Monday Musings - February 25

Sharing Authors' Personal Stories with our Students

Anchor Chart image from Teaching and Tapas

My 7 yr-old son is a tough audience when it comes to books.  He enjoys having me read novels to him, but he has yet to find the right books that he is completely interested in reading himself.  I thought about what his favorite pastime is and decided to try to write a story with that hobby as the major part of the plot to interest him.  I have never been a creative writer, but he absolutely loved what I wrote and asked me where the rest was!  Before he went to bed on Saturday night, he gave me my homework: "You can NOT go to sleep until you write me 2 more chapters to read in the morning, ok Mom?!"  I tweeted my homework assignment out to my PLN to share my humorous situation and got the following reply:

I was intrigued and started reading about the author, Rick Riordan, on his website .  As I read through his page on "Advice for Writers," I realized how important it is for our students to learn more about the authors whose books they are reading.  In one of his answers, Rick has a list of tips, including:

"Secondly, read a lot! Read everything you can get your hands on.  You will learn the craft of writing by immersing yourself in the voices, styles, and structures of writers who have gone before you. Don't be afraid that you'll start sounding like a particular writer you admire.  That just means you need to read MORE, not less.

Thirdly, write every day! Keep a journal.  Jot down interesting stories you heard. Write descriptions of people you see.  It doesn't really matter what you write, but you must keep up practice. Writing is like a sport -- you only get better if you practice.  If you don't keep at it, the writing muscles atrophy."

What incredible advice from an author that many of our students (in upper grades) love to read!  As I thought back to my classroom days, I recalled having "author studies," where we read several picture books from the same author, comparing/contrasting among them.  I can't recall ever taking the time to share with students the authors' stories behind why they wrote each book or any other information they shared about what they do to write. Maybe you all already do this, and it was just me that skipped out on this. 

Do you take time to share any of this with your students?  I'd love to hear about how it has impacted your students' writing.  If you're looking for resources to be able to share with your students about an author, here are some websites I found with resources on authors:

Meet the Authors movies/slideshows from http://www.teachingbooks.net/

Authors/Illustrators Guests Posts from http://www.teachingbooks.net

The Stacks list of authors from Scholastic

You can also google almost any author to find their homepage where they include far more information. Here's some that I know are popular authors to our students:

Mo Willems

Tedd Arnold

Mary Pope Osborne

Judy Blume

Dav Pilkey

Roald Dahl

Kazu Kibuishi

Suzanne Collins

Veronica Roth

And an author that is new to me, but I'm sure our students will love after he visits Dodgeland this Tuesday, is... Michael Scotto

Friday Focus - February 21

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

• A class spent 10 minutes talking in partners around the room to share what they were currently reading and about a book they would like to read next (and why). This helped students to make sure they all had their "to read" list full of titles before going to the library.
• A class practiced time problems in IXL for a couple days and then were sent the IXL login information home (yes, again). This week the teacher got the auto-report from IXL that her students practiced 20 hours OUTSIDE of the school day!
• A group of 5th graders came to me with a business proposal: they plan to custom-make book corner bookmarks so that no pages ever get "dog eared" and donate the money for a good cause. They had quite the sales pitch...I'm sure you'll hear more about this in the near future. 
• Great ideas shared in the iPad sessions and Tech Showcase on Monday. I also got to enjoy seeing some Voki presentations in 3rd grade. If you're wondering what Voki is, here's an example (you have to click the play button):

Events this Week: Read Across America Week

Monday-Dress up like a teacher day
4-7:30 P/T conferences
Tuesday-Wear red, white and blue
Grade Level Meetings (sent email yesterday with details to talk about writing)
Guest Author Speaker Michael Scotto 9:00-9:45 for K-2, 10:00-10:45 for 3-5
Wednesday-Dress up like a character from your favorite book
Thursday-Pajama Day
Family Read-In Night 6:00-7:00pm
Friday-Hat Day
Limo ride for students that sold over 20 items in the fundraiser (email was sent out with details)

"Nuts&Bolts" Notes

• Kohl's Field Trip grant brochures are up on the bulletin board in the staff lounge. Looks like a great opportunity. 
• The Juneau Public Library is having a book/rummage sale February 25-March 1st. They said they will have children's non-fiction there. 

Blogs, Pins & Tweets...Oh My!

-Great blog post: Helping Students Plan Their Writing 

Free printables in this post to use this for shared reading in primary grades.

Monday Memo - February 18

I have a secret...

I am leading a session on use of specific apps on the iPad tomorrow and I am NOT an expert on any of the apps I'm sharing. That's right. I'm showing how to use them, giving ideas of how they can be used and I don't know everything about each of them and I probably can't answer all the questions that may be asked of me.

