Superheroes in Training

This year our theme is "Superheroes in Training."  And on the first day of school, a group of teachers dressed up as some well known superheroes.  It was a blast.  What a fun way to start the school year with positivity and excitement about learning!  

Here is a video of our first day: SES Superheroes in Training

I told myself I would blog more this year.  I'm trying hard to think about what to blog, to share, to make that global connection with others I want to make.  So even though I am struggling with a purpose right now I thought I would just share with you what I've been doing in library this first week.  I have been teaching my expectations for being in the library as well as how to check out books.  How to use the library card as a "spot saver" on the shelf while shopping for books. The best part of the first week of library is telling the second graders that they get to check out TWO books and they can go all over the library, compared to just one in first grade and being restricted to a certain area.  It is like I'm Oprah at that point, giving away my favorite things...their reactions are comparable to the ladies going crazy.  I'm serious! And I love it.  I also love showing them examples of books that have been chewed on by pets, molded over by food and drinks, and torn apart by little people.  I got a text from a co-worker last night telling me about how her kindergartener came home warning her about things that can go wrong with a library book. So maybe I taught something?

I'm looking forward to planning an Eric Carle author study where I will be taking the kindergarten class to Concordia to view the Eric Carle traveling art exhibit.  That will be a fun connection for those kiddos to make.  More on that later!  

Teacher ReBoot

"Do something that makes you feel uncomfortable." -Lynne Herr

I'm participating in Teacher ReBoot at the ESU6 in Milford.  It is a program that encourages teachers to design their own professional development.  I'm sitting with motivated teachers that want to be just totally kick bootie.  Talk about being in the right place at the right time.  I love surrounding myself with people that inspire me to be my best, and I'm pretty sure I'm well surrounded!  

We have all been asked to make professional goals that will improve our student's learning experience.  One of the things Lynne and Jill asked us to do is to find things that make you feel uncomfortable.  Something that makes me feel uncomfortable is sticking to a schedule.  I get nervous about being stuck or feeling like I can't keep up with the schedule. So, something I am working on is updating my blog on a regular basis with the purpose of sharing and exchanging ideas with other teachers. My goals for my ReBoot project were found from this website.  Here they are (but not limited to):

1.  To re-evaluate value of my lessons

2.  Make a global connection

3.  Teach digital citizenship more effectively

I am looking forward to updating you with my progress.

8th Grade Music Videos

I wanted to try something new with my last rotation of 8th graders this year. Students were limited to one week to work on this project.  They were divided into groups.  Then handed a CD--not knowing what song was on it--but they had to create a music video using that song.  It was a great teamwork building while incorporating technology project. Students were able to use the iPads to film and iMovie to create their movies.  Obviously, if we had more time I think their movies would be even more amazing. For launching this as a guinea pig experiment I think they should be proud of what they created!!

Click here is the rubric and instructions students were given.

Click here to view Jacob A., Arden, Wesley, Broc, Serena, and Jenna's music video to the song Hall of Fame by The Script.

Click here to view Erik, Kenna, Shaylee, Sam, Makena, Kaleb's music video to the song Happy by Pharrell.

Click here to view Daniel, Carissa, Amelia, Kira, Dylan, Isabel's music video to the song Best Days of My Life by American Authors.

Click here to view Megan, Kaisha, Mallory, Kendra, Olivia, and Jacob S.'s music video to the song Invisible by Hunter Hayes.

Who guided you to teach?

Who is responsible for encouraging you to be a teacher?  Who helped you discover that teaching is where you should be? Where you belong?  Jean Lethcoe is the woman responsible for me being in the education field.  When I didn't know what direction to take my life while in college, Jean is the woman that arranged for me to observe a second grade classroom.

I was at a crossroads in my life. Confused. Frustrated. Lost.  Placing me in a second grade classroom was a science experiment that I thought would be all sorts of wrong.  She said, "Just try it. You might like it."  I thought this woman lost her marbles placing ME in an elementary classroom just to see if it would be a good idea. I was thinking I should transfer to a Chicago school for Interior Design.  She saw something in me that I didn't.  After one day in a second grade classroom I fell in love with elementary school and teaching.  My idea for Chicago flew out the window.

