrible, but really, it's true.  I don't have to teach as much...drive it in so to speak.  I explain things once, and they go off and support each other.  They want to succeed independently and as a group, and they are all contributing.  This leaves me with so much more time to walk around monitoring, supporting, challenging, and pulling kids for reinforcement.  What more can I ask for?

Here are some centers I've done so far.

This is a math center that has 26 bees and a recording sheet.  Each bee has a lowercase letter on the corner.  The bees have circles to count, equations to add and subtract, missing numbers, and tally marks.  The students use the recording sheet to show the answer to each bee.  The recording sheet has all the capital letters with squares next to them.  Students find the corresponding capital for their bee and write the answer in the square.  They love the flexibility of it and that they can choose the order of problems to solve.  Of course the bees go with our spring theme.  I also created the same center but instead of math problems, there are pictures with elkonin boxes and missing letters for them to record.

Here is one that focuses on writing.  Some big struggles I have with my ELLs in writing are syntax and prepositions.  This center is so easy to prep and lasts for days.  I write sentences on sentence strips (color coded) and cut them up.  I model putting them together on Monday, talking my way through the search for a capital to start, reading as I go to make sure it makes sense, and finding a period to finish it all off.  During centers, students work in their heterogeneous groups to put the sentences together and when completed, they write them on whiteboards.  I also strategically placed this pocket chart next to a teacher table, so support can be given as necessary.

This center is another math activity.  The students have a recording sheet that has addition on one side and subtraction on the other.  The kids roll a die to fill in the equations and then solve.  The addition side has two blanks for two rolls, and the subtraction side just has the second number to roll.  The first number is written for them (to prevent negative answers).  There is plenty of space above for them to draw pictures as they wish.  (Don't worry, I had her correct her wrong answer!)

Here is a center with a book and follow-up activity.  This is a listening center (book on tape with headphones and multiple copies).  The book talks about the life-cycle of a butterfly and has a fun song.  After students listen, they have a pop-up book that shows the life-cycle that they can color and assemble.  Later in the week they will also write about their favorite part or something that they found interesting.

The ideas keep coming and I've been discovering more and more all over the internet.  If you have any gems, please share :)