Thoughts of a Third Grade Teacher

Overview: This is an outline for a unit that I will be teaching next year. This outline will be used to create a digital interface that students will be able to navigate to complete their projects. Next year, I plan to record myself modeling some of the material and embedding within the interface for future classes.

This project-based learning unit will directly connect to the current 3rd grade science curriculum. This unit will focus on the solar system, specifically the sun, the moon, and the planets.  The project will span 4-5 weeks and will operate in phases. Each phase will have a goal or driving question that will connect to the curriculum, specific teaching points and demonstrations as well as tasks and skills that students will need to complete each phase. Students will be able to move at their own pace but will be required to check in with me to make sure they have met the objectives for the phase.   At each checkpoint, I will  give constructive feedback and use a rubric to help guide students future work.

The Rubric: Created by two of the PEN (gifted education) teachers that work in my district, this rubric will focus on 4 domains- quantity, quality, autonomy and collaboration.This rubric is focused on the process rather than the final product.

Each domain will be organized into 3 categories: adjust, strive and sustain.  If students are having difficulty meeting their goals they will need to be prepared to discuss how they will adjust in order to meet their goals. Students who are meeting goals throughout each phase will be prompted to think about how they can strive for more. Finally, students exceeding their goals will be asked how they will continue to sustain. Students will also be required to reflect on how they will prioritize their work.

The Process: Students will select a planet in our solar system and identify whether or not it would be inhabitable. This planet would need to meet several pieces of criteria to qualify as an inhabitable planet. At the beginning of the unit students will Skype with an astronomer  to help guide their research, at the end of the unit students will create a visual presentation to share with the astronomer and receive feedback. Our unit will conclude with a final Skype and allow students to ask follow-up questions.

Connected Learning and Shared Purpose: Students will be working together collaboratively to investigate and research other planets within the solar system. Students will also present this information to their peers and an authentic audience (via Skype)  who will be able to give them feedback about their design. Students will also have the opportunity to collaborate with other teachers in the school including the QUEST teacher, PEN teacher and librarian who will help support their learning.

Equity and Accessibility: Each phase of the project will be attached to a driving question/goal and tasks or skills that need to be completed. Materials and resources will also be available to help students conduct quality research. The outline of this project will be used to build a digital interface using Power Point that students will use throughout the project. This interface will include visuals, videos, and links to resources and articles,  making information accessible to all learners and allow for students to work at their own pace. 

Student Choice: Students will be given a voice in deciding which planet they are interested in researching and a choice of how they would like to present their information to their audience.

Empathy:  Students will be able to explore concerns regarding the need to find new planets within the solar system to live and possible solutions that could help our planet combat the effects of pollution. Through these explorations empathy for our environment could be nurtured.

Authentic Audience: Students will have the opportunity to connect and share their final makes with an expert in the field. This expert will be able to proved feedback and answer any lingering questions.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have tossed around several different ideas of what I wanted to pursue as my final project. I narrowed down my choices to three that I thought would be worthwhile to explore with my students. Over the last couple of years I have worked to develop more authentic project based learning units into my class. These units have been connected to the curriculum through science and social studies. For my final make, I am going to design (or begin to outline and curate resources for ) a PBL unit on the solar system. We spend several weeks learning about the sun, moon and planets within our solar system, completing different experiments and hands-on activities. However, I would like to really dive deeply into this unit and create a PBL unit that puts students in the driver’s seat. 

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

This is the read aloud I am currently reading to my class about a robot that finds herself alone and living on a remote island surrounded by unfamiliar wildlife. This book explores so many themes, kindness, empathy and the connections that we make with each other and the world around us. My students are LOVING this book!!! 

 Random Acts of Kindness- Our school just celebrate Kindness Week through a variety of activities that encouraged students to be more inclusive, mix-it up at lunch, and engage with others in simple acts of kindness.

https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/rak-week

 DC Classrooms Welcome Babies in Effort to Teach Empathy- I watched a report on this idea a few years ago and thought it was an interesting way to teach children empathy and share the perspective of others.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-classrooms-welcome-babies-in-effort-to-teach-empathy/2014/06/01/3b799610-dd2d-11e3-bda1-9b46b2066796_story.html?utm_term=.415793a47482

 John Spencer- author of the Launch Cycle- Spencer shares seven strategies for teaching empathy in schools and the importance of designing with empathy in mind.

http://www.spencerauthor.com/empathy/

 This school in Kentucky design empathy projects  twice a year for students to participate in. In this video students designed a hover board wheel chair for a special needs student in their school.

https://www.edutopia.org/video/building-empathy-through-community-projects

 Ted-Ed Blog: 4 Ways to Cultivate Empathy in the Classroom

Creative ideas for teaching empathy in the classroom.

