At the end of last year, I was asked to present for a group of teachers at Princeton High School. In conversation, I mentioned to one of the high school intervention specialists how I thought it would be neat if we could get some of the high school students to be reading buddies to my students. Some of these high school students would be my former students. So on top of it being a cool project to have them read, I was excited to see my former students all grown up.
Fast forward to August, I get an email from the high school teacher. She is still interested in getting this partnership started. Less than 4 weeks later, we had our first Viking Buddies day! (Ms. Schell, I hope your ok with the new name...thought it sounded kind of cool!)
For the high school students, this was a week of preparation. Last week, they made a trip to the public library to learn about how to look for book and check them out. Their mission....find books relating to apples and/or Johnny Appleseed that would be appropriate for K-2 students. Next, the students practiced reading the books in preparation for the visit. Finally, Monday, September 17th came and they were on there way to visit!
J and A reading about Johnny Appleseed
My students were a little taken back by the bigger kids, but soon realized that they were a lot cooler than Mrs. B. The first book was created by a student (with adult assistance). It was a narrated PowerPoint book about the class. It introduced the students and some of there favorite things. It was a great ice breaker as the students quickly found commonalities between them, such as watching Spongebob and liking animals. Next, the students paired off - one elementary and one high school student. The students read with easy and were very attentive to the younger students. My students sat quietly and were attentive to the books. The day ended with us enjoying lunch together in the school courtyard.
D and I reading about Johnny Appleseed
It was a great day. You could tell the high school students (who often struggle to feel like the top dog) felt like they were the top dog. You could tell that my students enjoyed the attention, kind of like the attention of an older sibling. I (as well as many other staff members) thoroughly enjoyed seeing and talking to the two previous students. I also enjoyed talking and observing all the high school students. It gave me a nice perspective on where my students are going and what is possible.
As a K-2 teacher, it is often challenging to see the future for my students. It is often challenging to know if I am teaching the right things, focusing on the right things. Then I see Ann (named changed). Ann is a high school sophomore. She started elementary school in Kindergarten. She started Kindergarten with three intelligible words - "pop o wadda" AKA "Pop or water?" which she would repeat over and over as she played in the dramatic play area. We worked hard with her speech. She had a AAC device for a while. Now, this bitty Kindergartener 10 years later is reading (INTELLIGIBLY) to my students AND is the social butterfly of the class! (and yes, I had one of those "proud to be a teacher" moments that evening as I reflected on the day!)
Was this experience a great one? Yes! Will is happen again? ABSOLUTELY!!
Stay tuned for more posts about Room 220 and their Viking Buddies!
A quick thank you to viewers new and old....my classroom blog has hit over 22,000 page views in less than a year and a half! That is amazing and humbling to a mid-west special education teacher who started this blog in order to share the cool things that her students were accomplishing with the parents. Over the past year, it has become so much more. We have used it to connect with students from other countries, educators have emailed me about class projects, but most of all, the students enjoy seeing their successes captured for others to see.
Thank you for stopping by! As a small celebration, I will be giving away a $10 iTunes gift card as a thank you! Check out the Rafflecopter giveaway below on how to enter. Entries will be accepted starting tonight at midnight.
Gingie hanging out with Frosty and the singing Christmas Tree
It’s December. It was time for me to plan the normal themes
- winter holidays and families. Well, this year I decided to deviate a little
from my normal. I wanted to explore a problem based learning (PBL) activity with my students. Where should I start? What would get and keep them engaged for the
long term? What activities could be easily adapted in order for all students to
actively participate with the activities? So, I did what all good teachers do…I
borrow ideas from my fellow teachers!
AH checking out Gingie at his house
And so in walks the Gingie. Gingie is the Gingerbread Man,
well, really Gingerbread Boy, who made his appearance outside the Kindergarten
classroom a couple of weeks ago. Gingie is sneaky little Gingerbread Boy who
left his Gingerbread house outside of the Kindergarten rooms to create a little
mischief around the school. Gingie made appearances on the morning news video
announcements, pictures were discovered of him hanging out in other classrooms,
and items were knocked over in the classroom at night. The kindergarten teacher
and I created a collaborative “Where is Gingie?” presentation that consisted of
pictures of Gingie around the school as well as video clips of various
adaptations of the Gingerbread Man story.
Despite all this, no one was able to catch the elusive little
Gingerbread Boy. This is where the PROBLEM of the PBL activity comes into play.
