Learn Like A Pirate~Chapter 3

Time for Chapter 3 with The Primary Gal!

This chapter is all about peer collaboration. This was a GREAT chapter-there was a lot of awesome information!

This was also a great chapter because Paul mentioned some things I already do in my classroom-which felt like validation, and made me feel like I do know what I'm doing!

He talks about letting students work wherever they want-check! Partner work-check! Available student supplies-check! It's good to know that I'm already on the road to a student led classroom. :)

Another thing that I already do that resonated with me was

While I was reading this, it strongly reminded me of Responsive Classroom, which I've blogged about before.

I always start the year off with Morning Meetings, and they usually stay strong until the holidays (when we start switching for science and my schedule gets a little tighter-and this year I had a TON of kids in band and chorus (which takes place during our MM time), so it usually fizzles out around then. Hopefully next year will be different!)

I find this is a great way to build our community, as well as talk about different issues that may pop up.

One idea that that I LOVED that can be done at meeting time is

Which is giving everyone the same number of marbles, but having them divide up the marbles into different categories of things that they're good at (or not so good at). I love how this shows that everyone is smart in different ways.

I do talk about this in my room a bit- 'easy' is a bad word in my room. We talk about how while it might be easy for you, it might not be easy for someone else, and you could make them feel bad.

For example, someone left a comment on my blog on how crafty I am, and what else can I do. Now, I'm sure it was meant as a compliment, but I didn't read it that way. I felt like this person was judging me for being crafty.

I'll be honest-I am crafty! I love to dabble in different crafts, and seeing things that I create-plus is relaxes me. I'm pretty good at crafts-BUT, I am horrible with anything to do with athletics (or reaching things on high shelves! ;). My marbles are just allocated differently. But this person made me feel bad because their marbles weren't in a crafty cup-and that's not right. I will TOTALLY be doing this lesson with my kids next year! In addition to something not being 'easy', I hope it will encourage the kids to realize that they are ALL smart-some are just smart in different areas.

Another idea that I will totally be implementing next year is Responsibility Partners.

I love that kids will have a partner to help keep them on track, as well to talk to and clarify information. Plus, it will give them a chance to work with all different kinds of students (something I also do-since we can't always pick who we work with!), and become leaders.

Speaking of leaders-did you know that there are two different types?! I didn't!

This makes so much sense! I love how it is explained, and that we need both types of leaders to have a successful classroom.

I definitely had a lot of active leaders in my class this year-as well as some passive. And some who would rather sit back and do nothing at all (don't we all have those students?). In fact, one of my greatest joys this week was seeing one of my 'active' leaders become more group sensitive (sometimes the 'active' becomes bossy and overwhelming...), and suggest to the rest of the group that they let the student who had not picked anything yet go (and these two are not friends-there have been issues between them in the past). They did it so nice and quietly too. Be still my heart :)

Part of taking a leadership roll in the classroom calls for a why to get attention quickly-with

This has everyone stopping (even the teacher) and looking a the speaker, who will make an announcement, tell about a transition time, improving behavior or task, asking a question (after talking to the people at their group) or make a suggestion.

This reminds of my magic wand, which is kind of the same purpose. It will be interesting to see how the kids do with this. I love all of Paul's suggestions on times to use it (not in other classes or with a sub), as well as how to redirect those who may be using this inappropriately.  This is a great way to empower students (which is another chapter!), and get them to take more control of their learning.

Since students are working together, there are bound to be problems that creep up. The class I had this year was pretty good at solving partner problems without my involvement (Love that! I'm going to miss them next year...), but the year before....oh dear! We wound up implement some simple strategies to help with that-some that Paul mentioned!

I LOVE that Rock, Paper, Scissor is choice. Of course, you could teach your class Rock, Paper, Scissor, Lizard, Spock for even more problem solving strategies ;)

It's clear and simple, and kids can never argue with the outcome (of course, I then hear "best two out of three?").

Compromise is a great one too-it teaches kids that they can't always get it the way they want-but if they give a little, they may get some of what they want. This is something we'll definitely practice.

The choose kind strategy really spoke to me. Just let the other person go. They may be having a really bad day-and letting them get their way in this one thing may make their whole day brighter. It's like my student above-who 'choose kind' to make sure a student got a turn.

Paul also talks about competition, and how we win as a team and not against one another. I talk a lot about how the only person you're competing against in this class is yourself-striving to do better. You don't need to compare yourself to others-they're not you! Just keep trying your best, and you'll go far.

