Poetry Friday -- A Small Sized Mystery

Our Not-So-Small-Sized Mystery

A Small-Sized Mysteryby Jane Hirshfield

Leave a door open long enough,
a cat will enter.
Leave food, it will stay.
Soon, on cold nights,
you’ll be saying “Excuse me”
if you want to get out of your chair.
But one thing you’ll never hear from a cat
is “Excuse me.”

(read the rest of the poem here)

Here's another small-sized mystery, if you have nine minutes to watch (make time...it's worth it). The Kid Should See This is a most excellent site filled with videos that are vetted for kid viewing. I've used these videos in every subject area for every reason: instruction, inspiration, and just plain FUN. 

Are you planning ahead for an International Women's Day poem next week for Catherine's roundup at Reading to the Core? Get on it! (...I'm saying to myself, too!)

Linda B. has today's roundup at TeacherDance.

Math Monday

Thanks to friend and colleague Maria Caplin (@mariacaplin) for tagging me in a tweet with this video. She knows I am always looking for great math ideas and this one looked promising! (And how was it that I was not following Marilyn Burns (@mburnsmath) on Twitter before this--thanks again, Maria!)

The 1-10 Card Investigation on Marilyn Burns' blog looked like a fun thing to try have my 5th graders try.  So last week we gave it a try.  It was our best day of math so far this year.

Marilyn Burns 1-10 Card Investigation

There was so much about this investigation that was perfect for math, especially early in the school year:

• The talk as students struggled with the problem was fabulous. Kids had a partner (one that they'd had for a few days in math) and this investigation invited purposeful collaboration. Kids were truly thinking together and we will build on that using this as an anchor.
• No one was upset about making mistakes as they had been over the. last few weeks. This investigation pretty much assumes you are going to make mistakes-many mistakes.  We used this experience to talk about why these mistakes felt more comfortable for them than other mistakes that they'd gotten upset about previously.
• Everyone wanted to figure this out on their own. They didn't want anyone to share their answer or strategy and they worked hard to think on their own. The fun was in the challenge. 
• There was so much laughing in the room during this 30 minute investigation.  It sounded like a big party. Most of the laughing came when kids thought they had it but then an incorrect card showed up.  The sound in the room is what math should sound like every day and we talked about that feeling of joy you have when you are solving something challenging.

In the 30-40 minutes we worked, about 3 groups figured this out.  (2 could not remember exactly what they did to make it work but they knew they could quickly figure it out again.) Many asked about continuing during an indoor recess one day and some were going to play around with the cards at home. No one asked for the answer and all were excited to get back to it sometime soon.  I looked back at the investigation after we finished and Marilyn Burns also offers a few extensions.

There was so much good about this day in math--I highly recommend this math lesson for upper elementary classrooms.

Early-in-the-Year Messages About Learning

There is no rushing the first few weeks of the school year. No matter how much I'd love to be in Week 8 right now with routines set and thoughtful conversations happening every day, I know that you can't rush community building. As hard as it is to establish routines, there is nothing like these first few weeks of school--getting to know students, watching them get to know each other,  and listening in on these beginning conversations.

I can never quite pinpoint exactly how things evolve in the classroom--how kids get from where they are at the beginning of the year to where they are at the end of the year.  I don't really have a set of lesson plans that helps to build talk early in the year.  I don't really believe in those "First 20 Day" planning guides. But I am very intentional about my planning and try to be responsive to each new group of students.  Each group comes in with different expectations as learners and I usually take my cue from them on where to do.  By May, I am always so amazed by my students' thinking and growth but they are not as comfortable talking and sharing early in the year so I spend a lot of time planning things that give them important messages and experiences about learning.

The thing is, lots of these things don't happen in Reading Workshop. In Read Aloud and in minilessons, we are learning to have conversations around books. But it seems to be that it is the conversations that we are having during other times in the day that also help build the conversations we have as readers.  In a self-contained classroom, nothing stands alone.  Somehow, conversations in reading are possible because we spend time throughout each day thinking about learning and thinking and talking.  The conversations overlap and talk starts to get better each day in the classroom in all areas.

Learning Happens Everywhere and in Many Different Ways

For the last few years, we've watched Caine's Arcade on the first day of school to talk about Caine as a learner.  I want my kids to know that learning happens in lots of ways and that lots of learning will happen in and out of school. I want them to know that the kind of learning Caine shares in his story will be valued in our classroom. Some years we've created a chart or had a conversation discussing the ways Caine is a learner or how we know Caine is a learner.

