tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1315252244139492572024-03-13T08:10:20.672-07:00Reflections of an Intentional TeacherA blog for teachers focused on literacy, technology, rigor, and real teaching ideas. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-4954875057333087282016-04-05T19:42:00.001-07:002016-04-05T19:42:19.622-07:00Seesaw for Digital Portfolios<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At NCTE this past year, I learned about an amazing new tool called Seesaw. I could barely hear what the presenter was saying about Seesaw, due to the crowded room, but I heard the speaker mention something about how parents can view the work at the same time it is posted and it acts as a digital portfolio. I decided to take a look and I happened across the <a href="http://web.seesaw.me/" target="_blank">Seesaw website</a> after some frantic Googling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The following is taken from the Seesaw website...</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-06X6_UjamYs/VwRtuVOZmWI/AAAAAAAAGoU/0tscjGw5SooVdIPYXocEqNyoqkmzQF7rg/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B8.56.57%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="355" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-06X6_UjamYs/VwRtuVOZmWI/AAAAAAAAGoU/0tscjGw5SooVdIPYXocEqNyoqkmzQF7rg/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B8.56.57%2BPM.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I decided to give it a try as I've been trying to create digital portfolios over the last couple of years. I use Google Drive to create digital portfolios, but I always have students who forget to put the work in their portfolio. I thought this avenue might be easier...and it certainly was! I created a class in Seesaw and had my students sign up. It is completely free and very user friendly. I can not say ENOUGH great things about this classroom tool! Using this site with 1-1 iPads has been so beneficial! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is so easy to post a photo of a worksheet, assignment, photo, or link and have the students access it! Instead of making copies of a daily math exercise, I take a photo of it on Seesaw and the students then solve the daily problem. Instead of making 24 copies, I can take a photo, post it, and everyone can see it...no more lost papers. Some students choose to show their work via video, some choose to solve it on paper and post it, some choose to make a copy and write directly on the problem...students can choose the way that works BEST for them. It is SOOO easy to upload a document, post a link, create a note, add a photo or video, or add a drawing. Push the + button, click what you want to add, and add it! It's done! </span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lHQvLWY9ddk/VwRvnnWYtDI/AAAAAAAAGok/dyI4qfQKcCMnIV3ZjUTfJB3LeUsdT0hgQ/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B9.08.09%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lHQvLWY9ddk/VwRvnnWYtDI/AAAAAAAAGok/dyI4qfQKcCMnIV3ZjUTfJB3LeUsdT0hgQ/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B9.08.09%2BPM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I give students journal prompts to support our read aloud or a topic that we are studying in class and the students post their thoughts in a journal post. <b>An important thing to know is that you have to approve your student's work. You will also want to turn off your notifications or you will be bombarded with notifications when students submit assignments of comments. I warned you! </b> You can approve it post by post, or approve it all at once. I do both depending on the occasion or assignment, and this a great feature because I can make sure that nothing inappropriate is posted. I post links for the students to support their learning, our class newsletter, publish writing, post a photo of an anchor chart, or give feedback on a student's post. I have found Seesaw to be a game-changer for me! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I uploaded a reader's theater script(instead of copying it for everyone) and the students spent a week practicing for reader's theater and performing their parts by accessing their script in Seesaw. I saved at least one tree with that move! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I post links to <a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/bo5ptp9um2fg" target="_blank">Padlets</a> that we are working on and the students can easily access the Padlet and post their thoughts. They can then go back to the post and see what their classmates have posted. Parents can then easily access the padlet and see what their child posted as well. It's also easy to grade when everything is on the computer and easy to access. It saves me from carting papers back and forth in my book bag. </span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e-z6yT9yhvc/VwRtoDBdk6I/AAAAAAAAGoY/V2cHMJn6lRIX8TS5KbkwlV62pu-qcW_Uw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B8.58.25%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e-z6yT9yhvc/VwRtoDBdk6I/AAAAAAAAGoY/V2cHMJn6lRIX8TS5KbkwlV62pu-qcW_Uw/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B8.58.25%2BPM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another great feature about Seesaw is the parent accessibility. I have parents sign up to access their child's work and they can look at what we are doing, like it(think Facebook), or even comment on their child's work. They receive an email notification or a text notification that lets them know that something has been added to their child's portfolio. They really enjoy seeing their child's work throughout the day. This really promotes parents being partners in the educational process. Parents appreciate this because when their child tells them that they didn't do anything in school that day, they can reference the work that they saw on Seesaw. :-) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Seesaw is committed to keeping their site free. I sure hope that is true! It is such an amazing resource and I definitely encourage you to try it for the rest of the school year. You will be a believer in Seesaw too! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">P.S.-There is also a Blog feature to Seesaw. So check that out too! </span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-3142920669588919312016-01-11T20:29:00.000-08:002016-01-11T20:31:27.429-08:00Makerspace Monday<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This week I tried something new. I decided to start Monday out with a bang! I decided to implement Makerspace Monday. I have a whole slew of wonderful makerspace materials from a grant from our school district's <a href="http://foundationforepschools.org/" target="_blank">foundation</a>. I have used many of the materials in class already, but I wanted to be more consistent about when and how I use them. The <a href="http://www.makerbot.com/" target="_blank">3D printer</a> is a hit! The students love trying to navigate the <a href="http://www.sphero.com/" target="_blank">Sperhos</a> from their iPads. They love tinkering with the <a href="http://www.modrobotics.com/cubelets/" target="_blank">cubelets</a>. They enjoy building with <a href="http://www.alexbrands.com/pa_brand/zoob/" target="_blank">Zoobs</a> and creating new Zoob creations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today, they were able to problem solve with the <a href="http://www.makershed.com/products/brushbot-party-pack" target="_blank">BrushBots</a>. Talk about a whole new excitement for learning! I started the lesson by putting together a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwbpALtYEmpbZkw2OGV3TGZyTDg/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">short article</a> to get them excited about Makerspaces. We read the article and coded it as we looked for new information, things that were interesting or surprising, things that we had more questions about, we circled unfamiliar vocabulary words, and marked things that made us think "WOW!" I was able to clear up many vocabulary words that I assumed that they knew but did not. It was also interesting to hear what students viewed as new information, exciting 'wow' facts, what they viewed as interesting or surprising, and I was able to answer any questions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">+ New information</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">! Wow!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* I think this is interesting or surprising.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">? I have a question about this.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aISOwv-ki4o/VpR8lP4MHXI/AAAAAAAAF2Q/qiNj-w211a4/s1600/IMG_4315.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aISOwv-ki4o/VpR8lP4MHXI/AAAAAAAAF2Q/qiNj-w211a4/s320/IMG_4315.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is a BrushBot! </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After this close reading, I put up the BrushBot directions on the document camera and had them read through the directions. I posted the learning target and I had the students write down a few notes in their STEM Journals. I communicated to the students that they would be using their problem solving skills while they created BrushBots. What I failed to predict was just how much my students would actually use their problem skills! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I put out the materials on the table and students were called up to get their materials and supplies. When I was asked a question, I told them that they would have to use their problem solving skills. It was hard to bite my tongue and not give them more guidance, but I really wanted to see what they could do on their own. The only thing that I did for each student was strip the wires on their BrushBot as it would have been difficult for them to do that part on their own. I heard so many problem solving, collaborating, communication, and critical thinking skills in action. Students were able to get their BrushBots working, move it in the right direction(for the most part), help their friends troubleshoot, and learn about basic electronics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After everyone had built their BrushBot, a few boys built a racetrack on the linoleum floor. They used Hot Wheels tracks to build racing lanes for four BrushBots at a time. We added a starting line and a finish line and held a BrushBot race. Not part of the original plan, but well worth the extra time!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vAMQAlujKSs/VpR9DMQIBwI/AAAAAAAAF2c/oN9osVsnL5E/s1600/IMG_4310.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vAMQAlujKSs/VpR9DMQIBwI/AAAAAAAAF2c/oN9osVsnL5E/s320/IMG_4310.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The BrushBot track</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The excitement and engagement was through the roof. All the while, learning was happening! The discussions, the problem solving, the advice to others, the new ideas, the design process in action...all of these were observed today. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9IfFYeJNqbs/VpR9t3fMYdI/AAAAAAAAF2o/OASVTSYvoCA/s1600/IMG_4305.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9IfFYeJNqbs/VpR9t3fMYdI/AAAAAAAAF2o/OASVTSYvoCA/s320/IMG_4305.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The finish line</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The top four winners raced in the final heat and we crowned our top two winners. After the racing was done, the students wrote a reflection in their digital portfolio on <a href="http://web.seesaw.me/" target="_blank">Seesaw</a>. Here is a sample...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 31px; white-space: pre-line;">"Today, for Makerspace Monday, we made our own BrushBots. We learned how to use our problem-solving skills while doing this. The most challenging thing during this for me was connecting the wires correctly. The most fun thing was watching it in action. What went well for me was direction. I figured out how to make it go backwards and forwards. What went wrong for me was, well... technical difficulties. Something I would keep for this activity would be the racing. I really liked that part. Something I would modify on my BrushBot would be angling the bristles. All in all, I had a lot of fun."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 31px; white-space: pre-line;">-Sasha</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 31px; white-space: pre-line;">"Brush-Bots- This was a really fun to thing for me I enjoyed experimenting to make it better. The whole designing process went well for me, except for that time where it non functioned and it went crazy. Then I had some troubles with tying the wires together. If I were to modify my brush-bot I would put more weight on one side so it would go straight. Another thing I might want to experiment with is modifying the bristles on the tooth brush. I loved maker bot Monday and I would definitely want to do it again!"-Shaun</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The students loved Makerspace Monday and want to have it everyday. I told them that it will not just be limited to Mondays, but Mondays will be a given and a great way to start the week! That ought to help get them out of bed on Monday mornings! </span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-25920724655415186102016-01-10T18:18:00.003-08:002016-01-10T18:18:49.768-08:00Why I Write...<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write as a challenge.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write to teach my students.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write to improve myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write as an expression of my thoughts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write to share what I do in my classroom.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write for enjoyment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've never LOVED writing-but I'm starting to enjoy the challenge of writing as an adult. Growing up, I vividly remember writing papers for school(spaced every other line for editing purposes) and having my mom read the paper and then proceed to 'rip it apart.' I remember the frustration of having to make corrections, take out useless words that didn't add value, fix spelling errors(thank goodness I was a good speller), reword sentences, fix sentence fragments, take apart run-on sentences, add description, and improve my topic sentence and conclusions. I would sit there in frustration and think that my mom was the meanest mom in the whole world for doing this to me. Little did I know, this was all part of the process of learning how to write and creating a strong writing foundation. It helped that she was a teacher and knew what she was talking about. Of course, I didn't realize her impact until I was much older. Now, I sit here next to my 14-year-old daughter and read her papers on Google Docs and I experience flashbacks of me sitting by my mother. Now I'm on the other side of the editing. I can hear my mother's voice as I edit her paper. I see many of the same things that I used to do as a writer. She gets frustrated...I get frustrated...am I harming her...helping her? Is there a perfect balance of constructive criticism, feedback, and praise? I'm not sure I've found that balance yet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In high school, my friend Joe encouraged me to write poetry. For fun...