Precious Babies

In the book Growing Readers, there is a section of  "Readers Build Good Habits." where you teach students how to care for books.  You make such a big deal out of books  that are left on the floor or placed upside down or if they are abused in any manner.  You want kids to care for your books the way you care for your books.  This ensures that they will last a long time so others will get to continue to enjoy them.  It also instills a lifetime skill of caring for books and other treasured property.

Well, I started calling the kids' books "precious babies."  If they are precious and fragile,  they should be taken care of  so we can enjoy them and  have them around for  a long time.

This  "precious babies principle" is also applied to our small  moment stories from Writing Workshop.  I want students to put their heart and souls into those stories so we can learn all about them and what they care about.  In addition, I want them to care about their stories enough to protect them in their folders and not leave them laying on the floor or a desk and proud enough to write their names and the dates on their stories.  (Babies have important meanings in our lives.)  Yesterday when one of our students dropped her stories on the ground, one of my students announced that he would "rescue" them for her.  We re-enacted what it looked like.  There was great laughter all around...but they are beginning to realize how important these works are.  Yay!

At first the kids were startled by me calling their books and stories babies....but as they gain a sense of preciousness about their work, they get the why, and I smile.

Have a grand week!
Mrs. Wallace

Thankful Thursday - It's all about Happiness!

It amazes me when things fall in place.  It means that they are just meant to be.  Daily at school, we work on character.  Sometimes it's short snippets or stories or quotes, but always some reminder that our character is important.  Every day I write them a message on the board and tell them that they are amazing or wonderful or terrific and invite them to meet eyes with someone in the room and remind them they are special too.  This creates a positive atmosphere which passes on exponentially all day!  We talk about how this one act of kindness can spread much as the "Pay it Forward" campaign.

In addition, every Thursday, we have Thankful Thursday, and we pass Stanley, our class pet, around the circle, and name something we are thankful for.  To me, gratitude should be rated extremely high.  As we are grateful for things, we begin to feel truly blessed, and I believe we feel much happier.

Today, during lunch, I was able to open this video from daughter, where they show the Science of happiness.  And without me really knowing it out loud, only from following my truth inside, I've learned the Secret of happiness and wish to pass it on to you and yours

                      TRY IT OUT!    



Children don't inherently know or understand many feelings, they have to be learned, and gratitude is one of those feelings.  Now we know from Science that gratitude is an integral part of being happy.   Even if you don't believe this to be an exact Science, you should try this little experiment out for yourself.   You'll be amazed by the results.  Remember, it is an experiment that works best over time. 
:)

I cn't wait to hear about your experiments.  Report your results here!  If you've tried some other happiness experiments that you'd like to share, please post it here.  I'd love to try them myself.

Happy Thankful Thursday!

p.s.   for some reason this post didn't post on Thankful Thurs, but just as relevant!

   

Re-Drop for Tech Tuesday - More uses for your Dropbox!

Dropbox has become a valuable tool for me. A few weeks ago, I posted about my basic use of Dropbox.  Check here. It allows me to work on lesson plans at home or school. The best part for me is as I monitor and adjust my week, I have an automatic update for next year.  If something doesn't work, I can make changes then and there, add notes of what works and what doesn't work and  add resources.  Take away is easy too!

However, here is a discovery that I came across the last couple of weeks, it's awesome to do "shared" folders with your parents!  Each year I feel guilty for all the pictures I take that parents don't have access to because of how time consuming it is to make copies for everyone.  Now, as I take pictures, I can put them on a disk and add it to the shared folder when I have time.  Parents can grab whichever pictures they like.  This folder is only accessible to emails I put in for parents of the current year. If a parent doesn't want a photo of their child posted, I don't put it in the shared folder.  Parents have been quite happy about it.  For now, it's not a problem. 

The shared folder is also great for those homework assignments that sometimes don't make it home, making it easy for parents to snag it and print it at home.

Do you use Dropbox?  If so, how do you use it?  Let me know.

For now,
enjoy!

Mrs. Spy Comes to Town- Living Anchor Charts

My dearest friends, I've come to tell you the power of voice and characters.  Sometimes when you are busy trying new things, you tend to forget to come back to the basics and just play with the kids.  I wanted to jazz up my reading and keep the kids engaged, so I just started using voices and characters, much the same as they do in the book Interactive Think Alouds.  (Thank you Kerry!)  Of course, it's best when you take the idea and make it your own.  (and drum up a bit of courage.)

I went in the hallway, put on a pair of  plain, fake glasses, used a Julia Childs' high pitched voice and used pictures to read pages.  In the next days that ensued, I went through the room with a discovery voice "oooooh....look at this!  I found the ER sisters!  And over here I found  the Quiet Brothers -  pointing to SH."  Each day I highlighted a new feature: the  alphabet cards, the chunk cards, resources and reading clues all around our room. 

These are now my "living anchor charts."  I KNOW these kids are connected to these cards because they keep helping each other refer to them, saying, "remember when Mrs. Spy showed us where the ER sisters were?"    I will keep referring back to these cards and charts to keep re-remembering what we've learned.

