Listen. Connect. Empower.

Every year our community participates in a town read.  Books are chosen with incredible attention paid to the ENTIRE community.  There is always an adult choice as well as a related YA and young reader choice.  This year the adults are reading How To Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery while our youngest readers are reading Inky's Amazing Escape .  Here is our school's journey: Day 1 We began class by watching a video of an octopus escaping from a boat to set the scene (thank you Sarah Bickel )!: Students watched the video and "ooh-ed," and "ew-ed" their way through it.  Now I had their attention!  We segued into our book which shares the true story of Inky the Octopus's escape from the New Zealand Aquarium.  Things that caught my students' attention: Octopus are hatched from an egg the size of a grain of rice. They are independent immediately after birth. Inky liked to play with legos and Mr. Potato Head. Inky could fit i...

As we begin a new school year I reflect on several ideas and activities that I thought made a large impact on my students.  At the suggestion of Todd Burleson I investigated Pen Pal Schools with a group of 4th grade students.   For 6 weeks students joined me for a collaborative learning adventure.  A student explains what we did: "In Penpals Schools we get to chat with people around the world, the people I’m talking to are from, 1 from Australia, 3 from the US, and 1 from New Zealand. We also get to watch videos that help us learn, and we read stories about the problems, and we type, and help get ideas on how to stop the problems." They wrote heart-felt responses like these:  Students had deep discussions and debates around which issues were the most pressing (in their opinions).  Several reasons follow for why this was such a powerful learning experience: They were engaged in authentic learning - they had a real audience to interact with ...

Our music teacher obtained grants to take the entire 2nd grade district-wide to see the Nutcracker .  We worked together to prepare our students for what they would see on the stage ( see my last post ).  Following the field trip, students wrote about their favorite part of the ballet.  One teacher decided to take her students' writing one step farther and venture into an unknown world to her - computer programming.  Together, we had these 2nd graders code their experience.  Within an hour and a half these 2nd grade students who had never used Scratch Jr before had created scenes from the Nutcracker like this battle scene with the Nutcracker and the Mouse King. I was coding with my 2nd graders during Library time and giving them choices for coding activities.  However, I decided to use my limited time wisely with this particular class and use our time to get familiar with Scratch Jr (a program they had never used before). Day 1: We learned how...

Our music teacher came to see me one day, excited about the grants she obtained to take the entire 2nd grade district-wide to see the Nutcracker .  This fabulous experience would be absolutely FREE for students and she wanted to know if I would like to collaborate with her.  Of course! Quick aside and brief disclosure: I danced in a ballet company, taught dance for 14 years, and don't remember a time when I didn't dance, so I was beside myself with excitement. A rare pic from my former career  We decided that I would share the story of the Nutcracker during library time and create centers for students to further explore three pieces from the Nutcracker : March Trepak Waltz of the Flowers   She would have the students further experience the three musical pieces during music class and they would produce a written reflection in their classrooms.  My most exciting collaborative venture was a 2nd grade teacher that had expressed interest in coding. ...