ClassDojo Student Stories

Hey everyone!

ClassDojo is doing some changing and I am pretty excited about it.

The Student Stories tab is a place where students may post pictures or write a little something to their parent.  Similar to an online portfolio for the student.  Well, I didn't use it a ton this past year because...I teach first grade and it was not the easiest for them to do independently.  So, it would end up taking about 3 minutes per kid.  When you have 27 kids....you just don't do it because how on Earth are you going to keep all the others busy for an hour and a half!?!  Now it will be so much easier.

Now, I will be able to show the steps to the kids as a whole group and then have them complete it independently.

Check out what is changing...

• Upgrades to Student Stories! 🙌

1. Post with any app: students (and teachers!) can post photos and videos to their Story from other apps directly, or by uploading from the camera roll. “App smashing” becomes a reality!
2. Any device: students can post from any device: iOS, Android, Chromebooks or web
3. Easy and secure access: no need to remember usernames or passwords - students can log in instantly by scanning their secure class QR code
4. Journal entries: the easiest way for students to reflect on their work, they can now create written journal entries
5. Draw and annotate on photos: students can add more context to entries with drawn or typed comments
6. Record and upload videos: students can record and share video up to eight minutes in length, or upload saved videos from other apps
7. Drawings: when words fall short, students can let their inner artist shine by creating a drawing all their own!
8. Filters, frames, and stickers: students can add a dash of fun to their posts, creating portfolios as unique as they are
9. Voice notes: students too young to type? All they have to do is speak into their device and add a voice note to their work

I am most excited about the voice notes. This will make it so much easier for my little ones to draft up a cute message to go with a picture of their work.

I am excited to get started. I am trying to think of a first day or first week Student Story that we could do....

Any ideas? Our grade is starting the year with a camping theme, so I thought maybe a picture of them in a tent and they could record a voice note like "I'm loving Camp Roadrunner," or something like that.

Thanks,

STEM Festival #3

It is June, which means school is out for me and I actually have time to blog!

I teach at a STEM Magnet school in New Mexico. 

We are lucky to have a beautiful space around us with lots of room to play, explore and just enjoy.  The forest environment has become a focus at our school.  We began the journey 3 years ago (my first year with this particular school) to become a STEM school.  We have been going along well, but the time has come to really change things.  Instead of being a school that enriches with STEM we are transforming to a school that truly integrates STEM.  The school year of 2017-18 we will have 3 required integration hours of STEM (starting small makes this a very reasonable goal).  I am very excited to get rolling with this and have lots of ideas I want to try out.  It will take a lot of work and reorganizing and changing of thought processes within the classroom but should be a cool journey.

How we work out initial ideas for the festival:

Every school has committees that teachers are supposed to join...because that is one of those unspoken teacher things.  I have been on the STEM committee for 3 years.  The committee works on organizing the festival.  Below I outline how our school goes about the day.  

How we begin the planning:

The festival planning begins long before the actual presentation day (about a month, sometimes more).  Each class is responsible for presenting something they learned during the year to other classes in an inviting and hands-on way.  Kids teaching kids.  It's so great to watch first grade take ownership of teaching 5th graders what they learned!  This year our class presented about defensible space.  That is the area around buildings that can be used to help reduce risk of forest fires spreading to homes/buildings.  They taught about the 3 zones of defensible space.  I made up a song that helped them remember all the spaces.  Click the picture below to find the song.  The kids originally learned about defensible space from a local community organization made up of forest service, fire personnel and scientists that had been working with our kinder and 1st grade kids.  We wanted to honor their teaching and pass it on to others.  

Once the classes at our school decide upon their topic, they begin figuring out how to present their ideas in an engaging way, preferably hands-on.  This year, my class decided to explain the zones by singing the song, displaying the information, and having the guests create their own defensible space with various materials.  The house pictured below was 3D printed.  The rest of the items were easily found in our classroom or in nature.

How we organize the day:

We were each given notice about what everyone was presenting and then could sign our classes up to visit our top 3 favorites, the rest were assigned.  There were 18 possible stations at our school during the festival.  So, no one gets to see all and as you see below each group would see 6 stations in total but they may differ from the other group's viewings.  I feel the hardest part of planning this festival is the schedule.  For us, it is important to assign each group where to go so there isn't overlap of classes and so no one has an empty spot where there isn't a group to listen to them.  