But, I do know that if there are any questions I can't answer I can tweet them out and am 99.9% sure that someone in my Twitter PLN will have the answer for us. I have used Educreations in 4 classrooms, showing the teacher and the students all at once how to use it. Each time, a student (or the teacher) discovered something new or came up with a tip to help everyone. Every time I use it, I learn something new. Even if I did become an expert on any one of these apps, the developers are constantly listening to feedback from the users and updating the features, so I would have new features to learn about each time they are updated. I also know that as teachers begin using the apps in their classrooms they will come up with great new ways of using them for student learning and share them with others.

 We do not have to be experts at the tools...we have to be experts at learning and show students what it is like in real life to not know the answer or not know how to do something. To be successful in life you need to know how to find it out. Or as Will Richardson says we have to be able to "learn, unlearn and relearn."

Image from Venosdale

You all do amazing things in your classrooms each day and have great things to share with each other, whether you think you do or not.  As you think about sharing something at the Technology Showcase in the afternoon, please remember that sometimes something that seems obvious to you, is amazing to others.

Friday Focus - February 15

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

• Great discussions in our grade level meetings as we celebrated the growth our students have made, as well as brainstormed ideas to help students not making expected gains.
• Students writing their own math story problems and trading with a partner to solve.  
• Students recording themselves reading during Read-to-Self using audacity with the focus on improving their fluency.
• Students super excited to share something interesting they read or part of their writing during reflection time after Daily 5.
• Many classes continued to learn all Valentines Day with a sense of urgency and then enjoyed their classroom parties at the end of the day.

Events Next Week:
Monday - Professional Development (see "Nuts & Bolts" for details on grade level/curriculum time)
Tuesday - I'm gone in the afternoon for DART principals meeting
The following Monday, February 25th is mid-quarter already!

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*For Monday's PD Day:
Those of you already working in BYOC should continue your work.  Grade Level Teams should use the Grade Level and Curriculum Work times to spend time digging into what's ahead for you in math.  Use this time to read through the next unit (or the rest of the unit you are currently in) to learn together: the learning progressions, background, common errors, etc.  Use this time to dig into it, discuss and I'd even suggest solving some of the problems as if you were a student. I will put copies of the Expressions Unit Planning Guide chart in your mailboxes in case you'd like to use it again to jot down your notes as you dig into the unit together.
For literacy: please take time to go through your grade level's CAFE Menu (will also be in your mailboxes) and compare to the common core standards to make sure the numbers are accurate (one grade level did find a mistake). I know this may seem like tedious work, but the more you refer back to the common core standards the more familiar you will be with them.  As you are doing this work, also use the time to look at what CAFE strategies will need to be taught over the remainder of the school year.  One grade level found it helpful to make 4 copies of the CAFE menu to have a page for each quarter with the strategies intended to be taught highlighted for each quarter.

Blogs, Pins & Tweets...Oh My!

• @cpleisterConsider how your feedback to students and teachers varies based on your expectations of their abilities. Peter Johnston #2013AWSA

• Graphic novels are becoming quite popular, especially with some of our reluctant readers.  Here are a couple of great articles on graphic novels with book suggestions: Finding a Place for Graphic Novels in my Classroom and Comprehending Graphic Novels.

Read HERE to find out more

Go HERE for a page filled with writing anchor charts

And now...a pep talk from "Kid President"  This has to be the most adorable video clip ever!


"Create something that will make the world awesome." ~KidPresident

Monday Musings - February 11

Image from Edtechworkshop

This weekend I downloaded the book Why School? by Will Richardson after seeing numerous educators on Twitter recommend it.  It was a whopping $2.99, but one of the best reads (and a quick read) to challenge our thinking about school.

Here is a TEDTalk given by the author, Will Richardson, talking about how the internet resources available to us today are making learning different.  Even if you don't watch the entire video (which is 14 minutes) please watch the first 1:28 minutes of it as he tells the story of his daughter learning to play Journey on the piano.



I cringed when he told about the piano teacher saying his daughter wasn't ready to play Journey yet.  I then wondered if there are any times that we put similar limits on our students?

Why School? is a great summary of why schools must be different than they were when we went through school.  Schools are no longer the place to go to receive information and then memorize it to regurgitate it on a worksheet or a test.  That is the type of school that prepared children for factory work.  We are now preparing students for jobs that do not even exist today.  Richardson quotes psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy who predicts that "the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write. The illiterate will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."  I had to think deeply about that quote, but really can connect to how true it is with changing technologies. Think about how many times you have had to change something you do technology-wise because the program has updated (Microsoft word is the perfect example) or had to completely stop using a program and learn a new one (ex: change of gradebook to a new student information system).  At the rate web 2.0 tools are coming out, this learning, unlearning and relearning can happen daily!

