It's the Holiday Season

Happy Monday Internet Audience!

I hope you have all had a fabulous day! Mine sure started off great. I had my second formal observation  and the lesson actually went as planned... I fear that now the world may come to an end because of it, but at least I had fun doing it.
All jokes, the world will not end but I was surprised at how smooth my literature circles rolled out today!

The kids have been used to group work and stations so moving to Literature Circles wasn't as much of a transition, but it was still different and I was expecting a freak out session especially during the observation.



I went through the day in a very peppy mood. I am enlightened by how much my students love to work in groups and collaborate with each other. It's either that or they put on a great show.

Students have jobs in their lit circles and they loved this! It helped promote responsibility just like we do at the class level. The other great part of our lit circles is that the kids chose their own texts and I will randomly meet with different groups not because of their low reading scores, but because I want to enrich their novel experience.


I am obviously excited about the roll-out because it allows for the students to create their own pace for learning. No more of this "force fed" information and it is cross-curricular! Yay!

I will continue to update how it goes as we continue on through the novels.
Until then,
Happy Holidays!

HK

November!

Hello internet audience!

I hope you all had a fantastic halloween. I encouraged my students to work hard for their candy and I can only hope that their parents late played a trick on them that Jimmy Kimmel leads on. There is something about the concept of taking candy from a baby that is just so wrong about that trick, yet every halloween parents video tape their child's reactions to the phrase "I'm sorry honey, but we ate all of your candy". Let the wailing commence.

On that note I do have to say that I did not do anything that was halloween themed.
However, I am getting ready to host a Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of thanksgiving thought, we will have store bought items and my students will come in at around 6 to share what they have learned on their computers. This will be called "Techsgiving".

Edmodo is seriously one of the best tools for homework, quizzes, and social interaction for these kids. They are polite and get their work done efficiently. They even help each other when they forget the homework or have a question. If that isn't Danielson I don't know what is! :)

Everyday students have journal prompts and since our social studies has been about the Early Civilizations and how communities start up I asked them this question:

How does a community get started? What are some components of community that are always present? What are elements of the community around you?

Why do we need these components and elements?

Here are some of their response via edmodo:

"I think a community gets started by people working together and thinking about all the details in the future society. They think about what to build and how to build it. They build all their components by looking deeper into stuff, like the structure inside the object and how strong it will be. Elements of most communities are the pollution levels, like, how to keep your community clean, or keeping your community safe. These components and elements are all important to a strong community because without many of these things, the community you live in would be dull, and out of place, and if you do these components and elements, you will have a nice, happy, and safe environment and community."- L

"A community gets started by, working together to put all of their strengths to accomplish this task. The components that are always present are, Doctors, Dentists, and counslers, (ect.). we need these components and elements because we need to stay healthy, clean, and nice looking." I. 

"A community takes time to build. Lots of people helped build the community. Important parts of the community are homes. Without homes, we wouldn’t have a place to sleep. Grocery stores also play an important part in the community because that’s how we get our food. Also clothing stores give us the clothes we need. Jobs play a big part in a community because without jobs people wouldn’t be able to make money and if you don’t make money you couldn’t buy things you need. All of these things are very important but I think people are the most important part of a community because without people it’s not a community at all. It would just a place with buildings. " D. 

These students are so intrinsically motivated to be positive role models in society. It is so encouraging to see hope left in a society that often feels too materialistic or oblivious to the world around them. These kids have heart, and soul. Something that needs to be encouraged in our school systems.

Created with Padlet

 

Tempting Tuesdays

Hello Internet Audience!


Holy cow has it been a while. For that I apologize. I think between having half days, map days, and Christopher Columbus day my teacher brain has been solely concentrated on what is going on in school and missing the written reflection that we all need as professional educators.

In order to organize the reading here are a few talking points for this post:

-Classroom Management
-Setting up Edmodo
- Preparing for goal sharing

Many first and second year teachers often find that the classroom management of their choice is their downfall in teaching. I am so very lucky to have had a set up with Golden Apple to teach me many variations of Classroom Management to the point where I consider my students family and vice versa.

Instead of yelling, or sending a kid to the office, what happens in our classroom are class meetings. These meeting can hold a variety of topics and tones but all in all they have been very successful for helping our the safe learning environment in the classroom.
I don't have a consequence chart in my room because students who break an expectation have earned a natural consequence and communication with the parents about the behavior is always a mandatory consequence in addition to the natural one. This philosophy of classroom management stems from the Love and Logic theory and implementation. I highly recommend this program if the typical structured rule set does not work for you.

