Yes, It is a teaching tool. Just stop in to our class when we have a YouTube Friday and see what’s happening. One Friday a month we watch a short YouTube video and then the students write about it. Some days we do a Quick Write; a one paragraph journal style exercise. It does not get corrected, or go through our usual proofing and editing process. The Quick Write is a free form observation of what we have viewed. Other days we do a more traditional paragraph or essay, with a rough draft, final copy, and an illustration. It is a great Language Arts exercise both ways, and also integrates some newer teaching standards in the areas of visual media.

Recently, we viewed a BBC video of the amazing Lyre Bird. The Lyre Bird imitates sounds in its environment, usually other birdsong, in order to, as several students wrote, “get some girls”. We listened and watched, wide-eyed, as the bird imitated kookaburras, mockingbirds, and other animals. Then, amused, we heard the click and whir of a camera, and a car alarm. The students’ amusement turned to concern when the last sound was of a chainsaw.

After the video ended, they began to discuss what that meant. The exercise quickly became an insightful discussion about animals and the loss of their habitats. The resulting writing and drawing became our Language Arts for the next week. Their observations of the video and thoughtfulness about the issues raised were impressive.

The video clips have become a much anticipated classroom event! They never know if we will be getting the giggles (panda sneeze, anyone?),or exploring a deeper subject. It is one of the hallmarks of the TCPS program that we can be student led when the opportunity arises. I hadn’t anticipated the reaction to the Lyre Bird being so fervent. How lucky we are to be in environment where we can allow our students’ interests to lead us down new curricular paths. We still wrote, edited, and perfected, as we would have in Language Arts anyway – but the students had a great feeling of ownership of the material. Great job, Second and Third Grade!

One month is just not enough time to do justice to the incredible life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Although this notable American is traditionally covered during Black History month, I find, every year, that our study of Dr. King encompasses so many other areas that we stick with it for a little over two months. There are mainstream curriculum areas to cover (civil rights, biographical information), and then the tangential, but no less weighty, spaces to explore (what would you speak out about?, what does it mean to have free speech in our democracy?, how do you teach someone that an issue is of great importance?). Well, as usual, my kids outdid themselves.

Among the highlights:

• 3rd Graders writing and performing a re-enactment of Rosa Parks on the bus, as a way to teach the 2nd Graders the story
• Kids taking one of our books from me, about segregation, and finishing the read-aloud themselves because I was too choked up to read (this happens more frequently than I like to admit!)
• Both classes memorizing poems, one by Maya Angelou, and one by an anonymous poet, both about freedom
• 3rd Graders presenting their Dr. King projects to the class – this one needs elaboration!

After lots of studying about non-violence and speaking out, in general, and Dr. King, in particular, we began to explore what they are passionate about. Each student creates a poster and writes a speech meant to convince others that their issue is worth caring about, worth supporting.

This year’s speeches included an impassioned defense of sharks (no finning!), air pollution in China (it floats over here!), gun control (we want to be safe at school!), and many more, equally worthy, topics. The students were articulate, informed, and powerful. Their posters will be up for the next few weeks. I hope you stop in to see them and are reminded that no matter how small a voice is, it can create change, and how lucky we are to live in a school community and a nation where we are free and safe to speak our minds.

So excited!!! Every year I teach a novel by the incredibly talented Kate DiCamillo. She has written many wonderful books for children, among them Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and The Magician’s Elephant. I confess that when reading certain chapters of Edward Tulane I have been known to pass the book off to one of my students to read aloud as I am crying too hard to continue. This has also been known to occur during my readings of Charlotte’s Web…

This year we have been reading and jumping off from The Magician’s Elephant. I must plug this book as being an amazing read all the way through middle school – it is heavy with opportunities for discussion and creativity – and as an adult, I find it to be enchanting.

So. There is a an odd character who appears in the novel for one chapter only, wearing a dark suit and a top hat. He continuously mutters, “The dimensions of an elephant are most impressive. The dimensions of an elephant are most impressive, indeed.” Well, for some reason our students just loved that character. They would raise their hands and say his line, or march around the playground shouting it out to each other. I started to think about the dimensions of an elephant – what could we do with that line? Writing prompt? Bulletin board? Hmmm.

We started out with the obvious; researching the Asian elephant (since that’s what’s in the book), Venn Diagraming with the African elephant. Then, the book started to discuss the difficulties of housing an elephant. It occurred to me that we could see what it was like to have an actual size elephant in our classroom. Now, like most of my brainstorms, this one occurred just before a crazy time at school, just before Open House. Why not create a life size elephant and suspend it somehow from the ceiling of my classroom? Surely, one adult and 20 seven and eight year olds can accomplish that.

Here’s how it went down: we created our elephant from recycled materials, and she is a life size silhouette of a female Asian elephant. Since the kids were intrigued by the top-hatted man in line to see the elephant who repeatedly muttered, “The dimensions of an elephant are most impressive” those words appear in giant writing along the top curves of our elephant. The rest of the collage was made by the kids gluing on the “skin” pieces by taking off their shoes and stomping all the pieces down. You can imagine the chaos that ensued during this stage! Featured in the collage are 2nd Graders’ haiku and 3rd Graders diamontes about the elephant’s feelings, as well as their illustrations of their favorite parts/characters from the story.

She is still hanging in our classroom – quite an engineering feat that required the entire Barnes family! She was in place and I had my clothes changed and the floor vacuumed with fifteen minutes to spare before Open House.

