STEM Training

Why is it when some people hear "STEM" they moan and groan or run away in fear?!?! Today, I attended the first day of a two-day STEM training held at my district office. I have to say that the training we had today was among the best I have ever experienced in my 10 years of teaching. First of all, it was almost all hands-on and conducted in the same manner one would expect teachers to use STEM with their students. It was also full of authentic, real-world reasons that it is crucial we integrate STEM in our schools. To make this training even more "21st Century Skills"-oriented, we collaborated via video teleconference with teachers in Korea and mainland Japan.

As an educator, sometimes I cringe at the thought of having to do group work during training. Today, my group was fabulous! Our first task was to build the tallest tower we could using only 15 sheets of printer paper. My group got to work quickly and created a tower that was 61 inches tall! Since we were given no time to really plan the first time, we did the activity again with time set aside for brainstorming ideas and planning, and we managed to get our tower to be an inch taller :) Below is a picture of the first tower:

  

Our other activities were awesome too! The second was creating a "pyramid" of plastic cups without using our hands. The only tool we had was 4 strings tied to a rubber band. That was an amazing lesson is communicating and using teamwork! Our first try, we were the first team to complete our pyramid. We had the opportunity to perfect our technique, but I think we were overthinking things, and it took us a bit longer. 

The final activity was creating a lunar landing module. We designed something great, but then we realized we were designing the module based on the Earth's properties, and not thinking about the moon. So, our awesome design with flaps designed to create wind-resistance would have done little to help our little module on the moon. It was a great way to show that sometimes, it is REALLY important to develop background knowledge before jumping in. 

I am so excited to go back tomorrow and learn more about the Engineering Design Process and all of the neat materials and activities we will get to use from Engineering is Elementary! I truly wish I could just teach every lesson the way we were learning today. I noticed integration of not only the STEM subjects, but several others as well!

February = Lots of Fun in First Grade!

Wow! I never realized how much fun I missed out on as a 4th grade and 7th grade teacher! Last week we celebrated our 100th day of school and Valentine's Day. This week, the students are excitedly researching U.S. Presidents in honor of President's Day. Next week, we kick off our celebration of Dr.  Suess with Literacy Night. All of these things seem to be much bigger deals to my little 6- and 7-year olds. While I would sneak in some fun with my older students, February meant that our Terra Nova testing was right around the corner, and I think that put a damper on some events. So, I am trying to enjoy every last minute of pure JOY that I get to see in my students' eyes on these wild and crazy days!

I don't have a camera in my classroom this year, and I keep forgetting to grab my phone or camera when we are doing awesome stuff. I promise we have had some educational and fun days :) For the 100th day, we enjoyed a healthy snack thanks to an idea from Pinterest. Students had a baby carrot (for the 1 in the hundreds place) and two slices of cucumber (for our 0 tens and 0 ones). I have never seen children so excited to eat veggies! They loved it! We also spent time building structures out of 100 plastic cups, decorating silly hats with 100 stamps, pictures, words, etc., writing about what we would do with $100, and making art out of the digits of 100 (another awesome Pinterest find).

On Valentine's Day, we tried to keep it mellow. I introduced some fun Valentine's Day math centers in the morning. My wonderful student teacher led a fun art and writing activity. Students created "pop art" hearts, and we used those as the covers of our Valentine's Day cards. Students practiced their letter writing skills inside the card. Then, we enjoyed some treats and passed out Valentines in the afternoon.

I am excited to see how anxious the students are to do research to learn about new things. The President research activity has been a favorite! I will share pictures of these once they are finished. I am sure I will have a lot of great stories to share over the coming weeks.

Math Museums

So, I am very new to Everyday Math, but one recommended 1st grade activity is creating various "math museums" to display objects related to the topic we are focusing on. A few weeks ago, I had my students bring in 5 items from home that showed numbers. We then classified their "number" objects into things we find/use at home, at school, and in the community. We also discussed the various ways numbers are used in our daily lives (money, measurement, addresses, phone numbers, street signs, etc.). It was a great way to make the math that we study each day relevant. For many days after we "opened" our museum, students were bringing in new examples or pointing out numbers in textbooks, the cafeteria, and all around the school. My next museum will be a "Patterns Museum" since we are focusing on patterns right now. I am excited to see what the students bring in to share!

Do any of you use Everyday Math? What are your favorite activities?