Jean helped guide me to the life I lead today.  For that I am eternally grateful. I can not imagine my life any other way.  She was a smart and amazing woman with such ambition. Even after I started my classes towards my undergraduate degree she always had her office door open and was always available to listen.  Perhaps it was the comfy chair in her office that called me in...or the bowl of M&M's she always kept filled...she was an asset to my development as an educator.  You may be wondering why I am writing about this influential woman.  Unfortunately, she passed away last Thursday, April 3, 2014.  If you would like to read more about her you can click right here.

Jean, you hold a special place in my heart...and know that you have touched so many lives.  There are so many people out there in this world that have been influenced by your contributions...thank you! Thank you, Jean, from the bottom of my heart.

Stop Motion Animation

Recently, I had a tweet from a colleague of mine to share some student examples of the Stop Motion Animation videos we have made in my technology class.  The eighth graders create this project with a partner and have to follow a general guideline.  We are very lucky to have access to an iPad cart that we used to create these videos. We used the iStopMotion app.  It is SO much easier and faster to use than taking a million pictures, uploading them, and arranging them into iMovie. This app seriously saved a week of work for my students (I was able to create another project to do in a week because of this app).  I only get to see each 8th grade group for something like thirty days, so every day is valued!

When explaining the project to my students I try not to create a daunting list of things students can and can not do just because I feel it can restrict creativity.  I like to see them get funky, silly, and creative while following a general guideline.

Below are links to the documents I share with my students and two student examples of excellent stop motion videos.  You may be wondering why I don't have the instructions and the rubric on the same document.  This is to prevent my students from altering the rubric.  You'll see that in the instructions document is where students update me on a daily basis to let me know where they are filming in case I need to find them.  Enjoy!

Still Motion Movie Instructions

Still Motion Movie Rubric

Still Motion Movie Student Example by Chris and Elijah

Still Motion Movie Student Example by Amanda and Nora

Dr. Seuss Week!

Cat in the Hat Photo Credit: www.classroomjr.com

Last week was a whirlwind week.  But we had a lot of fun at Seward Elementary celebrating Dr. Seuss!  You would've thought I'd take pictures from each day to create a collage of the week...but I didn't!

Read Around the World with the Omaha Zoo

In December my principal, Mrs. Dominy, got a letter in the mail from the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo's Education Department about an upcoming reading contest to win a free trip to the zoo for the whole school. How fun would that be, right?!  Right away Mrs. Dominy and I were on board!  We asked the students at Seward Elementary to keep track of every book they read and to bring their reading sheet to the library.  The contest started on December 16, 2013 and ended February 28, 2014.  That is a long time to keep track of reading!  And our students did an amazing job!

In the cafeteria we have a huge brick wall that rarely is used for displays.  I took this as an opportunity to display our reading achievements.  Each class chose a country and I printed off the country's flag with the teacher's name on the side, then the student paw prints would line underneath it.  For every twenty books the student read, they got to write their name on a paw print. Just look at all those paw prints!

Every couple weeks we tried to have incentives for the class that had the most sheets turned in or the class that improved the most since the start of the competition.  The incentives included cupcakes made by our amazing library para (and also cupcake baker), an extra recess, participation in a library display, and finally a dance party.

This is what 15 pounds of reading sheets looks like!

Unfortunately, we didn't win the competition.  Congratulations goes to Randolph Elementary in Randolph, Nebraska for winning the free trip. They read an average of 99 books per students.  But, we did rank fourth place out of fifty schools!!  Our school read a total of 27,371 books, that is an average of 55 books per student.  I think that is pretty impressive.  Even though we didn't win, the Omaha Zoo did remind us of some free resources that they offer, that you may find useful, too.  Here is more information about their Distance Learning.

