21st Century Thinking-My Blog Visits

The end of the year always seems crazy and  I haven't had much time lately to read, visit blogs, and reflect on my teaching.  As the year starts to wind down, things are slowing down a bit and I find myself thinking ahead to the next school year. Where do I want my thinking to go and what do I want to be thinking about over the summer?  This is my newest list of things that have me thinking in terms of 21st Century learning. So many smart people out there doing amazing things. So happy that they are all willing to share so much. 

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the way that new tools are changing the Writing Workshop. What does it mean to be a writer today?  Kim at Always Learning has a great post where she shares their work in Reading/Writing Workshop.  How do we best meet the needs of today's students? She describes a unit focused on digital literacy. Such a smart way to expand our thinking about workshop.

As I continue to think about what it means to be a writer these days, I continue to search for great mentors for students.  Pieces to read, listen to and watch so that we can talk a bit about craft and creation in our minilessons. If you have not had a chance to visit the Parkway Digital Film Festival video page, it is filled with amazing projects by students of all ages.  The variety and quality are amazing.  I love the whole idea of a film festival as a way to get a community sharing student projects.  But even if you aren't interested in the idea of a film festival, the site is a great resource of pieces by students.  The other video that I LOVE from Parkway is one called "Behind the Scenes" which takes us behind the scenes of students getting ready for the film festival-creating the films that they will enter. This is such a great film about 21st Century Learning and the idea that it is all so much more than technology integration. A great piece that shares the process of the kids' work.

The Longfellow Ten is also a great resource that shares examples of stopmotion film--mostly related to literary terms and science concepts.  Great examples for students.

Another new favorite site for students is East K-8 Book Reporters. On this site, students do a great job of booktalking a variety of books on video. A great way to preview books and a great format for student creation. 

I need to spend lots more time with this great compilation of ways to use your pocket video cameras in the classroom called THIRTY-NINE INTERESTING WAYS TO USE YOUR POCKET VIDEO CAMERA IN THE CLASSROOM. With these small cameras being so reasonably priced, I am loving the ideas of all of the different ways to use them.  This slide show of ideas will keep me from getting in a rut--so many great ideas!

As always, Kim Cofino at Always Learning  gives us something to think about in her recent post, "It's Not Just a Tool:  Technology as Environment".  In this post, she invites us to think with her about the difference between tool and environment and how that might be different for our students.  A smart post worth thinking about.

"Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21st Century Teachers" by Andrew Churches was a good one to read.  An interesting list to look at and to use as a guide for reflection.  A great article sharing IDEO's Ten Tips for Creating a 21st Century Classroom Experience

includes tips like creating from relevance, creating an environment that raises lots of questions by students and more. 10 tips worth reflecting on.

I was fascinated by Jenny at Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It description of their new report cards and the inclusion of Patterns of Thinking as they think about student progress.  I think progress reports are always difficult as it is so hard to share all that we know about our students. But this seems like an exciting way to move forward in our communication with parents.

This-n-That

What I Love About Procrastination (at Indexed)

My Favorite Combination of Truth and Snarkiness (It's Not All Flowers and Sausages)

Rhubarb Cobbler *swoon* (from Smitten Kitchen)

A belated Cinco de Mayo greeting (at LOLdogs)

Poetry Friday -- Speaking of Contraries

from WEST-RUNNING BROOK
by Robert Frost

'Speaking of contraries, see how the brook
In that white wave runs counter to itself.
It is from that in water we were from
Long, long before we were from any creature.
Here we, in our impatience of the steps,
Get back to the beginning of beginnings,
The stream of everything that runs away.
Some say existence like a Pirouot
And Pirouette, forever in one place,
Stands still and dances, but it runs away,
It seriously, sadly, runs away
To fill the abyss' void with emptiness.
It flows beside us in this water brook,
But it flows over us. It flows between us
To separate us for a panic moment.
It flows between us, over us, and with us.
And it is time, strength, tone, light, life and love-
And even substance lapsing unsubstantial;
The universal cataract of death
That spends to nothingness -- and unresisted,
Save by some strange resistance in itself,
Not just a swerving, but a throwing back,
As if regret were in it and were sacred.
It has this throwing backward on itself
So that the fall of most of it is always
Raising a little, sending up a little.
Our life runs down in sending up the clock.
The brook runs down in sending up our life.
The sun runs down in sending up the brook.
And there is something sending up the sun.
It is this backward motion toward the source,
Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,
The tribute of the current to the source.
It is from this in nature we are from.
It is most us.'



The whole poem is here. The round up this week is at Picture Book of the Day.

The Pain and the Great One Chapter Books

Friend or Fiend? with the Pain & the Great One

by Judy Blume

illustrated by James Stevenson

Random House, May 12, 2009

review copy received at IRA-Phoenix

best for grades 2-4

How did I miss this new(er) series by Judy Blume? This is the fourth one!

There's lots to love about this book. It starts with a one paragraph introduction of each of the characters (The Pain -- Jake the first grade brother, and The Great One -- Abigail the third grade sister). 

Each chapter can stand alone as a short story -- great for guided reading groups, literature circles, or mentor texts. But some of the chapters are linked in fun ways, like the ones in this book that featured Fluzzy the cat in some way. (There's even a chapter from the point of view of Fluzzy!)

The chapters are sometimes told from the point of view of The Pain, and sometimes from the point of view of The Great One. You can tell by the picture at the beginning of the chapter. 

