Winter Party Extravaganza!

Whew, semester is over... the last day was a doozy!  We planned a field trip to Kaleidoscope and a winter party all in the same day!  For those of you not lucky enough to have a Kaleidoscope near you, it is basically a large room that has arts, crafts, and discovery for kids.  It's very neat.  Here is a picture...



And that is just one part of one room!  Anyway, we spent about two hours there and headed back to school.  We missed our lunch time so we ate lunch in the classroom, then it was off to specials.  Our P.E., Music, and Art teacher combined all classes today to do a huge cooperative learning activity (Yes, they are slightly insane.)  After specials we went straight to our Winter Party.  I was WAAAAYYY to ambitious this year.  We had approximately 45 minutes to complete the party.  I wanted the kids to complete three crafts, eat, and get packed up to go home.  What was I thinking?  I had six parents there to help.  The room was insane.

We tried to make the hand print ornaments


Cute right?  But most of ours ended up more like balls of globbed paint.  I had read that it is best to use paint pens to decorate the snowmen - so I brought out the paint pens, but they were too hard for the kiddos.  Next year, I will just use little paint brushes.  I really liked the idea and the hand print part went great - it was just the decoration part that needed some help.  AAANNNNDD the timing.  What was I thinking when I decided that these globes of paint would be dry in 15 minutes?  Definitely not a project for last minute completion.

The next catastrophe came from the paper stockings and candy canes.  These were almost done (at least I did something in advance).  The kids has worked with their big buddies to write four things, in complete sentences, that they could do for their parents.  They wrote the sentences on candy canes and decorated paper stocking to put them in -  but I thought it would be fun to do the glitter part of the decorations at the party.  That part wasn't a bad idea, but the box top that I was using for the glitter ended up with a hole.  We now have glitter in the carpet and I will be sending students home with glitter on them for weeks.

Was that the end of the chaos?  No way!  I knew the ornaments had to go home in something, so I had a parent bring in Chinese take out boxes.  The idea was for the kids to decorate paper and wrap the boxes in the decorated paper.  What I should have done is wrap the boxes first and then let the kids decorate. That would have required genius forethought. Instead the kids decorated first and were upset because their decorations were covered during wrapping, the paper was too big for the boxes, and it took three parents helping the entire time to just get some of the boxes done.  Still kids ended up with blank boxes.

On top of all of this, I had cupcakes, candy, drinks, chips and gifts to pass out and give the kids time to eat. Before I knew it, dismissal had started and there was stuff everywhere!  I called on the parents for help.  We went to each kid individually and started stuffing their bags full of all of their stuff just to try to get them out of the door.  First grade was dismissed and I hadn't even gotten half of them packed up.  Second grade was dismissed and we were finally out the door - but not without a lot being left behind.

Next year - ONE project during the party... all paint and glitter to be done well in advance AND our bags are packed before we even get started.

I need this winter vacation :-)

New Stuff!

I received $200 today from GNEA!  I am sooooo excited.  It's not called a grant anymore... just "funds" I suppose.  Anyway, you tell them what you want and why... mine was approved!  With the money I am getting two things.

First a subscription to Brain Pop.  Brain Pop is a really neat website that has videos on every subject.  Check out brainpop.com and you can sign up for a free trial.  They have a regular version and a junior version for K-3rd grade.  The videos are animated and most of them are slightly cheesy (in a good way.)  I, of course, use the junior version.  The videos always use the correct vocabulary and explain things very well.  They have quizzes, comics, activities, games, and more attached to every video.  Just this week I used the video for main idea, one for subtraction, and one for holidays around the world.  Wow, that sounds like I show a lot of videos!  Really though, each one is only 4-7 minutes long.  The kids are so into it.  Granted, just showing the video isn't going to get them to understand everything - it's how you use it in the classroom.  I do the quizzes on the team board (our interactive white board) and show the comic for fun.  We have done the game a couple of times and some of the follow up activities were great and hands on, so I used those too.  Really, if you haven't checked it out - you should!

The second thing I am going to get are graphic organizer dry erase boards!  I am so excited about these.  A teacher I observed (yes, the same one who brought me to whole brain teaching) had these and they are awesome.  Take a look...




I am just buying twelve, but I plan to use them in small groups and when working in partners.  Our district really focuses on QAR and my first graders need a LOT of practice.  When we are doing partner review, or partner work, I can have them answer questions not just on the dry erase board, but in the right square for the type of question that is presented...ooohhhhh.  The other graphic organizers we use all the time, so it will be nice to have them for my small group work instead of copying them.  I hope eventually to get more money to buy extra so every kid could have their own - but I had to choose between getting some boards and a subscription to brain pop or just getting the boards.  I am choosing the former.  I need to send out a survey or something of some other great ways to use these boards.  I am just happy to have them!

