Katie Pryde Celebrating Success, Literacy

Seeing Growth

As it is April, I always feel that this time of year is when you really start to see the growth/progress in our students, especially in Kindergarten. Since taking over my current Kindergarten class in February, I am really starting to see the growth in my students and their learning, Shortly after obtaining this LTO, I put up a word wall in my classroom, created an interactive popcorn word word wall, as well as incorporating the Sight Word Caterpillar in our classroom (see below).

I have worked really hard with my students about what the word wall is for, and how we can use all these resources when we are writing. Each week, my students get an opportunity to write in their Writing Journals. To differentiate for my learners, I encourage ALL students to use at least 5 different colours in their pictures to add more detail. I encourage my SK students to write the sounds/letters they hear. I encourage my SKs to stretch the words so they can hear/write all sounds they hear. We have talked a lot about the use of the Writer’s Rainbow (see my previous post about this), and have modelled for students the various stages of the Writer’s Rainbow.

This past week, some of my students have really started to use what I have taught them and have started to use the word wall, popcorn words and our sight word caterpillar to help them in their writing. All my efforts have finally paid off. There is nothing better than seeing your students use the tools you have provided for them in our classroom! Such joy!

Alison.Board Diverse Learning Needs, General, Inquiry, Integration, Literacy, Planning, Use of Technology

Kindergarten Learning Buddies

In January, my Kindergarten class began regular weekly meetings with another class in the school. I was new to the school this year, and Reading Buddies were not formally assigned as they are in some schools. The first few months of the school year had been hectic, as I was new to the staff, the FDK program was just being introduced (with wrinkles to smooth out), and the students were adjusting to the demands of a full day of routines and a new environment. As I got to know the staff, I found that I shared a similar teaching style and inquiry approach with the Grade 6 teacher, Mrs. Robinson. In early December I approached her with the idea of bringing our classes together as “Learning Buddies” – an idea that she welcomed. We made our plans to start meeting in January on a weekly basis for a double period.

The initial meetings were mostly unstructured. It allowed time for the students to get to know one another. Mrs. Robinson and I had previously matched our students based on their needs. I have a few students with communication needs and others with behavioural concerns who would benefit by being matched with empathetic, patient and consistent students from the older class. There were adjustments in the matches that we made, and when students are absent we casually add their partners to another grouping. This relaxed approach makes it easier for the little ones to adjust, and we find the students in the classes are getting to know more than just one student. They tend to team up into small groups now, and we provide opportunities to allow for this development of relationships.

After a few meetings with the students sharing books and getting to know one another, we introduced a project that would integrate language and technology. It included the following:

  • brainstorm/create a story with your Learning Buddy
  • use the graphic organizer provided to record the topic, setting, characters, problem and solution (Grade 6 students write and Kindergartens can write or draw pictures to represent their ideas)
  • use 4 to 8 box organizer to draft story into a comic strip, adding speech bubbles and caption
  • create comic in Bitstrips program using laptops provided
  • teachers print one page comics in colour and take photos of Learning Buddies
  • arrange original plan, completed colour comic strip, and photo of Learning Buddies on bristol board for display
  • participate in a Gallery Walk of the completed work
The outcomes of this project were positive for all involved. We found that the students were engaged at all meetings. We noticed that the older students respected the input of the younger children and there was observable collaboration in their work. The Kindergarten children were able to retell the stories that they created and in addition to understanding the beginning, middle, and end – many also understood the concepts of setting, characters, problem and solution. Mrs. Robinson has noticed how her Grade 6 students have taken on a more responsible attitude with this role and they are genuinely interested in working with the younger students. We plan to meet regularly until the end of the school year. We have just started a topic/project about the environment that will hopefully include some outdoor gardening. This connects to the curriculum that both classes can extend separately in their individual classrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

We Stand Together Display
Carmen.Oliveira Equity, Inquiry, Integration, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy, Questioning, Social Justice

Learning While Making a Difference

The last month has been a whirlwind of learning and creating social action in our classroom!  It is amazing how a simple learning goal can transform into an inquiry project that takes us and our students to another level of understanding.  Of course, those are the most unforgettable experiences which often lead to continual exploration and questioning.  Let me explain…

As part of our Grade 6 unit on Native Peoples, I decided to have students look at  history through different perspectives.  This meant that we explored their culture, customs, and stories through their eyes.  At the same time, students were reading a Silver Birch book entitled “Shannen and the Dream for a School” by Janet Wilson describing the journey taken by an Aboriginal teen living in Attawapiskat who fought to have a new school built after the old one was torn down only to sadly lose her life in a bus accident before seeing her dream become reality.  Coincidentally, I received an invitation for my class to take part in an enrichment program headed by Free the Children’s Craig Kielburger and the Paul Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative (MAEI).  The We Stand Together initiative would have students explore Aboriginal issues facing communities today while also learning about and celebrating their culture.  This invitation could not have come at a better time for us and what unfolded was an inquiry project based around the topic of equity in education for all Canadian students.

