I’ve been experimenting with Smilebox tonight. I wanted to make a slide show with the Wordles the kids made from their “I Am” poems. I’m always looking for new ways to publish my students’ work. There are still some glitches…like the song is too long. Here’s my first attempt…let me know what you think.
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| Make a Smilebox slideshow |
I love giving and getting books! One of the first things I bought when I found out I was pregnant for my first daughter (who is now 21) was Jim Trelese’s Read Aloud Handbook, Pat the Bunny, and Goodnight Moon. So, as you can imagine, I love shopping for books for Christmas presents. Here’s what I’ve chosen…
For my husband…
Cincinnatus: The Secret Plot to Save America by Rusty McClure and Dave Stern. My husband used to work for Rusty, so I think it will be fun for him to read. Next on the list for him is I Alex Cross. He’s a James Patterson fan. We both read and enjoyed Three Cups of Tea, so I knew he would like Greg Mortensen’s Stones into Schools. His last book is How to Photograph Cars. He had put it into my cart on Amazon thinking I wouldn’t notice. 
Well, I did notice, and I knew it was something he would enjoy that I wouldn’t have been able to find myself. He’s a professional photographer who specializes in seniors and families and wants to begin focusing on photographing seniors and their cars. I hope this book will give him some ideas.
Next, my 21 year old daughter is a little harder to shop for. Gone are the days when she would read whatever I bought her. We read a lot of books together in our mother-daughter book club that ran for 6 years and in that time, she discovered that she liked fantasy. Fantasy has never been one of my favorite genres, so Molly gives me ideas of books she’d like to have and then I buy them for her. This year, she asked for Acacia: The War with Mein. It received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. I went ahead and 
bought her the second book in the series, The Other Lands so she’ll have at least one surprise.
My 16, almost 17 year old son, likes nonfiction and adventure books. I always say that he’d be fun to take to a cocktail party because he knows a lot of trivia due to all of his reading. My husband bought him a book about Tim Burton when they visited the MoMa while I was at NCTE. I also bought him Compound by S. A. Bodeen. Sally Oddi from Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore told me about this debut novel back in June. I always enjoy reading author’s first novels. They are often the best! Another starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, it is described as a post-apocalyptic thriller by Boolist. I know I’m taking a chance, but I think he’ll like it.
My youngest who is 14, is receiving Liar by Justine Larbalestier. Again, I heard Sally Oddi talk about this book at one of her November booktalks. The protagonist in this thriller is a compulsive liar who becomes a suspect in her boyfriend’s murder. After reading Donalyn Miller’s blog, I also bought 13 Reasons Why. I think she’ll like it.
So, I’d like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and I hope Santa brings you some books that you will love!
I love when our teacher writing group meets! Teachers from all grade levels (and even other schools) come together to write, share, think, collaborate, and have fun. We’ve been focusing on writing about our classrooms, so the writing prompt continued along that theme. I shared Jim Burke’s post about his belief on how all children can learn. This is one of my core beliefs; one that is a non-negotiable. Next, I shared this short clip called The Heart of a Teacher, a poem written by Paula Fox. Be sure to check it out. It’s very inspirational and a great way to rejuvenate yourself during this hectic time. (I found this on Two Writing Teachers).
So the prompt…What do you believe no matter what? What are the non-negotiables? Write about these beliefs in your personal or professional lives.
We always do a read around after we write. Here are just a few snippets that I jotted down as people read aloud.
…keep learning, no matter your age.
…all children feel and feel deeply.
…every child is a growing, loving, living being.
…each face you meet is a box overflowing with gifts.
…I believe in God.
The read around gives us the opportunity to share our writing as well as listen to what others have written. As we all know, sometimes reading our work aloud is difficult. It comes from our hearts and it’s very personal. Dr. Bloome then asked us to circle something we really liked in our writing. It could be something sentimental, you liked the words, etc. Then we shared with someone sitting close by. This is another way to share our work. It’s a little less intimidating to read our work in a small group and may be easier for students who don’t feel comfortable sharing with the whole group.
Dr. Bloome then summed it up perfectly…No matter how badly a child (or adult for that matter) writes, there is always some gem. Having them find that gem gives kids ways to evolve as writers. It is so important to pick out the brilliance.
I love that last statement. It is so important to pick out the brilliance. We all know what it is like to sit down with a paper that is full of misspelled words, run-on sentences, little organization, etc. (it doesn’t matter how old the writer is) and feel overwhelmed with what is wrong with the piece. But if our goal is to help writers grow, we need to look at what is right with the piece, find that bit of brilliance, and use it as a foundation to build our students up. Here’s to building strong, resilient, writers, one gem at a time!
Someone for whom I have a lot of respect once said that good teaching is messy. Today was a perfect example! We are in the middle of our nonfiction study. Our classroom literally buzzes with excitement over all the newfound knowledge. I believe a huge part of that is the fact that the kids get to ask the questions. I am not asking them to answer my questions. They each have “I Wonder” envelopes for their questions and a Discovery Journal where they can write about their learning. So, the questions they are asking are those that are important to them. I’ve learned more than I ever thought I could about snakes, snow monkeys, different set ups for the table of contents, and thunderstorms to name a few.
We’ve learned about most of the different nonfiction conventions and how they help us as readers. Wouldn’t you know that as soon as I told the kids that it’s really hard to find cutaways and comparisons, they began finding them left and right! They even found several examples for the teacher next door who was having a hard time finding them for her own classroom. I’m sure you can imagine how important my kids felt as they took a stack of books with pink and purple sticky notes peeking out over to her class.