We Learn When We Think Together

We mention in our book the idea of Thinking Partners.  A board in the front of our classroom has a heading "Who Are You Thinking With Today?". Below are 2 sets of individual photos of the students in our class.  I use this to quickly assign partners for various things when needed. Early in the year we talk about how you learn different things when you think with different people.  We've done partner talk in all areas learning how to turn and talk, sit "knee-to-knee, eye-to-eye", keep a conversation going for a short amount of time, etc.

Thinking and Talking about Our Own Learning (and others' learning) Helps Us Grow

I invite adults in the school to come in and share their lives as readers with us during the first several weeks of school.  This helps students learn about others which in turn helps them reflect on their own reading.  As they learn about different readers and see connections and differences, they begin to ask questions and learn to talk about reading habits and behaviors in new ways.

Mrs. Phifer, our reading teacher, sharing things about her life as a reader last week in our classroom.

A Learning Community Gives Feedback to Help Other's Grow

Austin's Butterfly is one of my favorite clips to show early in the year.  I think the idea of specific feedback and supporting each other as we all learn and grow is fascinating to students as they watch this clip.

Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work from EL Education on Vimeo.

Our Brain Grows

This year, I shared one of Jo Boaler's videos on Youcubed. "Four Boosting Math Messages from Jo and Her Students" invited powerful conversations about the brain, making mistakes, and other myths about learning (math and beyond).

We Learn When We Are in the Role of Teacher AND When We Are in the Role of Learner

In our classroom, we have Wonder Workshop daily. This is the way I make sense of Genius Hour and Makerspace ideas and bring them together to give kids a time each day to take total charge of their learning.To kick off Wonder Workshop, each child shares something they love or are good at with classmates.  This is an informal presentation done at tables with small groups.  This joyful time helps us get to know each others' interests and also helps everyone discover things they may want to learn or try during Wonder Workshop. By the end of the week, we'll have 23 new things are possibilities for Wonder Workshop. And we'll have experienced the power of learning from each other over and over again.

We talk about being an active participant in a session and this is easy for them to do and understand when they are in both roles. We don't do a typical presentation--instead kids teach at a table to an audience of 3-5 kids several times until all kids rotate through. This keeps kids engaged and gives kids lots of experiences as both a teacher and and audience. We reflect on our roles each day and we also discover what we appreciated about the ways different people taught and learned. This conversation will carry on throughout the year.

We Can Learn from Others Through Technology

I made it a point to share resources from online sources so kids know quickly that we learn from lots of people and technology allows that. (They know this of course, but I want them to know that this will happen lots in our classroom.)  I also want them to know that there are people out there who create things to share to TEACH others. (This will be good when they learn to research and it also serves as an invitation to create resources for others online.)

We've learned from Ruth Ayres (A Peek Inside My Writer's Notebook), Jess Keating (Write With Jess Keating), Amy Vanderwater (Sharing Our Notebooks) and Mr. Stadel at Estimation 180. The variety of videos, blog posts, activities created for learning all show that there are so many ways to learn from others.

None of these things can stand alone but together they work magic when it comes to evolving messages about what it means to be a learning community.

We Write For You

A must watch video.

Friends with Fins: Informational Videos

I'm always looking for good videos for my students.  As we expand our understanding of what it means to be a reader in this digital age, I know videos are an important part of learning.  I want my students to have lots of experience with quality video.  I've heard over and over again from my students that they enjoy watching video for entertainment, but they don't really know how to watch video to learn. So I know part of my work is helping them to read video.  I think lots of kids pick up bits of info when they are watching for entertainment, but finding good informational videos for kids is sometimes a challenge.  Short videos that are crafted well so that kids can learn information as well as study the video for the craft are things I am always on the lookout for.

Recently I noticed that Jaclyn Friedlander, a Marine Life and Ocean Conservation Expert has been adding weekly video episodes to her blog. (I interviewed Jaclyn on our blog about her picture books a while back.)

The Friends with Fins videos are PERFECT for my students. They are short, engaging and packed with lots of fascinating information.  Many connect to our science standards and I'll watch them a bit more closely to see which align with our science standards.  So much of our life science is about habitats and animal adaptations and so much information connected to that is embedded in these videos.

I also plan to use the videos in Reading Workshop as we think about learning from video clips. And I will use them in writing workshop as they will be great mentor texts for informational writing. They are crafted well and there is lots to study as a writer/moviemaker.  The way that Jaclyn shares information is accessible to young learners.  There are so many possibilities for these videos.  I like them individually, but the collection of the videos on the site provides so even more to learn from.  Not only are these a great link to science standards, but Jaclyn is passionate about ocean conservation and uses her blog and social media to spread that message.