The excitement and engagement became immediately palpable once my students felt that what they had studied began to manifest into a relevant and current topic that could bring together so many different people from such diverse backgrounds and cultures.  Our learning became embedded into the Arts by exploring Aboriginal art, listening to Aboriginal music, and appreciating their different styles of dance.  We looked at the issue of residential schools and how that impacted Aboriginal children and their families.  Students decided to create a display case in the hallway of the school providing information about inequitable education practices and what we planned to do to make a difference.  We also kept a learning log which the students are very proud of because they can see the journey they’ve taken throughout the inquiry.  Presently, students are writing letters to the MP for Attawapiskat, the Right Honourable Paul Martin, and Craig Kielburger to let them know how they feel and what they plan to do.  We are creating a book and video to send to the students of Attawapiskat to simply let them know that they are not forgotten and that students in places like Scarborough are working to bring awareness to the issue and have committed to doing their best to help influence the decision to finally build the school they’ve been promised so many times before.

Our inquiry will be presented at a school assembly this month and even though the students are proud of what they’ve learned and hope to do in the future to make a difference, ultimately, they’ve come to the realization that the questions just keep coming and the journey continues.  As one student commented, “I can’t believe I’m learning about this happening in my own country.  I used to think that only other countries had unfair laws or ways of treating their people.  I like learning about the history but it’s great that I can make a difference so it doesn’t happen again.”

Students decided that they would all read "Shannen and the Dream for a School"

 

Students learning about the current issues faced by Aboriginal students

 

Students sharing ideas using an Aboriginal custom called "Circle Talk"

 

Proud to show the display case providing information for the school
peer-to-peer book recommendations
Katie Pryde Diverse Learning Needs, Literacy

Reading Suggestions

I have often heard about teachers doing Peer to Peer Book Recommendations (see picture below)in their classrooms, however, I have never heard of doing Student-Teacher Book Recommendations. While reading the Guide to Effective Instruction in Literacy K-Grade 3, I read a section that touched on the idea of having book recommedations in the classroom, and I thought this was a wonderful idea!

1) Peer to Peer Book Recommendations: This is an opportunity for students to recommend books that they have read to other students in the classroom. This is a wonderful idea for many different reasons. Most students will recommend books that they have enjoyed, and that they hope another student would like based on the characters, or plot. This will help students read books that are interesting, as well as show them that the other students in the classroom truly know them if they recommend the book based on the knowledge of the students’s likes/interests; it’s a great way of showing that each student cares about one another and has paid attention to eachothers’ likes and dislikes.

2) Student to Teacher Book Recommendations: This is an opportunity for students to recommend books to teachers, which can be used for novel studies, read alouds, shared or guided reading. This is a wonderful way for teachers to ensure that they are using books in their classroom that are of interest and of relevance to their students based on their interests, culture and reading levels. Of course, teachers will have to evaluate and look at the reading levels to ensure they are appropriate for readers if using as a novel study or guided reading piece, but I think this is a wonderful idea for ensuring students are interested in the reading material which will help instill a true love of reading for all students. This can very easily be done by the teacher, but creating a suggestion-type box where students can write down their book recommendations for the teacher.

* The picture above was provided by www.scholastic.ca

Photo of Sangeeta McCauley
Sangeeta.McAuley Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy, Use of Technology

Kings of Writing

Last year, when it was time to sign up for extracurricular activities, I chose to run a junior Boys’ Writing club.

Sometimes I find writing such a challenge for students. They struggle with how to make it “look right” and when I explain that spelling and neatness do not have to be the main foci, they can find it hard to believe. How is it possible that writing can be effective when there are misspelled words or words crossed out on the page?

So, my mission was born. I wanted the Boys’ Writing club to take writing in a different direction and helps students to see that it can be such a powerful tool for communication.

I began with some research. Namely, what were issues at our school that our club could address through writing? How could I use these issues to give writing a purpose?

Here’s what I came up with:

-775 students in our school

-families that are new to Canada

-lunch recess is 55 minutes

-some areas of our playground are closed during winter

-daily problems happen outside that students talk about when they come in after lunch recess

When our club met for the first time, the vision was clear: we could do an advice column to help the students who have problems outside at recess. We made an action plan, the boys committed to attending weekly meetings and I asked them to come up with a name: “Kings of Writing”, they told me.

We discussed how the advice column could work: we would make mailboxes, students from around the school could write letters to the club and we would write responses to these letters. I decided to add one twist. Rather than writing a good copy of these letters, we would record the final responses on an iPad and play these responses over the announcements once a week.

The “Kings” were thrilled. Hearing their responses made them feel like they were doing something worthwhile and I think writing took on a whole other meaning for them.

