Bird's Eye View

Collaboration is Key

This post is dedicated to taking a deeper look at Personal Projects. When I tell my friends about PCCS and what the current theme is, they always look amazed and excited about what we do at Prairie Creek. When I begin to describe 20 K/1 students doing a research project, with 20 different topics, well, they look at me in disbelief.

It can seem daunting at first as the class delves into this project. This year I tried a few different things at the beginning of the process to hopefully bring more clarity to the children, especially the K's. I had the first graders get with their cubby buddy to share everything in their own words of what they could remember about Personal Projects from last year. From there we gathered as a whole group to go through the steps and order of the process. 

Collaboration is key in making the research portion manageable. The children went through their books and placed Post-Its on pages they thought would have information to answer their "Wonder" questions. To give our research a jump start, I invited a 4/5 math class down to help with reading and recording information for the Nuthatches. Although many of the books the children have are appropriate for the type of research they are trying to collect, the reading and writing can be very time consuming and difficult for some.

The 4/5s did very well helping the children. You can see in the pictures below how skilled these 4/5 are working with young children. This is not something that occurs without numerous opportunities to practice. The 4/5's have undergone countless opportunities during their time at PCCS being mentored by older students. Now it is their turn to be leaders through opportunities like Bird Buddies, Guided Recess those First 6 Weeks of School, and the meaningful discussions the 4/5 teachers have with their students about being positive role models. The collaboration with the 4/5 students accomplished what would take me weeks to do one-on-one! I am so appreciative to have the opportunities to collaborate and work with other students in the school. 

 

Last week the children were also invited to see a few 4th grade presentations as well as the 5th grade Honor Projects. The children were very engaged traveling to the different projects and seeing their work. The 4/5 projects that were seen follow the same process your young Nuthatches are undergoing in their projects. It is the work the children do during Personal Projects in Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade that prepares them for the impressive work we saw last week.

After attending the presentations, we gathered again to check-in on our place in the process and make comparisons. We discussed how we want to share our knowledge and the making piece of our project. The students have all told me how they will present their project. These next two weeks will be very productive. If you were to step in during a work session you would be bound to see the following:

-painters

-writer's working on facts

-children making decisions where to place their facts and illustrations on their project

-sharing facts with one another

-encouragement and kind compliments being given

We (the K/1 teachers) hope you will be able to attend the K/1 Personal Project Fair on April 29th to see all of the hard work the children have done.

Meaningful Math

The Nuthatches continue to work on foundational math skills such as skip counting by 2's, 5's, 10's, 10 more 10 less, 1 more 1 less, odd and even, etc. We work on these skills while also fostering the development of number sense and math that allows time to try out different strategies, and time to explain our thinking as mathematicians. I find time moves so quickly that what often gets missed out is that time to share connections, what they enjoyed during math, strategies, and their thinking. So much learning occurs during these sharing and reflecting times, so I have been making it a goal work on increasing these opportunities for the Nuthatches. 

Below is a math problem from a curriculum with some really great word problems allowing for great problem solving, ways to vary the problem to suit different needs for young mathematicians, and creates math conversation.

Betty's Blocks (from Examplars)

Betty loves blocks. First she made a tower 2 blocks high. Next to it she made a tower 4 blocks high. Next to these she made a tower 6 blocks high. If she continues this pattern, how many blocks in all will she have used after she has completed a tower 10 blocks high?

After explaining the problem to the Nuthatches and reminding them they could use any resources from our classroom to help, they set off in partners in pursuit of solving the problem. While circulating around the classroom, these were a few strategies I noticed the children using:

-Drawing pictures of what each tower would look like and counting each block in the drawing.

-Using manipulatives like Unifex cubes that link together to make each tower and allow for counting.

-Some noticed the pattern right away and wrote out a number problem such as: (2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10 = ?)

-When writing out the number problem listed above, they used ten buddies to combine for quicker addition. Ex. 4 + 6, 8 + 2, 10 and then count by 10's 3 times since they made 3 Ten Buddy combinations.