The coolest part of  my adventure was that I pretended that I had totally forgotten my name, and the kids named me, further engraining my character and anchoring our reading work.  They look for Mrs. Spy every day and tease me saying, you look a lot like Mrs. Wallace.  And, "hey, you're wearing the same clothes!"  There's still magic in first grade.  I love their joy.

The interesting part is that it doesn't matter what the prop, nor how big or fancy it is.  It's different and fun and therefore, engaging.

I have a funny feeling Mrs. Spy will be back in the future to continue our "living anchor charts."
:)

Tech Tuesday-Brain Breaks

YouTube is still one of my favorite tech tools. Just about anything you want to learn is there..and some things you don't....I love the brain breaks I've found.  I always have something ready.  One of my boards on Pinterest is specifically named Brain Breaks.  There are some pinned there that aren't videos at all.

Mostly what I've experienced is that it's nice to have the breaks set in one place for those times you need swift transitions or for those times when there's a lull or your kids need a pick me up.  Some of our class favorites are just about any  Energizer from Responsive Classroom like Go Bananas, Shark Attack, and What Would You Do If a Robot Came to Tea. These videos don't have ads. The Learning station has some great Brain Breaks too.  These videos come with caution.  You have to set them up ahead of time and go through the ads before the kids  watch them because often the ads aren't appropriate for kids.  The ads are brief, and you can skip them after a few seconds. 

One of the Learning Station  class favorites is Wishy Washer Woman.  It is a little long, but I break it up in two parts because they love the silliness activities at the end.

A final sharing of a favorite group is Dinostaur Stomp, which is very rhythmic and fun and does a lot of cross body motions (perfect to do before reading.)  Again, as with all videos, please make sure you pre-watch all videos to make sure YOU approve of what your kids are watching.  It may you just don't like the loudness of some of these.

I'm ALWAYS looking for cool new Brain Breaks.  If you have a few favorites, you should leave them here for me.  I can't wait to see what you leave me!

Have a fabulous rest of the week.

It's Coming Together!

Last I left off, I was working to get more color into my black and white room and investigated a color wheel to find complementary colors to go with some bulletin boards already in my  room.

Since I created my color palette, I noticed that after taking paper and bordered off my bulletin boards, I had the perfect complimentary color, turquoise! (Seriously, who makes turquoise bulletin boards?) Armed with my focus color and palette, I went to the fabric store and found the perfect material.

Well, long story short, my seeing machine broke. My husband's idea was that we could quickly sew the curtains by hand. Fortunately for me, I have this experience. It's been awhile, but I did it. Actually, we did it! (Yes, my wonderful, talented husband, made them too.)  

Then, we made the cushions for some reading benches that I found on Pinterest. See here.

Our book shelves were way to tall for my firsties to sit on, so I enlisted my sweet dear guy again, and he cut them in half.  We covered some foam in fabric using a glue gun, and  Target had the great canvas teal color I was looking for.   What do you think of my version? 

This weekend I'm tightening up the cloth so it looks more polished, and I think I need some vinyl to protect it!  If you line them up along the window, it's really nice, and it creates room dividers and extra storage space.  Awesome for rooms like mine that are strapped for storage space.

My chalkboard was killing my room with it's dull green color, so I took an idea my colleague, Marybeth had and painted it.  I thought I would need to repaint it with magnetic paint, but I didn't.  It made my room pop!  What I loved the most was that it was such a small change that made an amazing difference.  It's now my word wall because I was able to move the computers out, and my kiddos can interact more with it.  In addition, I will add the cookie sheets at the bottom for word work and word building.  I will let you know how it goes!

I'm sorry that it came out crooked...but it looks great doesn't it?

Next, remember when I read in Spaces and Places how to reduce wasted space?  I wish I had taken a picture of how they were.  There were two really nice, but large rectangle tables taking up most of my back wall to hold the computers.  My teaching partner Tammy, found a brilliant way to put them on a small round table and now I have more space for kids and less place for stuff.  I'm so happy! 

And lastly, I have this famous bulletin board that I was telling you I had covered up with black paper last year and almost missed out on some great color....who gets this great color unintentionally?  I know many in our building who are fond of it...but again, it's those great curtains my husband made that pulled all the colors together.

That's a peek into my room.  I'm sorry it took so long to get them up.  It's a much better feeling going into this new year with less clutter and more color and even more room for the kids!  You know something interesting?  The first week one of my kids said it took me awhile to find where your desk is, but here it is, the same size as ours...he said last year that his teacher had too much space in the room. For a kindergartener to be aware means that space matters to these kiddos too! 

Happy New school year to you.  Enjoy every moment!

 

 

 

 



Building Community and Discussions with Stanley, Our Class Pet

Hello my friends,  I've introduced you to our class pets in this post.  However, I'd like to go a little deeper.  Since we've started school, I will invite you to take a look at how Stanley helps create such a positive atmosphere in our room.  He's an ordinary stuffed puppy.   He does absolutely nothing except look cute!  He is mess free....trouble free...bark free...and you know what else free...

