Parents & Teachers Make the Difference!

This summer I have been taking an online course through Stanford Online.  It is called How to Learn Math: For Teachers and Parents.

The lead teacher for this course is Jo Boaler, a Stanford professor.  

My game changing idea from this class so far is about mistakes.

Mistakes are a good thing!  We want them in order to learn.  

Thinking of mistakes a good, as opportunities for new learning is part of having a growth mindset.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.

So, parents and teachers......the children are watching us.  They are listening.  They are observing.  What messages are se sending them?  It's teachers and parents who can really make the difference and change to foster a growth mindset!!!

Parents and teachers, we have a charge.  

Encourage growth, not “success”.

“Success” is a relative term. Many children define success as a good grade which, again further entrenches the child in the fixed mentality. Put the term “success” aside and encourage the child to GROW. Encourage them to TRY HARD. Encourage them to CHALLENGE themselves. Gradually, the child will begin to associate success with growth, progress and innovation." (Mady)

Parents & teachers, you can not only make a difference, you can be the difference.  Be an encourager of growth and effort!

Mindset Book Study - Chapter 3

The Truth About Ability & Accomplishment

My take-aways from this chapter:

• People with a growth mindset don't throw in the towel and give up. They take charge of their own learning process and make it happen! (p. 62)

• With the right mindset, and the right teaching, people are capable of a lot more than we think. (p. 64)
• A fixed mindset limits achievement. (p. 67)  
• Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn't mean that others can't do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. (p.70)

     A CAUTION about praise.  We think we are being nice when we say things like "Oh, aren't you smart!"  But statements such as this can actually cause more damage than good.  Telling kids they are smart as a form of praise will adversely make them afraid to take chances, challenges, and make failures.  They will be hesitant to try and fail, and be thought of as no longer smart.  "We don't want to rob them of their zest for challenge and their recipe for success"(p.74)

Summer Shopping

Shhhh.  Don't tell my husband.

Oh wait, he drove me to the store.  Oh well, he already knows that I HAVE to always be on the lookout for something for my classroom.  Not shopping for my room would be like, well, not breathing.  Check out the interactive picture below to see my latest purchases!

Classroom work

It's that time of year again.  Inventory what I have, what I need, what I can let go of, and rearrange!

Setting up a new math program has me busy too!

Is it vacation yet????

Growth Mindset

I have been reading and partaking in a book study on the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. 

This weeks assignment was Chapter 2: Inside the Mindsets.

Here are the inspiring and interesting  quotes I pulled out from this chapter:

• "for children with a growth mindset, success is about stretching themselves"
• "You can always substantially change how intelligent you are."
• "...the fixed mindset makes people into nonlearners."  Oh no!
• "People in a growth mindset don't just seek challenge, they thrive on it."
• Fixed mindset individuals stress over that "they don't know how to do this - yet.  They forget the yet.

And, I love this about assessments:

"An assessment at one point and time has little value for understanding someone's ability, let alone their potential to succeed in the future."

Reflections of another year done

Yesterday was our last day of school.  It was a day of mixed emotions.

- Happy that summer break is finally here.
- Proud of the accomplishments and growth of all my kinder students.
- Appreciative for all the parents who entrusted me with the care and education of their children.
- Excited  to have more time available for myself, my family, and new professional development opportunities.
- Tired - it is kindergarten after all!
- Weepy - I cried.....5 times.
- Saddened that I will not see the smiling excited faces of my now graduated kinder students every day.
- Thankful for all the memories my kinder babies and I now have for the rest of our lives.

Weekly News

Weekly News

Weekly News

Four Winds & Other Fun

This Friday, we had our first Four Winds program!  

Parent volunteers came into our classroom to teach us about nature.  This week, we learned about insect life cycles.  We learned that caterpillars and grasshoppers are both insects that go through many stages (changes).  They both eat a lot and grow and change.  We watched a puppet show and then explored our school's garden for insects.  Thank you to our parent volunteers!  We enjoyed our time with you learning about nature.