When the sun shines in the windows behind her she becomes a stained glass window – a fact one of the kids pointed out. Most impressive, indeed! We are feeling a bit smug at our originality, teamwork and final product. But here is the even more fun addendum – Kate DiCamillo had a book signing here a couple of weeks ago. I could not attend (my son’s 18th birthday took precedence) but was able to arrange preferred seating for my class (thank you Amea’s mom!) and some of our moms volunteered to be in charge of the outing. I sent along a photo collage of our project and now are featured on Kate DiCamillo’s website! Go 2nd and 3rd Graders!!!

Chapter One

You are going back in time to four weeks ago. It’s the first day of school and kids are entering the classroom looking excited, nervous, and more than a little surprised. What has happened in our room? There has been a mass desknapping!

The introduction to our new differentiated seating plan went even better than I had hoped. The students were so ready to jump in to this new environment. Our seating options are many and varied – high stools, floor mats, large spheres, and more – and it was really fun to see what people gravitated towards throughout the day. Great job from all my little monkeys.

Chapter Two

Have you met Lulu? She is the main character in Judith Viorst and Lane Smith’s hilarious read-aloud, Lulu and the Brontosaurus. Her adventures while she searches for a pet brontosaurus have had us in stitches, and everyone has been merrily singing her very loud brontosaurus song.

There are some very creative and funny illustrations up in our classroom that the kids made, as well as a great drawing courtesy of the talented Ms. Frazier. Watch out! Your second or third grader may start demanding their own dinosaur, Lulu style.

Chapter Three

Today we worked on our first KidsKorps project. We are coloring in some posters to be displayed for the children over at Rady’s Children’s Hospital. We played some relaxing music (Jack Johnson) and the kids worked in pairs and trios to colorfully and creatively produce five posters.

Rainbow cobblestones, striped turrets and festive banners are making the castle drawings lively and lovely. Great job, volunteers!

Welcome back! We have all been hard at work planning, rearranging and setting up for the New (School!) Year. I am so excited to share some changes that have been made to the 2/3 classroom. It is going to be a very fun learning model to explore together!
I am looking forward to seeing all of you – small to tall – at Conferences, Parent Potluck and Visiting Day.
See you soon

After reading the beautiful book, Wabi Sabi, this week, we wer inspired to create some haiku of our own. See what you think of our budding Bashos!

Here we are, getting ready to take a couple of days off to celebrate Thanksgiving.  The last month was stuffed with a variety of classroom happenings!  Our class acquitted themselves admirably at the Autumn Recital. Group and solo performances wowed our standing room only audience. The season was thoroughly celebrated with poetry about Halloween, Dia de los Muertos and Thanksgiving.  The work the students did to memorize so many poems and practice their public speaking skills was truly impressive.  Our original song “The Twelve Days of Halloween” generated some real goosebumps amongst the Kinder and First grade audience members, as well as belly laughs from parents and teachers. I was quite proud of our students!

Open House was another great showcase of different skills.  After a couple of days of organizing, cleaning, and finishing touches on work, we were ready to greet “our adults” and do some showing off!  The journals were a big hit, as were the bright calaveras drawings, and the multitude of “Ghostie Feet” adorning our big bulletin board.  The Partnered Portrait Gallery was so meaningful and special, as was our board full of private, personal goals for the year.  Second Graders shared their Problem of the Day notebooks, and Third Graders impressed with their Social Studies binders.

We wrapped up before Thanksgiving with beautiful Grateful Hearts pastel placemats, which were the result of hard work in Art, and a great discussion about what we are truly grateful for in our lives. Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving!

So, there are a few kids this year who really like to draw pictures of me.  I mean, really  like to draw pictures of me. As I was contemplating the growing collage of teacher portraits on our whiteboard and behind my desk, I had a thought. Several actually.  I noted the changing outfits, variety of hair styles (straight vs. curly), glasses or no, etc. What detail, what care, had gone into each drawing.

I was laughing to myself and thinking how sweet these students are, how much I enjoy being with them, when I had a realization – these evolving little people care for me very much.  I paid renewed attention to the details and saw that almost all of the pictures were pretty accurate and carefully rendered. If only everyone could be so affirmed!  Hmmmm.

This reflection led to a lovely project in our Social-Emotional curriculum.  When the class was asked to look at the pictures, and imagine how I felt when I received them, their answers were  precious.  “Valued”, “Paid attention to”, “Seen”.  Wow! How insightful.

We proceeded to do a project in which the students were randomly partnered, and created pencil portraits of each other.  They took turns sitting still, being looked at and sketched oh-so-carefully.  Watching this exercise gave me goose bumps!  They were very deliberate, concentrating hard.  The drawings were,  in many respects, more accurate and carefully drawn than the self-portraits we did last month!

The students are still putting on the finishing touches, and we are quite eager to see the collected gallery when the drawings are complete.  What a gift they have given to each other with their complete attention and hard work.  Our class is full of friends who emotionally support each other, and this project was a wonderful way to figuratively and literally show that.  We are trying to remember to see each other every day in our classroom.

Here we are again, waving goodbye to summer and ushering in the fall with a new group of students.  Leaves are changing color, the air is brisk with that special autumn crispness…WAIT! No, it was the hottest day of the summer. 21 eager students and 1 eager teacher sweated their way through a simmering six hours, and somehow, we had a great day anyway

The morning began with a summary of Classroom Responsibilities, and then we quickly moved on to creating really cool little time capsules. It will be fun to mark the changes in June when we reopen them!  Second Grade rocked a pretty challenging Crossnumber Puzzle in Math, and Third Graders began learning about the Pacific and Northeast regions of the United States.

We ended the day with a big crowd for our annual Bubble Blowing Ceremony out on the playground.  This is a merry band of students, and I am looking forward to a “raucous caucus” (ask your Third Grader!) all year long.