I {heart} Recess: Classroom

Showing posts with label Classroom. Show all posts

This year I was finally ready to make Read Across America Week a school wide event! I've always loved this day/week while in the classroom, but hadn't planned a school wide event as an instructional coach the past two year. Not anymore!

I am Type A personality and a natural planner. I started planning for this week two weeks in advance and started prepping my teachers just as early. Here are a few things we did throughout the week.

Each day students and staff were encouraged to dress up corresponding to a Dr. Seuss book (red handout). I scheduled guest readers to read to our classes throughout the week, I found it easier to schedule this way instead of on one particular day. Each class filled out a thank you card for their reader to go with a goody bag I made.

Our morning announcements are provided by our students on the morning news, so this week we played book BINGO. I created 24 different BINGO boards and passed them out to each class. On the morning news the students drew two books, and classes marked off the books. Friday morning we still didn't have a BINGO so the kids pulled books until a class called down with a BINGO. The winning class won a popcorn party during their Read-A-Thon.

Our school implements a PBIS like model and students earn Patriot Dollars for demonstrating leadership. To encourage students to read during our Read-A-Thon on Friday I provided teachers with special blue cat in the hat patriot dollars.

(I will share more about our Read-A-Thon further in this post.)

As you enter our school we have a pretty large lobby. I asked my principal if I could decorate it, I actually said can I go big or go home. :) She said go for it and that was all I needed to create my own Seussville.

Half way through the green hills I had that thought of "what was I thinking", but loved how the lobby turned out. Everyone was sad to see it come down at the end of the week, darn fire marshals. :)

I held a bulletin board contest for teachers this week, and our guest readers were are judges because prizes were involved. I loved seeing the Seuss theme throughout the entire building!

The First place winner choose the $10 TpT gift card, second place choose the cold stone gift card, and third place won the duty free recess pass.

Monday was Fox in Sox day! I made these shirts for my admin and I.

Tuesday was "Who-ville" day, aka crazy hair day. I had wanted to get hidden rainbow hair this spring, but thought why not now for Seuss week! I absolutely LOVE how it turned out and plan on keeping it for awhile.

We are on a A/B week schedule for our enhancements. Students go to Library or computer lab depending on the week. I wanted them to experience a fun activity tied to Seuss so I hijacked the computer lab and library by setting up a Seuss Mystery. I used the following blog post as my inspiration. Our students LOVED it! The students were telling everyone about the crime scene mystery they solved!

Through out the week we invited parents, central service people, and maintenance workers from the district to come read to our kids. I wanted a lot of positive male role models for our boys, especially for reading. They see our maintenance workers often and I felt it was important for them to help show students that reading can be fun. We are a 3-5 school so I scheduled majority of our male readers with 4th and 5th grade classes.

Friday was pajama day and our school wide Read-A-Thon! I took inspiration from my girls Joanne at Head over Heels for Teaching and Amelia from Where the Wild Things Learn. I provided the teachers with a schedule, asked students to bring in flashlights, sunglasses/silly glasses, blankets or beach towels, and snacks.

The first 30 minutes was for Flashlight Reading.

At the first break I asked teacher to read a chapter from any book and then choose one student who would like to continue to read it silently during the next 30 minutes of reading.

The last two reading sessions teachers were encouraged to take their students outside, or use a link I sent them for a fire or beach scene on the smartboard.

During the Read-A-Thon teachers passed out the blue Patriot dollars to students who were on task. Students wrote their names and teachers names on the back and turned them in at the end of the Read-A-Thon. I then went on the school news and pulled seven blue Patriot dollars out of the bin for the students to win a brand new book. ALL names drawn were 5th grade BOYS!!!

I think having all those positive male readers for them paid off! :)

As an instructional coach you don't see your hard work reflected back as much as you do as a classroom teacher. During this week my heart was FULL! Friday morning when I saw all the students coming in with their pjs, blankets, flashlights, sunglasses, and snacks my heart felt like it was going to explode! All our children were excited for a morning of reading. Walking through the classrooms and seeing over 500 students reading is one of the best feelings in the world.

I {Heart} Recess

As many of you know I am now an Instructional Coach and recently have been attending Professional Development with my new district. I will not have a classroom to decorate this new school year, but recently attended an administrative Professional Development that got me thinking about how I used to decorate my classroom.

At a recent Professional Development the topic of Word Walls came up. The presenter didn't focus on how to use Word Walls, but rather how to ensure they are user friendly and "clean". When looking at his examples it was easy to see how distracting some boards were and how others were simple and cute.

As elementary teachers we often focus on the "cutesty" or "Pinteresty" look for our classrooms, but forget that the room is supposed to focus around learning. We often get carried away with everything looking perfect for us, but fail to look at our bulletin boards and anchor charts through the eyes of our students. Some students may become overwhelmed with all of the information or over stimulated by all of the colors and designs.

To show you what the presenter was showing us I have pulled some images from a google search, if any of these images are yours I am not putting anyone down, but using them as a tool for us to think about how we decorate our rooms.