Here are some pictures of our "museum":

Moving on down....to 1st Grade

Well, I suppose I need to change the title of my blog because as of this past Thursday, I am now a 1st grade teacher! On August 2nd, my family arrived in Okinawa, Japan. Less than a week later, I got a few calls for interviews at Department of Defense schools (I taught in the same system in the US). I interviewed at two schools, both for 1st grade, and received job offers from both! I accepted a position at my children's school and it has been a whirlwind ever since.

I got to meet my wonderful students and their parents on Friday. It was so hard for me because my classroom was NOT at all ready, but the parents were so gracious and understanding. Our household goods did not arrive on the island until Thursday (2 months after they were packed and shipped from our home in NC), and I had given away quite a bit of my teaching gear because I was worried I wouldn't get a job and I would not have the room in our home to store it. Boy am I kicking myself now :) I did save a lot of books and other materials, so I will just have to deal with what I have for now. Fortunately, my school has great materials in the classroom ready to go.

aI spent today organizing my home and working on plans for the first week of school. We start on Monday! Tomorrow I will be heading in to finish up my classroom the best I can for the start of the year. I have a feeling it will be an ongoing process, but I am so excited! I am praying for quick shipping since we don't have teacher stores or anything here. EEK! I hope you will continue to visit my blog, as I will continue to share ideas and activities, but now they will focus a bit more on primary concepts!

I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL school year!!
-Colleen

Feeling Lost this Summer!

This is the first summer in quite some time that I haven't had any planning to do, and I am not sure that I like it! Since we are moving to Japan, I do not have a teaching job lined up. It doesn't sound very promising that I will get one anytime soon :( So, I have been browsing Pinterest and all of the teaching blogs to try to gather awesome ideas for all of the grade levels in case I have the opportunity to teach. What are some of your favorite blogs for "general" education ideas?

Summertime!!!

The end of the year festivities this year were bittersweet as I said goodbye to my students and my school. My family is moving to Okinawa, Japan this summer. I had to give away TONS of my teaching materials, and that was SOOOOOO rough! Fortunately, I know that my colleagues will get so much use out of them. I still have about 6 bins of things, so I won't be heading overseas empty-handed. I am not sure if I will be able to get a teaching job for next year, but who knows.

Here are pictures of the gifts I did for my students:

I just found some cute, FREE water bottle labels, threw in some smarties, drink mix, and a crazy straw. They all seemed excited!

I had my students do an activity I found on the blog "Confessions of a Teaching Junkie" called "Just One Word", then created word clouds using on Tagxedo.

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End of the Year

Wow, this school year has definitely flown by! My grade level has decided to do a "Minute to Win It" game day to celebrate the last days of school. I am so thankful for all of the wonderful teacher blogs out there who have shared information about how they did activities like this in their classrooms. We are also doing some heavy-duty review, especially in Math. I am sad to see how much my students have forgotten, even with regular review throughout the year :(

What are some of the end-of-year activities you do with your class??

Our Weather Instruments

 Thermometer

 Barometer

 Wind Vane 

 Anemometer 

Hygrometer

Classification Activity

At the beginning of our Living Organisms unit, we study Animal Classification. The students do very well with this unit (I have not met many 4th graders who don't love some sort of animals!!), but I like them to have a greater understanding of the process of classification. It also helps them to understand why some crazy creatures, like the platypus, are in certain groups even though they have characteristics of others. This year, we used a variety of beans and left it open to the students to determine how to classify each type of bean. The students had a blast, and it was great to hear them defending their classification groups!

Wild and Wacky Weather

I am currently finishing up plans for my science unit on weather. I always find that my students do really well with understanding the concepts of this unit, and I am sure it is because weather is all around us all the time! I am especially excited this year because I have seen such a huge spark of interest in meteorology since our assistant principal asked our class to monitor and record data from the rain gauge that is housed at our school. The students are in charge of checking the rain gauge every day. They then go online to record the data on the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) website. The students have LOVED looking at patterns of rain and comparing our rainfall to nearby (and far away) places. Without even realizing it, some have become mini-meteorologists making predictions about upcoming rain, analyzing and hypothesizing about why some areas didn't get as much rain as we did, etc.