This chapter was chock full of information-and most of it easy to implement and use. It showed me that having a student led classroom may not be as far away as I thought it was. In small steps, this could definitely happen-and I'll have better students for it!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

From Hopes and Dreams to Rules

One of my favorites things to do at the beginning of the school year is to have the students come up with their hopes and dreams for the school year.

It's always so interesting to see what they want to accomplish!

We use our hopes and dreams to come up with our classroom rules, which the kids are completely responsible for. I feel like this gives them ownership of the rules and the classroom.

I can't take any of the credit for this-this is all Responsive Classroom! They are amazing and I highly recommend training if you have the opportunity!

This year, I started introducing it by reading the book Big Al.

I have also used Matthew's Dream to start this off.

Before I started reading, I asked the kids to think about what Big Al's hope and dream might be.

After we figured it out (to make friends), I stopped and asked them what different things Big Al did to help he reach his goal (lots!).

We talked about how Big Al tried so many different ways to reach his goal, and that he keep trying (he persevered!), and how we should also keep trying different things.

After we finished reading and discussing, I had the students come up with their own hope and dream for the school year (and yes, I made it clear that it had to be school related :).

The next day (yes, this is a multi-day process-I've found it works out better that way, although you could do it in one day if you chose), I had them gather on the run again.

This time, I asked them to remember what their hope and dream was, and what rules they think our classroom needed to help them make this hope and dream successful.

I write down everything they read on sentence strips, and then I cut them up-which is important for the next step!

I reread the rules, and we decided that we could probably combine some.

We talked about how we could separate them, and we came up with three categories.

Then, I reread the rules again, and put them under each category.

Now for the fun part! I challenge the students to come up with one rule that can sum up all the ones underneath it.

I wrote what the students first said in red , amendments in purple and the final rule in blue.

I added in an extra rule (which I borrowed from Whole Brain Teaching), about having fun learning and keeping me happy-just to cover all my bases!

After a quick type-up, sign, and some taping, we now have a rules posted along with our hopes and dreams-after all, we wouldn't have our rules if we didn't want to reach our goals!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Throwback Thursday: Making Rules

Happy Thursday!

Joining with Cara at the First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday


I'm going to post about using Responsive Classroom to making rules. I'm actually going to combine 2 posts...one where I talked about it over the summer, and the one where I had pictures from the school year :)

August 19, 2012

As I get closer and closer to going back to work (my sympathies if you're already there!), I start thinking about rules and classroom management. I know a lot of you are doing Whole Brain Teaching, which comes with own set of rules, and some of you already have rules in place, but I thought I would share what I do (after all, isn't that why we all started blogging?)

I may have mentioned this before, but I have been trained in Responsive Classroom (for free! There was a trainer in one of the districts I worked in, and you better believe that I was one of the first people to sign up for it!). I use their approach to help me create the classroom rules with my students. It is a multi-day process, but I find kids are usually really good the first few days (the honeymoon effect :), so we don't need them. The best part of the process (in my opinion) is that the kids create the rules. And they can never say that's not fair since they came up with them!

The first thing I do is to talk about what my Hopes and Dreams are for the school year. Hopes and Dreams are things that I want to accomplish, or what I really what to learn about this year. I find that if I talk about my expectations for what I want to learn about, I get better responses from the kids.  There are some books to help kids with understanding hopes and dream to give them a better example.

Then I have the kids create their own Hopes and Dreams, and we display them in the room for the whole year. I've used balloon cut-out the past few years, but this year I am either going to use clouds or stars. There are MANY different ways to display Hopes and Dreams, depending on your style, grade level and kids.

Creating Hopes and Dreams is a one to two day process. The next day after we create our Hopes and Dreams, I ask the kids to share them and ask them what kinds of rules they think we need to make sure that everyone can reach their Hope and Dreams. I write their suggestions down on chart paper or sentence strips. Last year, my kids came up with 60 + rules!

Now comes the fun part. The next day, (after you have cute apart all the rules...this is why you might want to use sentence strips!), tell the kids that we are going to sort the rules, and see if we can find some commonalities so we can come up with a couple of rules, instead of trying to remember all of them.

Amazingly, all the rules the rules they come up with will fit into 1 of 3 categories: Respect for self; Respect for others; Respect for School/Materials. I always add on an addtional one...To have fun and try our best while learning. I always try to frame them in the positive, as I think the kids respond better.

I also model the rules for them whenever we do something (That's a big part of Responsive Classroom, interactive modeling, and it's just good teaching practice!) and ask the kids to show me the right and wrong way of following the rules.