Here’s a sampling:

kings of writing advice1

kings of writing advice2

kings of writing advice3

This year, I’m doing a version of Kings of Writing that is open to all my students. They collect issues from around the school and we respond to the letters during class time. In some small way, I feel like I’m preparing my class for their generation. Maybe next year, we can do video responses to be played in every classroom!

 

 

Writer's rainbow bulletin board
Katie Pryde Assessment, Literacy

Keeping Track of Writer’s Workshop

In my many experiences of LTO teaching in Kindergarten, all my classes have taken part in Writer’s Workshop. We have all used the Writer’s Rainbow as a form of assessment of students’ writing, as well as students using it as a form of self-assessment. I have struggled with keeping track of student writing growth, and how to assess their writing come report card time.

While working my current LTO, the teacher I am replacing has a wonderful way to easily keep track of student writing and growth. After every piece of writing, the teacher writes a little dot of the colour of the Writer’s Rainbow that the student achieved with that writing piece. I have continued to do this, and found it very easy to assess my students’ writing come SK report card writing. It was very easy to look through their writing journal and see whether the student was all over the board, or whether they were quite consistent with the colour of the Writer’s Rainbow. It was also very easy to see when students grew in their writing, by moving up a level (colour) or two. I have attached some pictures of the Writer’s Rainbow, as well as a students’ writing with the colour of the dot that corresponds to the colour they achieved. I highly reccomend doing this for any teachers, Kindergarten teachers or not, to use this as a tracking system of their student writing.

 

Alison.Board Diverse Learning Needs, Equity, General, Literacy

Fairness in Kindergarten

Fairness is a hot topic among children in Kindergarten! It is one of the first judgments that you hear as one child confidently points out that something isn’t fair. After reading Carmen’s informative and thought-provoking post about equity, it encouraged me to consider it in the context of the Kindergarten classroom.

I have found that read-alouds about topics such as fairness are a good starting point. The stories are didactic in that they provide characters and scenarios that the children can relate to and support personal connections for the students. The message is conveyed in a less instructional, more entertaining way.

The book, Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Khan, is an example of an engaging story that addresses the idea of fairness not always having to be the same for everyone. It is a story about a girl, Rubina, who is invited to a birthday party. Her mother insists that she brings her little sister, Sana, an embarrassment to Rubina. When it comes time for Sana to get invited to a birthday party, their mother wants to send the youngest sister. Rubina interjects and tells her mother that only Sana was invited and she should go alone, knowing that her sister will have a better experience if their experiences are different. Sana appreciates her sister’s understanding and shows her appreciation with a lollipop.

 

 

 

 

Another book to read aloud for discussion, is Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats. In this story, Peter is upset when he realizes that many of his things are being painted pink for his little sister to use. The highchair is already painted, but he rescues his little chair before it succumbs to pink paint as well. He wants to run away with his special chair, but realizes it is now too small for him to sit in. He returns with the chair and they paint it for his sister. Although, the bigger idea is about acceptance and change, there is also a connection to the idea of fairness. As we grow, expectations change and what was once appropriate may no longer be the case. Things do not remain the same, situations change, and what was considered fair may not remain so.

 

 

 

There are many opportunities to talk about fairness in Kindergarten. Often, the teacher may need to respond to the statement, “Why does he get to do that? It’s not fair.” And the teacher will respond, “Fairness isn’t the same for both of you. It is what he needs right now.”

Newspaper Poetry
Carmen.Oliveira Celebrating Success, Differentiated Instruction, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy, Planning, Resources

Discovering Our Inner Poet

I love teaching writing.  Let me be more specific.  I loved teaching writing except when it came to poetry.  For some reason, I’ve always managed to bring to life the other writing formats and genres with engaging lessons set upon a backdrop of real world contexts.  The students, for the most part, ate it all up and asked for more.  That is, until  I mentioned we would be exploring poetry.  The good times would come to a screeching halt as their faces reflected what I had also thought of poetry as an elementary student: boring and challenging to understand (how did I know what so-and-so meant by this-and-that?…and who cares?).  So of course, with my determined and stubborn personality, in the past few years I’ve focused on learning how to breathe life into this wonderful writing genre.  It hasn’t always been an ocean of roses but, for the most part, the exploration has led us to a whole new level of appreciation and learning.

We have just completed our poetry unit (which will continue  informally throughout the year) and I can honestly say that the class thoroughly enjoyed it.  I’d like to share with you a few of the activities and resources that made the experience engaging, meaningful, and memorable.

