I Do Not Have the Words

Last Thursday my students were leaving the classroom to line up in the hallway for bus dismissal.  A boy went behind me and his rolling bookbag swept my feet out from under me. I fell and landed on my wrist and elbow.  I wasn't hurt physically, just sore.  My heart was hurt though because one of my students pointed and laughed at me while I was on the floor.  My teammate took my students out to the bus lot. I went in my classroom and closed the door as tears ran down my face.

I do not have the words to describe how hurt I felt by this boy's laughing and pointing.  I am a 47 year old woman who had her feelings hurt by a 9 year old boy.  I am a professional educator and he is an immature child.  Why did this hurt me so badly? I guess I feel that I have taught him better.  I preach empathy for others. My classroom runs on caring and kindness.  I know that it was probably his initial reaction, but the fact that it was so public just sliced even harder.  

The next morning, the boy who laughed at me walked up with a very serious look on his face. He said, "I am really sorry for laughing at you when you fell yesterday."  He handed me a folded up piece of paper.  I read it and once again he caused tears in my eyes.  

I do not have the words to describe how touched I was by this genuine apology.  I'm not crying...you're crying.

 

Green Day and Natalie Merchant Came to School!

I love the feeling I get when a student completely NAILS an assignment. It is an amazing moment when you read a student response and they explain their thoughts with depth and feeling. I am so proud of the responses my students shared during this lesson.

 

During our unit, Following Characters into Meaning, we read the book Wonder by RJ Palacio. Several times in the book, the author refers to songs or uses songs as chapter titles. She uses quotes from songs to divide the book into sections. She cites certain songs that relate to certain characters. Two of the songs she happens to use are in my list of favorites on my iPod. They are songs I have heard live in concert. They are songs that my students had never heard.  So I felt it was my duty to change that. 

 

That is why my students grooved to Wonder by Natalie Merchant and rocked out to When September Ends by Green Day!

 

One of my professional goals this year is to make a concerted effort to spend more time exposing my students to a variety of genres. I'm not just going to teach the typical units that are required. I plan to incorporate genres throughout all of my teaching. Music is poetry so it fit perfectly into my plans!

 

I gave students the lyrics so they could follow along as they listened to the songs. The first time they simply listened to the song. The second time they sang along (if they wanted to), danced, and played air guitar and/or drums. The third time they made notes on their lyric sheets. For the first song I simply had the lyrics printed on the sheets. For the second song I added in guiding questions.

 

 

You can tell this student takes music lessons by his notations.

She made a personal connection to her religion by commenting that God should be capitalized.

He labeled the poetry pattern in the stanzas of the lyrics!

Halloween Poetry Jottings

When Halloween falls on a weekday, teachers need to embrace it in order to make it through a successful day of learning! I took a break from our current unit, Following Characters into Meaning. Instead of reading from our unit read aloud Because of Winn Dixie, I used some holiday poems to keep students focused. They thought it was cool to stop doing Reading Workshop (they just didn't realize they were still doing it)! When you teach like a pirate, sometimes you have to hook students by letting them think they are getting away with something. If they want to think they aren't doing work because the activity is new and different, then by all means I will run with it! 

 

I selected a variety of poems: repetitive, acrostic, rhyming, free verse, musical lyrics, haiku. I chose poems that I thought fit the category of complex text. The poems had strong vocabulary, allowed students to practice oral reading fluency, contained literal and figurative language, and lead students to envision. 

 

Students read the poems with their reading partner. They made jottings focused on empathy, envisioning, and predictions.

 

 

Students placed their jottings on the back of the poems so that I can use these jottings to conference with them next week.

Impromptu Poetry Moment

One of my students asked if she was allowed to write a poem as a jotting. I had never considered this before so I told her, "sure, as long as it relates to your book."

This is what she came up with after meeting with her biography book club and discussing Abraham Lincoln:

 

I am so proud of her for extending her thinking beyond a simple sticky note jotting. She took what she knew about poetry and combined it with information she learned from her book. When she shared her jotting with her book club one of the boys shouted out, "Kyndall had a poetry moment!"

Math Literature

I incorporate literature into all content areas. I do not teach Math, but I still have leveled books in our classroom library that relate to Math topics. I included cookbooks because I think they are an authentic form of literature. I believe that incorporating literature into Math lessons allows teachers yet another way to expose students to the complex text referenced in the Common Core Standards.