Last year my rules were: Be a Good Learner and Thinker; Be a Good Friend; Be Responsible for School and Materials and To Have Fun While Learning.

These cover a multitude of things. That kid who is throwing things...not being a good friend or respecting materials. The kid who keeps talking out? Not being a good learner/thinker or a good friend.  That kid who can't work in groups and is always arguing with partners (I had like 7 of those last year!)? Not being a good learner or a good friend.

I always type these up after they are agreed upon, and have the kids sign them. I then display it with our Hopes and Dreams around them. From time to time, I remind them that they came up with the rules, not me, so they can't be unhappy with them.

If you are interested in learning more, I highly reccomend that you get this book:

Clicking on the book will take you to its Amazon page.

I hope this helps some of you! Please, if you have any questions, let me know, or go check out the Responsive Classroom website. Please note that RC has not contacted me or that I am being compensated in any way...I just truly believe in their methods!

September 3, 2012

Then we did the posters that I saw on Confessions of a Teaching Junkie . Some of their answers were so cute! They all agreed that school was important for learning and the future, and a lot of them thought that our classroom should be quiet (we'll see how long THAT lasts!) A lot of them wanted a teacher who was fun, funny, and nice. One friend said supportive and challenging, which I found interesting. We also talked about how they could help others learn, and how they could help themselves learn. Listening, focusing and paying attention were major for those :)

I used that activity and their Hopes and Dreams from the day before to segue into our rules. I told them in order to get those things done, we need to have rules. I explained that they were going to create the rules, and I would write down whatever they said. I used sentence strips to write them down (a change from last year, when I used chart paper, but sentence strips work better).

They kept those rules coming! One friend told me that they have never had so many rules in their classroom before. When they had exhausted their brains, I had them do a fun activity while I cut the rules apart. They came up with over 50 of them!

They aren't in any specific colors, I just grabbed a stack of strips and kept writing!

After they finished their activity, I wrote three words on the board. Me, Others, School/Supplies. We then read through all of the rules and decided which category it best fit it.

When they had all been sorted, we talked about how we could come up with ONE rule for each category that would say the same as the others. I guided them a little on the wording, and we all gave a thumbs up if they agreed with that rule.

Thumbs up all around for the three rules, and I told them I wanted to add a special one...Keep Miss M happy and have fun learning! They all said that was important (and, if they do something that isn't covered, I can ask them if it makes me happy. No happy, no do!)

 Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Throwback Thursday: Morning Meeting

Happy Thursday!

Joining with Cara at the First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday


I'm going to post about Morning Meeting-one of my favorite things! Unfortunately, due to the amount of kids I had in chorus and band (that of course took place first thing in the morning), I wasn't able to do Morning Meeting all year (although the kids missed it! I just didn't feel right doing it with 1/2 the class) Hopefully next year!

This is from July 18, 2012:

On one of my posts awhile back, I mentioned that I do Morning Meeting. I've had a few questions about how I run my Morning Meeting, so I thought I would share with you what I do.

The Morning Meeting format that I use comes straight from Responsive Classroom, which I was trained in a few years ago.

The are 4 sections to this Morning Meeting. Overall, Morning Meeting should be anywhere from 10-20 minutes, depending on grade level, things you choose to do/focus on, and attention span.

Every meeting starts with a Greeting. Students should be either greeted by the teacher, or each other every day. Greetings can be anything from a quick handshake, to a ball greeting. If you do not have a lot of time to devote to Morning Meeting, having a short Greeting is a place that you can save some time by doing something quick.

Greetings are important because it helps the children feel welcome and that they are appreciated and part of the community. New greetings should be introduced and modeled before having the students do it on their own.

The next section is Sharing. Students share something about themselves. At first, I would recommend a group share, which is asking a question and having the students respond (favorite color, food, etc.). I would slowly move to individual shares, where students could share whatever they wished (although I would limit that number of students who would share in a day, probably no more than 3 a meeting).

Sharing is important because it helps the students feel a part of a the community, and that we really care what is going on with them and their lives.

The third section is the Activity, which is a game that you play with the students. It's great community and team building, and usually gets the students up and moving and their brains working. Activities should be introduced step by step and modeled thoroughly.

The last part of Morning Meeting is the Morning Message. Depending on your grade level, your Message will look different. The Message lets the students know what is upcoming in the day, things they did well yesterday and can be a part of the activity, if you ask a questions on the bottom.

A lot of teachers also use their Message to practice sight words, grammar, fill in the blanks and more. Especially in the younger grades, the Message should be read a couple of times, once by the teacher and then as a group read as the class. In the older grades, you can move the responsibility of reading the message from the teacher to the students.