Mrs. Dominy and I couldn't resist the urge to do something to celebrate.  After we exchanged many ideas we decided to end of our crazy Dr. Seuss celebration week with a dance party.  Who doesn't like to move it, move it?  Or...how can you NOT feel HAPPY about reading so many good books!!??

Biography Bottles

This month I asked the five sections of fourth grade to participate in our Biography Bottle project.  There are so many fabulous examples out there on Pinterest, where the idea came from.  We had already done a biography research project and thought it would be a fun extension of that project.  The four fourth graders that chose to participate on this project enjoyed it and were very proud of their work!  One student did his project on Alton Brown, the Food Network star.  We added Alton Brown's Twitter handle to his picture on our @SESBluejays Twitter feed and Alton Brown retweeted it!  I haven't see a fourth grader beam the way Jack did in a long time! It was a pretty fun experience for him!  

Balloons Over Broadway

Photo Credit: http://melissasweet.net/ 

Every year growing up at home my family had a tradition.  We would wake up, help mom get the food started for our meal, then we would curl up in front of the TV to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  I think as soon as the parade started mom enjoyed the peace, quiet, and solitude she had when she was in the kitchen without us in her way!  My dad is a huge Broadway and marching band fanatic and his enthusiasm has oozed onto me!  I love being able to get a glimpse of "city life" and dreaming of traveling to the amazing NYC to see the parade in person some day.  So, you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled across the book Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet.  It is a beautifully written book written about Tony Sarg, the puppeteer of Macy's parade.  The week before Thanksgiving I got the idea to have the fourth graders create SES' own Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in our cafeteria.  I asked them to think of book characters that kids would recognize and create that for the parade. Next year, I will allow more time for them to study the history and to also have more creative time to create their masterpieces.  Here is how this year's turned out...the kids were stoked about it.  And they got a ton of compliments!

Rock Out with Dewey!

I'm working on a Dewey Decimal Classification System unit for my 4th graders.  One of my favorite things to help introduce the DDCS is this song that I found online.  Some people are SOOOOO creative, wouldn't you agree?  This is song is dedicated to all my librarian friends out there:

http://www.lemonswedge.com/dewey-decimal-rock-song

Storybook Pumpkin Patch

When I saw this idea on Pinterest I fell in LOVE!!  The Pumpkin Book Project was our library display for the month of October.  I invited all of our 2nd graders to participate.  They wrote a description of their book including character traits and decorated a pumpkin to leave on display in the library.  This year was exceptional!  We had some amazingly creative kiddos create AWESOME pumpkins! Fifty-six to be exact! How awesome is that?! I created a Certificate of Participation for each student, as well.  Our library is eerily empty now!  I can't wait for the next library display for November! Stay tuned!

What is a blog?!?

This is the second year I have taught technology at the Middle School.  I enjoy it!  A lot! It is fun to rebuild those relationships with the kiddos that I had when they were cute little third graders.  They haven't changed too much so it feels like we just pick up where we left off and enjoy each other.  At least I like to think so.

My seventh grade class is basically an introduction to technology tools while the eighth grade class is a multimedia class.  It is a fast paced time together.  We only get something like thirty days together!  Crazy, right?! Right now the eighth graders are creating some pretty amazing iMovies based on their life so far.  It is fun to watch their creations come to life.  We also have a lot of fun using Photoshop for picture editing.  Its been a fun learning experience for us all.  Of course the seventh graders come in after the eighth graders and drool over what they're working on and keep thinking about how the grass is greener on the other side.