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I told him that I couldn't. He assured me that I could. He would pass me a poem in the hallway(you know...notebook paper folded up into a little square) and I would read it and laugh...because he was hilarious. Then it was my turn to try. I would attempt to write a poem, send it back via the same method, and he would say, "Good job-see you CAN do it." We did this for awhile, I don't remember for how long this went on, but I remember being proud of myself and I remember Joe as someone who encouraged me as a writer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fast forward to college-THE Ohio State University! I was 19 and I had a creative writing class during one of my elementary education strands with the coolest professor ever. She definitely wasn't the norm. She was approachable, down to earth, an optimist, she encouraged persistence and resilience, and she wore her long brownish/grayish hair in a ponytail straight down her back. Her name was Carolyn and she made writing fun! We sang operas based off of our writing, had 3rd grade pen pals, and acted out our poetry. She had a cart of writing supplies-it was a teacher's dream! She had papers of all colors, textures, and sizes. She had colored pencils, felt tip pens, markers, and fun pencils. We were instructed to write whatever we wanted. For the first time ever in my life, I had a choice-I could write a poem, a story, a narrative, my innermost thoughts! It made writing enjoyable. Now, as teachers of students, we KNOW and SEE the positive effects of CHOICE and can see how this impacts a child and their engagement. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After that creative writing class at age 19, the only writing that I did was for academic purposes. I wrote papers upon papers during graduate school and for post-graduate courses. Then work and family got in the way...and no writing was done unless it was for an academic purpose. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I started this blog. I started it on a whim. I had been reading educational blogs via Twitter and I felt inspired to start my own. I needed a challenge, I wanted to communicate with others in the field of education, and I wanted to share what was happening in my classroom. It was uncomfortable at first and sometimes it still is! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Would people think it was self-centered to write a blog?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Would people think that I thought I was better than them?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Would people think I was annoying?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Would anyone EVEN read the blog? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe my mom would read it-if I sent her the link via email. OR maybe my close friend would read it if I told her about it. OR maybe someone would end up on my blog by accident. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had many doubts, fears, insecurities, and anxieties about putting my writing out there for anyone to read. It was risky...and I don't do risky very well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, two years later and almost 100,000 hits later, I'm shocked at the smallness of our world. I can publish a new post and SOME people will read it. Sometimes certain posts are read more than others-and that's fine with me! It's not about the number of hits. It's a creative outlet, it's a new challenge for me, it's helped me to share my voice, it's helped me to become a better writer, it's helped me to become a more thoughtful teacher, and it's connected me with some amazing people. The best thing is that I am STILL learning how to be a writer(I have a ways to go!) and I have new people shaping me a writer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SO...I'm not sure if I should thank my mom for helping me as a writer, or Joe from high school for encouraging me to write poems for fun, or Carolyn the writing teacher from Ohio State, or other teacher bloggers for inspiring me, or my students for giving me topics to write about. All of these people have shaped me a writer and have helped me to be JUST BRAVE ENOUGH to write this blog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has brought me...JOY! </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-65739515372439574432015-12-27T20:44:00.000-08:002015-12-28T08:14:01.281-08:00Happy 2016! Go ahead and live it with #JOY! <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last year, I learned about <a href="http://oneword365.com/" target="_blank">#oneword365</a> and thought that it was the most perfect way to start 2015. I chose the word '<a href="http://reflectionsofanintentionalteacher.blogspot.com/2015/01/happy-2015-live-it-with-purpose.html" target="_blank">purpose</a>' and stayed pretty focused on this word all year long. I was pretty mindful of keeping this word in the fore front of my mind all year and I even had the word #purpose at the end of my signature on my email.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had been thinking for the last few weeks about what my word would be for 2016. I had some ideas. I thought about the word focus, or balance, or truth, or listen, or mindfulness, or reflection, or optimism, or persistence. I also thought about the word joy. I decided that I would let the next two weeks play out and the right word would reveal itself to me. Well, over the last two weeks the one word that keeps popping up...all the time...is joy! I see signs for joy everywhere. It's like that new vocabulary word that you teach your students or even learn yourself and then you start to see that word everywhere you look!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have seen quotes about joy, news reports about joy, Facebook posts about joy, images about joy, I've read books that mention joy, mentions about joy on Twitter, there's even a movie entitled 'Joy' right now. The list could go on...you get the idea. I even saw an interview on a local news station about a lady who wrote a book about finding the pockets of joy in life and created a journal for people to write down their 'pockets of joy.' Guess who is going to buy this journal? :-) I also plan on getting notecards that say the word 'JOY' so that I can send little notes of joy this year. You can read about these awesome notecards <a href="http://reflectionsofanintentionalteacher.blogspot.com/2015/07/oneword365-revisited.html" target="_blank">here</a> and then purchase them yourself if you are interested at <a href="http://noteworthycardcompany.com/shop.html">http://noteworthycardcompany.com/shop.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Joy is even listed as one of the 13 Belief Statements in the book, "The Teacher You Want to Be:Essays about Children, Learning, and Teaching" by Matt Glover and Ellin Keene. Belief 8 is Joy! The belief is stated, "... that learning is based in relationships, and that interactions between teachers, families, and students be joyful, compassionate, and authentic." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I plan on focusing on JOY this year. At home, in my personal life, at school, in my classroom...all of these will a place to put joy into daily practice. Next week, I plan on having my students choose their own word to focus on in 2016 and I can't wait to see what THEY choose! As you enter 2016, don't forget to live life with JOY!</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-70387575040524760702015-07-21T09:05:00.000-07:002015-07-21T09:05:06.386-07:00#Cyber PD-Last Chapters...Digital Reading<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />I can't believe that this is the last blog post for <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107711243109928665922" target="_blank">#cyberPD</a>. This book was a quick read and one of those books that was just easy to read and made a lot of sense. There were many applicable ideas in this book and #cyberPD has taken this book to even the next level through this awesome "cyber-opportunity." :-)<br /></span><div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The quote that starts out this chapter...nails exactly how I feel about assessment in literacy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"<b>Assessment needs to be the vehicle that moves us beyond defining our readers as a number. Assessment should not be about defining a reader but about piecing together information to help us design classroom experiences so we can observe our readers learning and understand what each one needs."-Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've always believed that assessment when it comes to literacy should be <b>qualitative</b>. Teachers often think that there is one magic reading assessment that they can give to identify a child's reading/literacy needs, but it really is a bunch of little observations and assessments. I usually conduct the Words Their Way spelling inventory, a writing sample, the Fountas and Pinnell benchmark assessment, reading observations, conferring notes, and an assessment that entails an extended response. I put all of these together to develop a profile about the reader and then I can decide on the direction that I need to go with the reader. As I'm reading this book and reflecting, I realize that I would like to also incorporate assessing digital literacy skills. I need to do some more thinking around how this would look and what is most crucial to assess. I'm almost thinking...instead of concepts of print...maybe concepts of digital literacy to get a feel for what they already know and what they need to learn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love the digital reading survey questions and I will definitely incorporate these questions into my reading survey in our data binders. I'm also looking to expand on using digital portfolios and "beefing" them up. Last year, I created digital portfolios on Google Drive and we used them, but not to their fullest potential. This is something that I really want to focus on this year as a way to collect student work and reflect on it. These are a great way to collect work for student led conferences and to show off the student's impressive digital work. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Chapter 7-Beyond the Classroom Walls: Connecting Digital Reading at Home and School</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As for the connection between school and home, I use our class Twitter account, our class website, and my most favorite tool...s<a href="https://www.smore.com/" target="_blank">more</a>. This is a website that allows you to create digital newsletters and I love it so much that I buy an educator subscription. The newsletters are sooo easy to create, look attractive, and are "parent friendly." I can add links to articles or websites, have parents RSVP for events, add pictures, change the background/fonts/color, and the list goes on. I always try to add in an article or resource each week for the parents who wish to read them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here are some links to some of my newsletters...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.smore.com/jjr3x-mrs-skogstad-s-class" target="_blank">May Newsletter</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.smore.com/wxpxs-mrs-skogstad-s-reading-challenge" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reading Challenge</span></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.smore.com/k0prn-mrs-skogstad-s-class-news" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">February Newsletter</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I send out a newsletter ALMOST every week and it's a great way for parents to access newsletters. They can go back to it at a later date and refer to the dates or the information that I have given out. It even has analytics so that you can see how many people have accessed your newsletter and you can even see where people are viewing it from around the world. I have noticed that there are a A LOT of traveling parents out there that access the newsletter. This is just an AWESOME digital tool that I just LOVE! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's important for parents to see the importance of technology in our school and support our 1-1 iPad initiative. That's why I try to incorporate it as much as possible to showcase the importance of technology in the classroom. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love the line that says, "Teachers need to offer opportunities for schools and families to connect around these topics and make meaning of them together." This is an important job for each and every teacher! </span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-43985126737497620572015-07-14T17:31:00.000-07:002015-07-14T17:31:19.431-07:00#CyberPD-Chapters 3-5: Digital Reading<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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Well to start...I decided to change my blog name this weekend. Not sure of the repercussions </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> of doing this but I just did not like the name of my blog anymore. So it is now "Reflections of An Intentional Teacher"...which of course my 14 year old thought was HORRIBLE;-)... but I'm totally comfortable with my new blog name! 14 year old girls think that EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS HORRIBLE pretty much all of the time! Hoping that will change soon! ;-) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, we've had beautiful weather here in Minnesota, so I've spent some hours by the pool reading this great book and reflecting on this "cyber-opportunity."</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Chapter 3-What Really Matters? Authenticity</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I loved the quote from Lucy Calkins, "I do not think those readers would tell us about making shoe-box dioramas of beloved novels or writing new endings to published stories. They wouldn't talk about sending make-believe letters from character to another, or about cutting books into sentence strips and reassembling them. Instead, I think that great readers would tell us about weaving reading together with the people and passions of their lives. They would tell us that reading, like writing, is a big thing we do with our whole lives." I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this and I'm pretty sure I've underlined these same words or at least very similar words, somewhere before! As I've matured in my teaching career, I try to always think...do I like to make a diorama after I read a book, do I like to log my reading minutes and write a summary about my reading, do I like to answer critical thinking questions to the book that I just read and write them in a complete paragraph? No, no, and no! Then why do we want our students to do this? Let's make the learning authentic(more often than not) and maybe, just maybe, we can create a classroom of students who LOVE reading! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love Franki's connection to the book trailer being similar to the diorama because it wasn't authentic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another reason for giving students choice in the classroom! When students ask me if they can use a different app on their iPad or create something that is even not digital, I usually always say yes. My students have blown me away over the last two years of having iPads with what they can do when given choice. Often times their projects turn out BETTER than what I had originally planned or envisioned and it is because I allowed them to be authentic and have choice. I've seen amazing projects this year with <b>Padlet, Popplet, iMovie, Keynote, Pic Collage, Nearpod, Book Creator, iBrainstorm, Animoto, Prezi.</b>..and others that students have found and asked to use and have been amazing! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also agree that Genius Hour is a great time for students to explore new apps and tools and allow time for discovery. I've had students learn how to design amazing websites, create iMovies that were so good they brought tears to my eyes, create visually appealing Prezis, app-smashed many apps together to make their product more interesting, created beautiful keynotes without too many annoying transitions, and there are many more. This is why we host a classroom wide EdCamp every year so that students can be the experts and teach the other interested students about what they know. It is one of my favorite activities to do with my students and by far it is one of their favorite activities of the year. This supports the point in the next chapter that, "it's not important for the teacher or the students to be familiar with every tool available." Odds are that someone in your class is going to have it figured out before you can even turn on your iPad. Happens to me all the time! </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Chapter 4- What Really Matters? Becoming Intentional Decision Makers</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I like the word "intentional" in this chapter. I love the thinking around teaching our students to be "intentional" with their reading. Is it best to read on the kindle app, borrow from the library, purchase the book and read a hard copy? I find myself being more intentional about "how" I read my books now and have different preferences based on what I am reading. If it is a book that is going to have difficult vocabulary in it, I prefer reading on my iPad as it is easy to touch a word and get the definition. If it is going to be a quick read and I would never want to read the book again, I will borrow it online from the library and read it on my iPad. If I want it NOW...I will buy it through Kindle and send it to my iPad. If I want to reflect it on the SMARTBOARD for teaching, I will buy it digitally. Otherwise, I still prefer old-fashioned books. But space is becoming a problem in our office, sooooo...my thinking may shift to more digital copies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I loved the section on page 48-49 on the teacher scaffolding intentionality by text choice! This is so important and something to really keep in mind going into a new school year. There are so many options out there! I LOVE <a href="http://wonderopolis.org/home" target="_blank">Wonderopolis</a> and I'm always amazed when I find a teacher who hasn't used it before! I love it so much and use it so much that I always think to myself that I should probably work for <a href="http://wonderopolis.org/home" target="_blank">Wonderopolis</a>! There are soooo many options when it comes to teaching with <a href="http://wonderopolis.org/home" target="_blank">Wonderopolis</a> and I appreciate the fact that it is free and has stayed free! </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Chapter 5-What Really Matters? Connectedness</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had a "text-to-self" connection when I read about Franki feeling "weird" about not having a device to refer to while reading a magazine on the airplane. I often read a book or a magazine and open up my phone or my laptop and google something that I read about, learned about, or want to buy. Amazon Prime is the best thing to ever happen in my shopping world. I see a book...I can have it in 2 days. It's beautiful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also have found real value in connected learning. I love using Twitter to connect with other classrooms and authors. The students get really excited if an author retweets us or responds back to us and it is exciting to share this with them. I also loved participating in The Global Read Aloud this year and the March Book Madness. Both of these activities provided some added excitement around reading and allowed us to connect with others all around the country. I also enjoyed using<a href="http://reflectionsofanintentionalteacher.blogspot.com/2015/06/5bookfriday-and-its-monday-what-are-you.html" target="_blank"> Padlet</a> to connect with other classes for It's Monday, What Are You Reading. I'm excited to try this again in the fall and see where it leads. <a href="https://www.biblionasium.com/#tab/content-summer-reading" target="_blank">Biblionasium</a> was another favorite tool for the students to record their books and to recommend books to other students in the class. I felt that<a href="https://www.biblionasium.com/#tab/content-summer-reading" target="_blank"> Biblionasium</a> was way more powerful than a paper/pencil reading log. I love the lines, <b>"one important paradigm shift in this connected thinking is to move beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge; instead, we want our students to build deep understandings around concepts and ideas and then adopt these ideas as they read independently. Connected reading builds this understanding."</b> This is what it is ALL about...the whole reason we teach reading. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-40983800727944303872015-07-09T09:30:00.002-07:002015-07-09T09:30:42.928-07:00#oneword365 revisited<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My word is PURPOSE. I still use it and refer to it...even though it's July. My goal is to make it 365 days with me "purposely" using my word. I have it as a hashtag in my email signature. I had my students choose their own word in January and they use their "words" all the time. I haven't forgotten my word and it pops into my mind often and reminds me that I need to be doing everything with #purpose. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In June, my wonderful friend Mandy came to visit me all the way from Ohio with her family. She brought me a little gift and when I opened this little gift...I LOVED this little gift! It was beautifully made! This is what it was...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I received 8 greeting cards with beautiful hand drawn mandalas that were sized 5x5, with the word purpose written inside of the mandala! They are gorgeous and the mandala is made BY HAND! Can you believe that!? I can't...because this is something that I could never do! </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">These cards are on beautiful card stock and are blank inside. I wanted to share this artist's work with all of my blog readers as I know many of you have "a word" for 2015...and 2016 is closing in on us faster than we would like! :-) You can find her work at <a href="http://noteworthycardcompany.com/shop.html" target="_blank">http://noteworthycardcompany.com</a> and order a set of your own or order a set for a friend...like my dear friend did for me! I love them and will definitely be ordering a new set or maybe sets! You can even custom design your own! Check them out! </span><div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-89567433652957716052015-07-06T19:12:00.000-07:002015-07-06T19:12:23.210-07:00#CyberPD:Digital Reading-Chapters 1-2<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">#cyberPD 2015 book</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">NCTE Statement</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was so excited that this was the chosen <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107711243109928665922" target="_blank">#cyberPD</a> book for the summer... especially after ending our first full year of having 1-1 iPads. I feel that in just 2 short years, I have done so much with my class digitally than I ever could have imagined. So this book and "cyber-opportunity" is a perfect tool to help me reflect on my practice this summer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The book starts out with the NCTE Policy Research Brief about "Reading Instruction for ALL Students." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Both the qualitative dimensions and the reader-text variables depend upon the professional judgement of teachers, especially the reader-text variables, <b>because only teachers know students well enough to help them find the best text for the purpose at hand,</b> something "leveling" systems cannot do." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This line really resonated with me because as educators, we have to remember that our professional judgment is so much more important than any program that can be offered to us and that students should not be strictly tied to "a level." Professional judgment will help us guide each and every student. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The other line that resonated with me was, "Reading research shows that educational policy needs to include professional development opportunities that enable teachers to match instructional approaches to diverse student needs." It goes on to say that teachers need frequent and sustained opportunities to learn with one another...I can't even say enough this statement! Professional development is key for quality literacy instruction and should be ongoing throughout all of your years of teaching. Reading the latest literacy books, connecting with others on Twitter, reading blogs, reading articles from educational reading journals, dialoguing with literacy experts in your district, and taking post-graduate courses are all essential for growth as an effective teacher. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Chapter 1-Defining Digital Reading</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When reading this chapter, I underlined and marked the following lines with !!!!. "Digital reading experiences much be a part of the opportunities we give students on a regular basis. If not, we're discounting much of the reading they will engage with in the future." I couldn't agree more with this statement. If you think about how digital reading has changed in the last 10 years, 5 years, and 2 years...think about what will be happening in the next 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years. We HAVE to prepare our students for their future. The days of paper copies are coming to a quick end and we have to be fluent in navigating digital text so that we can teach our students. For example, which links should they click on, which ones should they stay away from, how can they navigate through the pages, how can they quickly look up a definition of a word, how can they open a new window in order to search something that is related to their reading? All of these are lifelong skills that our students need. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another important part of this chapter was that, "Just because students are 'good' with technology does not necessarily mean they are literate in the digital age." We need to guide students to use technology to their fullest potential and not on a "superficial level." It is imperative for students to know what the best tool is for them to use and how to really use the resources that are out there to their fullest potential. Technology is just not a source for checking Instagram and Twitter, playing games, and making Powerpoints. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also thought that the line, "We can't wait until a child is competent with traditional literacy skills and then expect the child to transfer those skills to digital text." was important. There are basic reading skills and there are digital literacy skills, and both of these must be taught in this day and age. We can't hold students back from digital literacy until they are reading at a certain level or reach a certain benchmark. I love the chart on page 10 that elaborates on how digital reading expands traditional reading skills. A very useful chart that will make teachers think about their instruction. As it states, <b>"learning to read digital texts must be embedded in the ways we do our literacy work on a day-to-day basis." </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Chapter 2-From Reading Workshop to Digital Reading Workshop</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes, yes, and yes to using</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> the workshop model for reading and embedding the structures of time, choice, and response into the reading workshop. This chapter really gave me something to think about...how to create an effective digital reading workshop! I LOVED the list on page 19 and 20 about the role of digital texts in the literacy workshop. Definitely a stellar list to consider when teaching digital literacy during reading workshop. Are we teaching students how to use apps like Kindle, Overdrive, or the 3M Cloud Library? Are we showing digital texts as we read and modeling what we can do with them as we read? Are we looking for content online instead of looking it up in a textbook or outdated library book? All of these things are important for our students...or rather imperative for our students to know. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I agree that a digital reading workshop is a "structure that honors authenticity, intentionality, and connectedness." The importance of a strong reading community is important, both inside the classroom and outside of our classroom. This is pretty easy to do in 2015. I use <a href="http://fourthgradeliteracylovers.blogspot.com/2015/06/5bookfriday-and-its-monday-what-are-you.html" target="_blank">Padlet</a> to build a reading community within our classroom and also connect with others outside of our classroom. The students love it and their responses are more meaningful(most of the time) when they know that anyone can see their posts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm looking forward to building an even stronger digital reading workshop this year! </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-857014577584741992015-06-30T07:10:00.000-07:002015-06-30T07:10:59.449-07:00#5BookFriday and It's Monday, What Are You Reading? So if you are looking for a way to build a lot of excitement in your classroom around reading, try #5BookFriday and a weekly rendition of It's Monday, What Are You Reading? These are two literacy ideas that I saw this year from reading literacy blogs and looking at Twitter. I learned about both of these ideas from the blog <a href="https://innovateigniteinspire.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">https://innovateigniteinspire.wordpress.com/</a> by Kristin Ziemke and Katie Muhtaris. I tried both of these ideas in the classroom in January and they sure have evolved!<br />
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My students LOVED #5BookFriday so much that they would eagerly anticipate Friday afternoon just to hear about the latest 5 books! I would pick out 5 books that I wanted to share with the class and motivate them to read. I would pull either new books that I had ordered through Scholastic, new books from our school library, old favorites of mine that I felt needed a special "look at" from the students, or a theme of books around a certain topic or genre. After about 6 weeks of sharing books, students started asking if they could share 5 books on #5BookFriday. I made a schedule for the rest of the year and they would eagerly await their turn. Some weeks I didn't assign anyone the task so that I could share books with the class. I kind of missed sharing my favorites every week! </div>
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The excitement that was built around this activity was amazing. After 5 students were chosen to read the books, I would take a picture of the students with their "new reads" and post it on Twitter with </div>
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#5BookFriday. </div>
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So many new titles were shared, </div>
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so many students received some great book recommendations for future reads, </div>
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so many students thought about their "Top 5" books that they would share, </div>
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so many students sat in anticipation of what books would be pulled out of the bag,</div>
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so many students would have to decide if they wanted to read that book or wait for maybe a better one to come out of the bag, </div>
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so many students heard the excitement around these books and it helped them as readers, </div>
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so many students wanted to share and be part of #5BookFriday,</div>
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so many more books were read because of #5BookFriday,</div>
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so....I deemed it a classroom success! </div>
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How to do it...</div>
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1. Choose 5 books(sometimes I did 6 because I JUST couldn't decide...)</div>
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2. Put the books in a bag(easy)</div>
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3. Share out each book to your students(with lots of excitement)</div>
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4. Pick someone in the class to read each book(often the book has a line of students wanting it when they are done reading it)</div>