This leads me into talking about Edmodo. Since day 1 I had talked about edmodo to my students. Once we received our computers, I had my "Edmodo support team" stay after school so they can help others get set up the following day. It allowed for any whining, complaining, or frustration to lessen and encouraged students to explore the site with ease. Each class I have has two-three members on the edmodo team and each of them were able to help out the other students learning how to log on! Nice work crew! Since setting up edmodo, students have been able to turn in their assignments to me virtually, which is awesome, because I can grade them instantly and students receive notifications when their papers have been evaluated. SCORE!

I have also used edmodo in the classroom as a form of a Socratic seminar. Recently, students had to type out comparisons and differences between the paleolithic and neolithic ages. The conversations on edmodo become instantaneous and genuine. I like this because students who typically feel uncomfortable talking aloud will have a digital voice that hadn't occurred in their elementary schools or perhaps even other classes.

Students also used other resources from the Internet to support their claims about similarities and differences.

Students love goofy videos from Horrible Histories! It's catchy, and they speak in a British accent which always makes learning more interesting.


Finally, getting into goal sharing. As we get closer, many of the teachers are requiring more from the students including myself. Last week students had to conduct a research on four different Native American tribes and compare and contrast their cultures to that of the Kaw tribe that we read about in our literary anthology. This mini project not only exposed my students to more culture, but it also exposed them to citing their evidence from a website, and it explained how to insert raw data and analyze it's importance to the paper. I am very proud of my students' work on this project. I can tell they worked extremely hard on it. Students are also responsible for conducting a Book Talk each quarter. Students have to get up in front of the class and can present it using keynote, prezi, or any other visual form that will help them get the five elements of short stories. Plot, character, conflict, theme, and setting. In order to teach those five things, students view the following video.

It is so catchy and the kids request to listen to it every day! Yay for learning!

As we get closer to goal sharing, the students are turning in more summative assessments that help wrap up the quarter for learning. I'm excited to begin the next journey into the second quarter with these kids. I am absolutely loving this school year!

Totally Teacher Tuesday

Hello Internet Audience

I will be editing this later when I have all thoughts collected. Grades were due today, so my mind is all over the place. Go figure!

Items on the Agenda:
-We get our computers on Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel as though I'm more excited than the kids!
---- Info nights for parents
-----plans to implement with the computers.
- GLM-Claim and evidence
-Audi Commercial
-Sample from student daily prompt
-Nerves for evaluation
-Wonders about conferences coming up
- Wonders about being behind in the Common Core
-Union thoughts

Techie Tuesday

Hello Internet Audience! 

I hope that you are having a fabulous beginning of the week. I know I am! I know that this blog is mainly for teachers and educators, however, I'm a huge believer in celebrating little moments... 

I just fit into jeans that were a size I haven't seen since high school! BAZINGA! 

Here are some updates that have happened since last Tuesday. 

I have been able to use my SMARTboard every day for interactive activities with Language Arts. I am very privileged to have one in my room, even if it is temporary. 

I was also announced the 2013 POMS coach! 

I am beyond excited for this! Ever since I discovered my true passion for teaching, I knew I wanted to coach either cheerleading or a dance team! My dream came true! My anticipated tryouts will be the week of October 15th and it is for 7th and 8th grade girls only. SO THRILLED! 

The familial environment in the classroom lives on and lives strong. The other day a student had dropped a book in the hallway and another student picked it up for him. Both students are in the Bubble Bears class and after I gave some positive reinforcement about the kind act, saying something like "Wow that was nice! " The young man who helped his peer stated, "Anything for a brother from another bear". I was so glad that happened at the end of the day, I literally think I went into a laughing attack after that statement! Love it! 

We have officially entered the world of MAPS testing as of last Tuesday, and finished them today. Yes they are long, yes they are exhausting, but I understand why we need them so we can better put our students on a bell curve... 

I just wish MAPS could be more proactive and produce suggestions or critical feedback after students take the test. I feel like a number really doesn't justify their effort. Oh well. One can dream right?

Today, I was interviewed for the school paper. As one of the newer teachers to the school the newspaper team wanted to interview all of us. The girls who interviewed me were very sweet, but I think they had a hard time accepting that I was actually a teacher. They said something along the lines of "Don't worry, we will make you sound teacherish" after I told them one of the things I love is wedding planning. I think they may have expected something like, I like to read, or I like to solve sudoku puzzles... well those hobbies are also enjoyable, but event planning takes me to a different place and allows me to expand my creative thinking beyond measures. Once I explained this to them they concluded that indeed I did sound "teacherish". 

