9/24/17

The Best Part of Me

Lily's poem

We began our year with a writing project that was inspired by Wendy Ewald's book:  The Best Part of Me, in which students write about the best part of their bodies and help to compose a photograph that highlights their best parts.  

Wendy Ewald's book

Every year I like to begin with a focus on our strengths, passions, and the things we like best about ourselves.  I want to get to know my students through their eyes, I want to see them the way they see themselves.  This was a great project for doing that.  It was also a good way to ease us into the writing process. 

Our wrting pieces are on display 

Together we took this piece through the brainstorming, writing, editing, revising, and publishing steps. Students found this piece easy becase they were able to write on a topic that they know a lot about... themselves!  The poem format also gave students the freedom to express themselves without worrying too much about structure.  There will be plenty of time to worry about run-ons, fragments, grammar and syntax.  In poetry, it's all allowed---we just chalk it up to stylistic choice!

Naysa's poem

Students were in charge of the compostion of their portraits.  They had imagined exactly how they wanted their body part captured and had the final say in which shot was used. The results are truly magical.  

Next, we are focusing on writing personal narratives.  Students have already begun the brainstorming process by listing people and places in their lives that are important to them and thinking of small moments they have shared together.  We will try to zoom in and make the story come alive for the reader by describing what happened.  We will focus on showing instead of telling.  We do this by using figurative language, dialogue, and focusing on our senses: what we heard, saw, tasted, felt, and smelled. 

Friday Free Play

They call it Free Play Friday...I call it self-directed learning; we all call it F-U-N!

Two of the best decisions I have made as a teacher were to incorporate free play into our weekly routine in 3rd grade.  The other?  A second recess each day!  Yes, in this day of high stakes testing, rigourous Common Core standards, and the pressures of never enough time, I have made play and physical activity a priority and have not regretted it once.  

"Hey guys, I can feel the force of the
magnet through my hand!" -Chais

Inspired by a recent trip to Finland, where students have 15 minutes of recess every hour during the school day and the education of students is based on developmentally appropriate nurturing of the whole child, I decided to experiment with these changes in my classroom to hopefully improve the health and well being of my students.  To be completely honest, I was also inspired by one of my third graders who exclaimed, "No fair!" upon beholding an extravagently engineered cup tower in the block area of our kindergarten reading buddy's classroom.  His comment stuck with me.  I was as enamored as he with that tower and shared his sentiment.  Why should kindergartners have all the fun?  I went out a few weeks later and purchased an entire bucket of cups that students could build with during inside recess and placed an order for some wooden blocks.

Now, Friday mornings have a wonderfully relaxed feel as students come in, read the mornging message, create a learning statement for the week, and engage with their friends in 30-40 minutes of play.  After a long
week of very focused, challenging work, it is exactly what we all need.

Our second recess is short, only15 minutes during the final hour of our day.  During winter, with all the snow gear, it sometimes takes us as long to get ready as we have to be outside, but it is still worth it. Students get a shot of fresh air and a few minutes to run, yell, and well, be kids!  I expect a lot out of my students behaviorally and academically during the day.   At 1:30 in the afternoon I can feel the low energy settle over the room. We are all exhausted.  Our extra recess re-energizes the group and gives us the necessary stamina to make it throught the rest of our day.  

"For every 15minutes of play, children tend to use a third of that time engaged in learning about mathematical, spatial, and architectural principles." -Sarah Lewis in The Rise:  Creativity, The Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery

Thinking about incorporating more play in your school day?  Here are a few more reasons you should consider it straight from the experts...

"It gives your brain a break." -Kaitlyn

"It gives us another chance to be outside so that we can be more focused.  We can get our energy out." -Natalie

"Kids need, well everyone needs, about 2 hours of activity everyday." -Sam

"It give us a chance to talk with our friends." -Max

"It helps us calm down when we're inside." -Jen

So, as we begin a new year in 3rd grade, free play and 2nd recess continue to be part of this teacher's class schedule.  Here's to happy, healthy, focused students!  Have a great school year.

Rocking Our Way to Success!

I'm excited to announce that I have launched my first ever Donor's Choose project!  

Mrs. Sullivan's Donor's Choose Project

It has been a dream of mine for a while to expand the seating options in our classroom.  Over the years I have slowly added yoga balls, stability discs, and Bilibo seats as my budget has allowed. However,  I have had my eye on these active learning stools for quite some time and haven't been able to find the funds to purchase them. These beauties have a curved rubber bottom that allows students a wide range of movement and encourages core strength.

I finally decided, after seeing other educators successfully fund their projects, to give it a go! Even if you can't contribute funding for my project, you can still help by spreading the word.

Hopefully, I will soon be posting pictures of happy, energetic students rocking their way to success on these stools!  

Under Construction

As the custodial staff is racing to finish sprucing up GEMS before our first day, teachers have begun to sneak into their classrooms this week to find freshly waxed, sparkling floors and piles of furniture to rearrange.  So it begins, the exciting process of putting our rooms back together to welcome our new students on August 29th.  

Our 3rd grade classroom is under construction this week.  

As a teacher, August signals the end of  summer vacation, but it is still one of my favorite times of year.  There is a palpable excitment to the start of school when the lifeless hallways are once again filled with reenergized teachers and wide eyed students bouncing down the halls.  I am so excited to welcome my new students and begin building an awesome learning community together.  We are going to have a great year!