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After blogging about My Back To School Best , I decided that I need to upgrade my frog. I found this Kermit doll along with this book at Amazon along with several other Muppet characters. For a little frog, Kermit has a lot of dreams, or at  least he did back in the original Muppet Movie. Kermit ( actually this is Jim Henson singing the words of Paul Williams) said it best. Have a listen just in case you forgot:

This has always been a song  that makes me think of  why it’s okay to be called a dreamer:

Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.

So I am going to encourage my kids this year to be dreamers. Kermit will be our mascot of sorts. He will represent what we want to take hold of ( as in More Than Anything Else).  He will be an example of someone small who has big dreams that call his name, and he will be our model of someone who explores the world around him and beyond to find that dream.

Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Thanks, Kermit for reminding me that it’s okay to dream.

 

Last year was the first year I tried this read aloud and comprehension activity, but it will now be a tradition. It really does set the tone for what kind of  deep thinking you are aiming for in a literacy-based classroom.

One of my first read alouds was an old favorite of mine, More Than Anything Else by Marie Bradby. I have read this book for years, but last year was when I “got it”!

PLEASE NOTE: In case, you’ve never read the book, I will only refer to the main character as “the boy”. If you want to know why, you may look at the end of this blog.

During the first week, I read the book,  but what was different this year was that I thought of some lessons I wanted to use after reading Angela Bunyi’s blog at Scholastic on Using Symbolism To Deepen Comprehension and the work of Kelly Gallagher. Skeptics be prepared to be amazed.

I read the book aloud with my fourth grade students. Usually we would  just follow up with some writing response to the read aloud, about our goals-blah, blah, blah, but not this time! I went back to the text, and we looked again at the boy in the story catching a frog and reread and discussed using the pictures and the text the boy playing with the frog. I reread those pages, and we talked about how the frog was slippery, wet, and always on the move,  and the boy had to  carefully hold onto this little animal that he wanted.

I asked the children what was the boy hanging onto and wrote that on a t-chart under  the word tangible  ( which we had already talked about). I asked them what the  boy wanted “more than anything else,” and  most easily  my class said “to learn to read, ’” and so they needed a little  more prompting from me . I showed them the man in the book who can read, and the children then understood it was more than just being able to read, the boy wanted to be like the man- not just a reader but an educator! It was being educated that this boy wanted, and he wanted to  share and pass this education on to others! That was his dream or goal. I wrote  the words dreams/ goals under intangible.

I just so happen to have a stuffed animal- a frog in my classroom. I told them that  I was putting the frog where we could see it to remind us of how the boy in the book wanted his education and also to be a teacher, and he had to hold onto those dreams or goals despite the rather bleak situation he was in at the moment. It may be that you can think of a tangible object that can be a class mascot or symbol for your students as well ( a bird, a seed, a book, a rock).

The next several days we read some other books that had a similar theme. Here are some other  children’s book that follow that idea of having a dream or goal for both children and teachers:

The one Angela Bunyi uses in her lesson is:

How great would this book be to get kids thinking deeply and setting goals for themselves?

The funny thing is once you use this reading strategy with your classes, you will never look at books the same. I dare you to reread the book, Everybody Needs A Rock, and see what I mean.

If you want more ideas on using books to have students think deeply, I recommend that you take a look at  Kelly Gallagher. If you are a teacher of third grade or higher, you can adapt his ideas to your lessons. Don’t let the idea that he has high school in his books intimidate you. You can adjust many of his ideas for younger readers.

His book Deeper Reading is a great resource for reading teachers who teach intermediate, middle and high school students.

Note: The boy in the fictional  story More Than Anything Else is educator Booker T. Washington!

 

As much as possible in my social studies classes, we learn and work together in teams and small groups.

WHY? TEAM-BUILDING BUILDS BRIDGES!

The challenge here was to build a bridge of pipe cleaners that would hold a textbook. The only materials were two desks, masking tape, and the pipe clears. There was NO TALKING allowed

This group of girls worked quietly and efficiently to build their bridge in less than 10 minutes. Another plus with  that class of kids happened naturally:  When a group completed the task, the entire class  ALL applauded and celebrated. WOW!!!

Another Bridge Built

Sometimes you can rethink an activity into your theme or subject matter  and make  it a cooperative game or task. In our camping unit, we used the beach balls to do the traditional over and under. It was a challenge because it was a windy day!

Beach Ball Over and Under Relay

Just about any activity can be made into a cooperative one- tasks can be divided among the group or steps can be given as roles in the group.  Third- fifth grades love this stuff because they want to be social.

But they are KIDS so sometimes we play games  just for fun as teams, too. Playing and working together is important as well as learning to accept defeats, being a good sport and also be a  gracious winner. You don’t  “just earn” how to do this if you don’t play  any games where there are winners and losers. There must be a balance if you play games in your class.

My best classes over the  20-plus years I have been teaching  are the classes that we live, work, and play almost as a family. We support each other, get along well, and have a caring atmosphere. Sometimes these relationships happen naturally  like the group in the pictures above, but most often, teambuilding really must be an on-going  DAILY effort  starting from Day One. Here’s a new favorite of mine used at the end of last year with a group that built relationships over the course of that year to be like our school family by school’s end.

 

“THE LIFEBOAT”

We   did this activity at the end of the year as a part of our  2-3  week unit based on camping and the book Week in The Woods  by Andrew Clements. I used the Lorenz Publications team and game books throughout that unit. They are awesome books to develop these skills and can be done very often with no special materials.