So those are the 4 parts of my Morning Meeting. I have a few book recommendations if you are interested in starting Morning Meeting. It takes a bit of time to set it up in the beginning, but it is well worth it and a great community building activity!

If you can only buy one, this is it! It has the structure, and greeting and activities in the back!

This is also another good resource.

Great for Activities, leveled for grades

Gives a good idea on how to structure your message for different grade levels

Really good resource, split up by grade level, has plans for the first 6 weeks

If you click on each book, it will take you to its Amazon page.
I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any more questions, please let me know!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Day 2 and Currently

Day 2 was almost as fabulous as day 1 except...no special! I believe most teachers treasure that special time and when we don't have it, it makes the day longer. No worries though, I made it through :)

We added a lightening share today to our Morning Meeting. A lightening share is when you ask a question, and the kids answer it around the circle. Before we started, we reviewed procedures from yesterday, as well as the important parts of greeting someone.

Unfortunately, after that, I had to give an initial math assessment. This time, I am going through it step by step, showing them how to pull out the important information, and underline it so they know what the question is asking. We only got through about half of it before I had them stop. It felt like a really long test, and I didn't want to discourage them. We'll finish it on Tuesday.

Because they had been sitting for so long, I taught them how to Go Bananas! This is probably my favorite energizer EVER, and it's so fun to do.

I do the movements a tiny bit differently, and this video also shows the different versions that you can do. We did this a lot before NECAP testing last year :)

Then we did the posters that I saw on Confessions of a Teaching Junkie . Some of their answers were so cute! They all agreed that school was important for learning and the future, and a lot of them thought that our classroom should be quiet (we'll see how long THAT lasts!) A lot of them wanted a teacher who was fun, funny, and nice. One friend said supportive and challenging, which I found interesting. We also talked about how they could help others learn, and how they could help themselves learn. Listening, focusing and paying attention were major for those :)

I used that activity and their Hopes and Dreams from the day before to segue into our rules. I told them in order to get those things done, we need to have rules. I explained that they were going to create the rules, and I would write down whatever they said. I used sentence strips to write them down (a change from last year, when I used chart paper, but sentence strips work better).

They kept those rules coming! One friend told me that they have never had so many rules in their classroom before. When they had exhausted their brains, I had them do a fun activity while I cut the rules apart. They came up with over 50 of them!

They aren't in any specific colors, I just grabbed a stack of strips and kept writing!

After they finished their activity, I wrote three words on the board. Me, Others, School/Supplies. We then read through all of the rules and decided which category it best fit it.

When they had all been sorted, we talked about how we could come up with ONE rule for each category that would say the same as the others. I guided them a little on the wording, and we all gave a thumbs up if they agreed with that rule.

Thumbs up all around for the three rules, and I told them I wanted to add a special one...Keep Miss M happy and have fun learning! They all said that was important (and, if they do something that isn't covered, I can ask them if it makes me happy. No happy, no do!)

We finished the afternoon we did our Me Bags, sharing them and then doing a descriptive writing activity (which I grabbed as a Clutter-Free Classroom Freebie a couple weeks ago). They'll have to finish the writing for morning work on Tuesday because we ran out of time!

And the most important part of the day....what I wore :)  

Sweater & Skirt: Target
Shirt & Tank: Old Navy

FYI: The colors are off in the picture...they are brighter in real life


And, EVEN more important! September Currently came out while I was typing! So, if you made it this far ;) Here you go!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Making Rules

As I get closer and closer to going back to work (my sympathies if you're already there!), I start thinking about rules and classroom management. I know a lot of you are doing Whole Brain Teaching, which comes with own set of rules, and some of you already have rules in place, but I thought I would share what I do (after all, isn't that why we all started blogging?)

I may have mentioned this before, but I have been trained in Responsive Classroom (for free! There was a trainer in one of the districts I worked in, and you better believe that I was one of the first people to sign up for it!). I use their approach to help me create the classroom rules with my students. It is a multi-day process, but I find kids are usually really good the first few days (the honeymoon effect :), so we don't need them. The best part of the process (in my opinion) is that the kids create the rules. And they can never say that's not fair since they came up with them!

The first thing I do is to talk about what my Hopes and Dreams are for the school year. Hopes and Dreams are things that I want to accomplish, or what I really what to learn about this year. I find that if I talk about my expectations for what I want to learn about, I get better responses from the kids.  There are some books to help kids with understanding hopes and dream to give them a better example.

