What are we teaching?

I love to find cute pins on Pinterest and pictures on Instagram, but I admit I get antsy when I see endless crafts and clipart on teacher blogs and Pinterest boards. I cringe when I see writing lessons that involve cutting and pasting text boxes or reading lessons that are mostly tracing and coloring.  As a former Pre-K teacher, I know how tempting it is to want every lesson to include a Pinterest-worthy product.  Yet activities that involve perfectly painted handprints, marks inside the lines, and carefully-cut collages often lack genuine instruction or real content.  I have to question "lessons" that are essentially cutting, pasting, and coloring -- what are they really teaching?

This goes back to one of the Guiding Principles of the Responsive Classroom approach: How children learn is as important as what they learn.  I'm critical of how I have my kiddos practice skills and demonstrate their understanding because I want to ensure that they are always learning and creating in authentic ways. While I incorporate art in my classroom, I try to avoid "craftivities" that don't actually allow students to be creative, use teamwork, or demonstrate genuine learning.

My kiddos share their thinking through jotting in the margins of books (or on post-its), journaling, debating, or discussing.  They learn how to write short stories, articles, and letters to share their individual ideas and interests.  They sketch and draw to visualize concepts and capture observations. Sure, they also cut and paste into their notebooks, but I try to make sure they are also thinking and writing independently.

Readers make notes and discuss their books.

Scientists record observations of what they find in nature (after a field trip).

Mathematicians understand fractions by creating visual representations.

Authors share favorites sections from their books.

Character Riddles

At the end of each unit I try to have a culminating celebration where the kiddos can share their learning. For reading units though, it's often hard to find something that wraps up our learning in a shareable way.  Fortunately, at the end of our character unit, we had the perfect way to display our learning -- the kiddos used everything they had discovered about their characters to create riddles. 

{For our bulletin board, I drew the Lilly and Owen mice.}

The kiddos were so excited to write riddle clues! They kept hiding their papers and giggling to themselves.  They had to use their character's appearance, actions, and traits to develop the questions so this was also an informal assessments to see if they could determine defining characteristics.  The kiddos' riddles turned out great!  They've been having a lot of fun flipping up the questions every time they walk through the hallway.  I'll probably keep the bulletin board up for another couple of weeks until they finally get tired of reading the same riddles again and again. :)

Best Work Board

When I taught Pre-K, one of the primary bulletin boards in my classroom was always our "Best Work" wall.  Whenever my Pre-Kers produced something they were proud of, they would ask to put it up on the wall.  It was often challenging for little guys to learn to spend time on a project, but teaching them about choosing "best work" helped them learn to focus on a piece of work.  Well, the fabulous second grade teachers at my school recently made their hallway board into a Best Work board for their kiddos, and it reminded me of the importance of letting kids select the pieces they want to put on display.  

Yesterday, I talked to my kiddos about how we would create our own best work board.  We brainstormed all the things they have worked on in class - from spelling tests, to literacy worksheets, to math book pages, to reading responses, to science journals - and then they thought about what piece they wanted everyone to see.

After the kiddos selected a meaningful piece, they got to write about why they selected it.  It was cute to see the work they were excited about and the board came together really easily!

"... I worked very very very very very hard on it..."

We are Thankful

A few weeks ago, our Responsive Classroom committee got together to discuss our upcoming community bulletin board.  This board is something new that we instituted this year.  We wanted a place, on the first floor, to showcase community, diversity, and learning from around the school.  Our first bulletin board had the teachers' "hopes and dreams" for the school year.  Then we took pictures of kiddos around the school performing common routines and procedures, like walking in the hallway and hanging up their coats.

For our most recent board, we invited every kiddo in the school to share what they are thankful for on a half-sheet of paper.  In my own class, I read Splat says Thank You to introduce the idea of being thankful.  I'd never even heard of this great book until one of the other amazing first grade teachers told me about it.  My kiddos loved Splat and Seymour and the story was so sweet!  Plus, it definitely sent home the message about the importance of showing gratitude for others.  

Here are two of my favorites from the firsties:

Throughout the week, teachers turned in their classes' forms to me.  I compiled them onto a bulletin board with the title "We are thankful."  Around the edge of the board, another teacher printed out "thank you" in a variety of languages and fonts.  I love the resulting diversity on this board: some teachers took dictation, there's lots of invented spelling, older kiddos tried out cursive handwriting, and the pictures range from stick figures to full-color sketches.  There is also a lot of variety in what we are thankful for -- many kiddos were thankful for their family, friends, and pets, but we also got everything from candy to football. 

My favorite thing about this board though, was actually putting it up.  While I was in the midst of stapling, a couple of kindergarteners walked by with their moms asked what I was doing.  I explained the project and the kiddos recalled writing their own thankful notes.  They began selecting sheets for me to post up and reading each of the cards.  They were so excited that one of them pulled a notebook out of her backpack and began to create a list of other things she for which she was thankful!  So sweet!

*I ran out of room on the board, so now we have notes of thanks covering the windows to the office and library as well -- what a great thing to see when we walk around the halls! :) 

What Does It Mean to Be American?

We've just wrapped up our American Symbols unit.  I loved this unit last year and I didn't change too much about this for this year.  Once again, this unit was a big hit with the kiddos.  First graders just love learning about national symbols!  I think this is probably, in part, because once they learn these symbols they find them everywhere: there are bald eagles on quarters, on top of flag poles, on signs all over DC!

 Toward the end of this unit, I had the kiddos choose an American symbol to write about it on our banner paper.  They had to write the name of the symbol and any common names for it.  They also included what the symbol looks like, stands for, and why it is important.  This served as a great assessment to see what kiddos had learned and remembered about each of the symbols.  This could easily be made into a book with each of the symbols, although this year I just had them each do one.

I also had the kiddos write the meaning and importance of the civic values we learned about, such as liberty, independence, courage, and fairness.  It was interesting to see the things that the kiddos pulled out from all of our discussions and stories.  The kiddos were very impressed that America had won independence from the British (I tried to stress that America and Britain now get along, but I think the firsties might still have hard feelings!)  They certainly got the point that Americans value bravery and freedom.

I put up a bulletin board today to showcase our learning from this unit.  I titled the board "What does it mean to be a American?" because our focus has really been on how all of these symbols and values connect to our history and culture as Americans.  This board is actually on the first floor (not in front of our classroom) so it will get a lot of traffic.  Already, I've seen other kiddos walking by getting excited to see familiar symbols and words! That's bulletin board success in my mind :)

Safety Tips... Updated!

Here is the original Safety Tips post...

This year, once again, we began our year with Officer Buckle.  I love this book to get the year started.  Officer Buckle and Gloria are great characters and the message of the book really gets through to the kiddos.  Once again, we read the story and then encouraged the kiddos to think of their own safety tips.  I tried to guide them toward thinking specifically of ways we stay safe at school.  They came up with some great ideas!

{Top: Do not talk when there is a fire drill. Bottom: Do not lean back on a chair or else you fall}

This year, I also used this lesson to introduce scissors and glue.  First we did a "Guided Discovery" of the scissors.  We talked about what scissors are used for -- and what they are not to be used for -- at school. The kiddos each demonstrated holding and carrying the scissors safely.  Then they got to cut out their own stars.  This was challenging for some kiddos but great practice.  Afterward, they kiddos got to use glue sticks to glue their star onto a circle (I cut out the circles).  We discussed safety and responsibility with the glue sticks as well.

The kiddos were very excited to see Officer Buckle and Gloria make an appearance in the hallway -- some of them even remembered them from last year.  Admittedly, I was nervous that having the kiddos do the cutting and gluing would make the bulletin board "messy" but my wonderful colleague reminded me that it would be great for the kiddos to see their work on display and they are, after all, in first grade so a little messiness would be okay.  I like this bulletin board tradition!

Building an Exhibit

It's time for our Spring Museum Exhibition!  Just like our fall Museum Exhibition, this school-wide open house is a way for each class to showcase their learning.  This time, the first grade is excited to share what we have learned about the ancient Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations.

As with our previous Museum Night project, this project is closely connected to the DC standards of learning for first grade, including:

• Social Studies 1.4 Students describe characteristics of the of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations.
• Social Studies 1.4.3 Explain their artistic and oral traditions, and their development of writing systems and calendars.
• Social Studies 1.4.4 Describe the inventions and advances astronomy, mathematics, and architecture [of the ancient Maya, Inca, and Aztec people]

We planned out our display as a class and decided what topics would be most important to teach our families and friends about the Maya, Inca, and Aztecs. The kiddos worked in pairs or small groups to make posters about the most significant developments, advances, and adaptations that we had discussed.  Then we put together a detailed bulletin board that connected each poster to part of the Mesoamerican landscape.

Here's how we did it: 

We started the bulletin board by using large construction paper to create a backdrop with water, fields, hills, and a temple pyramid.

Then the kiddos created texture and add details: they dipped Q-tips in green and yellow paint to make corn for the hill tops; they layered tissue paper to build rocks, leaves, and dirt on the terraces; they sponge painted with cotton balls to create a stone facade on the temple. 

Terrace Farming "Close-up"

Then we used strings to link the posters to specific objects on the board. 

Poster about the importance of stars to the Maya, Inca, and Aztecs

Our final touch will be putting our version of "floating gardens" next to the bulletin board to demonstrate how the Aztec people grew their crops in water.  (See post about building our floating gardens).

The kiddos are ready show off how much they have experienced and learned about these ancient civilizations!

Publishing Poetry

Last week, we had our second "Publishing Night" of the year.  For our first Publishing Night, we shared our Personal Narratives in the classroom.  For this one, we decided to set up the hallway to showcase our class poetry.


We used the bulletin board and walls to display the kiddos' individual poems.  Then we set up tables with our primary Mentor Texts and favorite poetry books.  Instead of having families leave notes on post-its for our authors, we invited visitors to put notes to our poets inside a box. (The next day, we shared all of the notes as a class which the kiddos loved.)

We happened to have some fresh flowers and fun flower pens to add to our "Blooming Poets" theme!  Everyone seemed to really enjoy the event.

Night at the {First Grade} Museum

Last night was Museum Night!  Around the school, the excitement was palpable among the teachers and kiddos.  After working for weeks, and often months, Museum Night is the celebration of a lot of preparing, learning, designing, writing, and producing.


However, it was not a night off for the kiddos!  When they arrived at our exhibit that evening, I handed them their official docent name tags, which read, "My name is ______, Ask me about ______."  Under "Ask me about," I had filled in the names of the different locations that they had written about for our map project.  (Mine said "Ask me about Nothing! haha)

The kiddos were extremely proud of their stickers.  They stood near the exhibit and eagerly told their parents, siblings, and neighbors about the animals they had created, the labels they had written, and the learning webs they had drawn.  As a class, we had prepared and practiced answers for common questions like, "What are the continents?", "What is an ocean?," and "How did you make your animals?"  (I had also sent an email to parents encouraging them to ask these and other questions to get the kiddos talking).

The families seemed very pleased with the learning and creative work our kiddos had done.  A few parents even said they were learning new things!  Almost no one who finished high school after before 2001 had heard of the Southern Ocean (which was first designated an ocean in the year 2000).

Although many of the kiddos stayed in our end of the hallway for most of the evening, they also got to tour the school to see the exhibits in all the other classrooms.  It was wonderful to have former students come up with their Docent name-tags and invite me to come see their imaginary class community or the cityscapes they had sculpted.   I didn't make it to every classroom last night, but, fortunately, got to see most of the exhibits in the hallways when I got to school this morning.

We will probably keep our map up for another week before we take it down to make room for the next celebration of learning :)

First Grade Curators

Museum Night is almost here.  The first grade curators have been working hard to put the finishing touches on our exhibit.  

I explain to the kiddos that part of curating an exhibit is ensuring that visitors to the exhibit will be able to learn from the artifacts and displays.  They thought back about visiting the Natural History Museum and how we had learned about the animals there.  They decided that they would need to have some writing about the regions they had learned about.   They worked with in their table teams to create webs for each continent and ocean, and a web about the major mountain ranges.  Each web included a title, picture, an interesting fact, description and location of the region, and a list of some of the animals that live there.  

We also wanted to ensure that our visitors would be able to recognize everything on our map of the world.  To do this, the kiddos made labels for the continents, oceans, and mountain ranges.  They wrote and posted their labels in the proper place on the map.  (I labeled all of their animals with a label maker so they would be small and wouldn't interfere with primary focus of the exhibit.)  They have had lots of practice with labeling in writing, but it was fun to have such a hands-on experience with deciding what to label and how to label it.

All of our museum projects are closely aligned to the DC standards for first grade.  For this project, we focused on our geography standards:

• Social Studies 1.1.1 Locate the cardinal direction (e.g. north, south, east, and west) and apply them to maps and globes.
• Social Studies 1.1.4 Label the continents, oceans, and mountain ranges on a map.

Of course, we also incorporated a lot of other standards throughout the development and planning, including the Common Core ELA standards for reading and writing: 

• RI.1.7  Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
• RI.1.10  Know and use various text features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.
• W.1.7  Participate in shared research and writing projects

Here are a few picts of the final product.  The kiddos are so excited to share it with their families and friends!

Animal Artifacts

Last week, our class went to the Natural History Museum to learn about the animals that live on each continent and in the oceans.  Now we are using the information we learned to build our class exhibit on the map of the world.

Continents (minus Europe and Asia)

A few months ago, we began learning about the continents and oceans as part of our geography unit.  We are building our final project for this unit on the bulletin board in the hallway in front of the classroom.  I started by drawing the continents on green paper.  I asked parent and student volunteers help cut out continents and then we pinned them on the board.

Once we had the backdrop done, I started animal project by assigning each table of kiddos in my class (there are 3-4 kids at each table) one of the 5 oceans, and we had one table that worked on the major mountain ranges.  (In the other first grade class, each table was assigned one of the 7 continents.)  The kiddos got to look through books and pictures online to learn about the animals that live in their particular region (continent, ocean, or mountain range).   Once they had an idea of the animal they wanted to create, they started to draw their animals.

After the kiddos had their sketches, they cut out their shapes from colored felt.  We started with just the background color, but then the kiddos got to choose "accessories" such as sequins for scales, googly eyes, feathers, and textured felt for spots and designs.  Our sweet Art Teacher lent us all the materials for the kiddos to add to their animals.

Finally, the kiddos got to pin their animals onto our map of the world, according to their continent, ocean, or mountain range of origin. The animals turned out so cute!  These artifacts are an important part of our Museum Exhibit that we will share with our families later this week.



Here are a few of my favorite animal artifacts :)