What Connected Learning Looks Like: 28 Examples From Teachers All Over- Examples of connected learning in classrooms from teachers.

https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/what-connected-education-looks-like-28-examples-from-teachers-all-over/

The Connected Learning Alliance

https://clalliance.org/about-connected-learning/

Connected Learning: Tying Student Passions to School Subjects

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/27762/connected-learning-tying-to-student-passions-to-school-subjects

Seesaw- a digital portfolio and blogging  app that I am currently using in my classroom. Students can share their work with one another and with their families at home.

https://web.seesaw.me/blogs

Skype in the Classroom- a great resource for teachers to connect with mystery guests, guest speakers and virtual field trips. Last year my students were conducting research on various insects and creating digital books, we were able to connect with the Genovesi Environmental Study Center to ask experts are lingering questions about insects. A great way to connect with experts and share work with an authentic audience.

https://education.microsoft.com/skype-in-the-classroom/overview

Biblionasium- Students can share their reading, recommend and review books to others online and create reading wish lists.

https://www.biblionasium.com/#tab/content-winter-picks

The Reponsive Classroom Approach to teaching

This week we were asked to reflect on connected learning. Our assignment was to add to a slide show where others in class shared their thoughts and take aways from their learning about connectedness in the classroom. My contribution was a photograph that I took of two of my PLC members from a meeting we had this week. All of us are interested in exploring and expanding upon project based learning in our classrooms. We are a cross-grade level community and yet we are sharing ideas and supporting one another as we pursue this shift in teaching.

Shared Purpose Leads to Civic Engagement

Students in an urban school work together to change the public’s perception of their school and save their school from being dismantled.

https://thecurrent.educatorinnovator.org/resource/shared-purpose-leads-to-civic-action

  Student Developed Color Cycle and Crayon Initiative School-Wide Recycling Project-

This is a project my students are currently working. This started project out as a single question: What happens to a crayon when you throw it away?  Students explored this question and the curiosities that followed. They collected information in their Wonder Notebooks and are now beginning a school wide crayon and marker recycling project. Today marks that launch of this project with students working on the following aspects: developing slogans and designing posters for the school, writing a script and recording a video to share with the school to introduce them to our project, co-writing a letter to school families that will appear in our school newsletter, decorating shoeboxes that will be distributed to classrooms throughout the building to collect broken and worn out crayons and dried up markers, expos and highlighters, and our recycling champions who will create a collection schedule for the shoeboxes. All of our collected crayons will be recycled and made into new crayons that will be delivered to children’s hospitals across the country, Markers will be collected and shipped to Crayola where they can be completely recycled and used for energy.

 The power of student voice using the technology of Flip Grid

An app that I have been using in my class to give students a voice and share their voice with others. Scroll down to the bottom of the site for a video that profiles students using this app.

https://flipgrid.com/

  Writing for an Audience Beyond the Teacher: 10 Reasons to Send Student Work Out into the World:This article focuses on the importance and benefits of sharing work with an authentic audience.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/learning/writing-for-audience-beyond-teacher.html

 Out of the Classroom and Into the World: 70-Plus places to Publish Teenage Art and Writing: Places that student-created art and writing can be shared with the public.

     One of the things that I most passionate about is reading. When I was younger, I could always escape into a book and spent countless hours reading. However, in school we used leveled readers like the SRA. Nothing about this reading was particularly interesting, or exciting or even challenging. It was always the books that I chose that engaged me the most. I have a very distinct memory of sitting in the hallway outside  6th grade class. I had finished my designated reading for the day, so I was able to sit somewhere quiet to read the book that I had chosen from the library. I was just entering the final pages of  Where the Red Fern Grows by Willson Rawls. As I read the final pages, I began to cry (the first book ever to make me cry!) just as the principal was walking down the hall. He stopped to ask if I was ok and I replied that I was fine, but the book was so sad it made me cry. We proceeded to have a lengthy discussion about reading.

                As a teacher, I have become even more passionate about the power of reading and the difference it can make in a child’s life. Books should move us the way that Where the Red Fern Grows moved me. They should challenge our thinking, make us wonder, inspire curiosity, make us laugh and teach us something about others or ourselves that we didn’t know before.

      How do we make this happen for our youngest students? We let them choose what they want to read. We give them time each day to independently read self-selected books We confer with them about what they are reading and get a better idea about what their interests are and what engages them as a reader. We help them find books, authors and series that are of interest to them. This is especially helpful for our striving readers, who may feel like reading is a struggle and they don’t have an entry point. We build our classroom libraries to reflect the lives of the students within them and provide a window into other worlds. We drop the leveled reading and we have students choose books that they want to read as part of a book club. We let them determine with their fellow book club members how much they each feel comfortable reading before meeting to discuss. We provide them with sticky notes, not worksheets, so they can write their down their thoughts as they are reading and use these notes to have rich conversations about their books. We watch book trailers and give book talks to get students excited to read new books. We value student choice. We let them know that it is awesome to read picture books, comics, graphic novels, cookbooks, magazines, novels, non-fiction books, books with fun facts etc. We talk about our own reading lives as teachers. We read aloud to them every day with no strings attached.