In the video clip above (which was from 2011 so I'm sure the numbers have changed), Richardson says that by using their phones, a student could have access to 2 billion potential teachers...no, not certified teachers, but people who can teach them how to do something.  Information and knowledge is everywhere, not just in the teacher's heads to impart to students.  I just checked the web history on our home computer and found that we have learned the following in the past month from youtube/google:

• How to manage your browsing history in google chrome
• How to embed a video in powerpoint
• How to use storify
• How to use conditional formatting in excel
• How to merge two images in Photoshop
• How to make paper airplanes
• What is Geocaching?
• How to make a redstone elevevator in minecraft

For our students to be successful, they will need to know how to find accurate information, think about and solve real world problems, be able to create and share with others and collaborate with others...not just in the classroom but at a global level.

Here are some of the "nuggets" I highlighted in Why School?:

• "Remaking assessment starts with this: Stop asking questions on tests that can be answered by a google search." 
•  "Performance-based assessments, where students actually have to do something with what they know, tell us volumes more about their readiness for life than bubble sheets or contrived essays."
• "We can raise the teaching profession by sharing what works, by taking the best of what we do and hanging it on the virtual wall. Many would argue that it is now the duty of teachers to do so."
• "We have to stop delivering the curriculum to kids. We have to start discovering it with them." 
• Be a master learner..."in times of great change, learners will inherit the earth, while the learned will be beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists." (quote from philosopher Eric Hoffer).  
• "There's no competitive advantage today in knowing more than the person next to you. The world doesn't care what you know. What the world cares about is what you can do with what you know."
•  Do real work for real audiences.

•  "Don't teach my child science; instead, teach my child how to learn science -or history or math or music."

Friday Focus - February 8

Great Things I Noticed This Week (this was my last week of ACCESS testing, so I'm excited to spend way more time in classrooms next week!):

• Students and teachers telling me how much they love "Stop, Drop and Read" and asking for it more than once a day! 
• Teachers trying out new tech tools in the classroom, such as Voki, Educreations and a new website for research in 1st grade. 
• Teachers going above and beyond to help/support each other when dealing with students with some difficult behaviors.  It seems to be a crazy time of year for some of our kiddos and it takes the team of us helping each other out to support all of our students. 

Events Next Week:
Monday - Elementary PD Mtg: We're all SO busy right now, so just use this meeting time in your rooms to reflect and/or upload artifacts into mylearningplan.com and write your reflections there.  I will sit in the media center during this time in case you do want to come to me with any questions on it.
Tuesday - Grade Level Meetings: I'll have your magnets ready to move, please bring your Benchmark data and be ready to discuss (and celebrate) progress.
Wednesday - I will be at CESA6 all day for Effectiveness Project training
Friday - Staff Social Lunch

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• Today's assembly: I have NO idea how this is going to go with me being duck taped to the wall! I will be bringing folders of certificates/pencils to someone in each grade level before the assembly. Please plan to hand them out together. I will have to read over the shoulder of whoever has the certificates to announce their names from my duck taped place (thanks again to the JRFH committee for this fun plan...I think!)
• Please remind your students that if they would like to order a book from author Michael Scotto to have signed by him when he comes at the end of February that those orders are due by Friday, February 15th. I have only received 2 orders so far. 
• As I previously said, this seems to be a stressful time for everyone which is definitely evident in our students.  Please take 4 minutes of your time to watch the following video clip as a reminder of what some of the things our students may be dealing with:

Blogs, Pins & Tweets...Oh My!

• The 2013 Wisconsin State Reading Association (WSRA) convention is taking place this week and I've been learning what I can from those tweeting from it (and look forward to Mrs. Madsen sharing with us when she returns).  You can find tweets from Donalyn Miller's session HERE  and tweets from the Jeff Wilhelm's keynote kick-off HERE 
• "Don't forget that Teachers have the power to convert a "Fixed Mindset" with the power of words. #wischat" @twhitford

Here's a model of the 3-2-1 Nonfiction Reading Strategy Graphic Organizer. It was 1st modeled by the T on how to complete it, then the kids completed one at a station. Being able to read informational texts effectively is a fundamental quality of successful readers. After reading nonfiction books or articles, this graphic organizer helps st. summarize what they have learned.

Monday Musings - February 4

Recently a principal from Twitter contacted me regarding Daily5/Cafe and asked if I could recommend a reading basal series that is conducive to Daily5/Cafe.  Once I got over my immediate cringe at the word "basal" I asked why were they looking for a basal?  This principal was worried about the amount of time required of teachers to plan to teach with Daily5/Cafe,because it is much easier for them to open up a basal and teach from it.

