Round Robin.  I think of … those reading groups we were in as kids.  I think of the bird I saw out the photocopier lounge window yesterday as my copies cranked out.  I definitely do not think of 25 students engrossed in a task and passing notes in Social Studies.

Eggplant.  Cauliflower.  Potato.  Peas.  Beets.

Could your students identify those vegetables when shown an actual specimen?  I’m not sure mine could!  The elementary students on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution tonight in the Grade 1/2 class could not…but they knew what ketchup was!  Hmm.

Luckily, the teacher of the class of non-veggie identifiers grabbed some SIOP tricks out of her bag (whether she knew it was SIOP or not) and created a “museum” of vegetables with labels.  Within 1 day, the students were able to identify vegetables upon Jamie’s return.

The students did not know what vegetables were named and what they looked like!  They had no prior knowledge of the foods and therefore did not have a basket of vocabulary words.  Yet, when they were shown the vegetables and were able to practice saying the names to match the visual (in this case, the actual food item), students were able to improve their vocabulary base.  SIOP — woot woot!

If you did watch the episode tonight, you’ll have seen that the school cafeteria didn’t normally give students knives and forks.  Instead, they had the students eat with their hands.  Jamie’s food required knives and forks and because they were not used to using them at school, students had difficulties eating with the knives and forks.

Two questions:  1) did the students not use knives and forks at home?; 2) what do we, as educators, need to do to build the experiences that our students have?

Even if the students on the show had used knives and forks at home, they seemed unable to transfer that knowledge to the school setting.  What does that mean for us as teachers?  If they did not actually use knives and forks at home, what does that mean for us as teachers?

I’m going to double my efforts to build my students’ vocabularies…I need to make sure that they are not just learning the words as an understanding within the school setting…but rather within the context of the world.  They need to be able to place my vocabulary words within their schema — within their current understandings of the world.

Perhaps a survey on knives and forks would be a solid idea, too…my students only use sporks at school.  Do they have the knowledge of how to use a knife?  I see a trip to the lunch room in my future…

Happy weekend and healthy eating!

My mind is on food, as I just got in from a lovely dinner with a teacher friend.  I enjoyed a wonderful fruit smoothie and even found a banana piece at the bottom — I felt like I’d had at least 2 servings of fruit!

As a result, today’s post is not SIOP related, but rather food related…food in school.

I’m very excited to see Jamie Oliver hit US tele tomorrow night (abc 9 pm!) with his Food Revolution.  I’m eager to see how Jamie’s food plans go on this side of the pond…

You see, I was teaching in London, England when Jamie Oliver’s “School Dinner’s – Feed Me Better” policies were coming into effect.  My students ate healthy food each and every day, ate off of plastics that were washed in the kitchen, and had zero access to junk food — they weren’t even allowed to bring it from home.

What a difference in the students’ energy levels and their general well-being.  During PE (I got to teach my own), my kids were going for the hour out on the pitch (it didn’t snow that year in England, like this winter past) without stopping and without complaining.  This reaction — interest in health food, no whining during workouts — could be construed as surprising, given that the local chipper was just around corner and I walked by no less than 5 pubs on my way home from school.  England is a land of yumminess…sandwich pickle, chips, I could go on (although I did have some poutine imported for me one trip back to North America…a story for another day).  So, for borough kids to be eating healthy food and lovin’ it…must take something.  Must take Jamie Oliver … and a supportive government.  In 2005 Tony Blair set aside monies for schools to revamp their kitchens to accommodate the “healthy changes.”

And there we’ve hit upon the issue — money.  I’m curious to see the reaction tomorrow night after Jamie’s visit to West Virginia goes live across the nation…how will the US react?  [You can catch the episode here if you miss it]

I guess it wasn’t so non-SIOP … I likely wouldn’t watch tomorrow night if I hadn’t seen the results of the “School Dinners” myself — connecting to prior knowledge.

So what can I do to pique your interest?  What would I have to do in a class to pique students’ interest in content that doesn’t mean anything to them?

Some food for thought.

We decided to revamp our home office over the weekend — nothing major…just move every single piece of furniture in it to change it up a bit.  This moving of furniture, of course, led to me wanting to pull every single thing out of and pile it on the floor reorganize the office closet because I am anal efficient.  During this ‘reorganization’ of the closet came the discovery of my high school yearbooks.

