Think Good Do Good Random Acts of Kindness

November 7th is Random Acts of Kindness Day-What are you going to do? How can you prepare to be Random ?? How can it become a daily event , not yearly?

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission promotes Think Good Do Good. One of the events being promoted is Random Acts of Kindness.

I have visited some classrooms where teachers are teaching their students to Think Good Do Good all year long. What a great way to end each school day-by having students leave saying :”tonight I will Think Good Do Good”

Please share any activities you do, using the Think Good Do Good tag.

Some classrooms are brainstorming ideas they can do to be kind, on an anchor chart, some classes are writing letters to cheer people up and delivering them Nov. 7. Some classrooms are cleaning the playground. Some classes are working at being “bucket fillers”

It will be random because nobody will be expecting it!

Please share your ideas with me, or Post them on Twitter at @ThinkGoodDoGood.

We can make the world a better place one child at a time! I will be posting other events here.

Remember to Think Good Do Good

I can’t wait to hear from you no matter where you live in the world!!

Top Ten Reasons to Use Poetry as Mentor Texts

 

Poetry Mentor Texts Making Reading and Writing Connections, k-8

By Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli

1. Children love the sound of language and the chance to read, recite and perform poetry.
2. Poetry can help us see differently, understand ourselves and others, and validate our passions and human experience.
3. Poetry easily finds a home in all areas of the curriculum and can bridge the reading/writing workshop.
4. Poetry is the great equalizer-a genre especially suited to the struggling unmotivated reader/writer.
5. Poetry enhances thinking skills and promotes personal connections.
6. Reading poems aloud captures the ear, imagination and soul of the listener.
7. The playfulness of language and the ability of words to hold us captive with their intensity, beauty and genius are particularly apparent in poetry.
8. A poet helps us see things in new ways and help us talk and write about ordinary things in ordinary ways. That’s the essence of good writing.
9. Poetry helps broaden the children’s experiences and what they are able to write about.
10. Poetry can be the voice that names the event we live through by helping us make sense of them and write about them.

Dorfman and Cappelli      Stenhouse 2012

I really like the way this book is laid out. Dorfman and Capelli have made it so easy for teachers to succeed. Each chapter is laid out with examples, mini lessons. The reading writing connection is very clearly explained. Some of the lessons included are list poems, acrostic and persona. They have given great book ideas. This book would be a fabulous tool for teachers who are trying to get away from teaching poetry in isolation to teaching it all year long.

 

Reading Notebooks in Any Grade

I love the idea of kids having a Reading Notebook for the year. In it they can keep track of their reflections and progress over the year. Aimee Buckner’s book Notebook connections (Stenhouse 2009) gives many ideas as to how to start and work through the process.

Even young children can add their sticky notes to their notebooks and collect their reflections, as well as add mind maps and drawings to the notebook. Conferring with the teacher and parents will make it very useful.

The Reading notebook process teaches students to be reflective, when supported by the teacher, and moves them into metacognition with the teaching of comprehension strategies.

Amy focuses on reading “like a writer” and provide rubrics to assist the teacher. I suggest reading the book to get started, but plan for every child to start the year with a reading notebook!

Teaching Time is Precious

Teaching time really is precious. When we look at the  hours in the school day, there is really so little time with the children we are given for the year.

I have started thinking hard about the time wasters in the classroom. I have looked carefully at the Two Sisters for   Daily 5 and Daily Café and  Fountas and Pinell for The First Twenty Days. The idea of working smarter not harder really grabs me. Years ago, Harry Wong had a lot to say about it as well in his book The First Days of School. No matter whose style you prefer the message is the same. Teach the procedures you need to teach from day one.

The basic non-instructional routines which take up so much time must be taught, reinforced and reviewed until they become habits. Make sure students know what they are supposed to be doing and why. Teach them where to go when they need help. If you start the year this way, really reinforcing the habits you want to see there will be so much more learning. The classrooms I visit where the teacher and students alike are least stressed and happily learning are the ones where these routines are firmly established from the first day and practiced over and over again. Both the Daily 5 and The First Twenty days have mapped these out in clear, easy to use formats. All the models I have looked at give the same message. To be engaged, students must feel that they have some control over their learning. They must also see themselves belonging in their classroom. The classroom belongs to everyone, not just to the teacher.

This summer I read the series not this but that. One of the books, was about time wasters.

I really like the idea of CHAMP planning for daily tasks : (A planning tool for procedural routines from No more sharpening Pencils During Work Time  by Brinkerhoff and Roehrig Page 53 )

Conversation-Can students   talk to each other? When? How loud? To whom?Help-What do students do if they need help? Who and how do they ask?Activity-Exactly what will students do? What will the end   project look like?Movement: What type of movement is permitted? What will the   movement look like? Participation-What does the student behaviour look like while they   are all participating?

The authors give suggestions of possible procedures you might wish to clarify-care and storage of materials, morning entry, what to do when there are needs (bathroom, questions, water…) transitions, one that was always of concern to me coming back from recess.