-Counting by 2's

I love doing this kind of math with children! It was amazing to see them pull math concepts we have been working on as tools. This problem was so great because it was developmentally appropriate for a wide range of children. Some Nuts needed concrete manipulatives to assist them as they worked through the problem. They understand the pattern of each tower increasing by 2, but the blocks allowed permenance and made it easier to count how many blocks were used altogether. Other children immediately noticed the 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, pattern and wrote a number sentence and handy Ten Buddy combinations. I was a bit surprised to hear one pair explain how they counted by 2's accurately to arrive at the answer. 

I was also able to extend this problem by adding another layer for those children that were ready. Once pairs answered the initial problem, they were asked to try and figure out how many stickers Betty would need if she were to put a sticker on each face of the blocks of all 5 towers. This was also interesting to see as some of the kids began counting by 4's, making tables, and drawing a lot of stickers. 

After the children had time to explore and arrive at a math solution, we gathered on the rug and shared our strategies as a whole group. What an exciting time to see many children make the connection symbol as other pairs explained their problem solving, or to see pairs happy to announce their use of Ten Buddies. Our whole group math share was such a good reminder to me for why we take time to explain our math thinking. It allows an opportunity for kids to see other strategies they didn't think of which may also be more logical, as well as gives the speaker a turn to practice articulating the steps they used and explain how it works.

I look forward to more math explorations with your children and seeing their excitement as they notice connections and are proud of their work. Here are just a couple pictures of the mathematicians at work.

 

 

Crazy Combinations

The Nuthatches have spent the last couple of days creating unique and silly creatures. I showed them an awesome book called, Remarkable Animals containing three different flip book portions to make a thousand varieties of fictitious animals. For example, a Treevipus would consist of a head of a trunkfish, a body of a weevil, and tail of a platypus. 

The Nuthatches were asked to divide their papers into thirds (no easy task for a K/1), and decide what three animals they would like to combine. For added inspiration, I brought a small binder book down from the 4/5 library with hundreds of different animals to choose from. The children worked excitedly combining their three animals and delighted over their work as their creatures took shape. Once they had their sketch completed the children outlined their work in sharpie and did a crayon watercolor resist technique. 

Our last step was to name our creatures and share aspects of each part of the animal. Some of the children had a tricky time using portions of each animal name to combine into one new name. Other Nuts loved the opportunity and name suggestions were bouncing left and right.

These one of a kind creatures can be found outside our hallway. They turned out so colorful and fun. I overheard a couple Nuthatches say, "I can't wait to make more of these." See if you can figure out what three animals were combined to form:

1.Giraphalee

2. Deepinit

3. Humfishadillo

Answers are below pictures.

 

1. giraffe + elephant + whale

2. deer + dolphin + rabbit

3. Hummingbird + Fish +Armadillo

 

 

The Artist's Challenge

I have had a stashed lesson plan on mixing paint for ages that I have been itching to do. One of the Nuthatches had set a goal to practice mixing colors this year. Once I heard this, I just knew I had to teach this lesson fulfilling this child's goal. 

So here is the Artist's Challenge:

How many different colors can you mix when given white, black, red, green, blue, and yellow. 

I demonstrated a few techniques with the Nuthatches and gave a refresher on primary colors. They were very knowledgeable with mixing colors with their experience upstairs in the art studio. After the demonstration, the Nuthatch artists were off. 

Each student choose a grid (5X5, 7X7, or 10X10) as a guide. Each box on the grid was used to hold each color they created similar to a color or pantone chart featured below. The Nuts were thoughtful selecting their grid and most all selected a grid that was a challenge but not overwhelming to them.

 

It was so fun to watch the students work while using the tips I provided. They didn't even mix up the big pots of paint which is a HUGE deal! The fine motor skills and control they used to stay in the boxes was phenomenal. Eventually some of the students made remarks like, "Hey, I made cement gray." How exciting to experiment and have instant results.

 This activity was a wonderful creative challenge which was one reason why I have been so excited to try it out. Research has been saying that children are not as creative as they once were. Children need opportunities to develop their creativity. There are so many benefits to creativity such as improved problem solving, independece, expressing emotions and life, strengthening ego, and learning social skills. These benefits translate into positive outcomes and experiences in children's academic, emotional, and social development.

While mounting the students work and hanging up their beautiful art, I made a goal to make sure creative play and activities are appreciated and not pushed to the side. Here is a link to a really great blog if you are feeling inspired:

http://www.artfulparent.com/artfulparent/

 Enjoy the photos of the artists at work. Their artwork is featured in the hallway outside of our room.