Finally, the last topic I would like to cover today is my Social Studies curriculum. Our school uses the TCI-History Alive series and I seriously think it is of the most value to our students' education! It compacts all of the arts of learning into a curriculum and allows creativity and investigation to emerge from the text, and the stories within the text. It is more related to non-fiction, and I would be interested to see where I can tie in Beth Horner's story-telling techniques into the curriculum. Right now we are wrapping up early humans and branching on to the many types of hominids. Some resources I have already used to enhance this already fulfilling curriculum is BrainPop. 

BrainPop is an essential tool in my classroom because of the quirky sense of humor Tim and Moby have, but also because students are learning a substantial amount of vocabulary, and how to communicate information to people. My students will be performing book talks in the format that Tim and Moby present their information. This makes it fun and interesting for not only the other students but for me to grade as well!  BrainPop is a site that you need a district username and password for. However, I think it is very sufficient and also has lesson plans with activities that mirror and expand on what the quick video was about. Talk about getting to your visual learners! Also for Social Studies, I want to give a shout out to Mr. Koch's 6th grade class from New Jersey! Their website has been extremely helpful with the pacing of our curriculum. Thank you! Mr. Koch's Website

Now that we have come to a close, I want to thank all of my Bobblehead Bosses and my Bubble Bears for being amazing students! You have no idea how many compliments I have received in the past week about your behavior in the classroom, LRC, and hallways! Nice job! 

As always, 

live life to the fullest and remember the relationships you make with people can last a life time. 

-HK

Testing Tuesday

Hello Internet Audience! 

I apologize profusely for my week long absence. My teacher mind during the shortened week was literally all over the place! I cannot believe how much I was trying to work in during such a short amount of time. However, I feel like as a team we accomplished quite a bit! 

I was able to set up my "guided reading" stations. I want to do stations about 2-3 times a week, and I know that for you elementary minded people. you may gasp and say "oh no! You have to do it everyday!" 

Sorry pal, Middle School just doesn't run that way. 

The kids really seemed to understand the flow of me meeting with a group, while they are at a designated station that focuses on a specific common core standard. 

Last week, I really just wanted them to get used to the routine and we practiced it until it was perfect! 

They actually asked me the following day if we were doing stations again! CRAZY! 

----->On a different note, today, my students were assessed using the new version of MAP. Now if any of you know what MAP is (Measure of Achievement Progress) you know that traditionally, students just sit at their computers four times a school year to read a text and answer or take their best guess in a multiple choice bubble. Awesome way to teach students valuable life skills... NOT. Luckily MAP updated itself over the summer and now offers more interactive methods of testing and answering reading selections. However, the test is so long that I cannot fathom how exhausted theses poor kids feel! The test is scheduled for an hour, but the kids took about an hour and 45 minutes to complete the test successfully. Maybe MAP can shorten the test and leave only essential questions in their testing program. Or perhaps, they can cut down the amount of skills they want to assess. This would probably give a more accurate reading score at the end. 

I do want to give a shout out to a fantastic professor and mentor through my career, Dana Karraker and her class, TCH 204! They have been so kind to view my blog and take the learning the Knobloch way. Thank you for reading! I hope you like what you see! 

Tomorrow's history lesson will sure be a tough one. For the past two years I have had sixth graders and have been able to read them a journal entry from my personal sixth grade journal with the date being 9/11/2001 after Mr. Whitman had just turned on the news for us. All of those students had either been born that year or been a year old. This is the first year where my students were not born yet. I hope my journal entry still has the same affect on them as it did my former students.

After the journal entry students will watch a segment on CNN student news, I use this channel ALL the time for current events. This youtube clip is from last year, if you would like to access this year's video you will need to click on student news. 

CNN Student News

After students listen to me read my entry and watch the segment from a non-fiction medium they will then compare and contrast the two point of views that they just witnessed. They will discuss in groups at first and then we will come together to talk about what point of view means and create a venn diagram comparing the two very different points of views. 

One last comment, I was able to get a SMARTboard rolled to my room! (YAY!) So I am a very happy camper! I am so excited for my students to use it to the best of its ability. Also, all of my students have been hired for their classroom jobs. (Yes, middle school can do that too!) 

With that I leave you with quite a clever clip of why we need to use Common Core and 21st Century Learning to help our students succeed in the real world! 

-HK

Tell all Tuesday

Hello Internet Audience! 

Wow! What an exciting first five days of school! I think this post will be best put if I just give a synopsis of how each day went. 

First let me explain my schedule...