For my unit, I will start out with review of the Water Cycle. My intern already spent some time on this, so I am planning to use a Smart Notebook activity I found on Smart Exchange as a review. Students will use their Science Notebooks throughout this unit, and I am working on some fun ways to incorporate notes/vocabulary and creative output ideas. We also have to study the three major types of clouds, so I usually have students make models of the clouds with cotton balls. It may seem a bit "young" for 4th graders, but it is a great way for them to really focus in on the characteristics of each of the clouds (cirrus, cumulus, and stratus). Any and all "art" activities are a hit with the majority of my class. We will also build our own weather instruments and hopefully use them to collect some data and make some predictions. To wrap things up, students will be researching hurricanes, tornadoes, or thunderstorms and creating a product to share their findings with the class. I am still not 100% certain what activities they will choose from, but I think they will do a detailed poster/infographic, a commercial, a brochure, or a web-based presentation (Prezi, PowerPoint).

I have the best intern in the world!!!

I feel so blessed to be working with someone who I think will probably be the BEST teacher in the world when she completes her education! My "teacher intern" has really motivated me. I think after 9 years of teaching, it is easy to get in a "rut" and to forget what good teaching is all about. However, introduce someone who has fresh and new ideas, and that "rut" is quickly a thing of the past. She is currently teaching my class full-time, but I am excited to get back into the swing of things in mid-April. I hope that I can continue the momentum she has created with my students. They are really LOVING to learn. I thought I was pretty good at motivating them to want to learn, but she has taken it to a whole new level.

The day she was observed for the first time, she set up 6 different astronomy-themed centers to help the students review our Astronomy Unit. The activities included "Moon Phases Twister", a crater creation center, an awesome Smartboard activity, a "calculate your weight on other planets" center....it was so engaging and really helped the students review. Her supervisor was in awe, as was I! I believe that great teaching is a gift, a talent, and she has that talent!

So...if you have worked with a teacher intern (aka student teacher) who was great...what did they teach you?? Do you have any ideas you still use?

UPDATE: I had to add some photos of her astronomy activties!

Adventures!

I have not been keeping up with my blog at all lately, and I am so sorry! I have some new adventures that I am embarking on....one of those is that I am working with a teacher intern this semester. She is WONDERFUL. It is nice to feel like I can sit back and relax (a little) as she begins to take over responsibilities in the classroom. I am learning so much from her, and I hope that I teaching her a thing or two :)

My second adventure is that I will be moving to Japan this summer! My husband is a Marine, and although we had planned on him retiring soon, we were offered the opportunity to be stationed in Iwakuni, Japan, and we jumped on it! We are so excited, but the move planning is extremely exhausting. My life outside of the school day has involved paperwork, appointments, more paperwork, and more appointments. The fun part is yet to come, as we will need to rent out our home here in NC, sell our car & truck, and organize all of our possessions into things we want to move with us, things we want to store, and things we want to sell/donate. Such fun!

My world travels so far have consisted of visiting Canada, so I am ecstatic that I will have the chance to see other places and meet people from different cultures. We will be about 30 minutes from Hiroshima and only 6 hours, by train, from Tokyo. There are many trips planned to places like South Korea, China, and Taiwan. I have a feeling that we are going to LOVE our time in Japan. I am so excited that my children will have experiences that many people never get to have! I am hoping to teach for the DOD school on our base, but that will all depend on if they have positions open. No matter what, I hope to keep up with my blog :)

100 Followers!!!

I am so excited! I have finally reached the 100 follower mark! I have not been keeping the blog updated, and I apologize! This has been a very busy, stressful year for some reason. I hope that everyone is having a WONDERFUL year!

Since it has been forever since I last posted anything, I guess today is a great day to start again! Yesterday, I attended a short training about guided reading. I was curious to find out what some of you do for guided reading. Do you have specific skills you are supposed to work on? Do you use "real" literature or materials provided by your school? How large are your groups? How often do you meet and for how long? What are the other students doing?

I have struggled with guided reading this year because my class is larger than in years past, and my students struggle with working independently. However, I continue to try to work out the kinks so that my students can get a great guided reading experience. Right now, I have been focusing in on the skills/strategies introduced in our basal (Reading Street). I have been focusing more on the leveled readers than the basal stories for guided reading. Honestly, I am not "feeling" either of these. I was blessed with really good readers this year, and I am just not sure that these materials are the best. I am hoping to use a "literature circle" or "book club" approach to guided reading in the near future. We don't have a set format for guided reading, so I am hopeful I can adapt my lessons to include some good books that the students will truly enjoy.

I am using a modified version of the Daily 5 for the students working independently. It has been somewhat successful, but like I said, my students have moments when working independently seems impossible for them.