Jaclyn plans to add a video most weeks to the site will continue to grow.  (All of the videos are also available on her Youtube Channel as well. And her books are now available as Kindle or iPad versions.

Conversations About Community in 3rd Grade

A big theme in our Social Studies curriculum is Community.  I kicked off the study this week, I introduced the idea of community and the idea of learning community as an introduction to this yearlong study.  I wanted to have these conversations and this thinking started before we move into the content of local government, community resources, etc.  When we started our conversation, kids shared all they knew about community. I want them to understand the citizenship part of community--that everyone does his/her part and everyone works toward community goals while individuals still have more personal goals.  At the beginning of the conversation, kids seemed to know the content stuff of community (neighborhoods, parks, people, rules and laws) at a basic level which gave us a great start to our conversation.  Then we moved on.

I shared two pieces with the students that first day.  I wanted them to reframe their thinking a bit to think about what made a community work.  I told them I was going to share two pieces as part of our discussion about community and then we'd talk about how those tied in. I wanted them to use these as ways to add to their understanding of what makes a community.  These two pieces provided an amazing conversation about community and what it means to be part of a community.

Following this video conversation, I read the picture book The Little Hummingbird (Ann Marie) by Michael Nicoll Yahgulhanaas.  (Thanks Ann Marie Corgill for this recommendation!) This is a powerful story about a little hummingbird doing his part in the community.

These two pieces provided just the right stories for a great beginning conversation to add new thinking about their understandings of community.

The next day, we read What If Everybody Did That? by Ellen Javernick. This was a quick read that reminds us why we have rules by taking readers into different settings, thinking about not following a rule, and asking, "What if everybody did that?"  We then talked about all of the communities we are a part of and how each had their own goals, rules, etc. Kids mentioned school, sports teams, churches, neighborhoods, our city, etc.

On Day 3 of our conversation, I paired 2 other videos to share with students. I wanted to really focus on the idea of a Learning Community and how members of a community support one another.  This conversation also included goal setting.

We watched this amazing video from Pernille Ripp's 5th grade classroom: My Students' Classroom Vision. At the end of the clip, one of my students said, "I loved that video. It was the best." It was very powerful for them. We followed up with a conversation about being brave, being part of a learning community, individual goals, and community goals. I shared my own experiences--about how it was easy for me to meet a reading goal, as it was easy for me and I loved to read. But it was brave of me to set a running goal and to put myself out there when running was something I had to work hard at.  How the book I am writing is something that has been hard for me lately and it takes some brave to not just quit.  How when we know each others' goals (as in any community) it is easier to help each other meet them.   It was all very informal but thoughtful.  

I followed up with a clip of Kristin Chenoweth which I loved (I used the one with Kellee instead but like this one better.)

We talked about how Kristen Chenoweth was so good and how she celebrated this guest who was amazing. She cheered for her and was so happy that she was so amazing. How that says a lot about Kristen--she loves seeing others do well. Kids immediately talked about ways they support others and cheer them on when they are successful. They were as interested in Kristen as they were in the friends who must have been filming and wooohoooing throughout.

Finally, on Thursday I shared The Butterfly Video.  Thanks to Steve Peterson who shared this clip with me in a blog comment last week! It is brilliant and it fit in perfectly with the week's conversations.  Again, kids were glued.

Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work - Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.

My favorite part of the follow-up conversation was the mention that, "Mrs. Christine, our art teacher would love this clip. Has she seen it?  I wonder if she has to do more than one draft? Does she get things right on the first try?"  We decided to email her the link to the video and our question right then. Of course she emailed back to let us know that, yes, she does many drafts for lots of things, even as an art teacher:-)

This week's conversations around community were really important for many reasons. I think the kids will understand the bigger communities of city, state, world, etc. because they have thought so much about their own communities. They understand that people make up a community and that our classroom is a community, a learning community.  They have a role to play in the community--for themselves and for the good of the group.

I can already tell that these videos and books have made an impact.  They keep coming up in conversation and I imagine they will continue to. Just like Caine's arcade, I imagine a few will become anchors for the year. Glad we began our conversation like this and am looking forward to the way the conversation evolves over the next eight months.

Poetry Friday -- The Joy of Language

A visual poem today, celebrating the joy of language.





"...but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language?"

Keri has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Keri Recommends. Happy Friday!