Today the seventh graders came in and I start our conversation off by talking about the Blogger's Code of Ethics.  I asked them if they knew what a "code of ethics" was.  They didn't know.  I asked if they knew what "ethics" were. They didn't.  So we back tracked a little bit.  I brought up examples of code of ethics other professions use: nurses, psychologists, doctors, teachers, writers, etc.   Just as I was about to move on I was interrupted by our awesome school counselor to talk about a student.  I asked the kiddos to talk to each other about if there is a middle school code of ethics they follow without even realizing that they do, while I speak with our school counselor just aside of the class. While I'm talking with our school counselor I hear an uproar of voices talking.  Score! Conversation! On topic? Who knows!  When I opened the door back up they were all sitting quiet as mice, all with their hands raised and waiting for me.  So you can imagine my surprise when I walk in to see SEVENTH graders, sitting, and QUIET!  I just kind of slowly walked in, waiting for doom to hit, and just kind of weasel out, "Sooo? What's up?"  They all say at the same time, "What is a blog?!!?"  My head was spinning.  How could they not know what a blog was?!  We pulled up the definition of a blog and then I showed them some examples of a blog.  We talked about how a blog has a purpose and mine for example, has a purpose to communicate about teaching at the elementary and middle schools in library and technology.  So for me to add a post about eating some amazing tasting mac-n-cheese really wouldn't be appropriate.  Guess what they will be starting on Monday?!  BLOGS, you betcha! Why didn't I think to do this sooner with the other rotations?!  Live and learn!

Did You Know?

I've created a new board on our easel inspired from a pin on Pinterest! I need your help, SES Bluejays!  I will start posting a new fact per day.  If you decide you'd like to help this is what you can do:

• Bring Ms. Flemings a fact you found in a non-fiction book, in print, or a digital source.
• Then Ms. Flemings will let you write the interesting fact on the easel with the caption "Found by: Your First Name" 

I bet you can't wait to come to school on Tuesday to see what I've just posted!  I look forward to you helping me out with this.  It could get really fun, don't you think??

Mold. Yuck!

Moldy, nastiness, growing in a library book!

I love gross stuff!  I love weird stuff!  I will be the first person to touch and experiment with something when other people are squirming in their seats. But. I have to say I have my limits.  Especially when books come back damaged like this one did. Just LOOK at all that mold growing inside the book!  Yuck!  I love to use this book as an example to students at the beginning of the year on how to NOT take care of our books.  We talk about the four things to beware of when you are reading a book.
1.  Water! The way the pages wrinkle and smell mildewy afterward create books you do not want to cuddle up to!
2.  Food and drink!  I share this Junie B. First Grader book as my example.  Honestly, I have no clue if that's how it got moldy.  I like to think so.  It was especially fun to use a microscope camera to get that bottom right image.  Super cool!
3.  Little people!  There are times when little brothers and sisters just don't know how to take care of books like the big kids!
4.  Pets!  Not just dogs...cats too! And gerbils, and hamsters, and fish.  I like to remind the kids that all animals can chew, poop, and pee...so lets keep our books away from all animals.  (I'm a dog lover, what can I say?  I don't want to say specifically dogs!)  :)

Do you have any other suggestions on book care?  Do you have any fun tips and tricks that work?  I'd love to hear them!

Happy Reading Everyone!

Book Love: The Book Whisperer

Photo Credit: http://www.bookwhisperer.com/

Anyone else cringe when they finish reading a book that they wish could keep going?  Like you're saying goodbye to a friend?  That's how I felt when I finished reading The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.  For a few days, she was my very close teacher friend and now I just want EVERYONE to be her friend too!  I loved, loved, LOVED her book!  It gave a realistic teacher's perspective of how important reading with your students truly is! And...how important it is to have conversations about books with our students.  And...how important it is for us as teachers to take the time to read daily! I can keep gushing about this book for hours! Seriously!  I am also elated that she is coming to Plum Creek Literacy Festival's Adult Conference this September!  I can not wait to sit in her session is soak up every word she has to say!  Yay for an inspiring book! I feel re-fueled!

Book Love: Sing

This summer was filled with a lot of fun memories made with my Gingers.  One of my favorite memories made this summer was the arrival of Tom Lichtenheld's newest book, Sing.  Lichtenheld illustrates the song many of us know from Sesame Street called "Sing", written by Joe Raposo.  The illustrations give you goosebumps and leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy.  I got exceptional warm and fuzzies when I would read the book with my freshly bathed and lotioned up girlies in my lap.  The book comes with a CD including three songs from Sesame Street. The first is "Sing!".  The next two songs are "Somebody Come and Play" and "One of These Things" both sung by Becca Kauffman with The Midnight Sun Ensemble.

