Listen. Connect. Empower.

The bus pulled away and I was overcome with emotion.  I left my family standing on the sidewalk.  I have never been away from my family like this before.  My 8 year old son has an uncomfortable look on his face and keeps staring at the schedule in his hand for his week - the one I made that does not include mom.  I have been invited by the ALA to speak about what happens in my little corner of the world on the other side of the world (The United Arab Emirates). As the quiet bus makes its way through the dark streets to the airport I am completely overwhelmed with gratitude to so many who have been instrumental in my growth as an educator in ways big and small. When I began sharing my big news, most people wanted to know how.  How did I land this amazing opportunity?  The truth is it was years in the making, years of building my Professional Learning Network.  Thanks to Twitter, EdCamps, NerdCamps and technology I have been able to develop relatio...

We began our year by connecting with our summer reading and our Public Library.  Our second class of the year took the reading categories that our Public Library created and required students to interact with one another and have discussions about them. We began class by playing Human Bingo .  I created a bingo board with the reading categories and supplemented with several fun categories like "I read in my pajamas" and "I read something that wasn't a book."  Students had to find someone in the class that read or had the related experience and write their name on their board.  The goal was to fill as many boxes as possible and to accrue as many "bingos" as possible. When time was up I took inventory on how many "bingos" were achieved and how many boxes were filled.  I also wanted to know which boxes were hard to fill.  The most common responses were: History Science Fiction Science/Math Reading something that wasn't a ...

I decided to start our year picking up where we left off - connecting with the Public Library.  At the end of the school year our Public Library kicked off a Literacy Afternoon .  They shared with our students how they could take part in the summer reading program.  I began our first class of the year with a demonstration of MY summer reading.  It served two purposes: Share my reading life  Excite students about the new books that are on order for our library  I began by taking a poll to see how many students visited a library over the summer.  Roughly 40% of students reported they visited a library.  Ouch.  That's it?  I asked how many students participated in Summer Reading.  If a hand went up in the class (and there were classes where there were NONE), I could count them on one hand.  Gulp.  However.... I had glimmers of hope when students DID raise their hands and excitedly share with me how they earned the pins ...

As I continue my reflections on last year's new activities and learning, I return to BreakoutEDU .  I blogged about my first BreakoutEDU previously . It was a positive experience for the students, teacher and myself.  Since then I have had the opportunity to work with other classes using BreakoutEDU and I am thrilled to report that it's value exceeded my expectations and inspired me to reshape how I frame next year's work. I used the same activity with three classes and each experience was new.  Activities that stumped one group were easily solved by the next.  I saw many different interpretations of the same clues.  I loved how each experience was unique. In my last BreakoutEDU activity of the year I challenged a class with an activity that included a red herring - there were four locks, four groups, and five clues (but they didn't know which one was the red herring).  This added a whole new level to the activity. Students reporte...

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 ...

This year's Summer Reading took on a new, refreshing feel this year.  Reading Specialist Allison Kieffner and I were given the freedom to develop our own Summer Reading program and we abandoned reading levels, book logs, and reading minutes.  Instead, we partnered with the Public Library and gave our students permission to read far and wide. We planned and launched the program at an assembly at the end of the school year which was hosted by the Student Council.  One third grader shared with us some writing that was important to her and the story behind it.  Next, members of the Public Library staff came to explain what Summer Reading looked like.   They shared with us how to "sign up" for Summer Reading. They shared with us the lanyard that students would receive and explained how they could earn pins by reading across genres. Staff also shared the different types of "items" they could check out of the library.  (I personally have my eyes o...

Every spring I have the privilege to arrange and accompany our 1st grade students on a walking field trip to the Public Library. This year's trip was especially exciting because it offered students an opportunity to "try out" some of the new and exciting offerings at the library and get them excited about Summer Reading. Students try out STEM activities: Students try out no-tech STEM activities: Students learn about how to "sign up" for Summer Reading and choose a book to take home.  Students tour the neighboring greenhouse and learn a bit of local history from volunteers that they recognize from our Chess Clubs and crosswalks.  We are treated to popsicles and plants.   My takeaways This year's visit was especially engaging.  Having so many hands-on activities got students excited about visiting the Public Library.  While most of our students live walking distance from the library, many of...

Our 3rd grade students learn about the history of their town and take walking field trips every spring to local historical sites.  This year I chose several books and activities that would focus our thinking on community art, ultimately leading them to a classroom project where they create a symbol for the town based on what they learned.  We began with the book Maybe Something Beautiful  written by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell and illustrated by Rafael Lopez . Part 1 - Laying the foundation (reading the book) After reading I asked students why people create community art.  Overwhelmingly students decided it was to make the community more beautiful and to make people happy, but students had questions.  Was this considered graffiti?  What was the difference between art and graffiti?  We ultimately decided that if someone had permission from an official source, it was not considered graffiti. Part 2 - Digging deeper (meeting the illu...

Inspired by I Am (Not) Scared  by Anna Kang and illustrated by Christopher Weyant , I created an opportunity for my students to think about how they are not too small to be brave and do good (and big) things. We started our discussion by sharing what we are afraid of now or were afraid of "when we were little."  (I love this discussion with my 6 year olds that are so "worldly" now...)  Several students shared fears of the dark and a variety of bugs. Taking a close look at the cover of  I Am (Not) Scared  students noticed that the characters looked rather scared, despite the title. (*Spoiler alert*) We read the book and students joyfully pointed out the juxtaposition of the last page.  We talked about how doing scary things can make us feel brave. Next we read Morris Mole by Dan Yaccarino . Morris was not like his brothers in size and ideas, but he managed to "dig" their family out of a big problem in his own unique way.  We brains...