Student Created Book Trailers- This is one of my student’s favorite things to do when they finish reading a book in their book club. This trailer is not of my students, but my class uses IMovie to create book trailers for classmates. This helps students get excited about reading!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvVG9k3_Yfk

 Kid President shares his ideas on how to be a kid inventor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75okexRzWMk

 Bio Soap- Created by students as they study cellular biology and chemistry

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biosoap-student-inspired-creations#/

 Makerspace Designed and Built by Elementary Students- This idea came from the students and required budgeting from the district. They were able to design and create a maker space in school.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/makerspace-built-elementary-students

 Nation’s Largest Student Farmers Market  Students grow fruits and vegetables with the help of volunteers at their schools and then sell them for profit.

This year I have been focusing on mindfulness and using the practice of being in  the present moment to help support my students. My class is an incredibly diverse group of learners who come to class with a host of very specific needs. In my attempt to help my students re-focus and lessen anxiety and behaviors that may detract from their learning, I began exploring mindfulness. Over the summer I read articles about the benefits of being mindful, located resources that I could use in my classroom and joined a schoolwide committee dedicated to the exploration of mindfulness in learning. At the beginning of the year my class and I discussed what it meant to be mindful and practiced exercises that help us focus on the present moment. And yet. We are all wobbling with this practice. I needed to dig deeper and reflect on why we are wobbling with this.

I have been learning a lot about mindfulness this year and the positive impacts it can have on students. Here are some articles, podcasts, and a video of one of the mindfulness activities that we do in class.

The Best Mindful Podcasts of 2018

https://www.mindful.org/the-best-mindfulness-podcasts-of-2018/

 Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness can Work Together.  

This article explores the importance of SEL and mindfulness and explores ways that the two can work together.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_social_emotional_learning_and_mindfulness_can_work_together

The Kindness Cure-

An article about using mindfulness to encourage compassion and kindness.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/mindfulness-meditation-empathy-compassion/398867/

When Mindfulness and Racism Intersect

https://www.mindful.org/povmindfulnessforall/

 A relaxing Go Noodle mindfulness video that I often use with my class to help them become more aware of their breathing.

There are years that ask questions, and years that answer. This quote by  Zora Neale Huston certainly rings true. This year for me is definitely a year that is asking questions and has caused me to wobble. Between working full time, taking two graduate courses each semester, raising three boys, and adjusting to my husband’s new job which has him traveling 3 weeks out of each month, it has been a challenge to find my flow. Initially I felt like I didn’t know which way was up and this left me feeling stressed and burnt out. But taking a step back has allowed me to center myself and focus on what is most important, those poses that keep me grounded and help me find my flow.

At home it has been focusing on my children first, which might seem like no brainer and yet as a teacher and a student, so many times work takes precedence. There is always something to be done or some nagging feeling that instead of hanging with my kids I should be writing plans, grading papers, designing a new lesson, or doing work for grad school. This week, I had to take a step back and refocus on what is most important. By spending time with kids and playing an epic 2-day long Monopoly game, I realized that instead of feeling stressed that work should’ve been getting done, I felt refreshed. My work would still be completed, I could still find time to take care of my other responsibilities, but my kids knew that they came first and that was what mattered most. This was an eye-opener for me and a much needed one at that.

At work I have had a similar realization. So many times we as a teachers get caught up no matter how we might try to resist, in the never-ending demands of the curriculum. This can take away from building those essential relationships and connections in the classroom. I have felt myself wobbling as a teacher over the last couple of months. It took some reflection on my part to realize that perhaps I had let slip some of those community building activities and strategies that helped to shape our classroom family at the beginning of the year. Over the last two weeks I have slowed things down. Our morning meeting takes precedence, our class brain breaks are non-negotiable, our focus on being mindful has been reestablished and I have begun to feel that the wobbling has lessened. We are once again focused on being a family.

My app will help meet a need that I currently see in the elementary school where I work. The idea behind my app comes from a website called Biblionasium, which is kind of like a kids version of Goodreads. Using Biblionasium students can rate and write reviews for books that they have read and also create reading wishlists. This app would also combine some features of Epic! which is an app that provides online versions of many books, both fiction and non-fiction.  