Two hours after the first piece of office “stuff” (read: teacher paraphernalia) had been hauled out and scattered, I was on the floor calling out comments such as, “OMG, I remember when my friend and I …”; “This hair and outfit is AWESOME…isn’t this style coming back?” (I’ll have you know that I refrained from hauling myself down to the basement to find if I still owned said outfit and if it was in the tub labeled high school memory clothing…yes, I am that anal organized.)

This post was going somewhere…yes, right – onwards (I was getting sucked into my memory of hammer pants again).

Following that weekend, I heard some of my classic fave songs on the radio (and given my high school throw back on the weekend) I thought — what a fitting post — my favorite 5 of…  So here goes:

My Fave Fab Five:

(in no particular order)

Music

1.  Levellers

2.  The Police

3.  Moxy Fruvous

4.  Indigo Girls

5.  Depeche Mode

Outfits

1.  Waldo Halloween Costume worn to High School dance Grade 10

2.  Anything with my “London” boots

3.  Anything with a handbag

4.  Sailor costume from Pirates of Penzance musical in Grade 8

5.  Yoga pants with hoodie

Read Alouds

1.  Chrysanthemum

2.  Voices in the Park

3.  The Sweetest Fig

4.  The Relatives Came

5.  Two Bad Ants

Interaction Techniques

1.  Turn and Talk

2.  Mix and Freeze

3.  Information Gap

4.  Sage N’ Scribe

5.  Pair Compare

When was the last time I listened to the Levellers?  That would be on a VIA train in ’98…but they are still one of my favorites…and so many memories were brought forward when I saw my Levellers mixed tape (yes, tape!) in the office closet.

So what should we take away from my Fave Fab Five?  Other than some new outfits or mixed tapes you’ll want to pick up, I take a reminder that our students have memories of moments and teaching.  We need to cash in on them and use these moments to build upon when we teach new content.  We want students to get those warm and fuzzy feelings about fractions when the unit is introduced because they had previously played a great fraction game and walked away from the previous grade feeling great about fractions.  Or we want to create those new memories for students so that they can build upon them in the future.

And here’s a shout out to you: join in!  What are 5 of YOUR favorites?  Leave a comment below…

It wouldn’t be March 2 without the obligatory Dr. Seuss blog post …

I love Dr. Seuss…not just because the books rhyme and I don’t get bored reading them year after year.  Rather, because there are great teaching opportunities with many of the books, such as …

Oh, the Places You’ll Go — perfect graduation read

The Lorax — anything environmental in science or social studies

Green Eggs and Ham — iambic pentameter during my Shakespeare unit

and of course…the collaborative effort of Hooray for Diffendoofer Day — before a big test

But also — I like Dr. Seuss because students of ages are attracted to the fun rhythms and laughs that are associated with Seuss books…which provides a great opening for introducing students to various SIOP activities.

For example, I like to use Seuss vocabulary to show students how to do a closed sort.  With the reduced content emphasis and high engagement, students can focus on mastering the process of a sort quickly and effectively.

What other ways can you think to incorporate Dr. Seuss books into your teaching?

I leave you to enjoy this movie of Green Eggs and Ham!

Sundays are a treat — coffee and relaxing.  This past Sunday, I found myself flipping through the channels and came across High School Musical 3.   Admittedly, I stopped and watched 2 grown men jump around in a junkyard telling me that “the boys were back.”  And then, I watched some more — cough…  All the while this fascinating show of teen drama pulsed across the screen, I thought of my darlings 3 years ago — students now in Grade 7.  High School Musical 2 had recently come out when I had this class and HSM became the theme song for the year (that and Crank That).

It seems that every time I see a HSM advertisement or movie, I think of the particular students in that class.  I’ve made a connection in my schema that connects that class of 06-07 to HSM, just as I’ve connected my current class to Party in the USA – see this post for that).

The teachers at my school do a wonderful job of teaching students the Connections Reading Strategy.  Students can spout off Text-Text, Text-Self, and Text-World in a heartbeat.  As we push our students to think more deeply about a text, we need students to not only notice when they have a connection, but also to analyze how their connection is deepening their understanding of the text. It is through this analysis that students will make sure that making a connection does not simply act to distract students from reading.  When I make a High School Musical connection, I don’t just say “oh, I have a connection.”  I then go on to think of student M who taught me all of the moves to Crank that; I think of all the tears we each shed on that last day of school after a fabulous year together.  I think in depth about moments we shared together — a deeper connection is made when I see HSM.