How we schedule it:

Our school starts at 8:45 and the STEM Festival began promptly at 9 a.m.  We get as many parent volunteers as possible and request help from EAs that might be available to walk classes around.  We explained the day to those able to help us travel with the kids but below is the time layout of how it rotated.  The "you" indicated below was the volunteer of the classroom.  The "I" was the teacher.  Each class is separated into thirds.  A third of the class presents to the class guests and two-thirds rotates to other presentations in other rooms.  

You will have group B and C.  I will have group A.

9-9:20                    1^st rotation

9:20-9:40              2^nd rotation

9:40-10:00           3^rd rotation

You will have group A and C.  I will have group B.

10:00-10:20         4^th rotation

10:20-10:40         5^th rotation

10:40-11:00         6^th rotation

You will have group A and B.  I will have group C.

11:00-11:20         7^th rotation

11:20-11:40         8^th rotation

11:40- 12:00        9^th rotation

There is a problem we have found with this schedule.  The teachers do not get to see the other classes present.  The teachers are in the classroom the whole time helping the presenters of their classroom. Each rotation is 18 minutes long and has a 2 minute passing period.  This made the timing snug but no one seemed to have a second to be bored and get into trouble!  Next year, we will try to figure out a different schedule that might allow for teachers to view some of the stations along with their class.  Why does it matter if teachers get to see some of the stations?  Inspiration and encouragement of others makes for a great staff environment! 

Above my students are singing to the audience... yes on a table! Taking after their teacher!!! Ha.

What do student audiences do:

Each student had a passport with 6 squares on the front.  Each station gave a sticker or stamp to the attendees.  Then on the back of the passport were questions about what they learned during the festival.  Once completed at the end of the event all the students turned their passports in to the office for a drawing.  We were able to get donations from Lakeshore of various STEM prizes.  We had 2 prizes per grade level and they were pretty cool.  I wanted several of the prizes!  :) 

What about lunch:

At the end of the event all students got sack lunches and ate on the field for a picnic, weather permitting.  It was followed by a whole school recess (about 330 kids) and then students went back to their classes and wrapped up their days.  The festival happens on a Wednesday, which is our early release day.  It took up most of that particular school day. 

Some of the stations other teachers presented included: pollination of flowers from bees, student inventions, bee body parts, recycled material instruments, local fish (NM Cutthroat trout), magnet experiments, etc. 

Last year, my students presented about critically endangered animals (they researched them and wrote reports about them).  They created a stop motion video about how to help endangered animals.  When students learn about a problem they tend to want to solve it.  I love that because it gets us started on activism and global/local citizenship.  The video we created last year can be found by clicking the picture below.

Next year, I am sure we will change and improve more.  Although, each year has felt successful because students learned a lot, gained skills in presenting to others, and improved their confidence.  

Have a great June!!!

New Year, New Possibilities To Engage Students

2017 is here and the possibilities are endless.  I love beginning a new year because I feel the joy of starting things over.  Fresh new possibilities are on their way to all of us.  We never know what that may look like until it happens.

I returned to school after holiday break on Wednesday, and I had a room transformation waiting for my students!  Apparently, a blizzard hit our classroom and we had a LOT of challenging work to get accomplished upon our return.  Before break, we had completed a math and reading unit but didn't have time to get the unit tests completed.  So, I knew we would have to review and ensure that all students had good understandings of what was needed before we took the tests.  To do this, I incorporated the theme of the blizzard and took the most difficult work and made it fun with games and challenges.

I greeted the kids in a penguin costume!  It's funny, I guess my kids are used to me being a dork because I got the biggest reactions from students who aren't in my class!  Ha!

I created a ClassFlow lesson and Kahoot quiz to use with our iPad cart that I was able to check out for the whole day.  We used the lessons to review the concepts I felt they needed practice with and the concepts that were the most difficult.

 I used a download with a pretty snowy video and music as background for our blizzard work times.

It wasn't a very involved class transformation but it did the trick and made our review fun instead of boring and tedious.