Periods 1, 2, and 3 are Language Arts and Social Studies. 

Periods 4, 5, and 6 are plan periods and lunch

Periods 7, 8, and 9 are Language Arts and Social Studies. 

This means I can block my schedule-which I absolutely love! 

Day 1- First half of the day, my nerves were immense but I tried not to show it. As I stand outside the door I shake the hands of my students and hand them a bell ringer to work on while they wait. As I am in the hall I have some Temptations playing in the background. I am currently reading Teaching with The Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen and learned that when you play music that separates the generations then a different level of respect surfaces in the classroom. It's almost a trick that the brain plays on us. Neat right? After we are all settled in, the school says the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't know about all the other teachers out there, but I feel that when that pledge is said on that first day of school, there is no richer feeling. Maybe it's just me, but I get goosebumps every time! After the pledge and announcements we run into attendance. Students are invited to say here, present, or anything school appropriate. I did get a few "wassups".  After attendance we played the name game. During this game students have just 3 rules. 

1. Say your name

2. Attach an adjective or an adverb that shares the same letter of your first name. 

3. Create a movement 

After the student has completed all three tasks, the rest of the circle must repeat everything that said student had done. We repeat everyone's movement and name until the very last one. It seems very tedious and at times students may say that it got boring, but I guarantee if you ask any one of my students what their name game motion was or what were some of the other students they would definitely remember! One student in this particular class felt that he had it harder than others because his name started with a Z. A couple of ideas were thrown out and we couldn't think of one, until someone yelled out "zit-faced" now I have a ZERO tolerance for insults and bullying and before I could bring up my zero tolerance policy, our z-man changed his nick name to "Zit-free Z-" at that moment I knew I had a truly special class! What an amazing moment for students to take a negative connotation and make it into a positive memory! It really was a true "knee-slapper" 

After the name game we sat down and learned a little about Miss Knobloch, my likes, my family, and just how the procedures in the classroom make the year run smoother. We then transitioned into an expectations activity. During this activity, I put up various posters that read " What are you expectations of sixth grade? What are your expectations for me as your teacher, and what are your expectations for you as a student?" I also had another poster asking "why do we need classroom expectations". Students then collaborated in groups to come up with responses for each question. We came back to a whole group after about 10 minutes of discussion and read the student post-its aloud. I then compiled their list into a word document that is posted on my website and in the classroom. I have attached the student responses to this post, I did not edit any of the students words. After our expectations talk we ended the day with a discussion of where family comes from and yes I assigned homework on the first night. The homework was find out what their family history/heritage was. This is because I teach World history. This topic can help students connect their lives to the lives of the Greeks or the Romans. As the students walk out of the classroom they were expected to tell me one word that described either their day or the class that they were just in. Every single student had something positive to say! That just made my day! 

Day 2- After such a successful first day, I wasn't quite sure how the second day was going to turn out. Students came in excited and ready to learn! Students were handed a bell ringer to start the day and were reminded of how to walk in and sit down right away. After going over some more house keeping and procedures we dove right into letter writing. Yes, letter writing, on the second day of school. I MUST BE INSANE! However, we went on with the lesson, students collaborated with each other to think up some ideas on what to write. Students then set to writing quick rough drafts to 7th grade students asking advice about 6th grade. How awesome that my class wanted to do this? They don't even know these people and are already asking for advice! Awesome! After letter writing, we took time to go over the expectations that were created in class. Students then edited or changed anything in the document per popular vote. We ended the day assigning the letter to 7th graders for homework and started working on our family crests based on our family history. 

Day 3- Day three was amazing! My afternoon class all turned in their writing assignment from the previous night!  I'm talking 100 percent people! I was so excited! I bragged to pretty much everyone at school, to them, and then I called their parents! I was so impressed! The third day of school and we had 100 percent homework completion! I am clearly ecstatic. After celebrating our homework completion, we then played more get to know you activities. We read out two truths and lie and then finished our family crests. ~I will update tomorrow with pictures. ~ In the morning, we had a school assembly to help explain the school wide expectations and PBIS. Here I was asked to talk about hallway procedure, however, I like to show not tell, so I picked two students to demonstrate what hallway behavior looked like. Can you imagine what that did for their "ego". They were smiling from ear to ear after their presentation. Flashing forward to the afternoon, my Golden Apple mentor came in during our pass the clap and if you remember, I was using methods from Cooling down the Classroom and Teaching with the Brain in Mind in order for the activity to work well. Holy canole! It was such a magical moment in this classroom! It really helped the students to gel as a team and not just a class. 

