Directed Drawing

Greetings!! :)

President's Day is right around the corner and what better way to celebrate than by drawing pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln!!

The school I teach at does not offer art class as a SpEcIaL ClAsS for my kiddos. I feel that it is my responsibility for them to still get that feel of art. I loved art as a child and I want my kiddos to also love it. So, I try to get them to do artsy things a lot. This being one of those times. 

Have you ever experimented with Directed Drawing in YOUR classroom??

 It is amazing and quite ENTERTAINING!! 

My friends were thrilled when I told them what we would be doing. We first did research on the two former president's and wrote research papers about them. I let them choose which president they wanted to focus on and surprisingly it turned out pretty even for the class.

After we did our papers we then broke up into two groups:

 1.Group Washington 

2.Group Abe

My friends met me on the carpet and we drew our Presidents all thanks to TPT Kindergarten Planet!!! 

This is a FREEBIE!! 

Once we were finished drawing we decided they needed color... WATERCOLOR!! 

They had a blast painting their portraits!!

Check out what my friends did...
     

             

I hope this makes you want to try Directed Drawing in your classroom!!

Have a WONDERFUL day!

BE AWESOME!!

Flexible Seating in Your Classroom!!

Wow!! 

It has been a while friends!! 

With all this snow in East Tennessee recently, it has made me slow down and take time for things that I love to do and BLOGGING is one of them!!

 So, HELLO! I hope you have been well. 

I am here to share with you how I have transformed our classroom into a FLEXIBLE SEATING classroom!! Really... it is quite easy and the kiddos love it. Flexible seating gives them the opportunity to work where they feel the most comfortable in the classroom. Some of my students still choose to sit at their desk, which will always be an option, but so many of them have decided to try out new places in our room. 

I must say, why didn't I try this sooner. 

It is amazing. 

For those children that cannot sit still at their desk, this is a MUST. You cannot expect students (7&8 year old students) to sit at a desk all day. This gives them the freedom to choose where they want to be successful in the classroom. With freedom comes responsibility, they know the proper procedures to use the wide variety of seating and also the consequences to abusing the privilege. 

I encourage you to use adverse seating in your room just to see how the students work differently.

Here is a picture of the yoga mats that we use in the classroom. The children who like to lay down and work really love this area.

Pictured here are some Scoop Rockers I found at Walmart all thanks to +Aly Hac (justaprimarygirl) !! They were under $5 dollars a piece! My 5 year old loves them!! They are NEW so I cannot wait to see what my 2nd graders think about them!!

Here are the Scoop Rockers in storage. They stack up easily and fit right into a corner!

 Here is probably my "favorite seat in the house!" It is amazing! I had one of our custodians lower this table ALL the way down or as far as it could go and bought some bench cusions at Walmart for $5 and BAM!! Flexible Seating at its finest!! Also, storage with these are quite simple, just stack them up when you are finished!

 This area allows my friends to stand and work on their task! Did you know? Students LOVE to stand and work!!

Coding in the Classroom!!

Coding in the classroom may be something you think of when you think of a college course!

NO! NO! NO!

My Friends are NOT in college.

We are coding in 2nd grade! You read that right... "We are coding in 2nd grade!!"      EEEEEEEEK! (my shrill of happiness)

What is coding?

"Computer programming (often shortened to programming, sometimes called coding) is a process that leads from an original formulation of a computing problem to executable computer programs." - dictionary.com

  

Pretty much computer programming is telling a computer exactly what to do!! :)

Here is an example of what they will be doing!! Each level is different and each level gets more complex as they progress.

I am so excited to share this with you guys. My kiddos were SUPER excited to take on the challenge. They felt very important and did I mention... They are coding to MINECRAFT... If you are wondering what Minecraft is, it is a video game that apparently ALL 2nd graders LOVE! So, when I told them I was combining Minecraft and coding together that was just the icing to the cake.