Hogwarts 5 for Friday

Hey everyone!  Click the link below to join in the fun of Five for Friday by Doodle Bugs Teaching.

 

I'm doing a bit of a flash back.  I never posted about our end of the year party back in May.
My class celebrated with our End of the Year STEM party.  It was themed Harry Potter/Hogwarts.
We had the following stations:
*Caramel sorting hat creation
*Gringott's Bank vault trolley engineering
*Potions class
*Diagon Alley math/buying of items

My last day was May 25th.  It's been a month of break so far, and now I have about 5 weeks left before we begin our PD.  I have a lot to do in the room.
I left my room a disaster!  I will start working on that fun stuff in awhile but for right now I am organizing a planner I won from Sheila Jane Teaching.  If you don't know who she is... check out iteachtvnetwork.com .  She is a Teach Happy guru!  Being a Teach Happy Member, I find I am thinking about things differently lately.  If you need to re-establish or find your happier teacher-self, check it out.

The last week of school in May, I did a special surprise Pirate Day!  I wanted to send them off with one last "hurrah" of a theme.  It was so much fun!

I am working on the Professional Development presentation that I will do for the staff at my school, in regards to Ron Clark Academy.  There is so much information to organize.  So much that is hard to express in words.  I will have it completed by the end of July, as that is when I will share it with my principal.  Wish me luck in finding the right words and ways to make the impact that I feel is so necessary for the information I learned.

Anyone know about Meow Wolf?  It is the craziest "museum" place ever.  I don't know how to explain it, so go look at pictures {HERE} to get an idea.  Our family loved it!!!

Have a fabulous weekend!!!

Friday 5 and RCA Take Aways

I am joining in with Doodle Bugs Teaching to do a 5 for Friday!  Click below to join in, too!

I just got back on Monday from the Ron Clark Academy!  It was my first time to go there BUT I had been following Ron Clark's mission since 2000.  I also have been following Kim Bearden for several years as well.  I knew I loved the revolution those two amazing educators were creating but I never thought I would have the opportunity to go to their school.  Never even crossed my mind...until this year.  I decided I HAD to go.  I HAD to make it happen.  I presented a proposal to my PTA requesting funding and they funded everything!  I signed up to go to the National Educator's Conference and then I waited very impatiently for the day to finally arrive.  When it did, I felt as though I was dreaming.  A bloggy buddy of mine (not from the same school but from the same district) went with me.  Suzy of On The Go Teacher Mama was my roomy.

We barely stopped talking the entire time we were there.  So much information and so much inspiration.  How would we ever convey the information and experiences to our schools?!?!  See below for a preview of what I will bring up during the presentation I will give at the beginning of the school year.
Below is my interpretation of what I saw at RCA and how I will attempt to instill the ideas I learned, into my classroom.


Make It a Party But End It Fast!

Have fun, sing songs, dance on tables, cheer, and just be joyful as a class.  Have key phrases that begin a song/dance/cheer but then the second that song is over, the kids have to be seated and facing the teacher.  Back to complete focus and attention on the lesson.  BUT this allows the blood to pump, the antsy kids to wiggle, and the joy to rise.  It also means that if you do several cheers/chants/songs per lesson, the kids have to listen for those key phrases so they may participate on que.  I think it would have been extremely obvious if one of the kids did not join in on que with all the other students...and they would've been in trouble for sure! :)

Be Tough and Consistent!

Set rules and stick to it. At RCA, of course it is the Essential 55 but if you ask the kids about it they will say it's more like 255 rules.  If you set up rules for your room or school, they must be followed no matter who breaks them.  Even if it is a kid who never gets in trouble...if they break one of the rules, follow through with the discipline expectations.  Be extremely clear about the rules.  To the point that it almost seems silly.  We as adults, assume kids know what we mean by certain terms but they haven't learned it yet.  For example, the word respectful needs to be explained in detail with how it looks, what it feels like, the steps to create respectful behavior, etc.


Give REAL Points/Praise That Can't Be Taken Away!