Needless to say we read a lot of books at home.  But this book became my favorite book read this summer. Hands down.  We read it numerous times, talked about the birds, how they're feeling, the colors...then after we would read it we would listen to the CD and always ended the CD with a dance party.  Our favorite part is at the end of the song "One of These Things" the singer says, "You're so smart!"

Watch the book Sing come to life in this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW_PU7WwCAc

On a side note, I've noticed a lot of families choosing to bring the book "Oh, The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss to school to have teachers write a note to their child.  Then at graduation they present that book with years of heartfelt notes written about that child to their graduating senior.  I think what I may do is use this book instead.  It is a beautifully written book that really encourages you to do what makes you happy and to not put too much worry into what others think.

Poem in Your Pocket Day!

The doors to the library were decorated to look like jean pockets by the wonderful Mrs. Reese

This year we celebrated Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 18, 2013.  A few years ago when I first started taking my classes for becoming a media specialist, I was introduced to Poem in Your Pocket Day via www.poets.org. Two years ago I was on the third grade team, I swear my team thought I was crazy for scheming up another activity to our already busy schedule.  But it proved to be a huge success and the kids loved it. We even made aprons that said I <3 Poetry and stuffed our pockets with a variety of poems.  

3rd Grade Team on Poem in Your Pocket Day 2011

Last year when I found out I was going to be in this position a couple of us on the third grade team were talking about how fun it would be to get the entire school on board with celebrating poetry month and enjoying Poem in Your Pocket Day. That idea never really went away.  The seed was planted! 

This year we sent home notes (check out this Google Doc) letting kids know that Poem in Your Pocket Day was coming up soon.  We promoted it by asking teachers, paras, support staff, EVERYONE in the building to get into this.  You could walk down the hallway and say to any kid, "Hey! What poem is in your pocket?" Then you could take a few minutes to exchange poems and walked away with a smile.  It was a building activity that really brought us together.  Many teachers commented on how their students were completely excited about the day and how impressed they were that their students really got into it.  Isn't that awesome!?  A day to let literacy shine.  A day to unite the building.  A day to let kids have fun reading a poem they enjoy. 

Mrs. Reese and I also really got into it.  We decided we should be POETrees:

The Library POETrees 2013

"Mrs. Reese, what poem is in YOUR pocket?" 

I'm thinking next year we need to broaden the poetry horizons with April being National Poetry Month and have a Poetry Cafe for the entire building.  I'll continue scheming and seeing how I can make that happen! I'm looking forward to making it a building wide activity for ALL of our SES Bluejays.  Wouldn't it be fun each year to watch your kiddo grow with their poetry from Kindergarten to Fourth grade?  Ahh...the Kodak moment possibilities! 

Poetry Takes You Places!

This month in the library I wanted to highlight a very influential piece of literacy: POETRY!  I asked third graders to choose their favorite poem OR a poem they have written and to write it on a balloon or a kite.  Then I took their picture and attached it to the end of the balloon or the kite they chose.   Finally, we hung them up from the ceiling of the library and they have created such a fun display for all of us to read and enjoy!!

Coming soon: Thursday, April 18th...POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY!

Blogging Bluejays

At the beginning of the year I got my students blogging using KidBlog.org.  It is a safe way for my students to practice using digital citizenship.  What I'm thrilled with is that it provides wonderful discussion of what we should and should not do on the Internet.  They've even made mistakes and luckily they made them with me over their shoulder which then lead to some awesome conversations.  I'm so glad they're able to make mistakes now rather than later.

Every year in the library the students get to hear all the books nominated for a Golden Sower Award: an award given to books in age leveled categories for books that ROCK!!  To keep track of the books that we've read the students created a post on their blogs that kept a running track of a couple of things.  They were to keep track of what the book was about, their favorite part, and on a scale from 1-10 (1 meaning it didn't float my boat and 10 being the most awesomest book ever--I want to scream on top of a mountain how good it is).  Then after we read all the books they created a blog post called "Favorite GS" in which they wrote about their favorite Golden Sower Nominee.