So far, our genre study has been pretty predictable. For the last week and a half, I have shown an example of a nonfiction convention each day, we talked about how it helped us as readers and we completed our chart. Then the kids had time to look through our books, ask questions, and find examples of the nonfiction conventions. The kids are internalizing their learning and a few have even started writing their own informational books on their own. At the end of last week, I started modeling how we look for answers to our questions and how we can record our new learning. I decided that today was the day to let them try to find answers with a little less support from me.
I grouped a few students together and let others work independently. It was a little chaotic, but for the most part, the kids were on task. As I worked with kids and looked at their work, I found several mini-lessons that I need to teach (OK, I found a lot…that was the messy part).
Here are the mini-lessons that will help my young writers:
We can get information from the pictures in the book. We don’t always have to rely on the text.
We always put our learning into our own words. We don’t copy the author’s words.
We want to make sure that the answer we write actually answers the question we asked.
We can find information on the Internet.
Sometimes we have to look in several sources to find our answers.
Sometimes our learning leads to new questions.
At this point, I have to let go of what it says to do “in the books.” In order to best meet my students’ needs, I will look at my students’ work and see opportunities for growth (as opposed to thinking about what they can’t do). I can see where they need to go next and it reminds me that sometimes I have to step off my planned path to lead them on the path they need most.
I got another wonderful idea from our tech techer (thank you Kathy!). She began a blog with second graders at another elementary school to work on map skills. You can see it at www.hollytheelf.blogspot.com. Since we study different cultures in first grade, I decided to adapt the idea to fit our needs. We are the Avery Alligators, hence the name of the author of the blog (Avery Explorer). We are currently studying Mexico…the geography, people, arts, food, housing, customs and traditions. We will continue our studies focusing on Peru, Italy, Guatemala, Japan, Taiwan, Senegal, and Russia. We took a poll to see where members of our families were born and all of these countries were mentioned. I think it will be one more way to engage my students in our studies and make their research and writing more authentic. Check it out at www.learningaroundtheworld.wordpress.com.
This is such a crazy, yet fun time of the year. One of the reasons I love first graders is that my own children are way past the Santa phase and it’s very fun to hang out with kids who still have that awe and wonderment about the holidays. I have been wracking my brain to think of something meaningful for my students to make for their parents to give as presents. I have so many precious ornaments that my own children made in school hanging on our tree. Each ornament brings a special memory. I wanted to give my students’ parents that same gift. However, this year, I have one student who does not celebrate Christmas, so the ornament idea was nixed (plus I wanted to be more original).
My idea was to use I Am America by Charles Smith Jr. as a mentor text for the kids to create their own I Am poems. I was going to type their poems, add their photograph and create something that could be displayed year-round. Well, you know what happens when great minds start working together. Your original good idea instantly becomes a much better idea that you never imagined.
I was explaining this project to our tech teacher and saying that I’d also like to podcast their poems against a backdrop of their self-portraits. She suggested we use Wordle as part of the project. I had heard of Wordle a while back, but it never occured to me to use it as part of this project. Wordle creates a word cloud for the text you type in. The words that are use more often show up more prominently in the cloud. You can then tweak the fonts and colors and layouts. It’s addictive once you get started.
So here’s our plan: The kids will still write their own I AM poems Monday and Tuesday. Then on Tuesday afternoon, we are going to bring the laptops down to my classroom and each child will type his or her poem into Wordle. (You can see an example of mine at the beginning of this post.) Then the adults will take a screen shot (that’s what I’ve been learning to do this morning when I couldn’t sleep) of the Wordle, put it into Pixie and save it. I haven’t decided if I will have the kids take their pictures with the computer camera and just add it to Pixie or if I will take their pictures individually and print them. Either way, the Wordle and picture will get printed and I’ll mat the whole thing. I’ll post some examples next week.
I’m also excited to give the kids their presents. I remembered reading katied’s post last year about these sketch and tell journals. As much as my kids like to write, I knew that this was the gift for them! I ordered them online from Dick Blick for $1.59 each. I’ll also get some special pencils and if I make it to Scholastic’s warehouse sale this week, I’ll add a book. (I’m having a hard time not giving the kids a book, so I guess they’ll get both!)
Please share any of your great ideas for gifts for parents or students in the comments section. I think it’s so neat when we can all share our ideas and learn from each other.
I just read Jim Burke’s blog which made me think (as it usually does). I remember being asked the very same question (essentially…Do you believe that every child can learn?) when I was doing some curriculum work on our new Literacy Course of Study. I assumed everyone would unequivocally respond with, “Yes!” I was wrong. The K-12 group of teachers had quite a discussion, which shocked me! There was cynicism, especially from secondary teachers who deal with apathetic students who don’t want to be in class. There were many comments about students who don’t take responsibility for their learning, students who are more concerned with their social lives than what was happening at school, etc. I must admit, I have rarely had students who did not want to be at school, so it was hard to relate. Is that part of teaching in an elementary school? Or does it have more to do with the attitude of the teacher who is standing in front of the classroom? Maybe it’s a little of both.
I find it hard to believe that all of the blame lies with the students. I believe with all my heart that we teachers have the huge responsibility to believe in our students and their ability to learn anything we teach them. Of course, that means we are being reflective in our practice, differentiating our instruction in order to meet students’ needs, staying up to date in our own learning and providing the opportunities our students need in order to be successful. I think this mindset is imperative and I think that I am a better teacher because I hold this basic tenet to be true.
I choose to believe in myself and my students. I choose to surround myself with other teachers who also believe that given the right opportunities, all students can learn. I choose to believe in my kids! Which do you choose?
