Lights, Camera, New School Year...New Theme!

The new school year is off to a start with our new Movie/Hollywood class theme..."Like the movie, You'll LOVE the book!"  I love this theme because most students LOVE movies and want to watch movies during school time but they don't often realize that many movies once started as a book.  So I like to introduce them to this concept and challenge them to list favorite movies and the books they may be based upon.  Then I stock my library with lots of these titles and "catch" kids reading books based upon their favorite movies.  Later in the year we even work on writing scripts and making our own iMovies of books they've read.  Read below for some of my "movie" themed first days of school activities.  Feel free to check out my Movie Themed resources on TpT.

Our first three days were spent with some ice-breaker activities.  Each student received a "popcorn" bag full of fun!  The bags were labeled with each student's name however both the desk name tag and the book mark had different student's names.  In addition, each bag also contained red vines and a bag of popcorn.  As we familiarized ourselves with the new classroom and routines we took time out to have a "break" to get to know one another.  The activities were...

1. Name tag:  Find the person who's name tag you have and ask them what they did during summer vacation.  Then self-select your seat in the classroom for the month of August.
2. Bag of Popcorn:  Choose a person that wasn't in your class last year, sit down, have a popcorn party and discuss what did you like about third grade.
3. Book mark:  Find the person who's bookmark you have and discuss whether or not you like reading and what was the last book you read.
4. Red Vines:  Find a partner of your choice, sit down, have a Red Vines party and discuss what was the last movie you saw (at home or at the theatre, you're choice).

Afterwards we use the popcorn bags for our "Bucket Fillers" after reading "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?"

I can't take credit for the genre posters above my classroom library but find that they are perfect for identifying many different literary genres.  Just like reading books that were made into movies can be motivating we also discuss independent reading and a give the students a 40 book challenge based upon Donalyn Miller's book "The Book Whisperer".  You can read more about how I love Donalyn Miller's book here. We spend the first few weeks of reading working on building up good reading habits through a stamina study.  Each time we debrief our reading habits I go over the genres with the students along with a 40 Book Challenge Tally Chart.  Many students will begin to use the wall display as an anchor to identifying the genre of a recently finished book as they work towards reading 40 books.

Another wonderful book that I use to guide my reading instruction is CAFE by the Sisters.  We tie the concept in with a CAFE "table" and chairs for a pair of students to use during independent reading.

This "Welcome" board is by far my favorite first day of school activity.  I prepare copies of the various forms, informational about 4th grade, and Mini-bio on myself before school starts.  Then I setup the board on the first day for those parents who are able to bring their child to school to get a head start on getting information from me.  Probably the most important piece of information is how to communicate with me by texting via Remind, a helpful app where I can send both group and individual messages as well as parents texting me.  Most parents love the app because they can text me in the evening if they have any questions or if their child needs homework help.  The best part about the board is that I take it down, store it with all the copies and set it up again for Back to School Night and Parent-Teacher Conference Week.  The forms are all ready to go for those parents that I meet later in the year.

One of our routines is the "Cast Call:  Where Am I" board.   I created a QR code with a Google Form for our bathroom pass.  The only "rule" about the bathroom is you can't go during direct instruction (teacher talking) only during independent work.  Students simply scan the code with a classroom iPad and fill in their name and what we are currently learning.  Then they move a magnet from the "on set (in the classroom)" section to the bathroom.  Periodically I check the data in my Google Form and look for patterns such as who's going to the bathroom often, what subject/content area are they missing, etc.  This information is useful for conferencing with students who frequent the bathroom often.  As you can see there are other choices (office, speech, absent, etc) however I don't use a Google Form to keep track of the other areas.  It's great because it's located close to the door with our emergency backpack and clipboard and I can quickly check to see who is not in the classroom during emergency drills.  

Step 3: Teaching with Field Trips

Evaluate Potential Field Trip with Cost vs. Compensation

One of the basic understandings taught by business schools is that your compensation should be higher than your costs.  What does this have to do with class field trips?  Not much, but the basic theory can be applied when determining what field trips a class should take.  This is the third post in the series 4 Steps to Teach with Field Trips.  In brief, the four steps are:

1.  Brainstorm with a Partner-Plunge
2.  Research with a Try-Teach-Tour Mindset
3.  Evaluate Cost vs. Compensation
4.  Teach Kids to Explore & Explain

Back to economics...schools are in the business of teaching and our product is education--not an easy commodity to measure.  So, let's start a little simpler...with a definition of field trip.  Field trips, by definition, are trips by students or workers to study something at first hand (Oxford Dictionary).  Well, if students are studying something at first hand, shouldn't what they study be related to what they are doing in the classroom?  I say, YES!  Especially since we're in the business of educating students not entertaining students.

Now let's return to cost vs. compensation.  The cost of a field trip is pretty easy to determine.  There's bus costs and entrance fees.  Most teachers need to provide that information in their travel request forms.

So now that we have a cost, how can we analyze compensation?   Just like in an economic model the cost of the field trip should be lower than the product---knowledge gained by students.   Now I won't go into the best way to measure educational gains by students.  Instead let's look at the field trip itself. Teachers should ask and answer several questions about the trip such as:

How does this complement or enrich what I'm teaching?

Could this excursion potentially inspire a student?

Does this location offer enrichment activities for more than 1 area of study?

Would this trip be a great way to front load concepts before I teach?

Or would this be better suited as a culminating activity?

The answers to these questions will give you the information you need to determine the compensation or payback from taking this trip with your students.  If you've been following this series of posts, you now have brainstormed and previewed with a personal visit to potential field trip locations.  Now you have additional information on how to evaluate the compensation or payback of the trip.  The final step, teach the kids to explore and explain their understanding coming in the next and final post of the series 4 Steps to Teach with Field Trips.

Step 2: Teaching with Field Trips

A Try, Teach, Tour Mindset

Field trips can be wonderful ways to teach kids in a fun, engaging environment.  Most of the time teachers "inherit" field trips from their predecessors which is extremely helpful since it frees you to focus on developing your teaching style.  However, in the last few years there have been many changes such as common core standards and next generation science standards.  Perhaps it's time for you to locate new exciting places to take your class.  If so, keep reading because this is the second step in my series about Teaching with Field Trips.   The four steps are:

1.  Brainstorm with a Partner-Plunge
2.  Research with a Try-Teach-Tour Mindset
3.  Evaluate Cost vs. Compensation
4.  Teach Kids to Explore & Explain

The second step is probably the most exciting part of the process.  You already took the plunge and created a list of possible field trips.  Now, you get to go out there and experience them.  As with the first step don't get hung up on the cost, we'll go into that in step 3.  Who you take with you depends upon how you want to experience the trip.  One trip was with my husband and our dog to a local beach.  Another was with a group of teacher friends, not necessarily from the same grade level or school site.  And yet another was with a friend and her son.  You could even go solo if that's what works best for you.  My only recommendation is to be with people who understand that you are looking at the educational value of that location. 

Use Guiding Questions:

 Guiding questions will help you determine if this particular location is a potential trip for your class.  In my opinion the most important questions are:  How does this fit into my curriculum? and Is this age-appropriate?  A field trip that is all fun and fluff is very entertaining but would the students learn something from their excursion?  If not, you might consider recommending families to go to the location for a fun outing rather than using precious resources on bus costs, etc.

One of the trips I explored was a location that I had been to multiple times in my life--Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz, CA.  The state beach that I visited was even the location I had been to as a child, a young adult, and a parent but...I had never been there in my teacher role which made it a totally different experience.  I started off by stopping at the ranger's station and gift store asking specific questions about field trips.  I had already completed a pre-trip research on their website but I was thinking of adding a beach clean-up.  I learned that the rangers are very accommodating in adding a service component to a class visit.  I also learned some interesting predator-prey information about the wildlife in the park.  After visiting the ranger, I went off to see EVERYTHING--the trails, the beach, the rock formations, the tide pools. 

I left that day full of inspiration on how this beach fits into curriculum and what I could teach either before or after the trip which I arranged into a lesson about mud stone, butterflies, and tide pools which you can find here...

On the flip side, a second trip to a national park was a beautiful day out with friends that did not spark my teacher interest.  I enjoyed the trip tremendously  it just wasn't a location that fit into my curriculum or standards as well as I thought when brainstorming.  In hindsight it's better that I researched prior to taking a class.  This location will become a recommendation of a place that parents can bring their children during vacations.  That's the value in using a Try-Teach-Tour mindset--you get to visit and experience locations to see if they fit into your classroom goals.  After going on several trips you can then put all your gathered information together to narrow down to a location by determining the value of taking a class.  That's what we'll explore in Step 3:  Teaching with Field Trips.

Step1: Teaching with Field Trips

Take the Partner-Plunge!

My previous post talked about the four steps to Teaching with Field Trips.  You can read the first post for some background on how I believe this creates authentic learning environments.  Briefly the four steps are:

1.  Brainstorm with a Partner-Plunge.

2.  Research with a Try-Teach-Tour Mindset.

3.  Evaluate Cost vs. Compensation.

4.  Teach Kids to Explore & Explain.

The first step is usually the hardest one to take.  Once you take the plunge it becomes easier to travel to the end of your destination.  What makes this so difficult?  Well, teachers have challenging, time consuming jobs often taking their work home with them in the evenings and on holidays.  Finding time to evaluate field trips can often become the path not followed.  Let's explore how we can take that plunge!

Where can you start to find a partner? Many schools have regularly scheduled Grade Level Meetings.  Sometimes administration will give you a topic to work on but there are often times that the teachers can work on a topic of their choice. This is a perfect time to ponder with your partners!  Start asking questions about the field trips.  Toss out cost (which is ALWAYS a big concern) and have a dream session.  Explore what's in your area that meets standards for your grade.  If you don't know then text, email, or call others during the meeting.  If you save this networking for later it will often not get done.  Be creative in who you contact.  Student's parents often know many different places that they have either taken their children during holidays.  Teachers who are parents may have ideas from their own child's school.  The key here is that it's not just one partner but many, such as grade level teams, other teachers, students parents, or friends, who can help you build a bucket list of travel ideas.

Another partner could be a local university that offers credits for teachers for exploring field trip locations.  We teachers are blessed with time off throughout the year that can be used for local excursions.  Additionally, teachers LOVE learning and many teachers choose to visit beaches, parks, and museums. This is definitely a motivator for a teacher to spend time on something they find worthy rather than projects their administrators find worthy.  Most independent study programs for credit often allow the educator to define the starting and ending date for your project.  Also, what teacher couldn't use a few extra credits?  In my area I use University of the Pacific but there are many other universities that you can choose.

So, once you have a brainstorm partners, created a bucket list, and possibly signed up for university credits, do you visit all these locations?  Again, don't think about cost outside what it will cost for you to personally travel.  These trips should be local and not use more than a partial day for travel and visit.  The reason that I keep repeating don't worry about the cost is that you could come up with lesson plan or project ideas.  So, there's more to be gained than simply taking your class to a cool location.  My recommendation would be that you critically review your list and choose 3-4 locations that you are most interested in visiting.

Here's an example:  At my school our principal dedicated one meeting day for all grade level teams to collaborate on field trip ideas.  Although we were all in the same room working in grade level teams.  Once in awhile you might hear one team call out to another across the room, "Hey, is your grade interested in..." or "Where was it that you heard about..."  Our initial list was quite large with ideas that ranged from beach clean-up to museums to obscure local museums that I didn't even know existed such as a Mining museum that will fit nicely with fourth grade earth science and social studies.  This exercise transported my mind into really questioning our current field trips (or lack of) and dedicate time through a university independent study course.   After following up on all my texts, emails, and reviewing my initial notes I had my 3-4 short list:

Trips I would explore:

1. Beach clean-up
2. Local Mining Museum
3. Local CA Mission
4. Museum

To recap, choose more than one partner to question your current field trip practice.  Keep your standards and age ability of students in mind.  Create a dream list of nearby local locations.  Consider taking a university independent study course to earn credits during your travels.  Review your brainstormed list and choose 3-4 places to visit.  Then visit!  We'll explore more on traveling in the next post in the series of "Teaching with Field Trips" with a Try-Teach-Tour Mindset.  Until then...

 Happy Partner-Pondering!

4 Steps to Teach with Field Trips!

There are many different sayings from many different eras of teaching...
Like a walk through the woods they travel from "Curriculum drives instruction" to "Data drives instruction" and everywhere in between.   Even today with Common Core and NGSS standards teachers still hear about, train for, and test for curriculum and data.  What if we took a different approach?  What if instead of using data and curriculum we used authentic learning?

To me, authentic learning takes place when students learn about themselves as they reflect upon how they fit in the world.  To do this we can let field trips along with standards drive our instruction.  If you take this approach you will increase engagement and buy-in with students while creating lifelong memories. And that path leads to the kind of retention of facts children need!

The next few posts will explore the idea of how to brainstorm, research, evaluate, and teach using local field trips as a pathway to creating an authentic learning lab that extends beyond the classroom.  The following four steps can start you on the trail of using field trips to inspire and educate:

1.  Brainstorm with a Partner-Plunge.

2.  Research with a Try-Teach-Tour Mindset.

3.  Evaluate Cost vs Compensation.

4.  Teach Kids to Explore & Explain their Expedition.

Create Positive Student Relationships

Struggling to engage all students?  Read below for 5 steps to more positive student-teacher relationships:

1.  Greet them at the door.  Start each day on a positive note.  Try to greet students at the door every day to say hello.  Ask about their evening, morning, weekend. Make a personal connection.  Don't underestimate the importance of "face time".
Student who feel valued will enter the classroom with a positive attitude toward school and learning.  If you are late to class, apologize.  Apologizing might sound like you are giving up authority to the class but really you are earning respect with both students and parents. Earned respect will always grow authentic leadership.  

Sticker chart with area for positive note home:

2.  Send positive notes home.  Use as many ways possible to send home positive notes home.  This is especially important when you have students with behavior or academic challenges.  Their parents may be so accustomed to receiving only negative feedback that they perceive home-school relations as broken.  This is a great way for teachers to embrace technology and use social media such as Remind to reach out to parents.  With Remind messages can be sent to the entire class or to individual parents.  Set up "office hours" within Remind and communicate them to parents so they know when you are available to respond to their messages.  This is a great way to be reachable to parents who are unable to be on campus before/after school while still 
protecting your personal contact information.



3.  Give meaningful feedback.  Common core curriculum lends itself to many varied written assignments.  These assignments may range from short paragraph answers to literary essays and research papers.  Google drive is a wonderful way for students to organize their work and gain 21st century skills.  Google drive is also a forum to give meaningful, personalized feedback.  Always start your feedback with letting students know what you enjoyed about their work.  Then choose 1-2 goals for them to focus on to improve their work. Be careful to keep their goals small, focused, and attainable.  Yes, there may be many errors, yes they may be far from proficient but focusing on small goals helps a student grow their ability to successfully reach goals and improve their work.

An example of feedback given via Google Drive:

4.  Facilitate private discussions about behavior.  Some student behaviors can be frustrating, try to refrain from being caught up in the moment.  This may sometimes be very difficult but remember some students use their behavior to seek attention and affirmation from their peers or even the teacher.  Instead, lower your voice or drop a note on their desk indicating you would like a private discussion.  Most importantly don't forget to have your discussion, even if you need to schedule time for it during independent work time or the next day.  Start your discussion by telling the student that you'd like to find a solution without involving parents.   Ask and acknowledge their ideas for how to change the behavior then find a solution together.   Most students will work with you and for those few students that remain challenging you can share what was already tried at a parent meeting.