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5. Take a picture of the students with their books(students can do this as well)</div>
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6. Tweet a picture of the students with #5BookFriday</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">It's Monday, What Are You Reading?</span></b></div>
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If you are a blogger, you probably know about "It's Monday, What Are You Reading?" </div>
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I used to participate in "IMWAYR" for some of my blog posts. I enjoyed reading the different blogs and seeing what others were reading both in the classroom and professionally. I decided this fall to start a classroom version of "IMWAYR" and this is what it looked like...</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty simple...they wrote it up on chart paper in the morning.<br /><br /></td></tr>
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Over time, this started to evolve. I saw a post about doing this activity on Padlet in the classroom and I thought it was a brilliant idea! Since we are a 1-1 iPad classrom, we could easily do this using padlet. This was one of our first tries. </div>
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<a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/2tmm80bp8jp9" target="_blank">Our 1st Padlet effort in December</a></div>
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It was a decent first effort, but with anything we have learned a lot and improved our posts. I started asking for more specifics and pushing for higher quality posts since anyone could view them on Twitter, in our newsletter, or on our blog! </div>
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Here is an example from the end of February...</div>
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<a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/8wxa5sds04in" target="_blank">2/23/15 Padlet</a></div>
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The students really enjoyed posting to Padlet each week and sharing their book. They also were able to get some great book recommendations from reading each other's posts. There were many times when they posted their first post and then I made them go back to revise their work and improve it. As a teacher, you can also go in and delete any extraneous posts or posts that do not represent the expectations of the classroom. </div>
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We then got a little crazy at the end of the year and tried to go global! We would complete our Padlet and then send it out via Twitter around the world. We asked classrooms to add to the Padlet to share their reading. We were pretty excited to see other students from as far away as Canada adding to our Padlet. </div>
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<a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/May18_2015" target="_blank">Global Padlet</a></div>
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We will definitely continue this next year and try to have others add to it as well in order to foster collaboration and connection across the country and even farther. This was an activity that we did in class that really added to our learning and helped to foster a love of reading and a strong culture of reading in our classroom! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-39798627611145377202015-06-27T12:13:00.001-07:002015-06-27T12:13:24.491-07:00Reflections on ANOTHER Year! <div style="text-align: center;">
ANOTHER year is in the books! I think that this is the end of year 14 for me! Between staying home with my girls and moving, I lose track of the years each year! It's the end of June and I finally have some time to sit down and write down my thoughts about the past school year. Reflection is always important for me because it helps me to figure out...</div>
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<b>-what to keep doing </b></div>
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<b>-what to stop doing </b></div>
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<b>- what to tweak and improve upon for the following year</b></div>
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<b>This year, I know for sure that I want to keep the following...</b></div>
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-Genius Hour</div>
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-Personalized Learning opportunities </div>
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-a Balanced Literacy approach to reading and writing</div>
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-End of the Year Writing Contest in my classroom</div>
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-Student Data Binders</div>
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-Goal Setting and Reflection</div>
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-Voice and Choice</div>
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-Global Read Aloud and World Read Aloud Day</div>
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-using Padlet in the classroom for collaboration and communication</div>
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-#5BookFriday(I NEED to do a blog post on this!) </div>
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-engaging, hands-on STEM activities</div>
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<b>This year, I want to stop the following...</b></div>
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-students talking over each other or not actively listening to each other</div>
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-students not being purposeful with their talk in the classroom</div>
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-students questioning the need to reflect on their work in the classroom</div>
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-students not being appropriately challenged in math when they are 2 or 3 grade levels ahead of our gifted math program</div>
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-wasted time</div>
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-letting writing time fall to the wayside </div>
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Of course, I have grand ideas for all of the above and a stack of books to help with the above, but these are things that I seem to always struggle with each year. I make a list about how I can be more intentional in my teaching around these things and how I can seek out help in these areas. If you have any suggestions...shoot them my way! </div>
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<b>This year, I want to tweak and improve upon the following...</b></div>
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-Discovery Quests-how can they be more meaningful and still be an excellent source of public speaking practice?</div>
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-Math Workshop-how I can set this up to reach all of my different learners and challenge my students appropriately</div>
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-Writing Workshop-how can I include more authentic writing time into my already tight schedule?</div>
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-Goal Setting-how can I be more purposeful in following up on SMART goals and making sure that SMART goals are written appropriately?</div>
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-Reflection-how can I continue to teach the importance of reflection and how it transfers over to everyday life?</div>
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-Authentic Assessment-how can I create more authentic assessments that are purposeful and truly measure learning? </div>
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As you can see, I have a lot to think about and a lot to plan out as I sit by the pool in July and August! I'll keep you posted on what I come up with as it develops! Feel free to shoot me any ideas or suggested resources. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-8566092644864443472015-06-21T11:57:00.001-07:002015-06-21T11:59:09.638-07:00The Power of Conferring<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Conferring with students, conferencing one-on-one with students, individual conferences...whatever you want to call them...it can be so powerful when you take time to analyze and reflect on your work with the students. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In January, I committed myself to ramp up my reading conferences. I wanted to make a concerted effort to meet with each student once a week. I had started off the year strong with conferences in September and October and then November and December were a bit more inconsistent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since ramping up my conferences, I have had so many aha moments about the importance of conferring. I have conducted reading conferences since I started teaching in 1998. I had a wise friend who taught me (as a first-year teacher) to always point out a "praise point" and a "teaching point." She suggested I label it PP and TP while keeping anecdotal records and it is something I have done since 1998. I loved the idea of always praising a child for something, as well as finding a teaching point to focus on each time. <b>Meaningful</b> compliments or "praise points" are so important for building a trusting relationship with your students. I usually only give out compliments for the first month of conferring, before I begin to give teaching points. Students are more receptive to the teaching points after you have built that safe and trusting relationship. I try to make our conferring sessions feel like a one-on-one laid back conversation about books. The students then WANT to come up and conference with you and will actually ask..."when is it my turn?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the years, I have experimented with many different ways of keeping track of my conferences. Post-it notes(no-way...they were all over the place), an anecdotal grid with each child's name in a box(this worked really well for me...but the papers would pile up over time), a whole class conferring binder(this ended up being a HUGE binder that was hard to carry around and would fall apart halfway through the year), and finally what I use now. Now I use 5 different colored binders, one for each day of the week with 5-6 names in each binder divided by tabs. I read about this idea from Steven Layne and his book, "Igniting a Passion for Reading." I love this idea because I can focus on a certain set of students each day. Inside these binders, I include certain reading assessments, my conferring notes, and other data that gives me a comprehensive picture of each reader. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Color-coded binders for conferring</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When meeting with the students, I love the conversations that we organically have around books. They share with me their thoughts about reading in 4th grade, how their reading lives have changed since the previous years, their thoughts about why they are loving their book, their thinking about their books, what they are wanting to read next, their feelings about themselves as readers, their passion for a certain genre or series....the list could go on! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's important to listen and to model "good listening" when conferring. (This can be hard with all that we have to manage and observe while conferring!) I usually only ask open-ended questions when I meet with my readers. I also will sit and wait for my students to respond or for them to elaborate on their thinking. I don't rush them through their thinking or through the conference. I sometimes need to paraphrase what they are saying to familiarize the student with academic language. I will name what the child is trying to say as inferencing or say that they are using their background knowledge and the text clues to help them make an inference. This helps the child recognize what they are doing as they are reading and reminds them about what an inference actually is. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">An example of my notes...I paraphrase in my notes.<br /><br /><br />There are so many possible ideas for teaching points and that is where you as the expert teacher gets to make the decision about what that child needs to work on next. Do they need to work on reading the punctuation, thinking deeper about the text by using strategies that you have given them, building their reading stamina, setting reading goals, slowing down to think about the book, tracking how a character changes throughout a text, or whatever else the child is ready for NEXT in their reading life!<br /><br /><br />When I sit and confer with my students, I have so many feelings of affirmation. It reminds me of why I teach reading the way I do (using the balanced literacy approach) and why I have the goal of teaching reading so that every child in my classroom LOVES to read and walks away with a lifelong love of reading. I want them to read the pages willingly, find phrases that resonate with them, stop and think about the author's writing, make connections to the text, reread pages that didn't make sense or are worth going back to reread, and think about how that book has enriched their reading life. </span></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-63715486232358353462015-02-02T12:59:00.002-08:002015-02-02T12:59:38.011-08:00Using Padlet in the Classroom<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A tool that I recently started using in the classroom is PADLET. I was familiar with it, but didn't know exactly how to incorporate it. We played around with it last year, but I didn't have much success.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is PADLET? Padlet is basically an online bulletin board. A teacher can post a question, a link, or an image on the wall and the students can respond on the wall. It is a great way for students to collaborate and to be creative. I love it because I can see all of their work in ONE place. I can easily assess who has not completed the assignment and I can easily assess who needs to keep working on the assignment. Since others can see the wall, it encourages the students to do their BEST work and it gives them an authentic audience. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of our more recent Padlet posts.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I started out the year having my students respond to the prompt, "It's Monday, What Are You Reading?" I would write that phrase on a piece of chart paper and the students would write down the title of the book that they were reading and their name. The students loved doing this and it was a great way for the students to get some great book suggestions. Now I look back on that practice and laugh because Padlet has made it SOOOO much better! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I read about creating a Padlet for "It's Monday, What Are You Reading?"in a <a href="https://innovateigniteinspire.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/try-it-tomorrow-its-monday-what-are-you-reading/" target="_blank">blogpost</a> by Kristin Ziemke. I thought that this idea was brilliant! What a great way to digitize my practice, adjust my expectations for my students, and to make our work public. Kristin Ziemke also helped me via Twitter figure out how to keep my Padlet neat and organized! Important note!!!! When setting up your padlet, go into settings(the cog wheel) and click on layout, then click on grid. This was life changing! The freeform layout did not do much for us and just caused us frustration! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I started this in late December and continued it when we came back to school in January. I love it! The students have improved each week and they have referred back to the Padlets to get book ideas. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have focused on basic skills like capitalizing the title of our book and using punctuation to more complex skills like writing down the point of view of the story. We tweet them out every week from our class Twitter account <a href="https://twitter.com/Skogstad_Class" target="_blank">@Skogstad_Class</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here are a couple of examples...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/eyyf6kmdq8mv" target="_blank">February 2nd Padlet</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/y7n6ey4ic4wb" target="_blank">January 12th Padlet</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/8ab4e51l0yj7" target="_blank">January 5th Padlet</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another way that I have used Padlet is for Wonder Wednesday. Each Wednesday, I post a "wonder of the day." It is usually an article from Wonderopolis, but not necessarily. I just LOVE Wonderopolis, so I can usually find something good from their site! I post a link to the article on a Padlet and the students read the nonfiction article and respond to my prompt. I choose articles that relate to our standards or something that we have been discussing in class. For example, we are currently reading <u>A Long Walk to Water</u> by Linda Sue Park. We have been discussing the water cycle and how the water supply can be different all around the world. I had the students read an article about <a href="http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-does-water-get-to-my-faucet/" target="_blank">water</a> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and then post a response on the </span><a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/j1tz49tb6k82" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Padlet</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. They had to record a "thick question" that they would research further and then also write about what they learned. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another Padlet that they completed was an article that compared <a href="http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-are-viruses-and-bacteria-different/" target="_blank">bacteria and viruses</a> on Wonderopolis. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They had to read the article and list in order the top 5 things that they learned. They had to rank them in order by what they thought was the most important. This is what they came up with...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://padlet.com/megan_skogstad/tnlat17wkuhx" target="_blank">Viruses vs. Bacteria</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have had a lot of fun using Padlet. It is interactive, creative, collaborative, and fun to use! </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A sample of a Padlet post.</span></td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-20558161258458949192015-01-01T10:58:00.000-08:002015-01-01T10:58:02.834-08:00Happy 2015! Live it with #purpose!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday on New Year's Eve, I received an email from my wonderful principal to check out a blog post about <a href="https://hulingj.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/my-word-for-2015-perspective/" target="_blank">choosing a word for 2015.</a> I took a look at it and thought that it was ingenious. I started to think about my word and I thought about that word on and off all day. I was first thinking about going with the word "challenge." I liked that word and almost committed to that word for the year. I was trying to find a word that I could easily use in both my personal and professional life. Then I came across THE word...PURPOSE! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As I get older, I want to live my life with purpose. I want to make the most of my days. I've kept a gratitude journal for the last 2 years and it's amazing how it changes your outlook on life and makes you appreciate all of the little things in life! Sun, flowers, green leaves, colorful leaves, laughter, solitude, a clean house, health....the list goes on! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to focus on purpose this year. Purpose to me transcends everything. Purpose allows you to have joy, show gratitude, be challenged, focus on important things, be mindful and present, simplify your life, take risks, demonstrate your strengths, allows you to reflect and breathe and take time for yourself...all of which I need to work on in 2015. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to have purpose with my family. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to have purpose with my daughters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to workout with a purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to be healthy for a purpose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to eat for a purpose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to teach with purpose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want my professional life to be filled with purpose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want my friends to have a purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to spend my free time with a purpose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So here's to 2015...and living with <b>purpose</b>! </span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-50770871139074263322014-12-28T08:22:00.000-08:002014-12-28T08:22:24.132-08:00Ten Ways to Use Pic Collage in the Classroom<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of my favorite apps to use as of late has been Pic Collage! My own kids use it at home, though not for educational purposes. I have found many fun ways to use it in the classroom. I love it because the students have choice in how they want to create their pic collage and they can show off their creativity. It is super easy for them to save their finished product to their camera roll and then export it from their. They have uploaded their creations to Schoology, Google Drive, Keynote, Explain Everything, etc. You can send your pic to Twitter or send it via email. There are just a variety of ways to use your pics!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The one thing to caution you about is that there is a social media aspect to the app. I didn't know this right away. When I found this out, I had my students set their accounts to private to avoid any issues.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Below are some of he ways that I have used Pic Collage in the classroom...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10. Students created pic collages about their Genius Hour topics and embedded them within their presentations. They would add the image to a keynote or website to showcase their topic. These were a great way for the students to show off their creativity and what they learned about their topic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">9. A new twist on the old "genre poster." When studying genres, each student was given a genre to research with a partner. They added photos of different texts that matched their genre and added some text that explained their genre to create a genre poster. We then uploaded each genre poster to Schoology so that everyone could access them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">8. During our read aloud of "Rump-The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin" the students created a settings poster. They added photos of the different settings from the story and labeled them with the text feature on Pic Collage. The students came up with beautiful setting posters for our read aloud. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">7. At the end of the month, students can create a pic collage of the books that they read that month. They could do this at the end of a grading period or even at the end of the year. They could then be saved to their camera roll and then uploaded to their Google Drive portfolio. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">6. Sequencing events in a story! Students can sequence the events in a story by adding pics to show the most important events from a story. They can then add transition words to show how the plot progressed over time. Students could then write a summary about the text that matches their Pic Collage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">5. #piccollage Another way that we have used Pic Collage is to simply use it as a way to post on Twitter. I recently introduced #5BookFriday in my classroom after reading about it on a blog. On Fridays, I introduce 5 books to my students and get some excitement going around the 5 titles. I then take a picture of the books or the students with the books and create a Pic Collage to post on Twitter or in my weekly newsletter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">4. Poetry! Students created poems about our African Dwarf Frog...Squirt... that lived a short life. They wrote odes to Squirt and some students chose to create their poem on Pic Collage. Here is a little sample...they were cute!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3. One of the choices for word study is for students to take their word study words, type them into Pic Collage, and then add pictures that illustrate the words. Students love all of the choices that go along with Pic Collage and they do not even realize that they are studying their word study words because they are having so much fun creating their collages. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2. Another way to use Pic Collage is to have students find examples of figurative language in their books and create a collage about onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, etc. They can then share out their examples with other students in the class and students can check to see if they identified the figurative language correctly. They can save it to their camera roll and then email me the pic that I can easily assess. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1. Nonfiction Text Feature Posters! Students can find examples of nonfiction text features in books, take a picture of it on their iPad, and create a nonfiction text feature pic collage. They can add text to identify each feature. A great twist on our nonfiction text feature book! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The possibilities are endless and FUN! </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-20463237498835241932014-12-04T19:39:00.001-08:002014-12-04T19:39:58.973-08:00Genius Hour...One Year Later! <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I have been madly getting ready for a Genius Hour presentation at the <a href="http://ties2014.ties.k12.mn.us/" target="_blank">TIES 2014 Conference</a> in MN next week with a colleague of mine and I got to thinking that it was just over a year ago when I started exploring Genius Hour. I was looking for a "choice unit" that my gifted coordinator wanted us to incorporate into our full-day gifted program. I didn't even know what a "choice unit" was, but I had some ideas in my head. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I had used <a href="http://www.mindvinepress.com/" target="_blank">Envision</a> units in my classroom in the past with a fair amount of student enthusiasm. Some of the students loved the creativity and application to the real world, some hated the work and the organization that went along with it, and some just completed it because it was assigned. All of the final projects were always stellar...(or mostly stellar) and the students would walk away proud of their work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I then experimented with <a href="http://bie.org/" target="_blank">Project Based Learning</a>(PBL). I had been awarded an amazing technology grant and had to come up with 6 project based learning projects for grades K-5. I was able to do this using a Project Based Learning framework and I was able to incorporate the use of technology into all of these projects. We studied seasons in Kindergarten, habitats in 1st grade, nutrition in 2nd grade, free choice related to STEM in 3rd and 5th grade, and designing a park in 4th grade. The projects all turned out well, with just a "little bit" of stress along the way, and a total of 18 different in-class parent observations. Yes, it was insane...but I learned quite a bit, and was able to incorporate technology into classroom projects for the first time ever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Then I happened upon Genius Hour. I had happened upon a post about Genius Hour on Pinterest that looked intriguing. I decided to finally take a close look at it in December of last year. I put together a plan and had NO IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT! We started it in January and at first they literally groaned about the thought of another project. I was a bit worried, but I persevered. After two weeks of introducing Genius Hour and working on it in class, the students had done a complete 180! They were begging to have Genius Hour, begging to have more work time, asking if they could work on it at home(yes!), getting together for Genius Hour playdates(not kidding about this), and had a new enthusiasm about learning. I couldn't believe the student engagement and I began to truly see the value about voice and choice. I am now on my 3rd round of Genius Hour since January and I have tweaked it each time. I have learned just as much as the students and continue to grow as a teacher. I have given students even more choice throughout the process, have continually refined my lessons on how to pick a "deep question," conferred with students one-on-one and guided them along the way, created ways for students to authentically reflect on their progress, given students chances to share their work locally and globally, provided opportunities for the students to collaborate and share their knowledge about creating products like websites, Prezi's, Keynotes, iMovies, etc, and continued to stress that this is a PROCESS. I'm expecting to see growth each time they complete a Genius Hour cycle, both from the students and from myself. The students have commented so many times..."I didn't know anything about any of this in September and now I can make my own website/keynote/Prezi/Nearpod/iMovie about my topic." We are finishing up presenting over the next couple of weeks and I'm already amazed about the ideas that they have already for the next round of Genius Hour. This is personalized learning at its finest and it is amazing to watch the students shine as they share their projects. It makes me so proud of them! </span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-57376872674190516342014-11-18T13:26:00.001-08:002014-11-18T13:26:14.398-08:00An Update to Student Goal Setting<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the most popular posts on my blog has been the post about <a href="http://fourthgradeliteracylovers.blogspot.com/2014/04/goal-setting-in-classroom.html" target="_blank">Goal Setting in the Classroom</a>. I saw this idea last year on Twitter and knew right away that I wanted to incorporate it into my classroom. I created this chart and we used it for the second half of the year. I was able to see not only the value of goal setting, but the value of having the goals <b>front and center</b> in the classroom. Students were aware of their goals on a weekly basis and were easily reminded of them when they were up and about in the classroom, in line to leave the classroom, or reminded of their goal by a friend(or a teacher)! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This year, I have also incorporated an ACADEMIC and a BEHAVIOR goal for the students. The students need to create an academic goal and a behavior goal each Monday. They write an A- for Academic and a B- for Behavior. Pretty straight forward! :-) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We try to focus on writing the goals in SMART goal format, but as you can see, that is a work in progress. Some weeks we do better than others. We will often sometimes share out our goals during morning meeting or "chat" with a friend about our goals and if we met our goals the previous week. Another way to help make them accountable! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> We have also started a new reflection sheet for our data binders. We started by taking photos of our post-it notes and putting them in an album on our iPads, but I wanted them to have a reflection component. I found this great form and they fill it out each week. They write in their goals and how they will attempt to reach them. The following Monday, they reflect on if they met their goals and any strategies that helped them <b>meet or not meet</b> their goals. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is a link to the site where I found the great <a href="http://www.thecurriculumcorner.com/thecurriculumcorner123/wp-content/pdf/databinder/weeklygoalsetting.pdf" target="_blank">weekly goal setting sheet</a>. The parents have loved the weekly goal setting as well and will often encourage their child to perhaps set a goal in an area in which they are struggling. For example, maybe a child is having trouble remembering to finish their online math homework...they will suggest putting that as an academic goal for the week. Or maybe a child is struggling with bringing home their homework each night...that may be a suggestion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After using this system for the last 9 months, I highly recommend it as a way to keep your students accountable and encouraging a growth mindset inside of the classroom. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-85211780723562312902014-10-04T19:19:00.000-07:002014-10-05T09:26:46.584-07:00Using Bloom's Taxonomy and Choice to Engage Learners<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a new project. I created a new website for my students in order to provide choice in the classroom, utilize our iPads to their full potential, and hopefully create high levels of student engagement. I created the website around the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, which we discuss in our classroom on a regular basis. This week when I launch the website, we are going to do an indepth study on Bloom's Taxonomy at the student level. I decided to call the website PLMOSAIC to stand for (Personalized Learning MOSAIC.) MOSAIC is the name of our gifted program in our school district. Below is the WHY of the website...</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">WHY???</span></span></b><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">PLMOSAIC was designed to incorporate 21st century skills that are necessary in order to be successful and ready for the real world. We are focusing on integrating the 4 C's(creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration) into our daily classroom. I believe that choice, motivation, innovation, and differentiation should be integrated into daily tasks through the use of various tools - especially our 1-1 iPads. I am a strong believer in students having academic choice, freedom of creativity, time to think critically, and the opportunity to collaborate in order to demonstrate their learning. All of these ideals lead to strong student engagement. </span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">PLMOSAIC</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;"> will help me teach, manage and monitor student learning. I will be able to check for mastery and incorporate the student's work into a digital portfolio. As the students become more and more comfortable with the apps and Web 2.0 tools that are offered, they will be able to gain a variety of ways to demonstrate their learning. This platform is a great way for them to express their learning with their own creative spirit. Reflection will be key and goal setting will be imperative before starting a project. All 21st century skills that will help them in the real world and in school!</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Using Bloom's Taxonomy, the students in MOSAIC will be able to demonstrate their learning at higher levels. Living in the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy is best practice for gifted students. Students will have the opportunity to app smash and practice utilizing technology to it's fullest potential. This platform will create authentic learning experiences for the students. </b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/edenpr.k12.mn.us/plmosaic/home" target="_blank"><b>PLMOSAIC Website</b></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 19.5px;"><b>I will be using Google Forms for students to create a project proposal and also to submit a reflection when they are done with their project. This site is a work in progress, so I'm anticipating some changes as I roll-out this site in my classroom. I can't wait to introduce it this week and get it started! </b></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-90066591150806951802014-09-22T20:25:00.000-07:002014-09-22T20:25:19.343-07:00Student Data Binders<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the greatest things that I have ever implemented in my classroom was the creation of "data binders." I learned about these when I taught in Ohio and worked with some teachers who had implemented data binders in their prior district. They taught me about the purpose of data binders, how they benefit the students, the types of data that are beneficial to collect, and how to set them up correctly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Purpose: To drive student performance, to teach students about effective goal setting, to encourage a growth-mindset, and to make students responsible for their own learning and reflective about their work. Research has documented that setting goals and reflecting on them can improve student learning over time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Our data binders demonstrate...</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-improvement or growth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-mistakes that we made and have learned from</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-our interests</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-things that matter to us</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-achievements</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-what our parents would like to see</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-versatility as a student</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-a sampling from all subject areas</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-favorite books and pieces of writing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-things that we are working on that challenge us</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-things that make us proud</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-our goals</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">-our reflections</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Teaching students how to set SMART goals is one of the most important pieces of creating a data binder. One reason is that setting SMART goals prepares them for the real world and provides them with 21st century skills. Another reason for teaching SMART goals is that it gives the students a measurable goal that they can assess over time. We discuss the difference between, "I will get better at multiplication this week." and "I will try to score a 95% on my multiplication fact test by Friday." Which one is easier to measure and to tell if it was achieved? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I prefer to use a view binder for the data binder. Then they can tuck their cover sheet in the plastic view cover. There are also pockets to hold different papers and extra papers that we may need. We divide our binder into 5 sections: SELF, ELA(Reading/Writing), MATH, CONTENT, and GENIUS HOUR/PROJECTS. Within the SELF section we keep our weekly <a href="http://fourthgradeliteracylovers.blogspot.com/2014/04/goal-setting-in-classroom.html" target="_blank">goal setting statements</a>, interest inventories, learning style inventories, personal mission statements, and other types of papers that pertain to the individual child. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We also complete academic inventories about reading, writing, and math. We use this data to determine what kind of student we are and we watch for growth over the school year. We reflect on what we see and what we know about ourselves. The <a href="http://www.thecurriculumcorner.com/thecurriculumcorner123/wp-content/pdf/databinder/weeklygoalsetting.pdf" target="_blank">Weekly Goal Setting Form</a> is something new that we have started using this year and it is great for getting students to keep track of their goals, reflect on if they are meeting them, and what is helping them or blocking them from meeting their goals on a weekly basis. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The students love to track their progress for their fact fluency. We practice our multiplication and division facts once a week and graph our progress in colored pencil. This chart really motivates them to go home and study so that their graph goes up each week. I send the data binders home every Friday for the students to review with their parents and share their learning. They are also great to use at student-led conferences. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Overall, data binders are a great tool for learning and reflective practice. It helps teach organization, goal setting, and reflection. I highly recommend implementing them in the classroom! Start small and then let them grow as you see the benefits of using them. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-52707022098774673682014-09-04T19:37:00.000-07:002014-09-04T19:39:36.781-07:00A New School Year! <span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this Tuesday, I started another new school year! 28 fresh faces entered my classroom...or should I say...entered our classroom, because the classroom doesn't just belong to ME! So one fairly fresh teacher(THANK YOU SUMMER!) is ready to take on a new year with new ideas! I have done a lot of reflecting over the last few months and have come up with some ideas that I really want to focus on this year. Some of the ideas are things that I loved from last year, some of the ideas are new ones that I have learned about in the past few months, and some are ideas that I have come up with on my own. </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are some of the things that I am looking forward to implementing this school year...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. The new awesome website<a href="http://www.biblionasium.com/" target="_blank"> <u>www.biblionasium.com</u></a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am loving this site and I have JUST begun to tap into it. I heard about it just a couple of weeks ago and it looked like a great fit for my students. You set your class up on this site by uploading their names and their parent's email addresses. They will then receive a username and password to enter the site. The teacher and the students can set up a bookshelf with recommended books, favorites, required books, and wish list books. The site can also direct you to AMAZON to purchase any of the books. (there are parent controls for this as well.) The teacher can set up reading challenges and students can earn badges for completing certain tasks. We are just getting started on this site, but it seems very promising and well thought out for teachers and students. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Another site that I am going to utilize more this year is <a href="http://www.kidblog.org/" target="_blank">KidBlog</a>. I decided that when the students write about the books that they finish, I want them to have an authentic audience. I dabbled in this site last year, but didn't use it to its fullest potential. I would like to have students blog on our class site each time that they finish a book. I am also going to </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">encourage them to respond to 2 other posts each time they blog. Over the years, students are always reluctant to write in their reading journals and turn them in after finishing a book, and I am hoping with 1-1 iPads and the availability of KidBlog, we can make their reading responses more authentic and exciting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. I am going to use Google Drive to create Reading Notebooks. I am trying to go digital this year! I saw a great pin on Pinterest that showed an idea for Reading Notebooks on Google Drive. I played around with this sumer and made a folder on Google Drive with other folders within the Reading Notebook folder. This is going to be a little challenging as most of my students will be new to Google Docs, but they are going to be experts before too long. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what I am envisioning...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Another tool that I use that is a non-negotiable for this year is Student Data Binders. I use data binders for students to set goals, track data, reflect on their learning, show growth, keep work samples, and store interest inventories. I call them S.T.A.R. binders (Students Taking Academic Responsibility.) This week we have been filling out interest inventories and learning style inventories. We will soon be goal setting and creating SMART goals. I love these binders and I encourage the students to share them often with their parents. I am starting to look into digital portfolios and how I can create these to complement our data binder. I found a site called Fresh Grade that looks promising and I am going to play around with it once we get our iPads. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. The biggest thing that I am going to KEEP in my classroom this year is Genius Hour. I started this last January and it was a HUGE success. My students loved it and couldn't get enough. I had no idea what to expect and was blown away by their engagement and excitement. It was a wonderful way to integrate the 4 C's-critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. The students created projects that were beyond what I thought was even possible. Websites, presentations, songs, movies, models, etc. Their enthusiasm for Genius Hour was mind blowing and with each passing week I was reminded of the importance of voice and choice. I can't wait to experience this with a new set of kiddos this year. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. The last thing that I want to improve upon is our Interactive Math Journals. I love these tools and I see a lot of value in these notebooks. I am going to add in some more metacognitive thinking and some more higher level thinking. I decided to focus on adding in 2 additional things...</span></div>
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<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm anxious to see where all of these new ideas lead our class and to see how they contribute to student success. I'll keep you posted! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-64503262768423398602014-08-10T06:55:00.000-07:002014-08-10T07:07:39.597-07:00Picture Book 10 for 10...2014!!!Since I started this blog back in January, I was able to participate in Nonfiction 10 for 10 in February. When I saw Picture Book 10 for 10...I had to take part! It is so hard to choose just 10 favorite picture books, but I think I have finally narrowed down my choices! Here it goes...in no particular order.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UHEIG69Onlk/U9l232BtCvI/AAAAAAAAAS4/P6Ch4G4W68g/s1600/pb+10+for+10+015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UHEIG69Onlk/U9l232BtCvI/AAAAAAAAAS4/P6Ch4G4W68g/s1600/pb+10+for+10+015.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jf1D3Pa9lt4/U9l3PDkGEsI/AAAAAAAAATA/npC81NHUDH8/s1600/little+red.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jf1D3Pa9lt4/U9l3PDkGEsI/AAAAAAAAATA/npC81NHUDH8/s1600/little+red.jpeg" height="200" width="180" /></a></div>
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1. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-Red-Writing-Joan-Holub/dp/0811878694" target="_blank">Little Red Writing</a> by Joan Holub is one of my favorite new books that I discovered this year. I grabbed it from the local library after reading about it on a blog. This books is adorable and whimsical! </div>