There were three levels:

1. Pass the clap

a. Pass the clap with two claps. 

2. Pass the emotion. 

3. Create a symphony with just your voices and rhythm 

I will post the audio to this activity once Molly sends it to me! Yay! Students were dismissed from class and were asked to describe their first three days of sixth grade with one word. Again, all positive. I love these classes! 

Day 4- A day of business needless to say. Handed out text books, assessed any damages and went on with our day. Students were then introduced to decorating their writer's journals. They seemed extremely excited about this task. They were then introduced to the job applications and job descriptions that take place on our Help Wanted board. This idea is floating all over pinterest and I decided to try with sixth graders. They are so into it! Which is great because I feel that this is definitely something I want to teach them. It's such an important life skill and I'm glad they love it! (PICTURES TO COME TOMORROW) 

Day 5- Today we came up with the afternoon's class name- The Bubble Bears. This is because during the first three days of school I had the students read letters from my students last year. One of the memories they wrote about was the fact that I was their "mama bear" so after reading this letter, my current sixth graders started referring to themselves as the baby bears. They then adopted bubbles, because they are asked to put a bubble in their mouth when it is time to remain quiet. I know that sometimes it can seem elementary, but with my dramatic and enthusiastic approach, I feel that they dig it. They only dig it because I dig it. It's all about the energy level in the room. That's why I never understood how some of my peers in school could stand the negative old teachers. I was so lucky to have mostly young and vivacious teachers who really cared about their students. I can only dream to be half the teachers they are! Needless to say, my afternoon class is now referred to as the Bubble Bears. (I love it! ) My morning class still needs to come up with a name, but they'll get there. As we continued on with passing out more textbooks, workbooks, and notebooks, I made sure that everyone had everything in order before we started reading our story for this unit. I like to read aloud despite some of the research that is against it. I feel that reading aloud especially before benchmarking and diagnostic testing I like to give every kid a chance to volunteer to read aloud, or to have a chance to read aloud. Despite any connotations they had the year before, this is their chance to start new. In order for it to be a safe place for students to read I went over just some expectations about how we need to respect each other and not make fun of each other's pronunciation. After saying this, one of my kiddos -from Bubble Bears- raises his hand and says " Why would we make fun of each other? Aren't we family?" AHH can you say warm fuzzies all over? I just love how they have truly gelled together! We ended class decorating our writer's journals and were dismissed with the request to share their favorite number as they exit the room. 

It was a great day! 

I will post pictures tomorrow. I'm also in the process of organizing and purchasing some materials from Teacherspayteachers. LOVE THEM! 

I hope you enjoyed my rambling of how amazing my kiddos are! Have a great rest of the week everyone! 

-HK

Daily Schedule followed by a visual for students to remember what happens when my hand or another adult's hand is raised in the air. 

Reading corner! I love visuals! 

My AR board. "Treasure is what you are" -Thank you Bruno Mars for the beautiful lyrics that inspire not only my bulletin board ideas, but also the read ability of my students! 

Who said word walls were just for elementary schools? 

 I love groups, it is a natural set up for common core collaboration! Oh and if you look on that back wall-social studies wall- you'll see all of the family crests that were made. Also, on the left, are my "Star students" These students were prepared for class ALL week and earned a star on the cabinet, then they had the choice of where they wanted to sit for silent reading. The teacher's desk was a popular option. :)

 Thank you Pinterest for this great idea! Students had to apply for a number of positions that will help our class run smoothly during the school day. Students then had to get a letter of recommendation from either a student, another teacher, or a parent. Interviews will be conducted this week during class.

In order for students to remain organized, and to help myself stay organized, we have a daily planner on the board. On the right is where our target statements are located. I like the idea of sectioning off my white board in order to maintain some kind of organization. 

Terrific Tuesday!

Hello internet audience!

Well... it is finally here!

I have my team building ideas in place and my room is completely set up. I am so nervous for tomorrow I can't sleep even if I tried!

I really have put in a lot of effort in welcoming these new 6th grade sillies to our school! I just want tomorrow to come and go so that we can get on with the show! Then again, the first day of school is always my favorite. It's the ONLY day of the year where kids come in with no prejudgements. Especially on their first day of 6th grade! Holy smokes! I am pretty excited for my class sizes though! Thank goodness they are small enough and I am teaching triples! This means I will actually get to know my kids!

Today's post isn't going to be that long only because I want to come back on tomorrow and tell you about my amazing day of school! Plus, I kind of need to get some sleep.

Tomorrow I promise to post pictures and activities I did with the kids on the first day!