I then went to our settings and adjusted them so that ANYONE could comment on them.  This way we can really discuss how important it is to have an audience.  I used the analogy: imagine you're getting ready for your school music concert. You're all dressed up, you arrive at the high school, you get up on stage ready to sing your hearts out...and no one is there.  That lead to some great discussion of how you'd feel without having someone there to watch you.  That is so true with blogging. No audience, no fun! So, I went onto our school Twitter account (which is synced with our school Facebook page) and asked our followers to follow the link to the 3rd grade blog and 4th grade blogs and comment!  They have gotten a LOT of comments, and the kids are so excited about it.  They LOVE seeing if a "guest" commented on their blog.

My next lesson I'd love to do with them is to work with another class and exchange comments/posts.  So, if you know anyone that uses Kidblog.org and would be up for working with the 3rd and 4th grade please let me know! I really would love to get them excited about communicating with students around the country or the world!

I can make anything complicated

I'm the first to admit that I am a ditz. Tonight, I made Evernote complicated. Yes. Evernote! Its not that hard...its very user friendly. But I did it..I made it complicated.  Tonight was one of those nights I slapped my forehead and said, "DOH!!"

When I attended York Public School's technology professional development day in January I was lucky to sit in on Laura Kroll's packed session on Evernote.  If you don't follow her on Twitter. You're loosing out. She is inspirational with daily quotes, she is constantly providing feedback to others, she actively participates in chats, she's funny, she is a leader in so many ways, she constantly talks about Evernote and how amazing it is...my list can go on and on. Basically she knows her stuff!  Because of her session, one of my goals has been to utilize Evernote more often; really become fluid in using it. So at parent-teacher conferences tonight I made a to-do list.  One of my items on my agenda was to NOT print off the long schedule for the NETA conference I'll be attending in April but instead download it onto my iPad   Well, I couldn't find the downloadable version into iBooks like they had last year. So I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get creative.

First, I saved it as a PDF then uploaded it to my docs in Google Drive.  But.  The inner elementary teacher in me has this screaming urge to grab my beautiful and brightly colored Sharpie markers and decorate with fun stars or a puffy cloud around the sessions I really want to go to.  And then perhaps add sun rays beaming away from the session "winner" as if they've just won The Price is Right.  So, I remember back to Laura's Evernote session and how she used Skitch  I feel it has some really great potential that can really make life a whole lot easier.  You're never going to really understand how useful something is unless you use it, right?  So, I am treading in unfamiliar waters.  First Evernote novice mistake: let it intimidate you!

I tried to download the PDF to Skitch but it wasn't working.  So, at this point I am thinking I have just found the most difficult problem that only a true genius will be able to answer. What do I do?  I contact THE Laura Kroll. I'm thinking this is going to be a difficult one even for her.  NOPE.

What does she do?  She made a new note (for non-Evernote users that's like making a new document in docs or Word) and did the unthinkable...are you ready?  (Someone play some suspense music here.) SHE COPIED AND PASTED the schedule into the new note!  I know, right? Can you believe this?  Then, you know what she did NEXT?! She was able to highlight the text AND change the color AND manipulate the document how she wanted to so that the schedule stood out.  Can you believe it?  She conquered my challenge with flying colors.  You know what she did next? Just for ME?  She made her Evernote session from the NETA schedule really stand out for me...

I know what you're thinking.  Holy smokes.  This is an easy fix...I could have done that! Jennifer is loosin' it!  Yeah...well I'm going to blame it on a crazy day, my long list of to-do items, the constant flow of people in the library restricting me from thinking clearly...and...uh...a late night at parent-teacher conferences.  Am I allowed to pass the buck?

Lessons learned: slow down. Think. Don't let yourself get intimidated.  Don't be afraid to ask for help even if you don't think you should be.  And...don't be afraid to slap your forehead and exclaim, "DOH!" and admit when you do silly things!!!

Special thanks go to Laura Kroll for this learning experience.  You are the Evernote Goddess!