We took the challenge of "an hour of coding!" You can access the website by clicking HERE. You will absolutely love it and so will your kiddos! I promise!! It makes them think differently. Also, they are learning perseverance and teamwork. I did partner them together for the first round so they could bounce ideas off of each other. I do plan to have them do it independently in the future.

The kids were challenging each other and trying really hard to complete the entire game within that hour time frame. They were superstars rock stars!! Kudos to them for owning something that they were just introduced to. 

At the end of the day, they all wanted to know the website so they could go home and code!! WOW!! Amazing teacher moment right there! :)

 Oh!! How true! This activity really did teach my kiddos how to think and problem solve and most importantly learn together. They became a team and figured out how to get through it together. No one in the classroom was left behind and it felt amazing, as a teacher, to see all of your kids working so hard at something. They didn't argue. They all had one common goal and "WOW" is all I really have to say. I agree with Steve Jobs!!

Christmas Around the World!!

Hello Friends :)

I hope you and your loved ones had an amazing Thanksgiving! As teachers, we have so many things to be thankful for!

My friends and I in the classroom learned a lot about Thanksgiving during November and we also started learning about Christmas. I know! I know! Christmas in November? Well, when you have so many things you want to share with your students it is hard to fit it all into those 3 short weeks before Christmas break. So, we got started early!! I wanted all of my students to know that Christmas is celebrated world wide and not just in their community. I read to them many different books about how other countries celebrate Christmas and they were overwhelmingly shocked that not all people celebrate in the same ways they do. We learned a lot together. I then let my friends do their own research about a specific country by using iPads, laptops, and books. They really enjoyed this assignment.

I wanted a way for them to show what they learned so I narrowed down what they would be looking for in each country. They looked up:

1. Food

2. They Call Santa...

3. Decorations

4. Weather

5. Did You Know?

I chose these five items because that is what they seemed most interested in. Once the research was done, they created posters with the information on them.

That is not all... We then got a world map and mapped all of the countries that we chose. We needed a lot of wall space to demonstrate our learning... so I decided on the hall. One of my students made a point that no one did the United States. I told them because we all celebrate so differently and I wanted them to write a personal paper about how they celebrate Christmas. My kiddos were so excited to write about how their family and them celebrate.

This is a prime example that students get excited about reading and writing when it is something they are interested in. I encourage you to break from the norm and do something because your kiddos want to do and they thrive when they are doing what they love. And hey! They were learning so much.

The background of each poster is the countries' flag.

*They were done as a model and not an exact replica!!

Just a word to the wise... a hot laminator WILL melt crayon!

                    

                           

     

I am THANKFUL for...

You!!

That's right... I am thankful for YOU!! I am thankful for you as an educator, I am thankful for you as a parent, I am thankful for you as a leader, I am thankful for you as a person. Thank you for being you!!

Hello!! 

As the Holidays approach, we as a society make EXTRA time to think about what we are grateful for and things that we are thankful for throughout the year. As an adult, the list is limitless. I am thankful for so many people, places, and things every single day that help me to be the best person I can be. I wanted to bring to the forefront of my students' minds that they have many things to be thankful for each and every day. 

We decided to make it into a CRAFTIVITY... 

What is a craftivity you ask? 

It is when you have a craft to go along with the lesson that you are teaching. In this particular craftivity, the students are going to make a turkey out of paint swatches and name five things they are thankful for. They will then turn this (graphic organizer) into a written paragraph.

Materials needed for the turkey:

1. 5 different color paint swatches for each student (you can use more or less)

2. Brown construction paper for the body

3. Yellow construction paper for the beak

4. Googly eyes (2 for each child)
5. Templates for the body and the beak --- You can find those here!

Materials needed for the paper:

1. Festive paper with lines
2. Pencil
3. A THANKFUL student :)

Each child will need 5 different color paint strips. Each paint strip should be cut to be 5" long and 2" wide.

 This is an example of what each feather will look like. They will put 5 different things they are thankful for on each feather and draw a picture in a different shaded box.