Biblionasium and Epic! are both awesome tools to have in the classroom, however they don’t always put books in kid’s hands. On Biblionasium you can create a wishlist and use it to buy books elsewhere or find in the library. On Epic! there is a decent selection of online books, but not everyone can find what they are looking for. Even though our school library has an enormous selection of books, sometimes the books students want are checked out or haven’t been purchased by the library yet.

My app would function as an online lending library between students and teachers within a school setting. Often kids in my classroom will strikeout looking for a book in our ever-expanding classroom library and in our school library. Sometimes I have the book at home because one of my own kids has read it and I’ll bring it in to lend to that student. An example of this happened this week, a former student stopped in my classroom before school and shared with me that he was reading a book that he loved, but had just finished the first one in the series but couldn’t find next.  This student has been a striving reader for a long time and the fact that he had finally found a book that was he truly enjoying but couldn’t find the next in the series needed to be fixed! I knew that my son had read all the books in the series and we had them at my house. The next day I brought in the next several books in the series and lent it to this student so that he could continue reading uninterrupted. 

My app would focus on connecting students and teachers just like this in a school building so that they can rate and review books that they have read, but it would also include a student-to-student, teacher-to-student, or even teacher-to teacher lending library. Students could borrow books from one another and return them when finished. They could also borrow from teachers who may have those books in their homes or classrooms so that no student is ever without a book of interest in their hand.

Cult of Pedagogy

Blog/Podcast discussing makerspace and how to get started creating a makerspace in your classroom. Includes an interview with John Spencer one of the authors of the book Launch. The interview really dives into some of thinking of makerspace and reservations teachers might have about including a makerspace in their classroom.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/makerspace/

Maker ED

One of the things that stood out to me this week was how much of the maker movement (think the covers of Make magazine) seemed to underrepresent girls and people of color. This article on Maker Ed discusses ways to be more inclusive of girls in the make movement.

https://makered.org/blog/six-ways-to-build-girl-inclusive-makerspaces/

Makerspace in Preschool its not Just for Big Kids

An interesting article about creating designated makerspaces in the preschool classroom.

https://medium.com/@marissacalderon/makerspace-in-preschool-its-not-just-for-big-kids-67ce0dad016e

 John Spencer: You Don’t Need Makerspace to Have Space.

An interesting read (including videos) about expanding our definitions of creativity and also wants constitutes making. Making does not have to be about robotics and technology, rather vintage and low cost or recycled materials can provide the same opportunities for making.

http://www.spencerauthor.com/you-dont-need-makerspace-to-have-space/

 Edutopia: The Benefits of Constructionist Gaming            

This article discuss the benefits of making while gaming in Minecraft and Scratch and also how constructionist gaming helps students metacognition in the process.

This week’s exploration of play has come at perfect time for me. I am lucky to teach in a school where things like outdoor learning, exploring and brainbreaks are encouraged. As a teacher of 3rd graders I know how important it is for my students to outside to move and play because it provides so much more that just exercise, it provides an opportunity to interact and connect.

 My school has begun to reexamine recess and what is should look and feel like for students. After reading articles by Angela Hanscom an occupational therapist, author of the book Barefoot and Balanced, we discussed what opportunities our students may be missing during this unstructured time. We’ve created a recess committee comprised of students and teachers to take a hard look at our recess equipment and rules/expectations and what changes we might make. Our student council members have begun to survey students to find out what they wish they could do at recess but are “not allowed” to do. Not surprisingly, most of the students in my class wanted to be able to climb trees and play in the snow. I’m excited to see how we might re-imagine and rework recess to meet the needs of our students.

Inside New York City’s Riskiest Playground

This video explores a “maker” playground in New York City. Kids can engage in unstructured play and creating and parents are not allowed in!

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/inside-nyc-s-riskiest-playground-where-parents-aren-t-allowed-inside-1263803459935

The Decline of Play

Peter Gray discusses the decline of play and the impact that it has had on children and the correlation between increasing anxiety and depression in children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg-GEzM7iTk

Outdoor Classroom Day

https://outdoorclassroomday.com/

My school has been participating in Outdoor Classroom Day for the last 3 years. Each fall and spring, classes spend the day outside exploring their curiosities, building and playing. Rain, snow or shine.

How Schools Ruined Recess and Four Things Needed to Fix It

Angela Hanscom an occupational therapist looks at how recess in school has changed over the years and the connection between reduced recess and play and the difficulties many students are now having in school. She suggests that kids need 4 things at recess, space, trust, time and loose parts so that they can create.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/02/04/how-schools-ruined-recess-and-four-things-needed-to-fix-it/?utm_term=.5d1e4f9eb58f

Global School Play Day

A global initiative to restore unstructured play during the school day. I’ve signed up to participate next year on February 5th, 2020!

THE FOURTH BOX