Problems and solutions are very clear in these short chapter-stories. There is sibling rivalry, mean cousins who make siblings grateful, conflicts between friends, the embarrassment of mistakes made in public (at school), mean neighborhood children who bring the best out in The Great One, and a chocolate ice cream cone that winds up smushed on The Pain's forehead that actually solves more problems than it causes!

Teacher Appreciation Day

Teacher Appreciation Day is when the high schooler whose youngest brother is in fourth grade comes back and chats with me during bus duty, breathlessly telling me that he is going to be a photojournalist, that he has "grown a brain" since I had him in fourth and fifth grades, that he only shaves for dances and other special occasions.

Teacher Appreciation Day is sitting down in the teachers' lounge with a first grade teacher who was in my fourth grade class.

Teacher Appreciation Day is seeing a student make her idea come to being: a play she wrote based on the book HACHIKO WAITS being practiced on the stage in preparation for performance for the whole grade level.

Teacher Appreciation Day is an email from a former parent who still checks my (pathetically maintained) classroom website to see what's going on in fourth grade and who writes with periodic book chat and recommendations.

Teacher Appreciation is a Minnie Mouse watch in the mail from a family whose children I had 19 and 13 years ago. They long ago moved many states away, but we have continued to exchange Christmas cards all these years. The watch was a "gift of time" in recognition of my 10 year celebration.

Teacher Appreciation is hearing from our school librarian about her daughter, who was in my 5th grade class, now a voracious reader that had to be teased and tickled along back then, who is graduating from college and entering the Peace Corps this fall.

Teacher Appreciation doesn't just happen on a certain designated day in May. It's all the little things that let me know that what I have done with my life for the past 20+ years has made a difference -- small differences in the moment, and lasting differences that have changed lives.

April Mosaic

I'm 120 days into the Project 365 challenge on Flickr, and I'm still having fun! 

In June, when I'm halfway through the year, I think it will be fun to pull together some of the small themes that have emerged: the cat, blooms, pictures out my classroom window, food pics.

Carrying my camera with me at all times has continued to change the way I look at and interact with the world. We stopped and watched the geese with their nest in the median of a shopping center parking lot, and I took pictures until Papa Goose came at me with his neck out, hissing. I didn't get a shot of Lynn's wine glass at our book club dinner because the waiter brought our food and the moment was gone, but I lost myself in the red of the wine and the way it was sparkling in the afternoon sun.

It may or may not be related to this photo project, but I'm starting to use my writer's notebook again -- capturing "snapshots" in words -- and it's good to get back to that.

  

Poetry Friday -- 21st Century Thinking

Earbud
by Bill Holm

Earbud--a tiny marble sheathed in foam
to wear like an interior earring so you
can enjoy private noises wherever you go,
protected from any sudden silence.

(the rest of the poem is here)


This poem got me thinking about all of the 21st Century gadgets we can't live without, but which create barriers that separate us from other real, live human beings.

The round up this week is at Allegro.

(Photo credit: "Earbud love 2" by Dano)

Poetry Month -- Zorgamazoo

Zorgamazoo
by Robert Paul Weston
illustrated by Victor Rivas
Penguin Young Readers Group, 2008

Yes, I know I already reviewed this book. That was before I read it aloud to my fourth graders. That was before it was selected for the short list of the E.B. White Read Aloud Awards. That was before I heard the author reading the first couple of chapters on his blog. (You can read the first chapter here, and the Zorgamazoo website is here.)

I'd like to end the 2009 National Poetry Month by encouraging the ABC Booksellers who are voting for the winner of the E.B. White Read Aloud Award to choose Zorgamazoo, and by encouraging every teacher of grades 3-6 to read this book aloud.

You've never read anything like it (283 pages of rhyming verse) but it won't take long at all for you to see how fun it is to read aloud (it positively lends itself to dramatic expression). Your students might start off as slightly reluctant listeners, but it won't take long at all for them to be drawn into the story, to notice the irony of Morty becoming a hero by winning the hero lottery rather than doing something heroic, to predict why all the creatures are imprisoned on the moon by Dullbert Hohummer, the Third, and to cheer when it's time for read aloud every day.

Happy Poetry Month 2009! It's been great fun!

Poetry Month -- all the small poems and fourteen more

all the small poems and fourteen more
by Valerie Worth
illustrated by Natalie Babbitt
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994

Are you ready for Poem in Your Pocket Day tomorrow? If not, grab this classic and open to any page to find a small poem just right for tucking in your pocket to share with anyone who will listen!

Here's a perfect one to celebrate those wildflowers which have been appearing in our lawn the last couple of weeks, and which so many of us have such a hard time loving:

dandelion

Out of
Green space,
A sun:
Bright for
A day, burning
Away to
A husk, a
Cratered moon:

Burst
In a week
To dust:
Seeding
The infinite
Lawn with
Its starry
Smithereens.

Poetry Month -- Basketball

Hoop Kings
by Charles R. Smith
Candlewick Press, 2004








Hoop Queens
by Charles R. Smith
Candlewick Press, 2003








I don't know much about basketball, but I do know that these two books pass the test with the sports fans (mostly boys) in my classroom. They are pulled in by the famous players, the bold colors, and the action photography. Once they're hooked, they find poems of many forms, including rhyming, free verse, acrostic, and rap.

Here's part of Sheryl Swoopes' poem, "All That:"

The Point Leader
Stat Line Feeder,
last-second
shot-making
OT Buzzer-Beater.
The Board Snatcher
Bullet Pass Catcher,
charging hard
through-the-lane
coming-right-at-ya.
The Lane Spinner
championship Winner,
coast to coast
off-the-glass
finger-roll finisher.