-HK

Timing Tuesdays

Hello Internet Audience!


I am officially making Tuesdays my day of blogging. Why? Because Mondays are too manic for me!

As promised I told you I would be talking about my classroom set up and how it is going.
Well... I've only really worked on it for two days and had to unpack an OBSCENE amount of teacher pack rat stuff from my storage unit!


HOW DID I ACCUMULATE SO MANY THINGS????

www.bluecricketdesign.net

I am literally going insane! I have so many books! (Yay) However, I have to lexile them according to the new lexile ranges, oy vey. 

I really wanted to put my seating chart in pods of four, but I feel bad for the students who would feel enclosed and claustrophobic. So I think I am just going to go with my theatre gut and do the semi circle. 

Once I unpacked my bazillion boxes, I realized, I still have no theme! I decided against going with my Hollywood theme again. I just felt it was too cliche but now I feel that having no theme could be worse! I know what you're thinking. "You don't need a theme for sixth grade you goof" Actually, I do. It is a part of who I am. I am as "Corny as Kansas in August" -South Pacific, and Love to tell jokes all the time. However, I also have a huge overarching theme of community in my classroom and can just center around my class when they get there. Perhaps having them help me set up the classroom environment, it could help to enhance the sense of community and respect among each other... interesting thoughts... 

Today was the first of our "New Teacher Network" meetings and yes I am overwhelmed but I like it. I feel like I am going to be challenged and I cannot wait to see what comes of this year. I have purchased so many great Common Core resources that I just want to use them, but I know it is going to be a slow process. (Isn't everything in education and politics) 

I am able to now access my schedule and see how many students I will have for this year! I am working on writing a letter for them and sending it out this week! Some of you may be thinking that I am doing too much, but this is who I am. It's in my nature-I'm a Gemini we do that. I am also in the process of ordering my magnets for open house on vistaprint! Woohoo! It is so pretty!

I will post it on here once I get them in the mail! So freaking excited! 

Speaking of big things to come, our district's superintendent has invited ALL of the new teachers and mentors to his house TOMORROW! 

Google Images

I'm sure it will be awesome, my mentor is awesome, so this shin dig shall also be awesome. 

Next week begins with school meetings and the first day of school is on Wednesday! AHHH I just hope I'm ready for this! 

Here's til next time folks! Enjoy your day and remember, FISH! 

Play, make their day, be there, choose your attitude! --->This is what we learned today at our PD. 

With that, I'm out. 

-HK

Too Late Tuesday

Hi Internet Audience!

I know... it's Tuesday, again! I've just been so busy and haven't felt comfortable enough to blog on my phone yet.

Call me old school, I dare you!


The CORE conference ended last Thursday and it was amazing! I know I've already shared with you some resources about Storytelling, so here are a few more tricks to add to your teacher bag. 


1. Cooling down your classroom with YOGA! 
I learned a couple of great ideas and techniques from this classroom management tool. It's all about changing the climate of the classroom through concentrated breathing and knowing where you are within yourself. Weird... I'm the definition of an extrovert and when someone talks to me about yoga, I start getting the shakes... 


With Cooling down your classroom, I learned how to create a classroom community with my students during the first weeks of school. 
--It's called the clap. 
First, have the students stand in a circle and explain that they must make eye contact while they send the clap around the complete circle. Easy enough for me, I was in drama!  However, for those not so fortunate, this can be a challenge. The next challenge with this concept was to pass the emotion, I've played a similar game where we were playing telephone and passing the emotion, but this was much better. Students had to listen to a random emotion yelled out and then mirror the sound and face of the partner showing them their interpretation of that emotion. As students get progressively faster at this and master it, the teacher then adds in two people going at the same time confusing circle and adding a sense of frustration. This can help you as the teacher to identify who has a shorter fuse and how you can change it in a second. It also allows for that student who just got into a fight at home, or is thinking of something happy or sad, to let those emotions out in a controlled and safe environment! Finally, we don't have to coop our students' feelings up in a journal! The last challenge was called polyphone where in the same circle we have progressed into a team setting. In this challenge, students are asked to create a symphony of sounds using only their bodies (voices included). I LOVED THIS IDEA! The way I am going to do this during the first week of school and record the symphony they make, then I am going to use that recording as a "bell ringer" music. During each quarter, they will make a new symphony. I feel that this can definitely create a classroom environment conducive to collaboration and unity! YAY! 

Another activity we did was tell stories using the yoga sheets in Carla's book. I will try to use these yoga positions as a quick brain break for my students. For example: If we are doing a lesson about ancient civilizations and I randomly yellow WARRIOR, my students will know after practicing, to go into the WARRIOR position. Fun right?! 