I use these types of discussion prompts in the reading workshop setting:

This part reminds me of …

I felt like (character) when I …

If that happened to me, I would …

This book reminds me of (text title) because …

I can relate to (part of text) because once I …

Something similar happened to me when …

What do you do to ensure students are truly making connections to the text and deepening their understanding of the text?

And yes…I finished watching HSM 3 (gasp)!

I’m a fish person…always have been.  Likely always will.  I’ve had an aquarium for most of my life, rose before dawn for swim team practice most days of my pre-adult life, and grab my gear to scuba dive whenever I can.  It should come as no surprise, then, that I have a backyard pond with fish.

Ponds are wonderful in the summer…many a relaxing moment are had as I listen to the waterfall, take pictures of the swimming fish for the backdrop photo on my cell phone, and watch plant life bloom in front of my eyes.

Fast forward 6 months to February.

Some people make the decision to return their pond fish to the store for the winter and buy new fish in the Spring.  Me? No, I keep them going over the winter…um, yeah…I’m emotionally attached to my darlings that I’ve had for years.  Who wants to develop a new relationship with fish each Spring?  This “keep the fish over the winter” plan worked well last year – I just had to make sure that I hacked away at the waterfall each morning and night with a screwdriver so that it would stop freezing mid-stream.  No problem.  Who wouldn’t mind trudging through multiple feet of snow to get to the pond twice a day?

This year, things progressed a little differently.

Three weeks ago, the pump failed and stopped aerating the water.  I passed this event off as being okay – “the fish will be fine with just the heater.”  Yes, I heat my pond in the winter.  No judging, please.  Well, last week the GFI that the heater is plugged into started to fail every few hours…not a problem if you are at home constantly and can reset the GFI…bit of a problem should you ever want to leave the house!  Luckily, we have a *tad* of experience installing GFIs for my fish habit and quickly switched up the GFI.  Sadly, the heater kept triggering the new GFI.  Heater must be broken.

Flash forward to last night…I’m getting excited worried about a Snow Day.  Snow’s a comin’ down, pond’s a gettin’ full of ice and snow.  Better go buy a different heater.

The long and short is that I found myself outside at 9 p.m. in the middle of a storm installing not just a new heater but also a new pump.   Was I upset about missing Lost?  Was I worried about getting completely wet as I plunged my hands and arms into a frigid pond.  No!  These fish mattered to me.  I was 100% totally engaged in getting this job done.

A new heater -- successfully melting a small corner of the pond!

Success with a small corner of the pond warm and aerated!

So it gets me thinking…how can we ensure that we have 90-100% engagement during our lessons?  How can we make the lessons relevant to our students?  Getting that heater into the pond before the snow storm really hit was relevant to me.  Yes, we have curriculum that must be covered and skills that will enable our students to succeed.  But if we can make the connection for students as to how this material is relevant to their current or future lives, our students will be more invested in learning.  Do the activities we choose make sense to our students because they can see the relevance to their lives?  In my own classroom, the Laws of Motion make a lot more sense and students are engaged when they are able to see how a bowling ball with greater mass will have more acceleration on our upcoming bowling trip.  The students, of course, are now all talking about how they want the heaviest ball on the trip…with no consideration as to how they might lift such a ball…but that’s another lesson!

So, how might you ensure that your students are 90-100% engaged during lessons?

I had a great session with a teacher yesterday talking about how to improve the vocabulary understanding of the students in science.  Our meeting today reminded me of this fast activity that students love and is easy (yet effective) for teachers to implement.

Quick Change

Materials: Vocabulary word list, dry-erase markers, old sock/erasers, dry-erase boards

1.  Students place a dry-erase board on their desk and stand behind their desk.

2.  Upon “go” students choose a word from a vocabulary list (eg. science words from the unit) and draw a picture of the word on their dry-erase board.

3.  Upon “stop” students move to the desk on their right.

4.  Students then guess which vocabulary word is depicted in the drawing on their new desk.

5.  Students then check their answer with the person to their right who drew it.

6.  Students erase the drawing  and begin playing again with a different word.

Students continue moving around the room, drawing each new word at a new desk.  The game ends when all the words have been used or time runs out.