5.  Find the good in everyone.  This may sound easy but it can be difficult when you have a particularly challenging student.  Take time to observe the student in a variety of situations (in class, with peers, during recess/breaks, etc).  This need not take a lot of time and chances are if you're doing steps 1-4 you already have some insight.  When greeting the student at the door ask what they plan on doing over the weekend.  In one of your positive notes home ask the student what they would like their parents to read about themselves.  While reading and grading work, look for insights into their likes/dislikes.  During private discussions ask about what they do during down time.  If you're unsuccessful don't give up and keep trying.  The key idea here is to take the personal connection to a deeper level.   That personal connection may be the key ingredient to helping the student.

Plant a Seed of Belief...

It's difficult to tend to the needs of our classrooms when our focus is on standardized test scores. Additionally, many educators misunderstand intervention and use intervention programs as primary curriculum.   The fact is intervention needs to be part of the program along with grade level curriculum.  This chase to close the educational gap may keep students gaps from widening but often do not close the gap and result in keeping children from reaching their potential.  Plant a seed of belief while you use both intervention programs and grade level curriculum.  Tending to a child's self esteem and building confidence is the greatest ingredient into closing the achievement gap which can be seen in the following story:

This was my first year teaching 4th grade and after teaching 1st for the past nine years.  I knew many of the students that were in my classroom.  They were familiar faces from a prior year's 1st grade class, ELD class, yard duty, or a combination of any of these.  Many of the students who were struggling as first graders were still struggling and made very little progress over the prior two years of formal education.  Our school spends much of its time and resources training teachers in a variety of intervention programs then uses the programs as primary curriculum which give the students to have very little, if any exposure to grade level curriculum.  This was definitely the case with "E".

"E" was far behind in academics, especially reading.  He arrived in my classroom reading at a beginning of the year 1st grade level.  He was shocked to hear me say that much of his independent reading time would not be spent on centers or teacher directed activities.  Instead we were spending it reading with a 40 book challenge including specific genres to be reading.  Our first interview, he admitted that he didn't read well and was worried about his ability to read.  I assured him that although I spent much time and resources on accumulating a 4th grade classroom library I still had the books from my 1st grade classroom library and I knew he would find something that interested him and he did.  Starting first with picture books and easy readers.  Then with gentle encouragement he started to read longer books.

He did qualify for intervention and we worked together every day in small group.  During our small group time we used an intervention program, Fountas & Pinnell's LLI system.  During whole group we started the year with a whole-class book club using "Stone Fox" by John Reynolds.  As the months went by he continued to read books of his choice independently, kept up to the best of his abilities with "Stone Fox" and continued meeting with me in small group and individual conferences.   He really enjoyed "Stone Fox" because it was about animals so I encouraged him to try more realistic fiction books about animals independently.

The class  moved from a whole-class book clubs to independent book clubs using The Boxcar Children series.  This series is written at a higher level than "E" was reading but he was so excited to read the books that he kept up.  Because The Boxcar Children books are all written about the same level, I offered more varied levels with our science fiction series.  Because "E" was part of my LLI intervention group I gave those students absolute free choice on the science fiction books.  "E" was so excited he looked at every book jacket of the 5 different title choices and settled upon "Eager" by Helen Fox.  Now "Eager" is a book written at 4th grade level and I knew it would be a stretch for him so during our individual conference I asked him to convince me on how it was the right choice.  I'll never forget what happened next because he so eloquently stated his three reasons why when he said, "I want to read this book because it's about robots and I like robots, I know the book is a push for me but I'm ready to push myself, and most of all because  I want to improve my reading."  I was sold!  He did a beautiful job keeping up with the reading and being prepared for the club "meetings".

I'd love to say that his standardized testing score brought him to grade level but I'm a realist and I know that statistically that is very difficult. He did grow 1.5 grade levels in his reading ability and was so proud of himself at the end of the year.  He began to purchase books from Scholastic book orders and book fairs.  During our end of the year conference I showed him his testing scores and told him that the real win was that he found out he LOVED reading and had accumulated many books to read over summer vacation.  On the last day of school this boy who entered the classroom feeling insecure and unable to read left confident and was looking forward to seeing me after his first day of 5th grade and that is the harvest that comes from planting a seed of belief.