(** Quick disclaimer: due to students’ schedules and attendance, not all students participated
in all activities, I will outline activities by Reading group at the end of
this post **)
After reading several Gingerbread themed books and
experiencing Gingie’s mischievous ways for about a week. I discussed with the
students that we needed to do something to help “catch” Gingie. Immediately the
idea of a “trap” was thought of by 2 of the students. GREAT! Now, to discuss
what kind of trap would be needed. The teacher lead discussion quickly became a
classroom hunt for things to make a trap out of. One student chose a laundry
basket from his workstation. Another student took an empty plastic bin off the
shelf and sized it with a Frosty the Snowman stuffed animal from the classroom.
With guidance from yours truly, we had a little discussion about making the
traps big enough for Gingie, what the traps might look like, and where would be
a good place to set out the traps. We continued with other Gingerbread
activities for a couple days, then revisited the idea of building the trap. The
students were given a variety of materials in which to create their trap (cereal boxes, toilet paper rolls, tape, stickers, construction paper, etc....). I had
2 students (KB/KR) working together on creating a Gingerbread house as a trap
(They cut/pasted various shapes of paper to create the look of ‘candy’ on house
walls.) while another student (JS) worked by himself creating a trap with a toy
(aka some random legos) so that “Gingie would get the toy and fall down the
hole”.
Gingie playing with the KB's/KR's trap
Traps are made…now what? Where to place the traps? The
students each were able to choose the location to place the traps. KR chose to
place the trap in the library for the night. (No luck!) JS chose to place his
trap in the 2nd grade classroom.
(No luck, but Ginger did tie up the trap and make a little mess with
some glitter.) KB decided to leave the trap in our classroom. (NO luck there either, that sneaky little
Gingerbread Man!) The students LOVED
the various Gingerbread stories we read. And I have to admit, I had NO idea
that there were so many versions. One
activity that amazed me was a venn diagram activity I did with my second
reading group. As we read each of the stories, we talked about various text to
text connections. The students did a nice job of talking about the individual
stories, but could they comparing using a venn diagram? ABSOLUTELY! The two
students in my second reading group (KR/KB) where able to compare the characters
(mostly animals) in the Gingerbread Girl and Gingerbread Baby stories with only
a little guidance from me. The SLP was in my classroom during this time and she
was amazed at the activity. The students “got it”. It was definitely my #eduwin
of the week! (If curious about #eduwin, check out twitter and search for it! Inspiring comments by teachers.)
Gingie messing with JS's trap
Were the students upset that they didn’t catch him?
Absolutely not! The students truly were immersed in the activities. They
enjoyed the adventure. The language that the activities elicited was amazing!
Everyone the students came in contact with had to be informed of our trap
making and how we needed to catch the Gingerbread Man. All of the staff were
supportive. They listen and made comments about the traps, the activities, or
just have their support by saying they would look for him in their classrooms. We are so lucky to have such a supportive
school staff!
So, if your school in beginning to incorporate the use of
problem based learning lessons or you just want to try something new, don’t
hesitate to jump on board within your classroom! I challenge you to bring the ‘problems’
and technology into your classroom and see how your students amaze you!
** Some content is password protected. Parents, if you would like to see the additional content, comment or email me and I will give you the password. Sorry to others who may want to see, but please respect the privacy of my students in this instance. Thank you! **
Use of technology:
Powerpoint created in collaboration with the Kindergarten
teacher
Use of youtube videos to provide various versions of the
Gingerbread Man/Boy/Girl story
Use of iPad with talking Gingerbread Man app
Students explored and engaged in their first WebQuest
SMART Board: venn diagram graphic to compare/contrast
characters between Gingerbread Girl and Baby storie and notebook file with Gingerbread themed math activities
Use of assistive technology:
Use of Big Mack switch to record repetitive text in stories to
allow students to participate in reading/telling story
Use of iPad with AAC app to choose shapes for Gingerbread
person creation from Starfall website
Participated in WebQuest, Startfall Gingerbread person
activity, explored Gingerbread Man powerpoint with videos, created/decorated
own Gingerbread person for the classroom Holiday Door display, exposed to
Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Pirates
books.
Participated in WebQuest completing questions and answers with guidance,
Startfall Gingerbread person activity, explored Gingerbread Man powerpoint with
videos, created/decorated own Gingerbread person for the classroom Holiday Door
display, exposed to Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread
Pirates books, compared/contrasted Gingerbread Girl and Gingerbread Baby
stories, complete venn diagram with some guidance from teacher.