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A perfect book for teaching your students about writing. After I read this book to my class, I had to go out and buy it! I love the page that incorporates loads of adjectives about the deep, dark forest. An enjoyable book for kids of ALL ages...even teachers! </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4yYTNJIff8k/U9l7ApqNQDI/AAAAAAAAATM/Vv_MerLuReg/s1600/dragons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4yYTNJIff8k/U9l7ApqNQDI/AAAAAAAAATM/Vv_MerLuReg/s1600/dragons.jpg" /></a></div>
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2. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Love-Tacos-Adam-Rubin/dp/0803736800" target="_blank">Dragons Love Tacos</a> by Adam Rubin is a NEW favorite. I now know why this is a New York Times Bestseller! What a great book to read to draw kids in and point out fabulous writing! The author first starts out with "Hey, Kid! Do you know what dragons love tacos?" What a way to teach students the importance of "bold beginnings" in writing. Lots of great inferring can happen with this text as well. The voice in this book is hilarious and will make your students laugh uncontrollably! </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5nnJDujA-mY/U9l8SPADbuI/AAAAAAAAATY/bXbaU329NbA/s1600/crayons.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5nnJDujA-mY/U9l8SPADbuI/AAAAAAAAATY/bXbaU329NbA/s1600/crayons.jpeg" height="200" width="198" /></a></div>
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3. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Day-Crayons-Quit-Drew-Daywalt/dp/0399255370/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406762117&sr=1-1&keywords=the+day+the+crayons+quit" target="_blank">The Day the Crayons Quit</a> by Drew Daywalt is another one of my new favorites! I found this book in the library on a whim. I didn't even realize how hilarious it was until I started reading it to my class. My students loved the "voice" in this book and we laughed and laughed. We loved how "overworked" the red crayon was, loved the beige crayon's perspective about only being able to color wheat and turkey dinners, the gray crayon complaining about ALL of the large animals that it has to color, and of course the peach crayon being "naked!" Tee Hee!!! The students couldn't wait to try their hand at experimenting with voice as soon as we were done reading! I had to change my plans up so that I could accomodate their excitement! </div>
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4. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Goldfish-Devin-Scillian/dp/1585365076" target="_blank">Memoirs of a Goldfish</a> by Devin Scillian is brilliant. There is also <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Goldfish-Devin-Scillian/dp/1585365076" target="_blank">Memoirs of a Hamster</a> which is equally brilliant! Love reading this book from the perspective of the goldfish. Another book written with great "voice" and you can just hear the tone of the goldfish as you read the book aloud. Love when Rhoda and Clark announce they're going to have babies in the small fishbowl and the goldfish says, "Like there's room for THAT." Lots of great humor in this book that will especially make older students laugh. </div>
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5. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Peabodys-Apples-Madonna/dp/0670058831" target="_blank">Mr. Peabody's Apples</a> by Madonna is one that I ALWAYS have to read to my class each year. I heard about this book after a boy in my class started a rumor about another teacher. The assistant principal came in and read this to my class and I loved the message in this book. I read this book when we talk about theme and it is a great interactive read aloud. A boy starts a rumor about his baseball coach and then realizes that it is really hard to take back your words once you say something about someone else. A great book and a great lesson for EVERYONE! </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0F8vLhqo3-A/U9mzId12eoI/AAAAAAAAAUA/uAkvRoxkNeg/s1600/hooray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0F8vLhqo3-A/U9mzId12eoI/AAAAAAAAAUA/uAkvRoxkNeg/s1600/hooray.jpg" /></a></div>
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6. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hooray-You-Celebration-You-Ness-Marianne/dp/0974146536" target="_blank">Hooray for You</a>! by Marianne Richmond is such a sweet book! I love reading this to my own kids as well as my students every year. This book has beautiful illustrations and a sweet message. The text rhymes and encourages kids to appreciate their individuality and reminds them to be yourself. I love the line, "Yes, from head to toe tip, you're truly original, a creation in progress, a distinct individual." All of the books by this author are equally sweet and touching. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0syHZN9Iuks/U9m1OYEJOXI/AAAAAAAAAUM/mP0usbNTzPw/s1600/ralph+tells+a+story.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0syHZN9Iuks/U9m1OYEJOXI/AAAAAAAAAUM/mP0usbNTzPw/s1600/ralph+tells+a+story.jpeg" /></a></div>
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7. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ralph-Tells-Story-Abby-Hanlon/dp/0761461809/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406776700&sr=1-1&keywords=ralph+tells+a+story" target="_blank">Ralph Tells A Story</a> by Abby Hanlon is another great book to encourage kids with writing stories. </div>
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Ralph is like many of our students who never have anything to write about because nothing exciting ever happens to Ralph. I've heard this same story myself many times over the years. Students can really relate to this book and to Ralph. This book will encourage your students to think outside the box, help them develop their writing and find stories in their everyday life! </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SGzNDdL8cF4/U9m2y57rSAI/AAAAAAAAAUY/xWK4dpzloO4/s1600/lilly.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SGzNDdL8cF4/U9m2y57rSAI/AAAAAAAAAUY/xWK4dpzloO4/s1600/lilly.jpeg" height="200" width="160" /></a></div>
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8. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lillys-Purple-Plastic-Purse-Henkes/dp/0688128971/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406777098&sr=1-1&keywords=lilly%27s+purple+plastic+purse" target="_blank"> Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse</a> by Kevin Henkes is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITES! I love Lilly! Always have...always will! I think I also love Kevin Henkes! His books just make me laugh and kids can always relate to his stories. I love the "voice" in his books and I love how he develops his characters so thoughtfully. I also love the added adult humor in his books. To me, Lilly is an icon...when she isn't busy being a dancer, or a surgeon, or an ambulance driver, or a diva, or a scuba diver. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEs4h5gobYA/U9m4O4T5LII/AAAAAAAAAUk/mdNOvpJwFPc/s1600/gardener.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEs4h5gobYA/U9m4O4T5LII/AAAAAAAAAUk/mdNOvpJwFPc/s1600/gardener.jpeg" height="200" width="155" /></a></div>
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9. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gardener-Sarah-Stewart/dp/031236749X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406777464&sr=1-1&keywords=the+gardener" target="_blank"> The Gardener</a> by Sarah Stewart is one that I love every time that I read it! I love the format of this book and how the author writes the book through Lydia Grace's letters to her family. Lydia Grace writes home about her experience visiting her grumpy Uncle Jim and growing flowers at his place. The students always painfully wait through each page to see if Uncle Jim will finally smile. The students ALWAYS love the ending of this book and love to see the change in Uncle Jim over time. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pBNAKxWoOEo/U9zmDQ5EzkI/AAAAAAAAAU0/KgTXfAdWI6I/s1600/magnificinet.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pBNAKxWoOEo/U9zmDQ5EzkI/AAAAAAAAAU0/KgTXfAdWI6I/s1600/magnificinet.jpeg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
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10. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Most-Magnificent-Thing-Ashley-Spires/dp/1554537045/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406984323&sr=8-1&keywords=the+most+magnificent+thing" target="_blank">The Most Magnificent Thing</a> by Ashley Spires is a new favorite! I heard about this book and HAD to buy it. What a great message in this book! The girl in the book wants to make something, has a great idea, and some great supplies, but just can't seem to get it right. She gets pretty frustrated and quits. This book is perfect for teaching perseverance and helping perfectionists navigate what to do when you don't complete something perfectly right out of the gate. A book that will be a classic read aloud for years to come! </div>
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Checkout pinterest for my Top Read Alouds of 2014.</div>
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<a href="http://www.pinterest.com/megskogie/top-read-alouds-2014/pins/">http://www.pinterest.com/megskogie/top-read-alouds-2014/pins/</a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-584168519768719922014-07-23T07:50:00.001-07:002014-07-24T19:30:20.306-07:00Reading in the Wild #cyberPD- Week 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you to our cyberPD hosts – <a href="http://reflectandrefine.blogspot.com/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cathy Mere</a>, <a href="http://ruminateandinvigorate.blogspot.com/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Laura Komos</a>, and <a href="http://literacyzone.blogspot.com/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Michelle Nero</a> for hosting this year’s #CYBERPD. I have enjoyed the opportunity to reread Reading in the Wild this summer and it has been fun to read all of the other participants’ posts. The wrap-up twitter chat will be on July 30<span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span>, 8pm EST.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chapter 5-Wild Readers Show Preferences</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After reading this chapter, I thought about my own reading preferences. What do I like to read? What do I enjoy?(I enjoy the latest kid lit, memoirs, mindless summer reading, and books on literacy to name a few.) It made me think...can my own students verbalize their reading preferences? Donalyn writes, "True preferences come from wide reading and lots of positive encounters with books." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is our job as teachers to make our student's encounters with books positive!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't make them read a book just because you have always taught this book for 15 years. Don't force books on kids, instead take time to find what they like and recommend books for them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have helped turn many kids into voracious readers just by taking time to look for books for them. I will say..."Jake, I ordered this book from Scholastic just for you...I really think you will love it...could you read it first and then I will have you tell the class all about it." They always look at me like..." You were thinking of me when you got that book and you got it for me to read???" We then start this relationship where I lead them in the direction of good books and before I know it they are choosing their own books and over time they become a wild reader! They just need to find and recognize their reading preferences...sometimes with a little guidance. This echoes what Donalyn writes, "Students' preferences provide a starting point for building positive reading relationships between us and our students." So find a reluctant reader or more this year and help shape their reading life! What a lasting impact on that child or children!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My one struggle that I have in my classroom is the balance of reading graphic novels. Our library has a million of them(or so it seems!) and my students are pulled to them. I hate to tell students that they can't read a certain book, but I had this major struggle with graphic novels. I teach in a classroom of all gifted students and am responsible for their reading growth(amongst other areas as well!) I had students only reading graphic novels week after week, rereading Diary of a Wimpy Kid 4 and 5 times, and not stretching themselves as a reader. I realize that these books can be enjoyable to read, engaging, creative, and less overwhelming to read than a traditional novel or text but I felt that it was my job to push my students to read more challenging text. I ended up telling students that they could check out one graphic novel each week but they would have to read it at home. In class, we would be focusing on reading novels and nonfiction. Every once in awhile I would say, "Today during read to self you can read a graphic novel." Some students would, some wouldn't. The parents were in support of this plan, because they were ready for their children to move away from the repeated readings and reliance on graphic novels. It is a delicate balance and something I still struggle with in my head. I also know that there are exceptions and sometimes I encourage students to read graphic novels or to read the matching graphic novel to the chapter book.(Maximum Ride series by James Patterson). As a teacher, you have to always be thinking about what is best for your students and how you can grow them as readers!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love the statement in this chapter that states, "rereading books increases comprehension and enjoyment." (pg. 175) It was when I was young and reread The Boxcar Children multiple times that I started to notice books in depth. I could visualize the boxcar house, I could infer their feelings about living on their own, I asked myself questions about how they could possible live on their own, and I felt like I was such a part of the book that I had to step out of it when I was done reading. Students discover new things when they reread, they notice story structure, and it should never be forbidden to reread a book. When it becomes obvious that a student is not moving away from a book, then a conversation can take place. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There were many other great points in this chapter that I will highlight below...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> •During these reading habits conferences, we gain deeper understanding of how each reader has grown and the wild reading habits each one still needs to develop. (pg. 183)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">•Constantly looking for ways to bridge the divide between school reading and life reading, I changed the term "student" or "name" on every form to "reader" or "writer" as the task suited. (pg. 184)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">•I do not obsess on a book-by-book basis about whether my students read books that match their reading levels at all times, but I do consider trends in reading choices. (pg. 185)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">•Readers who have finished few books by certain points in the school year may reveal a lack of consistent engagement with what they read. (pg. 186)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">•I have learned that the most avid readers often keep the worst records of their reading activities. (pg. 187)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">•Conferring about their independent reading habits keeps my students and me focused on our long-term goals--internalizing wild reading behaviors and developing the self-reflection skills necessary to maintain lifelong reading. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This books has so many nuggets of wisdom about developing wild readers. Let's go out there in a few short weeks and develop reading lives and build more wild readers!!! </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-21509587978602449822014-07-20T18:05:00.001-07:002014-07-24T19:30:54.039-07:00It's Monday What Are You Reading 7/21/14<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since it is summer, I have had lots of time to read. It is probably my favorite way to decompress and relax. I've read a few books this past week....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I read this little gem via netgalley.com. I was able to submit for an advance digital copy and I luckily received it to read. It was awesome! I read it in less than a day and was very impressed by it. The book had many science references and inquiry based questions that you could really delve into with your students. A book with a great message as well that comes out at the end of August. This book is part of The Global Read Aloud in October and already has a lot of buzz around it. I think middle grade kids will really like this one! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another good one that I read in just about a day was Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff. This book was about a boy named Albie that struggles with many different things. He struggles in school and has trouble meeting other people's expectations of him. This causes him great angst. He learns that it is not so cool to be cool and that kindness is what matters. A great book to start the year! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I picked this up at the Hamline Literacy Institute last week! A great book by Frank Serafini on assessment. He spoke last week and was a very engaging speaker and educator. I'm so glad that I had the chance to hear him! Lots of information on qualitative assessment and thoughts about looking at readers through many lenses and windows. It's kind of weird to say...but I'm really loving this book on assessment! </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com2Americas (null)46.31658 -93.8032tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-64952905661703954462014-07-12T13:37:00.001-07:002014-07-16T05:51:56.922-07:00Reading in the Wild-Part 2 #cyberPD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am absolutely excited that I can revisit this fabulous book and blog about my thoughts before I start back into another school year! After blogging about <u>Reading in the Wild</u> last week, it just reaffirmed for me what an asset Donalyn Miller is to the literacy community! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How else can I start but to say I wholeheartedly agree with the line, "Children's future success depends on their acquisition of literacy skills." This line alone is why I do everything that I can as a teacher to hook my students on books. I want each and every one of my students to leave at the end of the year with either a love of reading or at least a greater appreciation for reading. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Donalyn Miller write about the importance of fostering a strong school and home reading community. She gives many suggestions for making this happen and all of them have value! I love the idea of adding a weekly student book recommendation to your email signature. I might just have to try that this year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She also adds the importance of "carving out meaningful blocks of time for independent reading." She suggests at school and at home. I would much rather have my daughters reading for homework than answering "critical thinking questions" at the end of a story in a basal. (BTW-she hates when she has to do this for homework!) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also LOVED the section on the Benefits of Reading Communities. Donalyn mentions that reading communities, "foster connections with other readers, increase how much readers read, challenge readers to stretch themselves, improve readers' enjoyment and appreciation of what they read, encourage new suggested titles for reading, and encourage mindfulness about what you read and share with others." When I implemented book clubs this year in my class and an after school book club the excitement level about reading skyrocketed even more than before! Students were reading with the intent to share certain parts, students were talking about books before book club even started, and they were encouraging others to read along with them or to read a certain book as soon as they had a chance. It is one thing that I will not stop doing in my classroom...book club has been such a positive experience for our classroom and has really encouraged discourse about books! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The other thing that I started this year that was in Donalyn Miller's book was a graffiti wall. I saw it being used in a 6th grade teacher's classroom and I loved to read it and see what the students were writing from their books. After observing this graffiti wall in use for a few months, I decided to make my own after winter break. I love the deep thinking around this bulletin board and I love how it adds to the reading community and contributes to our LOVE of reading! This board really gets the students to think about what the author is saying and to pay attention to their own reactions to the author's words. Metacognition at its finest!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Chapter 4- Wild Readers Have Reading Plans</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having a plan is always important. Especially for those of us with Type A personalities. :-) This chapter is all about having a READING PLAN. Readers need plans and setting reading goals can be a great first step in forming a plan. We use data binders to set goals about our reading. We make lists of books that we would like to read and reflect on our progress toward meeting these reading goals. I try to give students ideas on how they can keep lists of "next reads" if paper and pencil doesn't work out for them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love the section on conferring with readers and I love to read how other teachers conduct their reading conferences. I either learn new things or it reaffirms for me what I am already doing. I loved what Donalyn said about reading series books, "students who read series walk into each subsequent book with background knowledge from previous installments...their comprehension improves, which increases their confidence and reading enjoyment." I found this to be key many times throughout the school year for hooking a student into books. If I could find a series that they loved and that they could continue with success, it motivated them and provided a lot of confidence for reading future books and putting them on the path to a love of reading. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also really focused on launching summer reading after reading this book this year. She gave lots of great ideas for launching summer reading. I decided to host a book swap this year, have students complete book talks about books to inspire summer reading, make a list of summer reads, and track their books so that I could monitor their progress this summer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once again, Donalyn Miller packs a lot of valuable information into these 2 chapters and a lot can be learned from reading her book and even <b>rereading</b> her book! </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-59437789809017529152014-07-09T15:50:00.001-07:002014-07-09T15:50:04.172-07:00My Thoughts on Reading in the Wild #cyberPD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's summer! I've been taking a little bit of a blog break this summer to spend time with the family, catch up around the house, and to just chill. I've been itching to write a blog post but I haven't had any overstimulating ideas to make it worth my while. Until...I happened to see the #cyberPD tweet on twitter about Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I read this wonderful book this year back in January for the start of our <a href="http://fourthgradeliteracylovers.blogspot.com/2014/01/teacher-book-club.html" target="_blank">staff book club</a>. It was awesome to sit around with teachers outside of school and discuss best literacy practices. I decided that I could easily revisit this book this summer and participate in #cyberPD. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Chapter 1-Wild Readers Dedicate Time to Read</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I started this chapter...I was hooked by Donalyn Miller! I kept writing in the margins the words, "agree with this!, true, ****, !!!!, totally!" The first part that resonated with me was when she wrote, "the noise of my life demands that I find daily solitude within the pages of my books. I can think and grow and dream. I am happier when I make time to read, and I feel stressed and anxious when I don't for a few days. Reading centers me." This is ME! I love to read and have always loved to read...since I was 4 years old. I used to get in trouble for reading. I use the word trouble loosely, but I was often told to put my book away. Reading just takes me away and makes me forget about the daily grind. It relaxes me and calms my mind. Reading is something that I HAVE to do! Someone once told me to carry a book with me wherever I go so that I could read in the car, waiting for a soccer game to start, etc. You can often find me with a book in my purse and my husband always teases me that he is my personal chauffeur while I am reading in the car. It is so hard to find time to read as a busy, working parent but when you steal small chunks of time you can make it work! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've always felt that students who read a lot, do better in school. I am constantly pushing for my students as well as my own children to read as much as they can. My own children do not have the LOVE of reading like I do and I admit that at times it crushes me. I'm hoping that someday when I am not nagging them, they will LOVE to read too. :-) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also wholeheartedly agree with the statement that we reduce the effectiveness of reading interventions when we don't provide our lowest-performing students reading time and encouragement. Developing readers need more reading, not less. I have seen this time and time again over the years. Our struggling readers need time to read, time to be engaged with books, and to be taught by the experts(us teachers!) I have seen so many struggling readers pulled out of class to work with a parent volunteer, literacy volunteer, etc. Time with books and focused instructional time with their teacher is the best opportunity to see growth. I once had a struggling kiddo in 3rd grade who started at a level G. After making time to read with him EVERYDAY during reading workshop, by the end of 3rd grade he had made it up to an independent level N! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another resonating point was the phrase, "Wild readers don't keep reading logs." I totally agree with this as well and struggle with this at the same time! It is nice to see a record of what they are reading, but how often do you write down what book you read, the author, the page #, the genre, etc. Boring right! I try to keep up with Status of the Class to record books and see trends and this year I may try having them take a picture of each book that they read on their iPad. And the reading log at home...forget about it! Like Donalyn Miller states, "I can determine if students are reading at home by assessing their reading engagement in class and how many books they complete over a set period of time." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Chapter 2-Wild Readers Self-Select Reading Material</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This year I feel like I have taken it upon myself to become a "wild reader" of books. My take away from Donalyn Miller was that you have to know what the students are reading and be familiar with the latest books out there. I could never read a book a day in the summer, but I try to read as much as I can so that I can recommend quality books to my students. For book ideas, I use Nerdy Book Club, blogs, the librarian, friends, Facebook, Goodreads, Pinterest, Twitter, magazines, and trusted professional colleagues. I have read so many fabulous books this year after becoming a "wild reader." Amazon has been very happy with my book obsession! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF MY DAY IS READ ALOUD! I love it! It is sacred time and such a great time to build community. Donalyn Miller talks about the importance of read aloud and the benefits that it brings to readers. I love sharing this experience with the students and stopping to discuss the book or looking out and seeing every child engaged and hanging onto every word that you read. Chills! I loved her idea of having each child share their favorite read aloud at the beginning of the year. After reading this chapter I also participated in World Read Aloud Day and planned lots of literacy based activities and read alouds throughout the day. The students loved it! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I loved reading her thoughts on habitual book abandoners. She said that they lack reading experience and that they don't recognize narrative arcs. I found this interesting as a teacher and have worked to teach my habitual abandoners to recognize some of these elements in the beginning books. One of the many things that I am trying to help them with as I want to create a classroom of "wild readers!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Donalyn Miller is just a wealth of knowledge and I wish that EVERY teacher would read her book and just take away a few new opportunities for growth in their classrooms! </span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15091611841576073034noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131525224413949257.post-88353677203303162422014-06-23T13:25:00.000-07:002014-06-23T13:25:06.556-07:00It's Monday What Are You Reading?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's Monday... it's summer... I have time... I'm reading a lot! </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first book that I read last week was <u>We Are Called to Rise</u> by Laura McBride. This story is told from multiple perspectives and all of these perspectives end up intertwining and contributing to this amazing story. The story take place in Las Vegas and even includes a child's perspective. It took me 2.5 days to finish this story...I highly recommend this book for a great summer read! </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The next book that I read in 2 days was <u>Fly a Little Higher</u> by Laura Sobiech. This book is based on a true story of a seventeen year old boy named Zach Sobiech from Minnesota who died from osteosarcoma last year. After he died, his mom reflected on the past 3 years and wrote it all down in a book to help with the healing process. I knew how this book would end, but the messages in this story were moving. This book has plenty of parts that made me smile and plenty of parts that made me cry. My 8th grade daughter is currently reading it and can't put it down as well. My 10 year old is next in line after her. Very moving book with lots of parts that will make you reflect on your own life. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The next book that I read was <u>The Alchemist</u> by Paulo Coehlo. This story just has so many wonderful messages and life lessons. I was constantly writing down lines from the book to save for reflection. This story focuses on <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"> transforming the power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I just finished reading The Literacy Teacher's Playbook for Grades 3-5. I loved this book and gathered a lot of great thoughts and ideas for going into next school year. So my next professional read is <u>The Comprehension Experience</u> by Hammond and Nessel. This book talks about the importance of classroom talk and encouraging a deeper level of thinking in the classroom. This book came highly recommended to me and I am anxious to dig into it. </span></div>
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