How To Do The Lifeboat:

I put several old blankets on the ground. All 20 of my students stepped into our lifeboat. I explained to them that we wanted everyone to be rescued, and that if the lifeboat capsized or sank, we might all possibly drown or freeze ( Thank you Hollywood for the movie Titanic!).

Everyone had room and was comfortable, but then I explained that the lifeboat was leaking and so there would be less space. I folded one blanket in half.

It began to get a little more crowded. Our lifeboat began to lose more air…The blankets were folded again.At this point, I was only a spotter ( and you must have several children to have that role).The kids actually thought how they could save room.  ( One or two  girls wanted to piggyback!). It was interesting and fun to see who became the leaders and who were the thinkers and problem-solvers. It was decided  that everyone must  stand on one foot, balance, and hold tight. And that is exactly what these kids did in order to “survive”.

Once  someone lost their balance, and it was inspiring to watch the kids grab someone as if they really would fall into the cold, freezing waters to a certain death, and hear the group rejoice that no one was lost. This was one of those spine-tingling “A-HA Moments” of teaching.

I would recommend  any of these teambuilding activities below to any teachers but especially in the intermediate grades  ( 3-5), middle, and high school.

Here are some fabulous resources I use for finding teambuilding games many of which can be adapted to review and content in any subject matter such as spelling, math, and reading:

Here are some teambuilding ideas  that I found online, also:

Teambuilding Games

More Teambuilding Games

Teambuilding Activities for Kids

I hope you will include some team-building  activities and games in your classroom this year. Enjoy!

 

What does it mean to do something with intention? Here are some words associated with intention from Visuwords.com:



Carrying on with the theme behind Teaching With Intention by Debbie Miller, I put together a video of one of my classes using the Super Six Strategies.These are the basics  of how I want my reciprocal groups to look and sound next year. To get the groups to look and sound this way takes  some effort: step-by-step training and high expectations. You will  see that kids are using prompt cards that I created. I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted so I took what I thought would best work for me while giving my kids the support they needed. This idea worked very well. I  also modeled the strategies as a whole group several times until we had the roles down along with the pass. ( I have the students pass the cards after each paragraph or page so that every member has several roles during a reading time). The students already knew the six strategies so it was just a matter of having them speak their parts and pass to their right. It seemed a bit mechanical at first, but as we used these groups, that was no longer an issue.  The cards were numbered so there was little confusion about who had a turn and what each role was.  Also, it is important to note that this class has used cooperative groups many times. They are well-versed in the procedures of working together and setting a goal to finish a task.  Each card prompts the member of what to say along with what the group might say so it’s understood that everyone has to perform to get the group’s work done successfully.  I have to say that they did an excellent job on keeping their groups on task. There were a few times that you can hear another group. That was another procedure lesson about voice level. It’s easy to address some of these problems when the group either ends a session or starts a new one.



This video is actually from one of the first lessons where the groups used the six strategies because I was amazed at how smoothly class ran and also at how well  they problem-solved and often answered their own questions, and I wanted to document how well this group worked together. I will use this as a training video for the groups I will teach  next school year.



I will be adding handouts for the expectations of working together and the prompt cards over the next several posts.

An overview for students of the strategies needed to form Super Six teams. This will be how I introduce reciprocal teaching this year to my students.

In later posts, I will include some of the handouts and mini-lessons and procedures needed to begin using this powerful teaching strategy.

NOTE: There are a few "techno" problems that I need to iron out. My original seems to be without all these obvious flaws. I'll try to get those straightened out.:)

Today’s focus is going to be on something that is both WILD and WONDERFUL: WATER! Right now in sunny SC, the temperatures  are well into the  high 90’s daily so we are all looking for ways to cool off, and I have a few ideas from several different sources that are water activities that you can do easily with very few materials at home or school.

My co-teachers  and grade-level team of  Tami Garvin, Quetta Hammonds, Tammy Swartz and I put on our first Water Olympics in May. Earlier in that same week, we also did several team-building activities that involved water during our end-of-the-year camping unit. One challenge was building a paper cup with only one sheet of paper and glue ( we used glue sticks). I was impressed by the ingenuity of the kids’ designs and how well their designs held up! We also had the traditional water balloon toss the same day as our water games. The kids ( and teachers) had a BLAST!



Our activities were  based on  several ideas suggested by Victoria Jasztal on her Scholastic blogs at Top Teaching last year.
http://blogs.scholastic.com/classroom_solutions/2010/05/incorporate-math-and-science-with-an-outdoor-camping-day-event.html
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3756002

Our  water-based activities were  adapted from similar AIMS units:

http://cmase.uark.edu/teacher/workshops/AIMS-lessons/mini-metrics.pdf
http://cmase.uark.edu/teacher/workshops/AIMS-lessons/Water_Olympics.pdf

There are plenty of resources of water sports and games online that can easily been done at home, and while they are just good, old-fashioned fun, some also involve really using your brain!

http://www.kidactivities.net/category/Games-Outside-Water.aspx

The team building and thinking games such as the paper cup challenge that I used with our students came from a great new set of  resources that I really LOVE! These are  my new favorite books for cooperative games, brain teasers and challenges and team-building  and are all by Lorenz Publications. I have about five total that I can use in any subject area and also can be used to start class instead of “bell work” or to end class but some are JUST FOR FUN!  Some of the activities require little or no materials, and the activities we’ve used have left my kids begging for more. That’s the best review anything can get!

 

Have fun and I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday, too!