Feel free to share how guided reading looks in your classroom! 

Back to School Whirlwind!

I went back to work a week ago for 3 days of meetings/room prep, then our students arrived on Thursday. I feel like I have been going non-stop since then :) I have a great group of 4th graders this year. Almost an equal mix of boys and girls, a nice variety of personalities, all different levels. So far, after 3 days, they all seem to get along pretty well too. I have started introducing the Daily 5. It is such a new concept for them, and I think it will take some time for them to really appreciate the independence it will build. I can tell that my students will need a lot of help learning to work on their own. Sadly, it always seems that they come from tiny classes in 3rd grade (last year was about 15-16) to larger classes in 4th and 5th (25-28). It really takes time for them to get used to things.

I had some bad news right before school started that sent my motivation and good vibes for this school year down the tubes. Our 4th grade team had four members. About 2 weeks before the first day, one teacher found out that she was moving to 3rd grade so that a 3rd grade teacher could move up to do a 4th/5th multiage class that is required due to our lower enrollment in the intermediate grades. Then, just a week before school started, another of our teammates found out that she was being moved to 1st grade. They found a sub to open that classroom. Then, after spending a week working with the sub (who was so great), they hired a teacher on Friday, and she started today. She seems wonderful and I think we will get along great. However, I cannot help but be angry that my teammates got moved. Our grade level had the best test scores in the school. We worked together so well, and 3 of us spent the summer planning, creating, and sharing ideas. I really think that my principal did the best she could with a really odd situation, but I still feel really sad about it all. Why, in education, does it seem that the hardest working folks are the ones who end up having to be extra flexible, extra responsible, and extra understanding? It is frustrating!

Ok, enough boo-hooing! It will be a great year, and I am excited for all of the awesome activities I have planned. I will be getting in touch with everyone who expressed interest in my Regions of the U.S. activity very soon!

Me, Crafty?!?!?

Well, since Pinterest has changed my life (it really has...LOL!), I decided to try to make some of the things I have pinned this year.

First up, my Teacher Toolbox! Thank you to Hedrich's Hive for the great labels! The only issue I am having is keeping the labels clued into the drawers. I tried hot glue, but they are popping right off. Oh well, it still looks great!

I love all of the "Welcome Banners" I have seen on Pinterest. I decided to create on of my own using Publisher. I think I could have jazzed it up with some contrasting colors or something, but it does look cute in the classroom. I am planning to add some bows to the sides where I have the ribbon tied to the hooks. 

Here is my Duct Tape Quilt. The little signs inside say "4th Grade Super Stars". 

My picture quality is horrible! I will replace these with better ones on Monday. This is my behavior clip chart. I am thinking that my green READY TO LEARN section needs to be a bit bigger :-)

 

School begins in one more week! I am excited about the year, but nervous too! Last year was the best year I have had in a LONG time, and I know it will be tough to top it. I need to stop worrying and just go with the flow!

Procedures and rules and expectations...OH MY!

Since I cannot seem to sit back, relax, and enjoy my final 11 days of summer break, I have been busy revamping my policies, procedures, rules, etc. A colleague shared an awesome handout to give to parents and students called "The ABCs of _______'s Classroom". It is an easy to use reference for classroom policies organized in ABC order. I will share mine once I have it finalized. Right now, it is full of highlighted sections and empty sections while we wait for final confirmation of our grade assignments for the year. I am hopeful that the parents read it over, but even if they do not, it makes great documentation of teacher-parent communication :)

Today I started working on my list of classroom procedures to teach to my students. I found some awesome ideas on Pinterest and TpT, but I cannot make up my mind about exactly HOW to teach about the procedures, as my list is VERY long. What are some of your methods for making sure your students really understand the classroom procedures?

As of this moment, I plan to use the same discipline plan as last year....which is turning "cards". I am adding a 5th card, BLUE, that students will get if they are having an awesome day. I figure I will have some small reward for the students who get to blue. I will explain to them that a "blue" day means they were on task all day, came to school prepared, helped other students when needed, did their very best on all activities, etc. I hope that maybe having the option to do even better than the "green" card will encourage some of the students to work even harder.

Regions of the United States Project

This year, I really need to do something to liven up my Social Studies lessons. While most 4th graders are busy studying their states, we are learning about the entire United States. The scope of our standards is HUGE, and I don't feel like my students get much out of what study.