At RCA, they have 4 houses that get points for various positive reasons.  You may do it differently in your class or school, but there should be some way to say "Great Job" to students.  I thought it interesting that they feel you should not take away points.  Then students will think, well, why did I work so hard to get those points if you can just take it away whenever.  See #4 for the part that helps with taking care of the negative behaviors.  I use ClassDojo and I will have to revisit the system to see if I might want to think more carefully about how it is used in my room.  The other part I like about house cups is that it gets students to start thinking about helping each other in "honor" of the team.  They work on lifting each other up.











Speaking of houses... Go Isibindi.


Have a Discipline Policy And Stick To It!

 At RCA, when the kids get in trouble (which I witnessed 2 times in the short amount of time I was observing classes) they all have the same policy.  First infraction, kids write their names on the board and that is their warning.  2nd problem they write a check mark and get silent lunch.  3rd time, another check and miss recess.  4th time, they have Saturday detention.
In Hope King's class she has a mirror for the kids to write on instead of the board.  It's hard to see but it is in the middle of the picture.  What I learned during this visit is that I am NOT as tough as I thought I was.  Holy guacamole, people.  I observed Hope King and Ron Clark teaching and they both did not play!  They were the toughest teachers I have ever seen.  I teach 1st, so my approach needs to be different BUT I could be tougher.  So, next year's class...look out.  Ha!


****Go The Extra Mile For Your Students; They Are Family!

The fact that all the students, faculty, and staff are family is truly highlighted in the immense amount of "family photos" that hang all over the walls.  It was such a lovely environment.  It felt like a vibrant, SUPER LOUD, organized, and happy home.

I always tell my students that we are a class-family.  We support and love each other.  I go the extra mile to help each student and make sure they know I am there for them.  Our class helps and cares for one another, but what I will do differently next year is represent that more in our environment.  I have to have student work on the wall all the time (as per district policy), but I have a plan to make it look more beautiful than the ol' bulletin board style stuff I have always done.  I have cute boards, but I want this to look more like a home environment.

I will work hard this summer to create a simple but class-family represented room.

I truly loved how Mr. Clark had his students reflect on the lessons and answers.  The kids helped each other learn by talking through mistakes and ways to get the correct answer.  I will definitely use those techniques and phrases used in his class to help my future lessons be more reflective.  

I thought this would be the only time I would be able to experience the Ron Clark Academy and went there with a mission to soak in everything.  BUT, while I was there, I made the decision I would go back.  I have to go back.  I have so much more to learn.  I felt as though I was in a place that was for me.  I felt at home.  I could never live in Atlanta.  I don't like cities or humidity, but I adore RCA.  I felt as though the teachers there connected with my soul.  They were so passionate about their school and students.  It touched my heart in a way that no other educator training has ever come close to doing.  

So, yes, I will be back!  

I will do another post about the many things I saw on this amazing adventure next Friday.

Happy weekend!

Spy Day- Room Transformation

We had a super fun Spy Day in 1st grade.  My co-workers joined in on the craziness that I suggested.  

One of my friends taught ELA with a spy twist.  The kids who needed support worked on sneaky e words and those who are independent worked on spy sentence scramblers by Tales and Teacherisms.  

My other teacher buddy taught math with a spy twist.  She used the powerpoint bundle from The Primary Techie, below to do some really fun math facts, spy exercises, and she thought of incorporating money work with the math facts.  They created spy/glow glasses during their work.  I got those on Amazon.  See below. 

 In my room the kids solved the mystery of who committed the crime of Making a Mess in my room!!!
They were great forensic scientists.  We also learned how to take and identify fingerprints.  I used my own creations...which I don't have on TpT.  Maybe this summer...maybe.  I am not good at doing that.  I'm really good at buying TpT stuff, ha!

I decorated the room with "lasers" made of white yarn, a black light, glow in the dark balloons with led lights in them, and black trash bag tablecloths.  

We also had glow sticks and finger lights.

All 3 of us had spy like clothes on.  I totally forgot a pic of that.  :(

I was inspired by Hope King's ideas.  I did not create this concept but I did "first grade-afy" it.  

I am super excited to go to RCA and maybe talk with Hope King... it is only 2 and a half weeks before I get there!!!  I can't wait!  I will blog like crazy about that adventure!

Have a great weekend.