We had a great discussion on the impact I have seen in our building since implementing Daily5/Cafe and I just wanted to share with you some of my reflections on this, because it does all come back to the work that YOU all have done and continue to do each day...

Teaching from a basal is easy.  Everything is in there ready to go for you, aside from possibly having to make additional copies of worksheets and decide what components will be used, because a basal series typically has too much planned for 1 week.  Essentially, all you have to do is open it up each day, read the teacher notes and teach from it.

There is a great deal of research that supports the notion that this is NOT good for kids.  Stephen Krashen says "we are denying students access to the one activity that has been proven over and over again to increase their language acquisition and competence as communicators: free, voluntary reading." (The Book Whisperer, page 51).  A reading basal is "one size" and we know that one size does not fit all.

Since we dropped our basal series and implemented Daily5/Cafe, here's what I have seen change...

• Students reading and writing.  That's it.  No more drill-and-kill worksheets with low level comprehension questions that have minimal transfer to actual reading. 
• Teachers continuing to read/learn to become experts at literacy and teaching struggling students to read and higher readers to comprehend/discuss higher level texts. 
• Classroom libraries continuing to grow so they are filled with high interest books that students want to read.  These libraries are filled with a variety of genre that are often organized by the students which helps them to know what books are there and where to find them.
• Students (and teachers) enjoying reading.  I recall a teacher saying that reading used to be the worst part of the day, because it was SO boring.  Now, that teacher says Daily 5 time is the best time of the day.
• Students and teachers talking about and recommending books to each other. 
• Teachers sharing their "reading lives" with students, being a reading role model.
• Teachers using what they know about student strengths, goals and interests to find books to "hook" students that haven't quite found the right book to get them to enjoy reading. 
• Teachers using mini-lessons with a variety of picture books or parts of novels to model the meta-cognition that happens while reading text, creating Anchor charts with student input to refer back to in future lessons and giving students time to practice applying newly learned skills with teacher feedback.
• Teachers introducing new authors through read-alouds that lead students to expand their reading to new genres and authors.
• Students giving mini book-talks/book recommendations to their peers to help others expand their reading choices. 
• Teachers conferring with students 1:1 for reading and writing, giving individual coaching sessions on what students are doing well and creating next step goals for what will help that student continue to become a better reader/writer.  Using this conference to model for the student and give practice again to provide feedback to the student, continuing to check in with the student on this goal until it becomes mastered.

Image from Clark Chatter

Yes, this is all much more work than opening up the reading basal, but it is SO much better! You are not just teaching children to read, you are teaching them to enjoy reading, which we know leads to more reading and builds their background for all future learning.  

Thank you for all that you do to lead our students to be readers and writers!

Friday Focus - Feb 1

Great Things I Noticed Last Week:

• With the inclement weather and early release on Thursday I was amazed by how well classes were still focused and working hard. I thought for sure everyone would be "wild about the weather" but as I visited classrooms I even saw students focused in Daily 5 right before we dismissed at 1:00. Great job of keeping things normal for our students and to everyone that helped out a colleague to help make sure parent phone calls were made. 

Events Next Week:
Monday- I will be out in the afternoon
Wednesday - Digital Learning Day- a day to try something new with technology! Here's the website for Digital Learning Day to learn more.
Friday - 2nd Quarter Dodgeland Pride Assembly at 2:00-the calendar says 2:00, but we will start early before parents, because someone will be getting "stuck for a buck" for Jump Rope for Heart
Feb. 12- Grade Level Meetings (we will be moving the magnets!)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes

• Please see Mr. Mane's emails this past week about our upcoming Art Show in March.  This pre-planning gives us time to get art work up in the hallways so the Art Show can be spread throughout the elementary building.  Thank you to the fundraiser committee for planning this. 
• I know I haven't been in classrooms much this week and it will continue that way next week as well. I am finishing up ACCESS testing for our ELL students and will then by happy to be back out of my office. :)
• If you were curious what website was used for students to go on the Dinosaur Adventure during Indoor Recess, it is from Adventure to Fitness  You can sign up for a free account and then access several videos of different adventures.

Blogs, Tweets, and Pins...Oh My!

• Great article from Choice Literacy:  Peer Conferencing: The Modeling Phase.  This article also shares this resource to get started on using the Peer Reading Conference: Steps to start
• 10 Technology Enhanced Alternatives to Book Reports -If I could add #11 to the list it would be blogging as I've seen our older students have great discussions on what they're reading through their class blog.
• Vicki Davis ‏@coolcatteacher
  Spend your energy getting along and lifting others up, they don't need help rolling in the mud because most people throw it. #teachwell

  

  Neat idea for February

  
  

  

  fun list of "Attention Grabbers"