Then I have the kids create their own Hopes and Dreams, and we display them in the room for the whole year. I've used balloon cut-out the past few years, but this year I am either going to use clouds or stars. There are MANY different ways to display Hopes and Dreams, depending on your style, grade level and kids.

Creating Hopes and Dreams is a one to two day process. The next day after we create our Hopes and Dreams, I ask the kids to share them and ask them what kinds of rules they think we need to make sure that everyone can reach their Hope and Dreams. I write their suggestions down on chart paper or sentence strips. Last year, my kids came up with 60 + rules!

Now comes the fun part. The next day, (after you have cute apart all the rules...this is why you might want to use sentence strips!), tell the kids that we are going to sort the rules, and see if we can find some commonalities so we can come up with a couple of rules, instead of trying to remember all of them.

Amazingly, all the rules the rules they come up with will fit into 1 of 3 categories: Respect for self; Respect for others; Respect for School/Materials. I always add on an addtional one...To have fun and try our best while learning. I always try to frame them in the positive, as I think the kids respond better.

I also model the rules for them whenever we do something (That's a big part of Responsive Classroom, interactive modeling, and it's just good teaching practice!) and ask the kids to show me the right and wrong way of following the rules.

Last year my rules were: Be a Good Learner and Thinker; Be a Good Friend; Be Responsible for School and Materials and To Have Fun While Learning.

These cover a multitude of things. That kid who is throwing things...not being a good friend or respecting materials. The kid who keeps talking out? Not being a good learner/thinker or a good friend.  That kid who can't work in groups and is always arguing with partners (I had like 7 of those last year!)? Not being a good learner or a good friend.

I always type these up after they are agreed upon, and have the kids sign them. I then display it with our Hopes and Dreams around them. From time to time, I remind them that they came up with the rules, not me, so they can't be unhappy with them.

If you are interested in learning more, I highly reccomend that you get this book:

Clicking on the book will take you to its Amazon page.

I hope this helps some of you! Please, if you have any questions, let me know, or go check out the Responsive Classroom website. Please note that RC has not contacted me or that I am being compensated in any way...I just truly believe in their methods!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Morning Meeting

On one of my posts awhile back, I mentioned that I do Morning Meeting. I've had a few questions about how I run my Morning Meeting, so I thought I would share with you what I do.

The Morning Meeting format that I use comes straight from Responsive Classroom, which I was trained in a few years ago.

The are 4 sections to this Morning Meeting. Overall, Morning Meeting should be anywhere from 10-20 minutes, depending on grade level, things you choose to do/focus on, and attention span.

Every meeting starts with a Greeting. Students should be either greeted by the teacher, or each other every day. Greetings can be anything from a quick handshake, to a ball greeting. If you do not have a lot of time to devote to Morning Meeting, having a short Greeting is a place that you can save some time by doing something quick.

Greetings are important because it helps the children feel welcome and that they are appreciated and part of the community. New greetings should be introduced and modeled before having the students do it on their own.

The next section is Sharing. Students share something about themselves. At first, I would recommend a group share, which is asking a question and having the students respond (favorite color, food, etc.). I would slowly move to individual shares, where students could share whatever they wished (although I would limit that number of students who would share in a day, probably no more than 3 a meeting).

Sharing is important because it helps the students feel a part of a the community, and that we really care what is going on with them and their lives.

The third section is the Activity, which is a game that you play with the students. It's great community and team building, and usually gets the students up and moving and their brains working. Activities should be introduced step by step and modeled thoroughly.

The last part of Morning Meeting is the Morning Message. Depending on your grade level, your Message will look different. The Message lets the students know what is upcoming in the day, things they did well yesterday and can be a part of the activity, if you ask a questions on the bottom.

A lot of teachers also use their Message to practice sight words, grammar, fill in the blanks and more. Especially in the younger grades, the Message should be read a couple of times, once by the teacher and then as a group read as the class. In the older grades, you can move the responsibility of reading the message from the teacher to the students.

So those are the 4 parts of my Morning Meeting. I have a few book recommendations if you are interested in starting Morning Meeting. It takes a bit of time to set it up in the beginning, but it is well worth it and a great community building activity!

If you can only buy one, this is it! It has the structure, and greeting and activities in the back!

This is also another good resource.

Great for Activities, leveled for grades

Gives a good idea on how to structure your message for different grade levels

Really good resource, split up by grade level, has plans for the first 6 weeks

If you click on each book, it will take you to its Amazon page.
I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any more questions, please let me know!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn