It Really Is...Imagination

Over the summer, I attended a week-long Responsive Classroom workshop. The Responsive Classroom is an approach to elementary school teaching and learning that fosters social and emotional growth while optimizing student academic learning. The Morning Meeting is a component of the Responsive Classroom approach, a component we know and love in 2B. Along with the greeting, share, and morning message, the "activity" is a brief component of our Morning Meeting each day. Each component serves a unique purpose, and the purpose of the activity is to foster group cohesion.

This week, I introduced a new activity called "It Really Is..." and it really was...a HIT!

I started by holding up a pen. I demonstrated the way the activity goes: "this looks like an (object), but it really is....(creative/imaginative use for the object" + pantomime it's new use. My model was: "This looks like a pen, but it really is...a magic wand!" and then I proceeded to pantomime casting a spell on the class, followed by a fit of giggles.

We practiced with the pen first; I built this guided practice in because I had been nervous to introduce this activity; I anticipated that it would be hard to think of imaginative uses for objects on the spot...but what I had not really thought through was the fact that this activity was a challenge for me and maybe other adults, but for a group of 7 and 8 year olds with the beautiful imaginations of kids? Not such a challenge!



I pulled a bottle of Elmer's glue out from behind my back and we began. In a matter of seconds, I was laughing so hard I was crying. Here are some highlights (mind you, each was coupled with the student acting out the object's use):
This looks like glue, but it really is...
-hair gel
-a mountain
-a shoe
-a guitar
-a snake
-a frog
-a rocket

The genuine laughter that came from our Morning Meeting that morning was the perfect start to our day--livening, rejuvenating, revving us up for all of the academics to come. I sat for a moment and appreciated the creativity and imagination we had just tapped into and made a note to myself to harness this in writing, in reading, in math, in social studies, in science.

A Dose of Confidence

 On Friday, our district has a Professional Development Day. I, as it turns out, am hosting one of the workshops. Suitably, my workshop is on blogging. I feel at home with this content. The learning process and continuous hunger to be "more"-to know more, do more, learn more, see more, experience more, is innately "me," as it is innately characteristic of many of our second graders. Thus, I blog as an outlet to reach out to you, 2B's parent and family community, but also to express myself "more" than I could if I didn't blog. So talking and guiding learners on blogging? That part is okay with me, but...

The truth is: I am a newbie! This is a year of nothing but new for me, you know this. A new teacher. A new classroom. New students. New families. A new district. A new group of professionals. So, as I prepare for my interactive workshop on blogging, I've asked myself (admittedly more than once in the past few days): can I do this? Walk confidently into a room of experienced educators I respect and admire and be in the driver's seat? Turns out, I've found my answer in Room 2B.

As your child's trusty, first-year, second grade teacher, I am pouring my heart and brains into the classroom like I haven't poured my heart and brains into anything ever before. Do you know why this is? Well, there are many reasons. But one of the reasons is this: every day, when I walk into 2B with too-many bags balancing precariously on my shoulders and flick on the lights, I am reminded by the fact that once again, my day is full of "firsts." It is the first time I am teaching the lessons I am teaching in every content area that day. Sometimes, I let this truth make my eyes wide, my mind spin, and my body move at a superwoman speed, rushing around and prepping for the day's lessons. So this week, in thinking about teaching and learning with our second graders, I've also been thinking about this "first" for me in presenting at a professional meeting in our district. When the students entered 2B yesterday morning, though, I looked at them and realized: they, too, experience a day of "firsts" each day, like I do. It is the first day they have been engaged in that day's teaching and learning ever. And it is the only day they will be ever again! How unique and beautiful. How trusting, kind, open they are.

I draw parallels with our second graders all the time, but for me, this was quite a meaningful one. It is always, always moment-stopping when our second graders give me a dose of perspective. Teach me something. Give me the gift of professional growth. And guess what? It happens all the time. My hope is that I return the favor.

So, think of me Friday morning, as I walk in to the workshop I am leading with a smile of confidence and reassurance that our second graders gave me.

And enjoy a few pictures of us at work from this week in Social Studies!

Ringing in 2013 with Great Habits

I've been meaning to post this for a while. I was super excited to ring in 2013 with our second graders after winter break. The night before, I couldn't sleep! My brain was busy thinking about what we'd do the next day, getting back into the swing of things at school. I was wondering how the students would come back to our classroom--would they need to readjust to our routines? Would they need reminders about classroom expectations after having a chunk of time off?

On that Wednesday we returned from break, I rushed to grab my camera at 8:50 am, after I stood at the door and wished a happy new year to our students coming in. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears! All I had said was "let's get this year started off right--peaceful and calm, focused and excited to learn--by getting right back to our routine of independent reading while you wait for Morning Meeting."

During this less than 10 minute snippet of time, our students gave me a sign. I took note of the evidence of maturity they were showing me, signaling they are growing as learners, as individuals, as a dynamic group.

Happy New Year to me! And to you!!!

Holidaze

It felt like the Friday before Winter Break came and went in a tizzy--and it did! It was super action packed, completed with our school wide Holidays Around the World celebration, a snowman craft, and Cocoa Cafe. Parents and families were invited in on Friday afternoon for a cozy read, a crackling fireplace (on the SMART Board), and hot cocoa (courtesy of barista Marina & company). 

During Holidays Around the World, students visited India, Brazil, and Russia; they were engaged in three cultural activities from each. Some were holiday themed and some were simply cultural. Please enjoy some of the photos taken throughout the day. 

Playing Snakes and Ladders, an ancient Indian game, where our present-day Shoots and Ladders came from!

The Nutcracker, facilitated by Mrs. Fraser,  dance extraordinaire

 Playing traditional Russian game

 Snowman craft

Cocoa Cafe: My cup runneth over with a room full of families and friends reading together

Snowflakes for Sandy Hook...and For Two More

The week following the tragedy in my hometown, Newtown, the students periodically asked questions about it all--about the kids at Sandy Hook, about Newtown, about the officers stationed at WPS. I fielded these questions gently, addressing concerns and questions in a way that acknowledged their importance and relevance while respecting and preserving the amount of knowledge students had or didn't have about all of this.

On the afternoon of Thursday, December 20, though, students happily snipped and turned and colored and wrote on plenty-a-snowflake for Sandy Hook. (Since then, I have learned that Chalk Hill School in Monroe, where the students will attend, has a total blizzard of paper snowflakes blowing in from kids all over the state). Nonetheless, the sense of quiet urgency and little paper snowflakes cut with care that filled 2B that afternoon was lovely and heart warming.

At the end of the day, students packed up as usual and waited in line in the classroom, chatting animatedly, to board their buses, as usual. I walked them down the hall and towards the double doors near the art room--all of this was very ordinary. The two officers were standing at the end of the hallway doing their job, making us all feel safe, as we should. But then something really pretty extraordinary happened. Our second grader leading the line stopped abruptly. She hurriedly plunged her hand into her fluffy, pale pink coat pocket and held her hand out towards the first officer we saw. She looked up at him and said "thank you for protecting us." She slowly slipped a small paper snowflake from her hand into his. Of course, I teared up immediately. But then, when I thought it couldn't get any more meaningful--at least five of our other second graders slid their hands into their pockets and did the same, now to both police officers. I thought I was the only crier...but I looked at both officers and locked eyes with them--all three of our eyes were shining with tears.

In the last post, I blogged about the importance of kindness in 2B--really, in every classroom and every home and every town across the nation. I talked about the epic responsibility to TEACH kindness. But in this moment that passed all too quickly, my students proved that they've got it, and they're taking it into their own hands (quite literally) to be kind on their own. And those kinds of moments? Those are the ones that whisper in my heart that I am the lucky one, to be graced with these children as their teacher.

Kindness is King

Our second graders have battled germs all week, and I thought I would come out unscathed, but I got sick, too! So, I had to call out sick yesterday. I woke up yesterday morning at my house in Newtown around 7 am. I finished my lesson plans for next week and began to think about a reflection paper all beginning teachers need to write for the state of Connecticut. When 9 am rolled around, my heart dropped into my stomach and it has been there ever since.  I happily bobbed through the halls of those lovely Newtown schools as a first grader on through high school graduation. I learned much about the craft of teaching through my internships and student teaching from the wonderful teachers in those classrooms. My town, in minutes, was shattered by this really unfathomable atrocity.

As I stood in Sandy Hook last night at a vigil--and all day, really--I couldn't help but think about our second graders. Our smart, funny, clever, wonderful second graders, and how thankful I am that they are safe. I put my hand over my mouth and hung my head low when I empathized with the teachers and students at Sandy Hook yesterday morning and just could not, not, not imagine having to go through that. It hit too close to home. It is my home. But now that I have your 16 second graders in tow, my heart broke all the harder.

So on this Saturday morning, I am thinking about all the beliefs I hold dear as a teacher and all the qualities I hold dear in your children. I think about the words I speak to them and the culture of caring we work to establish. I think about the fact that though in the moment the kind words we speak in our room can be short and easy to say and might not seem to matter, their echos are endless. And though I might not bear the fruits of our tireless work of scaffolding kindness in our kids years down the road, I know that our second graders are good people at their core. And I rest assured that they do know--and will continue to know--that our world is a good place. And that they are safe. And cared for. So here's to our students today, who will grow up to make our world a better place and know that sorrow and evil doesn't win, but that kindness is king.

Second Grade Readers in Action

 Since I have just wrapped up completion of our first term report cards, I have been thinking a lot about where our second graders were when they entered 2B in August and where they are now, in December. I happily typed comments for all of our second graders about the growth they each have made in reading, and I feel that I owe it to our second graders to publicly applaud their progress on our blog.

Our students are engaged with all kinds of texts throughout the day--our Morning Message, big books during reading minilessons, read alouds, mentor texts for writing, independent reading books, guided reading books during group work, text on the SMART Board--the list goes on. I like to snap quick pics of our second graders during our reading blocks and throughout the past couple of weeks, I've caught lots of great moments on camera. Here are a few. The blurbs under each will allow you a glimpse into recent focuses in reading instruction. 

Our students read texts on their instructional level each week in guided reading groups. It was exciting to overhear these students animatedly practice our comprehension strategy-asking questions about what we read to dig deeper into nonfiction. They were enthralled by their book about wolves and had many interesting questions, like "why do wolves howl?" and "why don't wolves live everywhere in the world?" These students were even running their own focused book group discussion without adult prompting at all. 

Moments that make my heart happy with such appreciation of our students' abilities.

 Something that I have really stressed with students is the importance of building stamina as readers. We have recently had our first go-round with setting goals for ourselves as readers. This time, they were stamina goals, or the amount of time we can stay focused in a book during independent reading. I think This photo and the photo below are students who we absolutely caught "staying in their book" and living/breathing "focused reading" and "real reading" (as opposed to "fake reading," or just looking the part but not deeply reading and thinking).

In second grade, a greater emphasis begins to be placed on student abilities to respond to texts in writing than in previous years. This lays a foundation for years to come, where students will need to be able to respond to text with increasingly more depth and complexity. This photo captures us "writing about our reading" in thinking through questions the text has raised for us as readers and then putting that question into print on paper.

Sometimes during our reading block, our students visit "word work." This student said to me "take a picture of THIS!" and brought me over to proudly show off his work. He had been reading and then writing spelling words from previous units. There are many choices for students at this station, like working with spelling words as this student did, but also building words out of a set of letters, choosing a beginning consonant blend to generate words with, play phonics games with other students, work with magnet and foam letters, etc.

Enjoy reading with your second grader; they are totally blooming as readers, open to the world of information and enjoyment that books offer us.