 

 

 

Nuthatch Sound Fair

The fair was a huge success. There were a great deal of people milling around both sessions exploring various sound activities. At the end of the day, the kids were very excited to have an audience and to finally share their learning. Here is the video:

 

 

What's In a Narrative?

Hello families. Tis the season for the teachers of Prairie Creek to begin writing narratives in preparation for winter conferences. At PCCS every classroom teacher will write narratives for each child in their class. Although narratives take a great deal of time to write, I love that they honor each child in where they are in their journey as a learner. In comparison, the more traditional route of report cards aren't as set-up to provide specific feedback on each child and have limitations in noting growth.

During the next few weeks I will be conducting assessments with each child to add to my growing collection of information. Assessments come in various forms and are usually categorized into two main groups: informal and formal.

Informal assessments include items such as reading logs, student work, checklists, observational notes, and more. Formal assessments in the K/1 level usually consist of asking students to perform tasks that are skills based. For example at the beginning, middle, and end of the year we will have children demonstrate specific math skills and have benchmarks in mind as we progress through the year. As children get older, formal assessments will also include standardized tests such as the MCA which are conducted statewide to measure students in areas of math, reading, and science.

The content of Narratives will combine the information gathered from the varying assessments and is written to include areas of social, emotional, physical, and cognitive (think reading, writing, math) progress. Each teacher may have slight variations on the format or look of the narratives, but the end result is one document that shares the holistic growth of your child.

We are in an era of high stakes testing. As a staff we continue to have discussion regarding the learning PCCS children engage in. We ask questions to reflect on our teaching and to agree or disagree if it is in alignment with our mission. As taken from our mission statement: 

Prairie Creek is a child-centered school 
We help children discover the power and excitement of their minds, their feelings and their bodies, their relationships, their art. We assure children of their value, encourage their accomplishments, and respect their individual learning styles. We value diversity.

Many schools are heavily focused on test scores and prep with pressure coming down from various levels.The result of this pressure includes making time (which means taking it from somewhere else) to spend more instructional time on math and reading to boost scores. But what gets pushed aside? What children may have additional struggle when they have missed opportunities to express themselves through meaningful projects, forms of art, free play times such as recess and friendship times?

Our narratives not only share students' current levels of understanding in academic areas like math and reading, they express your child's passions, accomplishments, and struggles. What a powerful document! Of course we want your child to have a solid foundation in those subject areas of math, reading, and writing. We also want to hold sacred time in our day for themes, traditions, and emergent curriculum in hope that our Praire Creek children will be passionate about learning, be curious, and develop the skills they will need to be a life long learner. 

Conferences are coming up soon. When you arrive to conferences, your child will show a small collection of their work. I will have pictures in a slide show format that will highlight some of our learning this year. After your Nut leaves, we will use your child's narrative as a map to guide us through your child's development. There will also be time to ask any questions or address any concerns you may have. I look forward to meeting with you all!

For the Love of Reading

The Nuthatches have multiple opportunities each day to listen to reading, read to others, and read to themselves. This year it is evident the children have a huge love of books. For example, they have asked if they can read their freshly picked library book during Friendship Time. Now that is serious dedication when you are bypassing the possible opportunity to play with our Magnet Blocks, Mobilos, or art related activity Nat so patiently offers. 

Since the beginning of the school year the children have been working on something called, "Read to Self." During this time children at all stages in their reading development are able to explore books and practice reading skills. We spend a good amount of time discussing what the student and teacher roles are during this reading time. We check in after every Read to Self session and share comments about how our reading went, or if we discovered something new. This time is so precious and it allows me time to meet with students individually to do Book in a Bag, assessments, skill work, and small reading groups.

I also do a lesson with a variety of shoes to help address, "Just Right" books. The examples of shoes I use include shoes too big for me (books with too many words I can't read) shoes too small (books that are below my level) and shoes that fit perfectly. During Read to Self the children read books from their assigned book level and are also asked to select two library or classroom books. The opportunity to select books outside level carts is an intentional decision. It sometimes seems children beginning to take off in their reading don't think that they can read books that aren't in a book cart with leveled books. I want them to have practice selecting books that are interesting to them and to reflect if there choices was a Just Right book.

For Nuthatches that aren't yet reading words, they are working on reading pictures and retelling the story. This may seem odd to ask a child to read a picture, but pictures act as great clues when children begin reading those first early level book cart books. It is also great practice for early readers to see if there is even one sight word that they recognize from our word wall. All the children know they can read the pictures, words, or retell the story. Children are asked to retell what occurred through the story as well gain practice in summarizing and synthesizing what they are reading and seeing as the progress through a story. 

The children work beautifully during Read to Self and we have begun to add the next step, "Read to Someone." I partner up the children with someone close in their reading level. In the early stages we work on how do we sit next to someone when we read with them, taking turns, and checking for comprehension. 

Read to Someone is great in that it allows opportunities for children to talk to one another as they are reading. Checking for comprehension occurs after reading a page or two. One person reads and the partner is listening. The child listening then shares a brief summary of what was just read. If both children agree on the summary, they move on in the book. If not, the passage is re-read. We still have a ways to go in practicing our Read to Someone skills, but the pay off is huge. As we continue with Read to Someone we will work on coaching our partners when they are stuck on a word.

Both Read to Self and Someone have huge advantages. These times are quiet and allow for a great deal of reading to be done. We have also been fortunate to have a great deal of 4/5 Kestrels and 1 Heron come down to buddy read with some of our Nuthatches. These buddy times are great too since they have been trained to point to each word as they read with a k/1 to help build concept of print skills. 

As the year continues we will have our structured Read to Self and Someone times and work on reading strategies along the way. Aside from these two times, the Nuthatches continue to love Read Alouds, DEAR time, reading during Bird Buddies, and checking out library books. These kiddos just love books and reading! Here are some pictures of Nuthatches during various reading times:

 

Making Sounds, Noise, and Music

The classroom has been bustling with theme activities! Awhile back we had a wonderful visitor come in to share some activities with us. Julia is a professor at Carleton and her work has included research regarding hearing. Her upbeat energy and superb activities were a treat for the Nuthatches.

For many of the children the first activity Julia shared was the favorite. Julia recorded our class singing and used software to alter the pitch of our voice. We were able to hear our voice change to super low voices and super high and by high I mean Alvin and the Chipmunks high. It was quite hysterical.

We also participated in a hearing test starting with a lower pitch and listening to a beep noise with the pitches going higher in small increments. It was so interesting to see the children raise their hands while Nat and myself could no longer hear the pitches from the middle of the experiment and on. Julia explained that the Nuthatches and children have a kind of super power because they can hear high pitches that adults can't hear. The children became interested with other animals and their hearing abilities. This activities was also a wonderful segue for Julia to talk about hearing safety. 

Our last activity also turned out to be a great morning meeting game. We all stood in a circle with one child in the middle. The person in the middle closed their eyes and was able to start the game with both ears "open". Julia would point to a person to make a noise and the person in the middle was supposed to move and point to where they thought the sound came from. After a few rounds with mostly accurate pointing the person in the middle was then asked to cover one of their ears. This made it much more difficult for the student to pinpoint the sound with accuracy. I personally enjoyed using this activity to make a connection to why we greet people facing each other, or why teachers want them to look at the speaker to help them listen.

The Nuthatches had a blast with Julia and everyone learned something new. Enjoy our video montage that was made using the new K/1 flip video!!!

 

To tag on to this blog we have also begun to plan and prep our materials for our instruments. We read the book, "Zin, Zin, Zin, a Violin" for instrument inspiration and to hunt for some more juicy words. The book was great to introduce vocabulary of musical group in increasing number (solo, duo, trio, quartet, and so forth) and some of the Nuthatches decided to work together to re-create our own classroom version of the book. 

The Nuthatches also had the pleasure of fifth grade band students in our classroom showcasing their instruments. We had a nice mix of instruments including the saxophone, clarinet, trombone, and trumpet. The visitors introduced themselves and their instruments and finished by playing a short piece of music. The Nuthatches had many questions. A couple included:

"Why is shaped like a bell at the bottom?"

"How do you clean that thing?"

"How do you make it do different sounds?"

They fifth grade students also very kindly let the students touch and try on their instruments. We did some tally work on conducted a survey of their favorite instrument that was introduced to the class. It was a pretty close race between the clarinet and trumpet. 

 

Catch The Wave

This week the Nuthatches conducted an experiment showing how sound waves cause vibrations. Our experiment provided rich discussion on what scientists do, and how the Nuthatches are scientists as they perform their experiments, share their observations, and reflect on their predictions.

I began our lesson with writing a materials list for our experiment and assembled what was basically a replica of the ear drum. The Nuthatches worked with partners to collect their materials and got to work straight away. After the assembly stage was over, I added a bit of sugar to the top of their "ear drums", and gave them a spoon and metal lid to explore with. During the exploration, I experienced my favorite part. I heard remarks such as:

"WOW, look at that!"

"We are making the sugar bounce all over the place."

"I think when we hit the lid, the sound hits the sugar and makes it move."

""That is amazing."

A small grin washed over my face as I heard the Nuthatches make their excited squeals of delight. Here are the Nuts in assembly/exploration phase:

Once the Nuthatches had plenty of time to test out their experiment, we gathered on the carpet to share our discoveries. I recorded a few of their explanations to capture how they articulated their thinking. It amazed me how well they shared their ideas and used vocabulary and reasoning to support their beliefs. By performing experiments such as this one, children refine their ability to communicate their ideas and to use evidence to support those ideas. Here is a brief video of the Nuts that volunteered to share their thoughts:

 

This experiment was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate what sound waves do, how they travel in our ear, and was concrete enough for children to learn these concepts in a more tangible way. It brings great pleasure to the children and myself when we do activities such as these! We will continue to experiment and enrich our understanding of sound by connecting what we know to surrounding topics such as music, instruments, and more. It should be great fun!

Rockin' with the Robins

There are many benefits of teaching at Prairie Creek. One of the many includes opportunities to learn and share our learning with other classes. The Robins teacher, Cathy invited the Nuthatches to spend some time with the Robins learning about rockets. Each Nut was partnered up with a 4/5 Robin that helped them create a straw rocket, teach a few science concepts, and help launch the K/1's launch their rockets.

We began our first session heading up the stairs into what many of the K/1's think is the land of the 4/5's. It may seem this way to them since we aren't up there often. What a treat it was to go work in the Robins classroom. I smiled noticing their feet dangling in the chairs that are too big with the children sitting in those chairs happily working with an older buddy. It still amazes me how each child's time at Prairie Creek prepares them more and more to take on the responsibility of taking care of others. I see it when the first graders take care of the Kindergarteners, when older children invite other kids into forts because others did the same for them when they were little. At the 4/5 level, I not only see the children being kind to the young ones, but I hear it in their voice how they explain things and the compliments they give so eagerly. It is such a heartwarming sight.

After the children completed their rockets, they sketched the parts of the rockets in their nature journals. The Robins classroom also had a praying mantis tank on display which the children enjoyed observing. All of the kids were so excited to have their very own rocket and were thrilled at the prospect to launch them.

Yesterday we gathered in two groups. One group demonstrated the rocket launcher and the other group worked in the classroom to explain two important concepts (force and angle). Many of the Robins were skilled in posing questions to the Nuthatches when they were introducing these concepts instead of outrightly providing them the answers. It was clear they had a thorough understanding of how force and angle will effect how rockets will launch. The evidence of their understanding can be observed in how they can explain these ideas to others and answer their questions. We can learn so much about what students know when we provide them opportunities to teach others, observe them in action, or ask them to explain their thinking.

While half of the students were in the classroom discussing force and angle, the other half was in the gym learning about the rocket launcher. Cathy launched rockets a set of rockets increasing the angle at 15 degree increments for each rocket . In between each launch, the chidren were asked to think about those concepts of force and angle. Many of the children were excited to share their predictions if they thought the rocket was going to go higher/lower, or farther/closer. 

After the children completed both stations, they were allowed to launch their rockets! A target was set out and the kids were given the choice to think about what angle and force they would like to apply to try and hit the target, or choose what they may. Many wanted to try the 90 degree launch and have their rockets go straight up. 

The Nuthatches thoroughly enjoyed their time with the Nuthatches. We are so lucky to be at a school were we value giving students time to experiment and explore. I am excited for the Nuthatches to have an opportunity in the future to share their knowledge with their peers. Here are the Nuthatches and Robins at work (unfortunately my camera conked out and I don't have any pictures from our launching):