I was surprised to find out that only a handful of people even applied for the funds.  It didn't take that long, and wasn't that hard, so I thought there would be lots of competition.  Guess not!

Whole Brain Teaching

Picture a classroom full of chatting 6 year olds.  Their attention in a million different places... how do you get them back to you?  I've tried it all.  I clapped my hands, I rang a bell, I counted down, I asked them to give me five, I turned off lights, I used all the techniques I had heard of in books and conferences.  They were wild, crazy, non-respondent (ok, maybe not wild and crazy, but certainly not ready to give me their full attention).  I had an 80% success rate at best!  I was wasting valuable time just getting their attention so we could move on.  Then, I spent one morning observing a first grade teacher in our district.  She talked to me about Whole Brain Teaching.  Its an entire system, an interesting approach, to classroom management and teaching skills.  I saw some of it in action and I was inspired!  Since she didn't have the time to teach me everything, I did what I always do - head to the internet!  Sure enough, I came across wholebrainteaching.com.  The website is full of information, videos, instructions, research, processes, and more.  Its free to sign up and have access to everything.  There are a ton of YouTube videos as well of teachers all across the country teaching every subject using this method (from kindergarten to college!)  The amount of information was overwhelming to say the least.   Still I forged ahead.

The website conveniently has a seven step "starter" process.  When I saw this I decided this might be good place to begin (I know, smart cookie alert.)  It begins by telling you to teach your class the "Yes" response to "Class."  You say "Class" the class responds with "Yes."  Keep this interesting by changing the way you say class and they repeat that to say yes.  For example, if I say "Class, Class"  they say "Yes, Yes" or "Classy, Classy, Class" they say "Yesy, Yesy, Yes."  If I use a low voice, they use a low voice.  If I sing, they sing.  I thought, "This is too easy - I've heard about this before... right?  Why haven't I done this..."

I taught it to my class the next day.  It took a few times of them getting it (by a few I mean about 5 minutes), but it has been heaven ever since!  I never have to shout, whisper, turn off the lights, find my bell, or put down things to clap, or anything.  I just say "Class" ... they immediately stop and say "Yes" like a beautiful chorus of angels waiting for their next assignment.  It has yet to fail.  Of course, the system has been in place only a few weeks, but I am thoroughly impressed.  Over break I plan to look more into this entire system of teaching...this seemingly seamless form of classroom management.  Maybe there are more parts that I need to implement into my classroom.  Until then... "Class!"

Main Idea and Details

We use the Treasures series for our Language Arts.  Currently, the focus is Main idea and details of a story.  My kids have a hard time with this.  (Whose doesn't!)  So I scourged the internet and found an idea I thought might work.  I added a little to the lesson and gave it a whirl.  It seemed to work.  First, I found an image of a busy puzzle.


Next, I used our EasiTeach (the software for our Interactive Whiteboards) and made purple squares to cover each image.  (One square covered the girl, the next covered the boys playing in the sand, another covered the girl on the blanket, etc.)

During the lesson I would move one square at a time and ask the students what was going on with that person.  Then I covered them back up.  When we had uncovered and recovered all the people, I went back to the first square and said "Now, is this whole puzzle about a girl pouring water?"  "No!" they said.  I left the square off this time and repeated the question for each part of the image.  I explained that each piece was just a part of the puzzle, not the whole thing.  When all the squares were moved we could step back and look at the big pictures... when you took all the details together, what was the main idea of the pictures?  Kids building a sand castle!

**I modeled the next part before splitting them up!**

Next, I split the kids up in groups of four (grouped by ability) then I gave each group an envelope with a picture cut into four pieces.  They had a few minutes to look at their picture to determine what was going on in it.  Then they shared their picture with their group.  Once everyone had shared, they put the pieces together to see what the big picture was about.  Then the group presented to the rest of the class their picture and what they thought the main idea was.  They also told us what details brought them to decide that was the main idea.

It actually worked really well.  I know we still have a lot of work to do about main idea, but this was a great hands on lesson to help us along.  I cannot take credit for the first part (the covering and uncovering of the puzzle) I found that randomly online when searching for a main idea video on Youtube.  You can look it up.  Just search for videos on "main idea and supporting details" and look for one by bkoesel.  The second part I added because I wanted them to take the lesson and use the skill so they did not forget it immediately.

I hope this helps someone in the teaching world!  Anything to get those kiddos to understand!

Hello!

Hello blogging world!  With as much time as I spend reading blogs, I thought it would be great to join them!  I am a first grade teacher with a strong belief in "beg, borrow, steal."  Why reinvent the wheel!  I have found so many great ideas on the internet I hope to be able to share them in ways relevant to first grade and maybe develop a few unique ones of my own.  I'm sure I will be posting often - however, I may be posting just for myself for awhile :-)  If you do happen to stumble upon my pages, say hello!