The background is cute, but it is too busy for little ones. The images are what catches the eyes, rather than the words that the students are supposed to reference. I asked my little guy going into Kindergarten (the board is from the beginning of the year K class) where the letters or words were, and he pointed to the title.

This one is for upper grades, but is very busy! Words overlap, and there is no organization of the words. From the PD I was reminded that our minds, and especially those of our students, work better when items are grouped or organized in to categories. (This is why we teach with graphic organizers and make list. )

Again, this word wall is VERY busy and there isn't any organization. Imagine you were a student looking at this board, would you know where to look for a word you needed to reference?

This board is very cute and creative, but not very effective as a Word Wall. The words are small and going in different directions. As a student would you be able to know what the words were for, other than music? Creating a large grid or tree map would be more effective for students to reference.

Personally, when I look at this through the eyes of a coach I see a teacher who is complying to the request of word walls in classrooms, not utilizing the word wall. (Through the eyes of a teacher, very cute and took a long time to create.)

The background on this WW is simple and the words easily stand out. I ask my little guy to find the words on this board and he found them as soon as he looked at the board. This board is still cute and functional for students.

This board I believe is for an upper grade Science class, possibly middle school too. The board is colorful, but still organized, neat, and easy to use for students.

This word wall is great because it shows the relationship of the words in a graphic organizer. As a student you would not only reference this for how to spell a word or to use in your writing, but as a reference for what the words mean. ( I think I would even have my students copy this into their notebook.)

This is an example our presenter showed us. The board is simple, clean, and organized. One of the great attributes of this WW is that there is a key at the top of the board letting students know that the words in red are for Reading, Green for Math, Blue for Science, and Purple for Science.

This ins't a WW, but an example of a focus wall that is also neat, clean, and functional for students.

As you begin to redecorate your classrooms in the coming weeks sit down in one of your student's desk and view your room through their eyes. Just something to think about :)

I {Heart} Recess

We all know teachers are magic, but it seems that this time of year, our magical powers need a little extra umph and a maybe even an ABRACADABRA to get us to that last day of school! So, I teamed up with some amazing intermediate bloggers to create some magic of our own! You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, we joined forces to swap some of our favorite resources, armed with the goal of putting a little extra magic in our lessons and keeping our students engaged during these final weeks of the school year.

Credit goes to these talented graphic & font artists: Krista Wallden, KG Fonts & CC Fonts.

As promised, we’re all back today with Part 2 of our blog hop giveaway – the big reveal – viola!

Nonfiction Book Report Project (Aligned to CCSS)

If you remember from my previous post I chose Kathleen's Nonfiction Informational Book Project to keep my students engaged this time of year....I am happy to report it was a hit with my students!

We collected cereal boxes for a week so we could have them ready to use. The first day I attempted to teach my kiddos how to wrap a cereal box like a present using bulletin board paper. Now, do you ever have those moments when your realize you are in too deep to abandon ship? I had that moment about two steps into this process! After repeating myself, hearing my named called over and over, and running out of glue we ended up with 23 boxes successfully wrapped.

On the second day I passed out the rubric, yes I saved my copies by shrinking it down, and showed examples of completed projects from Kathleen's blog. Students then read their nonfiction text and started taking notes and working on the assignment requirements.

On the third day my students started working on their boxes. I broke up the requirements by day, day 1 the front, day 2 the sides, day 3 the back, and day 4 was for those who needed extra time.

Here is an example of a completed front. I hate that I don't have more pictures today, I was out Friday and didn't get pictures of the completed boxes. If you check back Tuesday I will have more completed pictures.

I am so glad I chose this product! My students absolutely LOVED working on their projects and asked every day when they would get a chance to work on them. Normally, I would of assigned this project as a homework assignment, but at this time in the year I wanted to provide my kiddos an opportunity to be creative in class. While they worked I was able to pull students for their end of the year DIBELS assessments. I highly recommend Kathleen's product for a fun end of the year project! It's a fun way for students to demonstrate what they have learned about informational text.

Now to our second round of magic giveaway! We decided to switch things up a bit by having several winners this time around! In fact, 14 classrooms will receive a little magic for their own classrooms! Each of the blogs featured below will be giving their prize to a different winner!

So, perhaps you want to know what MY winner will collect! Whoever is drawn as the winner from my blog will receive

"Winner's Choice" That's right, the winner will receive one item from my store (excluding bundles)!

Good luck!

Here’s what you need to do for this giveaway:

Stop by each blog to read about all the magic that has been spread around classrooms near and far!

Enter to win each blogger’s resource using the raffle below. Each blog is showcasing the same Rafflecopter, so you can just add entries as you go!

While you are at each blog, if you’re not a blog follower already, sign on to follow! (You can earn bonus entries for following all blogs once you unlock the additional entries.)

Again, a total of 14 winners will be named! Each blog will award a winner. That individual will receive the prize listed at that blog!

Here’s the list of blogs to visit:

Swap Stop A