  

Later that day, we  wrote recorded our new learning in our  Four Winds Science journals.  We are real scientists - observing and recording what we see and learn!

As a follow-up activity, we created "butterfly life cycle" posters.  These went home in folders on Friday.  Ask your child to tell you about the life cycle of a butterfly!

Literacy - 

We read many books about insects in preparation of our Four Winds lesson.  Through our reading we learned a lot about insects:

• insects hatch from eggs
• butterfly/caterpillar eggs can be found on leaves
• dragonfly eggs are in the water
• a dragonfly hatches out as a nymph
• baby insects eat and eat and grow and grow
• we eat and grow too
• insects change as they grow (metamorphasis)
• we grow and get bigger, but we don't change like insect do

We compared and contrasted our learning about butterflies and dragonflies using a simple Venn diagram.  The common core for kindergarten information text states:  

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.9

With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).

Phonics: 

Our focus has been on letter knowledge.  We are looking closely at the shape of letters so we can sort them by distinctive features.  We have sorted magnetic letters by color, those with holes, those with no holes, letters with curves, letters with straight sticks, etc.  By handling magnetic letters, children can notice their parts and how they are different from one another.  Once the children can identify each letter, they can begin to match letters with the sounds they represent.

Word Wall:

We now have the following words on our word wall:  a, I, see, children's names, color words.

We are utilizing the word wall by "borrowing" a word from the wall when we need it to copy for our writing.  

Math:

Our primary focus continues to be counting, counting, and more counting.  We are learning to represent quantity in many ways:  on fingers, with objects, as tally marks, and on ten frames.  Interwoven into our math work, we have been building upon the understanding and concepts of:

• what comes just after
• more vs less
• subitizing (recognizing dot patterns automatically)
• counting to tell the number of objects

Common Core standards associated with out work:

• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.B.4
  Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality.
• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.B.4.A
  When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object.
• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.C.6
  Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in another group, e.g., by using matching and counting strategies.

Latest Happenings

Lot's has happened in the past 2 weeks!

We have made circle maps of letters we are focusing on for letter formation, sound association, and identification:

  

  

We have been having a blast learning about our friends through Star of the Day!

We are learning about our world as we explore high interest, non-fiction books in Readers Workshop.

We are author's and illustrators in Writer's Workshop!

Thanks for looking!

 

First Day 2015!

Wow!  We did it!  We had an exciting and fun first day of Kindergarten.  Some of the things we learned and did:

• Breakfast & lunch  (food is important!! :)
• We learned that our teachers and ALL adults in the school have a Number One Job:  To Keep Us Safe!
• Played name games
• Had our first day of school picture taken
• Had our first Morning Meeting
• Enjoyed two stories:  My First Day of School by P.K.Hallinan  & Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London
• Wrote our names
• Drew a first day of school self-portrait
• Made frog headbands!
• Played with our new classmates using wooden blocks, cars and a car mat, coloring
• We are learning how to walk quietly and safely in the halls.
• We learned about our new take home folders and how they go home in our backpacks, and back to school everyday.
• Some of us got picked up by family members at the end of the day and some of us rode the bus.

 

  

Superstar Cape!

To start the year off, my Kinders and I do a super fun lesson:

Star of the Day!

Each child has a special day all their own!  During this day, each student gets to be interviewed by the class so that we can get to know them better.  Our interview asks students:

1.  What is your name?

2.  What is your favorite color?

3.  What do you LOVE to do?

The teacher, (me!) records this information on a large chart all the while demonstrating letter formation, good spacing between words, moving across the page left to right, and return sweep! The interview poster is then used as a shared reading while the teacher (me again!) demonstrates voice-print matching to each word with a large pointer.  Each student's poster will be re-read several times by the entire class before going home.

The student who was interviewed illustrates their Star of the Day poster during the next morning's discovery time.  