The main idea being that the routines focus on objectives-not busy work and more wasted time. The key word being ACCESS

• Authentic tasks relevant to the learner
• Collaboration with other students
• Challenging tasks
• End product understood by students
• Self directed
• Sustained Learning

When you are planning your CHAMP think about the ACCESS you are giving students.(For example: silent reading at morning entry, versus colouring sheets)

If you think “I don’t have time to read about procedures” or   “I don’t have time to set up all these routines”. remember, if you don’t set the students up for success up, you won’t get the teaching done that you really wanted to.

Read More :

Grade One Writing – Je Peux Etre… I could Be a …

Talk aloud for Writing

Grade One (French Immersion)

When we model the use of Mentor Text for writing, we want students to be able to use what real authors do, to understand what to do in their own writing.

Using The Gradual Release of Responsibility is the easiest way to do this.

1. Look what this author wrote…read a published text
2. I like what they did: (list some points you think your students need to learn from the published piece.)
3. I tried to write like they did: show your model
4. Let’s try together: Do a group model
5. Your turn: Students try

1.In our work with the French Immersion grade ones, we chose the following mentor text to read to the children:

2. After reading the text, we went over it again, listing the attributes of the writing that we liked.

 

3. I shared the piece of writing I created based on the attributes. The students checked my work to see if I had met the criteria.

 

4. As a group we brainstormed possibilities:

 

5. Finally, the students wrote their own pieces: Flipsnack

 

Kindergarten Visualizing with CHALK

Chalk by Bill Thomson

I love everything about this book. The illustrations are amazing. I have used it in many classrooms at many grade levels. This particular lesson was for kindergarten visualizing, but I would recommend it for any elementary grade you want to engage in an adventure.

I talked to the students about what good readers do. We talked about how important it is to stop and think and try to get a picture in your head as you read. I  introduced my Visualization Wizard and told the children  that when we visualize we conjure up some or all of our senses to help us.

I introduced Adrienne Gear’s poem from her book Reading Power:

“You don’t close your eyes when you visualize,

You don’t close your eyes when you visualize,

You don’t close your eyes when you visualize,

You use your brain! yeah!” (we added in some snapping,clapping dancing…)

 

I said “visualize “ice cream” and think about it quietly.” Then we shared-I asked “what would you see,smell,taste,feel or hear? ” Everyone laughed at “hearing” ice cream. After sharing we talked about how not everybody visualized the same ice cream, because we don’t all see things in the same way.

We continued with visualizing  “pizza” and ” a dog” . It really helps to do this orally, before trying to do it with a book.

I then proceeded to share the book Chalk stopping in key places to think and visualize…”get a picture in your head…” at the end of the book, students drew a picture with coloured chalk to show what they would draw if they had magic chalk.

Finally, we sat in a circle and shared our drawings and talked about what it would be like if the drawings came alive.

My next step will be to go to Adrienne Gear’s book and do the activity about Lollipops in her visualization chapter.

I will do this lesson again!!

 

Other books for visualizing :read more

Leo the Late Bloomer

I have had several requests to share other books I have used for my “comprehension all in one book” strategy. Here is my latest set of lessons for Leo the Late Bloomer, by Robert Kraus.

I do one strategy a day, ending the week  by asking children to think about and share which strategy helped them the most. The objective is for them to see that not every strategy helps all the time. They must learn to pick and choose which strategy they need, as they are reading. Naming the strategies is not the goal-being able to use them is. Assessment should be ongoing as you check which students are participating and demonstrating an understanding of the tasks assigned.

I like to start with questioning and then move to making connections and visualizing. Here are my  anchor charts that I start with. They are then filled in with student responses.

 

There is not enough room in any classroom to keep all the anchor charts up. I take photographs each anchor chart when we are finished with the book. I keep the photos in plastic sheets covers, in a binder,along with a copy of the book, for the students to refer to at any time.

All In One Comprehension With No, David! Determining Importance

On the last day, everyone was reading along as we read the book together for the final time. I asked the children the key question on the anchor chart. This resulted in a very long conversation because the children were more focused on small details. (This will require practice!)The conversation took quite a bit of guidance. Eventually everyone agreed with one child’s opinion-

We talked about how when we write, we use specific language and changed “bees” to “are”. We again kept a checklist for assessment to see if students had understood the main idea. Almost every child had shared a detail so we knew this would require more work on main idea!!

After we finished we took a look at all of the anchor charts. I asked the children to think about which one helped them understand the best. We have talked a lot about “Thinking about our thinking…”

Obviously you can’t put this much work into every book you read, but regular modelling, while you read aloud to your class will help. “I’m visualizing…Is anyone making a connection? What did the author want us to know…”

Introduction   Day One Day Two    Day Three   Day Four   Day Five

All In One Comprehension With No, David! Inferring

On the fourth day we looked carefully at the art in No, David and discussed what we thought might happen next. ( No, David ! has very few words, so we talked about “reading the pictures”) and  decided that reading the pictures was essential in the understanding of this story.  I started by showing David trying to get a cookie, and said” I think he fell”. I used my own connections and what I could see in the picture to help me understand. A student said he tried standing on books ”like on the cover” and he also fell. Children then chose  their favourite image,  and illustrated what the thought happened next. Some children wrote a few words, a few wrote a couple of sentences to accompany their drawing. The drawing was our assessment. In some cases we had to ask the students to explain what the picture is about and we took quick notes. Children then shared their photos. Introduction  Day One  Day Two  Day Three   Day Five  Day Six