Lego Transformation and ClassFlow

Part I
My kids came to school last Friday to find that it was a surprise classroom transformation.  If you don't know what that means, you need to follow Hope King and Kim Bearden from The Ron Clark Academy.  They are EVERYTHING!!!
My kids walked in to see me looking like this....

The room was decorated in Lego colors and in a way that would help transport my cute little mini-figs into the land of Lego!

There were lots of ewwwws and ahhhhs.  I heard the phrases "This was is the best day ever!" and "I love this!" a lot.  It made my day.  I had a lot planned and a big need for serious rules.
When you go about a day like this, especially for young students, you have to be really tough.  I promise, the kids will still go home and say they had the best day...but you have to be very strict or you WILL lose control of the room and it will be a free for all with no learning.  Start off (just like the beginning of the year) super tough and loosen the reins as they perform better and better through the day.
I began by reminding the kids of my expectation, "If you can't handle the fun, you won't get to do the fun."
I give super boring packets to those who get too loud at inappropriate times, who lose control of their bodies, who talk while the speaker is talking, or who ignore my directions.  It usually only takes once for my students to figure out that I mean business.
I always have a new cheer/chant to go with the day.  A call and response that connects with what we are doing.  I do that for the holidays too, why fight what they are excited about...use it to your advantage.
For this Lego Day, I said "Mini-Figs" and they responded with motions of robot arms 3xs and then stopped and stared at me.  Normally I have them say something, but this one was cracking us up...so we went with it.  I use ClassDojo for behavior management, but I added another level this day.  For the "house" or team that earned the most points by the end of the day, they would win a Lego themed notepad.  They were hyped and they worked hard for it!  I got a pack of 24 on Amazon for $7.  Although I have 26 (27 as of this Monday), so got 2 packs.  Turned out they tied!  And not because I gave all groups the same pts because I didn't want a group to feel sad....I am ok with that.  It's how people learn to work harder... but they really tied.

For each house, dependent on the amount of points earned the people in the group would earn "bricks" of Legos to create with at the end of the day.  So, if a house had 5 pts by the end of the day, all the members of the group would get to pick 5 Legos and then the group would create something as a team using all the pieces chosen.

We also had brand new STEM materials that I had ordered that we were going to use at the end of the day if all houses hit a certain number.

 During the day, we were working on hard concepts in math and this fun day allowed them to persevere during the hard lessons.  We discussed topics such as how to create an equation out of word problems, how to create a subtraction equation by looking at a picture, matching a story or word problem to an equation, and comparing double digit numbers.  In reading, we worked on understanding setting and how it may change in a story, vowel team ea and long e, and numerical lists (text feature) in a story.
I used ClassFlow as the delivery system for our math lessons...see below for info about ClassFlow.
After one of the hard lessons, I had embedded the Lego movie song, "Everything is Awesome" for us to dance to for a brain break and a reward for the hard work.

Part II:
Have you ever used ClassFlow?

It's a web based program that has a lot of flexibility in presenting to students or adults.  It is like a really awesome version of Powerpoint but WAY better.  It allows you to "shoot out" slides you have created to students, they can annotate on it and then "shoot it" back to you.  You can take immediate polls.  You can insert music, Youtube clips, etc.  I really like it but find I don't use it very often because I teach 1st and we have 1 iPad in the room for 26 kids.  I do use it whole group, but to really use it to the full potential, the kids need a gadget in their hands or per small group.  To use it the way I want to, I have to bring the whole iPad cart that belongs to the school into my room.  I am working on simplifying that process by getting more tablets in the classroom through a Donor's Choose project.  That would allow me to have a few more tablets to use in small groups with ClassFlow and several other programs we use in the class.

Well, last week a ClassFlow Ambassador randomly contacted me!  She emailed me (on my school email) mentioning that she "noticed I use ClassFlow" and offered to meet me to support any needs I might have.  She was super flexible with her timing, as I didn't want to take off work.  She let me meet her later in the day after work hours.

When we met up we discussed some ways I could use the program in the class that I hadn't thought about.  I will be trying several of the "learning activities" such as flash card and categorize soon.  Looks easy and fun!

Have a great weekend!

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.

Teacher Presentation about Ron Clark Academy

It's been awhile!  I am happy to take a few minutes today and catch up!

In early August, school started back up for me.  I put on a professional development for our school staff about what I learned from the Ron Clark Academy.  I tried to make it fun and exciting.  Most staff had a good time and several changes have already been put into place.

In my other post about how I decided upon these ideas is HERE.

I was pleased with how the presentation turned out.  It was fun and joyful and full of me being crazy and the staff getting to get up and move about.
Here is how it went and what will also be my 5 for the linky.

1.
I began with live music.  Four teens came to sing a capella for our staff as we began our day.  The picture only shows three as those where the kids I had permission to post.  The awesome PTA brought breakfast burritos for us all.  The information began with me on the tables....of course!  Mid-day I had cookies that I was able to get specially made by a friend in the area.  I wanted to have cookies just like RCA!  These were baseball themed as we are doing a baseball theme this school year.

2.
I wanted to show the staff of our school that I support them.  So, I took the idea of RCA's black and white photo wall with quotes and did it at our school.  We have a great staff and I wanted to showcase their awesomeness!  I was able to take their pics without them knowing what I was doing...and I got their quotes by using it as an exit slip for one of the breaks during my presentation.  They had no idea this wall was coming!  I set it up with the help of my principal and office staff, the night before the first day of school.  It was great!

I introduced the idea of houses and went on about it for a bit...but I heard a lot of crickets for that one.  Sigh.  I am doing it this year in my room but it definitely is not the same as doing it with the whole school.  

3.

The staff played Jenga, adult sized Hungry Hippos, and Headbandz to answer questions and think of ideas for the coming year about how to get to know your students and how to think bigger about class instruction.

4.

Our office staff and principal made these cute baskets for each person and put them out as a surprise at the end of the day.  So sweet!  I ended the PD with a video from Kim Bearden that she had made for a different conference/professional development but it fit my needs perfectly.  What an amazing person!  I could listen to Kim Bearden read the phonebook and still be in awe of her fabulosity!!!     

5.

The idea of balance was last on the presentation list.  I let them know that I am working on balancing my life this year.  I work way too many hours for someone who has a family to raise.  They should come first...and often they don't.  I have 2 daughters and a wonderful and supportive husband and they need me too!  So, I proposed a program that allowed people to track/log pts toward various parts of their lives.  There are 3 sections: family, self care, and education (which could be professional development related or just trying new and exciting things in the class).  Various activities have various point values.  Room transformations count for 10 pts, drinking 64 oz a day of water count for 1 pt per day, surprising your family with a fun adventure 10 pts, etc.  The points gathered lead to raffle tickets and the raffle tickets lead to prizes.  

I had planned to go to businesses to request help with prizes to show support to our staff.  BUT magically a wonderful lady from Farmer's Insurance asked my principal if she could donate to our school each month!!!!  It was one of those divine moments. My principal organized it with the awesome Farmer's lady.  We get several Visa gift cards per month to use in the raffle.  We raffle off any other goodies that I might have collected along the way as well.  It's really helping me get better at what I need to improve.  I leave school at much more reasonable times and actively think about self care and family more often.  It's been really good for me.  I am less stressed this year than I have been for awhile but I am doing room transformations just as often and still working hard to be a wild and crazy teacher that makes kids want to come to school.  Is everything perfect... no.  Not at all, but I am working on the most bang for my buck areas and letting the little things go.  Not an easy thing for me but I am getting there.    

Hope everyone is have a great start to your year!!!

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.