I got a super cool pair of star sunglasses for FREE this summer (score!) which the Star of the Day will get to wear during their interview!

AND.....are you ready for it?   I made a Super Duper Star Cape for the Star of the Day to wear!  (Applause!)  I found a very easy pattern online by Sherry Sylvester at threadridinghood.  You can use it too by clicking here.

Here are some pictures of my cape's creation and the final SUPER STAR CAPE being modeled by my daughter!

      

I am super star excited for this lesson!!  The kids always love being the Star of the Day! 

Oh yeah, and it addresses many, many Common Core standards too:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.1
Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.1.A
Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.1.C
Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.1.D
Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.1
Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.2
Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.3
Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.5
Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.6
Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.

Phew!  That's a wrap!

#happyclassrooms

Sunday Get to Know me Link Up

Once again I am linking up with The Tatooed Teacher for a Sunday Get To Know Me Link Up.

I rarely will wear jeans.  Even on dress down days.
I love earrings, especially seasonal or colorful ones.
I don't have a clue what JZ's or Conan's even are!!!
Definitely gold, possibly gold and silver mix.
Country for sure - large crowds creep me out.
Online - convenience reasons really....when you live in a place that is quite rural and the nearest Walmart is a 45 minute drive away AND winter driving is 10 months of the year, well, you get it.
Showers.  Baths take too long for me.
I am an open book.  I probably drive people nuts by telling them more than they want to know!
I am a homebody all the way.  I HATE to travel.  I mean HATE.  My favorite vacation = stay-cation!
Dinner - I have a bad habit of skipping breakfast.  (oops)
Coffee - If this counts as breakfast, ignore the previous bullet.  I LOVE coffee.  A dash of cream, no sugar please!
Early bird - I think it may be physically impossible for me to do what others consider sleeping in.  Sleeping in for me means getting up at 6 am.
Done up - nothing extreme, but a little eye makeup and lipstick is a must.
Thunder over lightening, but really, I don't like either.
Flats.  Period.
Car.  Did I mention I hate to travel?
Girls. - I don't really get what this choice is asking of me, so I just chose one.
Central Air.  Love my AC!

Linky Party!!! Bulletin Boards!!!

This Link Up stuff is new to me, so please have mercy!

I may have linked up the wrong dates or something.....I am working on it! 

Phew!  Ran to my room, and have some bulletin boards to share.

First up is my Math Wall:  Hover over the picture, than over any of the black dots in the image below to learn more!

Frame for picture taking of each child on day 1!

Letter Linking chart and letter focus wall.

Word wall - I love purple!

This year I am going to re-vamp how I do jobs....from 5 to 1!  I will have 1 student of the day which will rotate all year long.  I am looking forward to easier job management with this one!  No more asking and checking to answer question like: "Who is the lights person today?"

I am also going to utilize the 'new-to-me' idea of Brag Tags.  BUT....I want a different name (I am not especially fond of using the word brag.)  Suggestions welcome!!!

What Worked Well Linky

Today I am joining my friends at Kinder Tribe for a What Worked Well link-up!

Line up dots!

I LOVE them!  I use a self-adhesive vinyl sheet.  Mine are about 5 and a half inches in diameter and were cut by my daughter using a Cricut machine.

Why use dots?  Well, here a a few reasons:

• They add a great POP of color....and I LOVE color....the more the better!
• They give kids a good sense of proper space. 
• They can can be written on.  I write numbers on mine in black permanent marker.  (I did have to touch them up a few times throughout the year.)
• They last!  Seriously.  I did not have to replace a single dot all year long.  
• They come in lots of colors.  
• They remove easily.  I was a tiny bit worried that I would be chased down the janitorial staff if those suckers stuck too tight....but VOILA!  They peeled off like magic!  

This year, I have moved into a new room, and I already have the dots down.  (Insert your own happy teacher dance here!)

If you try the dots in your classroom this year, or want to know more, leave me a comment!