Once the student has their turkey assembled they will then write a paragraph about what they are thankful for.

This is an example of a couple turkeys that my kiddos made! Aren't they wonderful? I think so... I may be a tid bit bias.... hehe

 

Beautiful handwriting makes my heart melt!! I hope this handwriting makes your heart as happy as it makes mine. You are so welcome!!

Mystery Skype Success!!

OH MY GOODNESS!!

I am filled with so much excitement right now!! 

So, I have read a lot of other blogs about Mystery Skype and thought my class could totally do that!! I told my class that we would be doing our first Mystery Skype and I explained to them what it was and they were OH SO EXCITED!! If you are wondering what a Mystery Skype is... it is where you Skype another classroom in either the same country or a different country from your own and then you ask geographical questions to try and find out where the other class is from. They couldn't wait and, frankly, neither could I! We prepared questions and answers to commonly asked questions for about two weeks. We talked about our behavior and the etiquette we would practice while on our Mystery Skype phone call! They were so eager to do this Mystery Skype that their excitement was very evident. 

The day finally came!! It was scheduled for noon and that was all they talked about that morning. Once noon finally arrived we placed our phone call to our "Mystery State!" The kiddos were overwhelmed with emotions... I could tell they were nervous and a little scared. (It was a good thing for them to feel these emotions) Once the ball started rolling they did really well. I was so proud of them. They really got to utilize their map skills. It was wonderful.

Here are some questions I would recommend for first time Mystery Skypers:

1. Are you east or west of the Mississippi River?

2. Are you a landlocked state?

3. Do you border another country?

4. Are you one of the original 13 colonies?

5. Are you in Tornado Ally?

6. Are you touching the Appalachian Mountains?

7. Is your state considered to be in the North or in the South?

These were a few questions we used. Now, some questions will be ruled out considering the answer of a previous question. We had our question analysts figure out which questions we could no longer ask. Everyone in our room had a duty and they fulfilled their job really really well. 

If you were wondering....

Our first Mystery Skype was from a class in Oklahoma.

If you want to get started with your own Mystery Skype today just click here. I would highly recommend you try this experience at least once with your class. You will not regret it!!

Below are a few snapshots of our Mystery Skype in action: 

Given the Opportunity...

Wow... It has been quite some time... the world of a first year teacher is BUSY and I LOVE every minute of it...

Today, I want to share with you something I am very proud of and something that my students are extremely proud of! First, I have a question... How often do you let your students explore and show you what they can do? My answer to you would be... "You would be surprised!"

We started this project in September because I thought we would need all the time we could get... however, my students surprised me (why I ever doubted them is beyond me) and we were able to finish them in a little over a week. 

We started by doing a guided drawing of a pumpkin, once they drew and colored their pumpkin (kids love to draw!!) I asked them to pretend they were that pumpkin. I then asked them to decide the life the pumpkin would have... I told them that if I were a pumpkin I would be turned into many pumpkin spice lattes. (insert eye roll here haha) I then let their imaginations flow from there. 

I gave them a four square to organize all of their thoughts and then they wrote a complete paragraph using their four square. After that, they peer edited each others work (which by the way is amazing!!) and then we talked about publishing their work using a computer. We talked about typing and how I was not looking for anything fancy I just wanted them to be able to convert what they had written to a typed form on the computer. 

THEY WERE SO EXCITED! 

I heard many comments and mostly they led back to, "I feel like an author!!" When you as a teacher are excited about something and have such a passion for teaching them something new and the kids are thirsty for what you have, there really isn't any room for failure. 

We did face a few obstacles along the way at no fault of the students. We came across the issue of printing from the laptops and using my flash drive wasn't an option. Also, emailing them to myself was Plan C and that didn't quite workout either! Sure, we could have given up but we persevered through it and finally figured out a solution to our problem. 

What I am about to share with you is very precious and the students and I are both really proud of our finally product. We hope to share more of our published work with you soon!!