In order to help my students get more out of Social Studies, I want to do something to connect them to peers in the various regions of the United States. I am still on the fence about exactly what to do. I have thought about doing a postcard exchange, but I really would like the activity to have a bit more depth. I am hoping to find classes around the country (at least 1-2 in each region we study) who are willing to do a few different activities with us throughout the year that aligns to our standards. I think the postcard exchange could be one great component, but I think I'd like to plan some other activities such a questionnaire or survey, letter-writing, and some technology activities. I want my students to have some ownership of this activity, so final decisions about activities will not be made until school starts. My hope is to have three or four high-quality activities to share with our sister schools that do not take immense amounts of time.

If you are interested in being one of the classes we connect with, please leave a comment with a way to contact you (blog or email would be great!) and what state you live in! I'd really love to work with 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade classes in the Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West regions. We are in Southeast region, but would love to connect with other Southeastern classes as well!

Map found on: http://lets-study-the-us.wikispaces.com/

Preventing Crazy Behavior :)

Today I wanted to share a few things that I do in my classroom (along with my 4th grade team) to keep the students' behavior on track. I was blessed with such an awesome class this past year, but I know that our rising 4th graders are very talkative and active, so I have a feeling I will get some major use out of these behavior ideas this year!

Whole Class: 

Behavior BINGO-The students earn "BINGO" numbers for various positive behaviors including all students staying on green on our behavior chart, all turning homework in, walking in the halls silently, etc. Each day (or every few days), we draw numbers and they mark them on the hundred chart we use as a BINGO board. When the students earn BINGO, they get to choose from a variety of whole-class rewards like class outside, extra recess, free computer time, etc. I might change up the BINGO slightly this school year, as it seemed to take a long time for the students to actually get a BINGO. One idea I have is to use a slightly smaller grid (maybe 8 x 8 instead of 10 x 10). The students loved the excitement of drawing the numbers,and they really worked hard so that they could enjoy the rewards.

Bucket Fillers-We use Bucket Fillers school-wide in conjunction with our guidance/character education. This year, I plan to have each student decorate their own paper bucket for use on a bulletin board. Students can write kind things about each other, and this will allow me to give students "Bucket Filler" slips which are used for a weekly drawing for a special seat at lunch, a certificate, and some other small rewards.

Individual:

Card System-I used to think that card systems were "babyish" for 4th grade, but after using one for the past 2 years, I really think it works for my students. It makes communicating w/parents about student behaviors much easier. Students can monitor their own daily behavior. Everyone starts on GREEN each day. The other card colors are YELLOW for a warning, ORANGE for a consequence like sitting out of recess for a few minutes, and RED which means a phone call home. I was fortunate to only have a student get to red twice all year this past school year! This year, I think I will add a form to the student binders so that they can mark their color for each day to keep track.


What are some of the things you do in your classroom to help keep things running smoothly? 

What a Bunch of GREAT Deals!!!

I am SOOOOO excited about everything I found at the Dollar Tree today! Last year, I waited too long and the good stuff was gone. Today I found:

 1. Supply bins for my table groups

2. Lots of clothes pins

3. Erasers

4. 200 packs of ruled index cards

5. Cute word strips

6. Ziploc bags for my "Duct Tape Quilt" to show off student work (I also picked up this duct tape at Target. I wish the Dollar Tree had some.)

7. And my absolute favorite find: Book baskets for all of my students!!! (Well, if I don't have a huge class, that is!)

I also got some things at Target's $1 section, but I wasn't terribly impressed this year. What great deals have you found this year???

Blog Awards and Crazy Week

First of all, I want to say THANK YOU! to those who have nominated me for the various blog awards over the past few weeks. I am so sorry I have not had time to "pay it forward", but hopefully today or tomorrow I can search through "teacher blog-land" and find some worthy nominees :-) This week has been crazy already! I had jury duty on Monday, and was chosen to serve on a jury for a trial that started yesterday. Funny thing was that out of the 12 jurors...4 of us were teachers! Anyway, we all arrived for the trial yesterday, sat and waited for 2 hours, only to be called in and dismissed because the person on trial accepted a last minute deal to plead guilty to a lesser charge. It was my first time on a jury, and it was very interesting to see the judicial system at work. Today, I am heading to my school to help a dear friend pack up her classroom :-( She will be transferring to TURKEY! It will be a super-exciting journey for her. So, on my list of things to do this week is to search out some great new blogs to nominate for awards! I promise I will get this done by Monday :)