Cooling down the Classroom

Another session that was great was by Connie! Holy cow, I felt like the classes I chose to attend were all related to each other! Connie talked extensively about storytelling and changing ones position in their state of mind. She asked us to breathe and sit up straight to make sure our minds were refreshened. She then passed out books to people who participated and/or asked questions. Yes, I won one of the books! Woo hoo! It's all about brain research! I am already learning so much about how the brain works in general! If I take just one thing out of Connie Palomo-Koehler's presentation it was to incorporate the following into your teaching... ALL THE TIME! It really helps to make the students' brains feel good! 

1. Storytelling
2. Props-yes props, just like theatre! Connie had a toy toilet and toilet paper. This was to emphasize that she would be doing no educational wiping! LOVE IT! 
3. Music-Connie suggests that the music you use should be instrumental or contain foreign lyrics so the students can work without their lyrical memory bouncing off the walls. (I know I do that all the time!) 
4. State Change-breathing and changing the physiology of the actual body. Brilliant! 
5. Celebrate! Connie says to celebrate everything! Hooray! Every little bit of news that a student tells you is a cause for celebration! Why wouldn't you want to build them up! 

Teaching with the Brain in Mind


With all this learning aside, I had a great time incorporating new strategies into my teacher's toolkit! I just received my key for my classroom today! Holy cow! I am so thankful that I am in a room that belonged to a retired teacher! She left me some true treasures! She left me some guided reading novel sets along with instructional lessons and activities that she used with those specific novels! I plan on tracking her down to thank her for her generosity! She also left many posters that have Garfield on it with various sayings that correspond to ELA structures. What is funny about this is that when I was a kid, Garfield was my FAVORITE cartoon character I love coincidental humor! 
Tomorrow starts the set up and I will definitely post pictures of what my classroom looks like! I am also going to input my classroom library into the app on booksapp. 

I am so pumped for this school year! 

As always, thank you for reading and have a wonderful week! Next post will be about my classroom set up and theme! 

-HK

Never Too Late Tuesday

Hello Internet Audience!

I first want to apologize for not posting on Monday, I have been living out of a suitcase between traveling for fun and for conferences. Nevertheless, I must remain consistent with my weekly posts!

Today is Day one of my adventures with Golden Apple at Core! We are studying a variety of pedagogy here at St. Xavier University in Chicago and the conference is truly off to a great start!

                        The first session was of course ice breakers. If you haven't heard of the following ice breakers for your business or classroom, please take notes!

                      The first ice breaker was a simple blank puzzle piece that was handed to each of us teachers as we walked into the room. We were given our choice of sharpies and/or gel pens (so 90's right?) to respond to our favorite Golden Apple memory. After we were through with our memory we were to take a push pin and pin it to the back wall in the back of the room. It was truly a great idea and looked amazing with all of our puzzle pieces interlocking with each other!

-------> Now application to my future classroom: I definitely think I am going to use this strategy for the upcoming fall. However I may switch it up. Since my concentrated content is in both ELA and SS, I think this activity would work best in my social studies sections in order to set the tone for everyone to welcome multicultural and multi modal learning in our classroom. For the puzzle pieces I plan on introducing myself at the door on the first day of class and hand them a sharpie and a puzzle piece. What I am going to have them do is write their name on one side of the puzzle piece and on the other side they will write down all that they know about where their family comes from. Instead of pinning it to the board right away, their first homework assignment is to gather as much information about their family heritage as they can and create words, flags, or just doodles that represents that heritage on the puzzle piece. Once they come into class the next day, there will be an American flag at the very top with a picture of a salad and a melting pot. Both images will be referenced as the year goes on and we discuss the adventures of world history. (In sixth grade we discover the amazing journeys that our ancient predecessors went through.) The students will then pin their puzzle pieces together and have a discussion about why it is important to have such an over sized image of where we come from! This would then lead into more conversation about where we came from as people and then hopefully I can transition into teaching about the Early Humans!  (YAY!)

                      The second  ice breaker was another very simple and very popular idea. This icebreaker is called Clumps. During Clumps, the moderator or the leader has a set of questions or prompts to ask the group, the group responds to each prompt by finding another person who can respond similarly and they must move to a different spot in the room. For example: Dream vacation, birthday month, and favorite dinner. Prompts like these help to build a rapport within the classroom and it initiates conversations right from the get go. Students wont have a chance to create clicks like they typically do during those first precious days of school. I definitely plan on using this as well during the first week.