 Probability

Probably Pistachio by Stuart J. Murphy

Pigs at Odds by Amy Axelrod

 

Cookbooks

Gross Grub by Cheryl Porter

Pigs in the Pantry by Amy Axelrod

The Cooking Book by Jane Bull

The Children's Step-by-Step Cookbook by Angela Wilkes

Measurement

The 100 Pound Problem by Jennifer Dussling

Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy

Math Applications and Extensions

Mathematickles by Betsy Franco (poetry)

Math Fables by Greg Tang

Marvelous Math by Lee Bennett Hopkins (poetry)

The Grapes of Math by Greg Tang (riddles)

Math Curse by Jone Scieszka and Lane Smith

Counting

Counting on the Woods by George Ella Lyon (poetry)

One Monkey Too Many by Jackie French Koller

Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews

Blast Off! by Norma Cole

Geometry

The Incredibly Awesome Box by Joanne Rocklin

Mummy Math by Cindy Neuschwander

Pyramids and Mummies by Seymour Simon

Captain Invincible and the Space Shapes by Stuart J. Murphy

Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone by Cindy Neuschwander

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table by Cindy Neuschwander

When a Line Bends A Shape Begins by Rhonda Gowler Greene

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns

 



Addition and Subtraction

Shark Swimathon by by Stuart J. Murphy

The Hershey Kisses Addition Book by Jerry Pallotta

Multiplication and Division

Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream by Cindy Neuschwander

The 512 Ants on Sullivan Street by Carol A. Losi

A Remainder of One by Elinor J. Pinczes

What Comes in 2's, 3's, and 4's? by Suzanne Aker

Hershey's Chocolate Math from Addition to Multiplication by Jerry Pallotta

Just Add Fun by Joanne Rocklin

One Grain of Rice by Demi

Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar by Masaichiro and Mitsumasa Anno

Each Orange Had Eight Slices by Paul Giganti Jr

Hershey Kisses Multiplication and Division by Jerry Pallotta

Math Strategies That Multiply by Greg Tang

 



Telling Time

The Long Wait by Annie Cobb

Game Time by Stuart J. Murphy

Get Up and Go by Stuart J. Murphy

Pigs in a Blanket by Amy Axelrod
 



Money

Sold by Nathan Zimelman

The Penny Pot by Stuart J. Murphy

Bunny Money by Rosemary Wells

Pigs Will Be Pigs by Amy Axelrod

Pigs Go to Market by Amy Axelrod

 



 

Problem Solving

Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares by Frank Murphy

The Case of the Backyard Treasure by Joanne Rocklin

Dinner at Panda Palace by Stephanie Calmenson

The Case of the Missing Birthday Party by Joanne Rocklin

The Fly on the Ceiling by Dr. Julie Glass

Spaghetti and Meatballs for All by Marilyn Burns 

 

Graphing

Lemonade for Sale by Stuart J. Murphy

Bart's Amazing Charts by Diane Ochiltree

Tiger Math by Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel

 

Fractions

Jump, Kangaroo, Jump by Stuart J. Murphy

Pizza Pizzazz by Carol Losi

Fraction Action by Loreen Leedy

The Hershey's Chocolate Fraction Book by Jerry Pallotta

Apple Fractions by Jerry Pallotta

 

Number Sense

On Beyond a Million by David Schwartz

Betcha by Stuart J. Murphy (estimating)

Dave's Down to Earth Rock Shop by Stuart J. Murphy (classifying)

Dinosaur Deals by Stuart J. Murphy (equivalent values)

Even Steven and Odd Todd by Kathryn Cristaldi

Among the Evens and Odds by Priscilla Turner

How Big is a Million by Anna Milbourne and Serena Riglietti

How Much, How Many, How Far, How Heavy, How Long, How Tall is 1000? by Helen Nolan

Poetry Jottings and Comprehension

I struggle between what I know are TRUE balanced literacy practices and what is required by my state to measure comprehension with common assessments and standardized testing. So I try my best to meld the two together.

In December my students were practicing inferencing as they read a poem about a cat laying under a Christmas tree and looking up at the ornaments. Instead of just having them read the poem and answer the questions on the back, I had them "turn and talk" and "stop and sketch." Then they had to make a jotting on a sticky note about the poem. Some students made predictions and others explained having empathy for the cat because they have laid under a tree outside and looked up.

After reading the jottings, I printed off three main comments that the students' responses fit into. I print my conference notes on address labels so I can stick one in the student's Reading Notebook and another in my Conference Notebook.

Then I called the students back and used the printed comments to give students compliments and things to work on to improve.

                          

                          

                           

 

Poet-Tree Center

My boyfriend was doing some home remodeling for a family and they were throwing away an old artificial tree.  He brought it home to me instead because he said it looked like something I would put in my classroom. Of course, he was right and this is how the Poet-Tree was born!

I have a wide collection of poetry in this center.  Some of it is in book format, some of it is folded-up posters that I keep in plastic sleeves, and I also print out individual poems and store them in plastic sleeves.  I have activities hanging on the tree using black metal binder clips.  I also have packets of activities and poems that hang on the wall. 

I include a variety of reading levels, types of poems, poetry topics and themes, lengths, and interests.  Children can act out the poems, choral read them with a partner, create props to do a dramatic reading, or create a song from the poems.  They can illustrate the poems and write new titles for the poems.  I have grammar related activities where students have to use highlighters to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns.  For lower level readers they circle consonant blends and different vowel spellings.  A favorite activity is one where the poem has underlined words and the students have to rewrite the poem using synonyms or antonyms in place of the underlined words.