If you haven’t already done so, I strongly encourage you to purchase Classroom Events Through Poetry by Larry Swartz (just purchase any of his books on poetry and drama and you’ll be well on your way to an incredible teaching/learning experience).  It’s a practical and concise book that provides easy and meaningful activities to explore poetry in our classroom and our lives.  We started by looking at poetry in books, researching it on the internet, and sharing it with each other in daily poetry circles.  We created newspaper poems by cutting out words and phrases and ordering them to try and create a themed poem.  We took 2-4 sentences from a favourite poem and created a graffiti wall on our classroom door (the students thought this was very cool!).  We acted out poetry, sang poetry, and shared the lyrics of our favourite songs after listening to them together.  We learned about different structures by having groups of students become “specialists” as they taught the class the structure, gave examples, and had everyone try to create their own.

The culminating task involved creating a poem in the structure of their choice and presenting it at our Poet’s Cocktail Party!  This was no ordinary party!  Invitations were sent out, the poems were displayed all around the classroom, students dressed up, and food was ordered (grapes, cheese, crackers, cupcakes, and grape juice in place of red wine).  As jazz music played, students mingled by reading each others’ poems and discussing their thoughts and opinions.  A few students shared their poems and we snapped our fingers in appreciation of their work (yes, we snapped fingers, not clapped because that’s apparently what poets do).

A few students decided that they wanted to enter the Urban Voices poetry contest and their poems have been sent off.  How special would it be to have a winner come from our class!  Keeping our fingers crossed.

We cut out words and phrases from newspapers and ordered them to create a themed poem.

 

An example of a newspaper poem.

 

An example of a newspaper poem.

 

Students took 2-4 lines from favourite poems and created a graffiti wall on our door.

 

This poem was presented at our poetry cocktail party.
Photo of Tina Ginglo
Tina.Ginglo Assessment, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Literacy, Planning, Questioning, Use of Technology

Using Audio for Self-Assessment

I have added a new layer to the writing process in my third-grade writing workshop.  As I wrote in a past post, our writing workshop process begins with students writing in their Writer’s Notebooks.  When a writer completes a piece of writing, they then meet with their assigned writing partner and/or me for a writing conference.  At this conference, writers review the success criteria for their writing assignment and then identify two ways in which they have successfully met the criteria.  Writers then identify one criterion that needs to be developed further. They then transfer their writing to their laptop keeping in mind the feedback they received and making their revisions as they type their second draft.  Ultimately, writers post their narratives in their writing group on Edmodo.com where they receive more feedback from their group members.

Using Audacity software and a set of headphones with microphone, my third graders have learned how to read and record their personal narratives.  Once recorded, students listen back.  They then ask themselves two questions:  “In what ways does my story sound like a real story?”  And “In what ways can I make my story sound more like a real story?”  Students enthusiastically record their stories.  This component of the writing process engages those auditory learners who could benefit from this new component of the writing process.

I have changed the way I phrase these reflection questions.  At first I instructed students to ask themselves, “Does my story sound like a real story? Yes or no?”  If yes, why does it sound like a real story? If no, why not?”  I found that this self-assessment exercise wasn’t making a significant difference in their writing.   I concluded that it wasn’t the process that was ineffective, but the questions I was asking writers to consider.   These yes/no questions left writers basically rating their narratives as “good” or “bad.”  Their narratives either sounded “real” or didn’t.  These questions didn’t allow students to identify the strengths in their narratives and where it could sound better.  Realistically, all of my writers’ stories sounded a tad real, some more so than others. The goal here is to make everyone’s writing sound better. Using these new questions should ultimately improve the writers’ craft.

I am also thinking of adding audio to the writing conferences with writing partners and teacher.  Some students struggle to give feedback on other students’ writing for a number of reasons.  Perhaps a student’s penmanship is difficult to read or spelling or punctuation is interfering with comprehension.  Listening to a story as it is intended to sound eliminates those barriers to comprehension.

I am proud of my third graders.  Each day they are becoming more independent writers.  I believe the secret to their success is that the students understand the flow of our writing workshop and, thanks to clear success criteria, they can identify their strengths as writers.   They see themselves as writers!   I am fortunate to have access to audio technology.  In reality, you don’t need computers or even headphones to make this happen in your classroom.   You can go “old school” with a mini cassette recorder.   Some old cell phones have recording devices.  One of our goals is to teach our writers to write like readers and read like writers.  Using audio is one way to get there!

Writer's wall bulletin board
Katie Pryde Celebrating Success, Classroom Layouts, Literacy

Writer’s Wall

Do you ever wonder what to do with all the wonderful pictures and cards that students create for us teachers? Do you ever guilty putting pictures in the recycling? I know I have! And I have found a solution for you…

Create a We Are All Writer’s board. On one of the bulletin boards in the classroom, I have posted student work on this wall. This is such a wonderful idea because students get to show their work off to the world, it is all in once place, and students are recognized for being writer’s no matter what they are writing/drawing. My students love to create pictures and cards for me, or for others in the classroom, and having this wall is a great idea!

Here is a picture: