Five For Friday February 12, 2016

1)  Flexible Seating

I am so blessed to be in a kindergarten room, even though I teach first grade.  It gives us lots of opportunities with flexible seating.  For me, choice in learning is vital.  During "student time", students can choose a variety of options of seats.  They can work at desks, tables, counters, floor, special seats, or a quiet desk. I got the great little rocking chair seats from Wal-Mart for $5.  The kids love them, especially during read to self time.  Not all time is choice time though.  During "teacher time" I let the kids know that I control where they are learning.  "Teacher time" is where I am giving my direct instruction. The kids know that during this time I control where they will sit. That being said, I don't have one spot where I have them learn.  We have a math carpet, a reading circle, sit spots, focus form when we are sitting at our desks, and huddle formation where everyone comes in very close to hear important information.  I mix all of the options up, even throughout a lesson.  I use my teacher judgement here, when I see the wiggles start to form.  If kids are at desks, and I see too much wiggling, we change gears to a different location.  Sometimes, we even switch spots at desks.  The kids love the change and they love variety.  They also know if I use huddle formation (where kids come in super close, standing like a football huddle) when I am about to tell them something VERY important.  I set up all the procedures for these listening spots at the beginning of the year.  I go through very slowly what it looks and sounds like for the teacher and for  the students. I also tell them the purpose of all of it.  They love hearing that their job is keeping their eyes on the prize . . . the prize being LEARNING!

These rocking chairs are available at Wal-Mart in the toy section.

The carpet is always a big favorite.  These students are playing Roll and Talk (a comprehension game from my Duck For President Unit).

2)  Growth Mindset

Each day, at the end of the day, we write a message of gratitude on our desks. This one touched my heart!  In our class we focus a lot on how hard work will get us to our goals.  If you use Class Dojo (a free behavior management system), you might already know about their new video series that promotes a growth mindset.  It is great!  Below is a link to the first in a series of short videos that promote growth mindset.

 3)  Valentine's Day Fun!

I absolutely LOVE kid art.  I also absolutely love to learn from art sessions.  Whenever we have art sessions, I always make them as free as possible.  I offer a set of choices of projects, teach a skill,  and I let them go.  I tell the kids that they can spend the time on one project (perfecting it the way they want it), they can do all the projects, they can do some of the projects, or they can create a new project using the skill I focused on.  The way the kids tackle this choice and the the way the attack their art speaks volumes, and I learn so much about my students through these art sessions.  I love to see and hear what's important to the kids when they do their art, the joy on their faces, the differences in their art, and I love just listening to them.  It is a time where I am not pulling kids to test, work on skills, or reteach.  It is a time where I can just work on building classroom community.  Each year on Valentine's Day I teach the kids how to cut a heart out of a folded piece of paper, a skill I still remember learning when I was about their age.  I'm always surprised to see who tackles the task with ease and who struggles with the folding, the cutting, and the frustration.  This year, one of my littles, completely broke down in unstoppable tears over the frustration of cutting out hearts.  What was so surprising is this is our "class artist".  She is the one who loves everything art and displays such a gift for it.  What she does struggle with, though, is trying new things.  I learned this early on in the art sessions, and we've been working all year on tackling how to feel when things are hard for us.  As I saw today, we're still working, but that is okay because that is what growth mindset is all about!

4)  Writing introductions and conclusions!

It's about this time of the year that I really start seeing the fruits of our labor!  I spend a lot of time trying to develop voice in my little writers, while also teaching structure.  The two above examples made my heart sing!  I love the introductions and conclusion of these two informative pieces written about the flag.  I'm working on some blog posts on a writing sequence coming soon, but below are two products that I use to really teach options in writing introductions and conclusions.  If you own them already keep checking back for updates because I add to my products all the time.

 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-Introductions-Leads-Opinion-Informative-and-Narrative-Text-1820344

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-Conclusions-Opinion-Informative-and-Narrative-Text-2114551

This is part of our writing wall, where we display introduction and conclusion types with examples from students!

  5)  Audience

I love putting things facing out of our windows so that parents, other kids, and anyone walking by can see.  We put our American Flag news articles facing out and I can't wait for the kids to spy the audience reading our great work!