Key note speaker today---> Beth the storyteller!

I have gone to every conference with a very open mind to what I may learn. I am so happy that I am able to do such a thing because this woman was telling amazing stories and doing it with poise, comedic relief, and that "just right" tone of voice to make you lean in to listen deeper. She provided us with resources that shows us data driven teachers that story telling actually increases student comprehension and test scores in ALL subjects. Not only does it do that but for those students who suffer in the area of audio learning, practicing that skill through storytelling is just a splendid way to strengthen it. Just like a muscle!

Beth taught us two activities that we can bring to our classroom.
1. Annoying interrupter: One partner is to tell a story, any story about anything. I used The Wizard of Oz to tell my partner. My partner's job was to blurt out a random word that had nothing to do with what I was saying. I then had to somehow incorporate that word into my story. This was an ingenious strategy! I don't know about any of you, but sixth graders love to add in their own piece of the puzzle to what I am teaching them.
2. The second activity was equally as great. The demonstrator takes one boring sentence. For example: "The dog drank from the bowl." Leaving out as many details as possible. The instructions to the group then turn into "You may ask a question about my sentence but you must raise your hand and someone else must answer it." This turns into a fun and interactive version of Mad Libs but it gets students to think creatively and develop those interesting descriptions and details we always want to get them to write about in their journals and narratives!
------->Application to my classroom- I am definitely going to try activity #2 and have my students video themselves. They will then listen to their final story and write what they hear. This practices many Common Core listening and speaking standards and it can help them identify what "sounds right" and what grammatically needs to change in their creative writing.

Here are a list of links Beth provided us about Story telling in the classroom!
August House Publishers
Northlands Storytelling Network and Conference
Parkhust Brothers Publishers
Racebridgesforschools
StoryNet
Story Telling
Timpanogos Storytelling Conference Festival
Youth, Educators & Storytellers Alliance
Beth Horner-Storyteller

All are very great resources to help incorporate some speaking and listening into your daily routine as teachers!

I have had such a great start to this conference and look forward to posting more reflection based blogs about this three day experience!

With each day that passes, I am one day closer to starting at my new school! I am so excited! I just cant wait to start implementing all of my new and fresh ideas!

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you were able to take something away from this post! Once school gets closer I will have more pictures for you visual learners!

Until next time!

-HK

End of Summer Institute-Planning for School year commences

Hello internet audience!

Fourth Summer institute has officially ended for Golden Apple and yes, I am sad. However, I am also so rejuvenated for this upcoming school year! Belonging to such a fascinating organization has allowed me to open my mind to so many new and exciting ideas! I know that I am still young and will have energy for the next ten years, however, working in cohorts with Golden Apple gives me the spirit to continue that energy!

Working with these aspiring teachers reminds me of the idealism I had just two years ago! It is definitely something I needed to revisit after my first year of teaching.

Not only was I able to communicate with future colleagues, but I was able to attend more professional development courses to help my bag of teaching tricks grow.

Now as I am officially on Summer Break, I am thinking of different activities that I would like my students to experience.

One idea I learned from my time with Golden Apple was a website called Todaysmeet.
With this site, students can use their mobile devices or computers to help communicate with each other giving a chance for authentic discussion to travel throughout the room. Students understand this instantaneous way of communicating because it relates closest to Twitter and Instagram. Students are immediately drawn into communicating with their peers and have to be conscious of what they say because it goes public in the classroom after hitting enter.

The great thing about todaysmeet.com is that you as the facilitator can set the discussion to last as long as you need to for the class. Whether it is 10 minutes or the entire day, students will not be able to access what they had said after you have shut down their personal discussion. This makes it important for students to really think about the discussion they want to have while they have the time to do it.

Last year, I conducted a socratic seminar with the text, Robin Hood. My students were in the traditional two circles where the inside circle had to verbally answer questions that they had prepared for while the outside circle wrote their reactions to the discussion via paper and pen. HELLO!? This is the 21st century right? I know, rookie mistake, but I had to work with what I was given.

This year I am at a new school and I am so excited to have one-to-one access with MacBooks! I cannot wait to try the same assessment activity with Todays meet!

Now that my rant is completely finished about that website, I am going to try to update my blog every Monday. I feel this is when I am most refreshed and ready for the week. I look forward to sharing my second year with my new internet family! Thank you for reading!

-HK

First post!

Hello everyone! As I continue to grow and enjoy learning, I am always wanting to work on my consistency with communication! Bare with me as I enter my second year of teaching! I am going to practice reflection and communication through blogging! Wish me luck! 

-HK