I do not have any extraordinary skills in ventriloquism, but they adore my dear Stanley.  I use my "Stanley" voice, and that's about all the tricks I have to do.  The rest is left to the brilliant imaginations of a five year old. 

Here's an example of one of the things I do with Stanley.  In the Responsive Classroom, we teachers write a positive letter to our students every day letting them know what we are doing that day.  It's funny, but I was doing that with kindergarteners long before I knew what Responsive Classroom was...but I imagine that it's because it's a great practice and the kids enjoy it.  Each day I greet my students, announce the day, what we are doing and end it with a positive phrase like "You are awesome," for them to repeat to the group around them.  It then becomes our phrase of the day (but certainly not limited to the only positive phrase of the day.)   Then, I sign the letter, love, Mrs. Wallace and Stanley, and leave Stanley's paw print. 

Another thing we do is "Praises and Prides."  Our friends form an orange (which means form a  circle to see everyone's eyes, instead of grapes or rows to listen to a book.)  We each take turns & go around the circle holding Stanley.  The only one allowed to speak is the person holding Stanley.  Honestly, you would think six year olds would get tired, but somehow Stanley brings the magic of stamina to our room.  I love, love, love the respect this element brings to our classroom.  I look forward to it.  Each person has to think of one thing to compliment another student in our room and say one thing they've done well in our room.

Students don't automatically know how to compliment each other.  Usually I start this ritual with "praises" for each other.  This usually starts with physical attributes like "I like your dress or your hair," and then I train them through other things we do about noticing and complimenting each other on the inside.   Then we move to "prides," or compliments for ourselves.  This activity often makes our kids uncomfortable because they don't yet know the difference between boasting and being proud of  making a goal or accomplishing a difficult task.  I carefully introduce the difference, and with practice, they figure it out.

As the year goes on and we make our community discoveries, I will include more here.  For now, I hope that something sparks an idea for you.  Please feel free to share what works for your classroom community because I'm always on the look out for new ideas.  For now, CHEERS!  And have a great weekend.

 

Oh the things Pictues Can Do! Low Tech for Technology Tuesday

Hmmm...funny this post has had some "technical" difficulty... made me laugh since this week's post is more low tech...

In the past few years, I've used a lot of pictures in my classroom, mostly to label work and make class books.  But last year, I began using them for lists; and this year, I pinned some things on Pinterest  from Chartchums about using pictures for anchor charts.  Wow!  How that little added piece of personalizing a chart creates more engagement for the kiddos.  I'm sure I haven't even
touched the surface of what I can do with such charts.  I might not even be able to keep up with my ideas for them!

My favorite part about the Chartchums' poster was how the kids used sticky notes for parts
they were currently using.  This is a  quick visual for the teacher and a token of accountability for the student.  Can't wait to use it for my Writing Workshop charts this week!


This week I used pictures to show what Reading Workshop looks like.  I went around the room taking pictures of kiddos completing the Daily 5 T-chart rules:  remaining in one place,  quietly,  reading the whole time, keeping our feet and hands to self, and our class agreement to stay away from our friends (since we are a bit chatty around them.)   This is an awesome management tool as well because they all want to be "caught" on camera!  I tell them it's documentation for their parents that they're working hard and doing a fabulous job!

I will repost pictures later as I'm still having technical difficulties.

Have a happy week!

Technology Tuesday presents DROPBOX !

I love genius!   Really, Dropbox has been around for awhile; however, I had tunnel vision on it's uses, thinking it was mostly a way for businesses to share on the "cloud."  Lately, I've been more appreciative of it's benefits to an ordinary human like me! AND, it just might be what you're looking for you too!   My problem was not remembering to bring a flashdrive back and forth to work or worried I would lose the flashdrive, when I needed these precious files (like lesson plans and activities)  in both places.  So for over a year, I would email files back and forth to myself.  This caused a bigger problem, cluttering my email!  I was frustrated, and I knew that my school district just wasn't yet able to assist me with this.

So, when I "restumbled" on Dropbox on my phone, I was elated!   Honestly,
I wasn't sure what took me so long to recognize this incredible tool for it's personal uses.   I'm glad I figured out how it would work for me!   The best part?  You don't have to download software (but sometimes it enables you to do more.) You can share photos and videos AND do it all in the popular social mediums like Twitter and Facebook.  You can automatically upload photographs or videos from camera, tablet, SD card, or smartphone, and you are given 3G.  For small users like me, this is enough storage and assists me with what I need it fore.  But imagine, as I get more into this, and begin sharing photos and video, I just might want to purchase me some bigger storage space.  Who knows?

In addition, I can think of a variety of uses for professional development for those documents that we teachers are constantly working on as teams like math units and lesson plans and other shared documents!   I imagine it's like all the other great technology out there...just waiting for people to take advantage of it.

For now, I'm a happy camper...
Happy technology Tuesday!