When I’ve used this activity in my room, I ask that students extend their thinking and talk by justifying to the person on their right why they believe the drawing is a particular vocabulary word.  This reduces the possibility of the verbal interaction being “acceleration” rather than, “I believe this word is acceleration because…”  I also make sure that the vocabulary list is present and posted for all to see and that the pictures on the word wall are also very visible.

How are you increasing vocabulary understanding in class this week?

You may have noticed a theme of caffeine and coffee throughout my posts…it is because I LOVE a good cup of coffee…and that I can quite easily become dependent upon said cup of coffee!

Today, I write not about a great cup of coffee, but rather on what a great cup of coffee once said to me (and everyone else who partook in a Starbucks during the festive holiday season):

I was reminded of this cup when I said these words to my students earlier this week: “Student X, please take your hands off Student Y, you don’t need to pretend that you were tickling them…I’m on to you…remember that I was once in Grade 5 too.”

Yes, this worked – student X took their hands off student y…but it also led to the following:

“What was your teacher’s name?” [Mrs. Leger]

“Did you have fish in your classroom then, too?” [no]

“Who was your best friend?” [Carolyn]

Ahh, the need for connections and a thirst for knowledge.

The dialogue above reminded me that when I’m planning my lessons I need to sometimes think of myself as a 10 year old.  Yes, I have government standards and particular lessons and units that must be taught.  Yes, I have taught such curriculum before.  BUT, each year I need to rethink the lessons as they apply to this particular group of students.  I need to step out of the lessons and look at them from the point of view of a 10 year old.

What information do the students need to backdrop or frontload the unit?  What information do they need in addition to what is dictated by the government to really understand the content at a deep level?

How can you frontload and build connections for your student this, and every week?

I slept a full night last night — the first in a week … with many thanks to the handy bottle of nasal decongestant I found in my medicine cabinet…I pretended to not notice the 02/09 expiration date on the side.   Before school, I stocked up the nose again and headed out the door (without said handy bottle in my bag because “I’d been feeling great through the night…cough…because of the nasal spray.  But who’s one to question thinking in the wee hours of the morn?)  It should have come as no surprise then, when approximately 8 hours later (at which time it was 1 pm — yes — still not near home time)  I had no air going through my nose.

My class was very understanding when I shared that I would likely not be doing much school work tonight and instead would be heading home to my bed as soon as I could.  When this moment arrived (after my “in the air” high fives to my students — eek, don’t get my germs), I realized that I was 2 blocks from my home and didn’t remember how I had gotten there.  Has that ever happened to you?  You get in the car and then think, “wow, I’m almost there and don’t remember doing the driving.”  Always one to reflect, even when air supply is limited, I wondered whether students may have those moments.  They get to the end of the class and think, “Wow!  Time is up – where did the time go?  What did I learn?

What would have gotten me out of my zone and remembering my drive?  Perhaps a flashy Little Caesar’s employee waving the $5 Hot and Ready sign?  The -3 degree windchill must have been too much.  Perhaps bright red brake lights in front of me?  Or perhaps something out of the ordinary that I didn’t see typically on my way home.  I was in the zone because I wasn’t feeling well and nothing exciting happened.

What if students are in class and not feeling it?  What is nothing grabs them?  Egatz!  They may get in the zone (and this zone is very different from the zone my students get into during Reading Workshop) for an entire class?

So how do we grab them?  Today, as I worked to hold myself upright, my “grabs” were limited.  Wonderful students they are, my students were engaged when I said that they were learning how to do a 4-line bar graph…ohh, ahh.  Last week, when I was typical me, I grabbed them in Writing Workshop by introducing them to Sergeant Sabotage — the scary, scary villian who can sabotage your work if you don’t add  Wow Words.  Students are now itching to hear more about the characters that may invade our Writing Workshop and take over, should they forget to incorporate the mini-lessons.  With any “grabber”  we still need to make sure that we build background and connect to prior learning/experiences and build vocabulary understanding.  But it sure doesn’t hurt to grab their attention and begin the engagement right off the bat.

What have you done lately to grab students and increase engagement?  How did you get students out of the zone?

Heading back to the couch…

Hey there!  Apologies for missing a few days…I’ve been having trouble getting off the couch each night to make dinner (which is a struggle in itself for me usually), let alone prop open the computer.  This cold/flu that’s been making the rounds has hit me!  But never fear, I can now feel small bits of air getting through a small hole in 1 nostril – I’m upright on the couch!  My goal for tomorrow is small bits of air through 2 nostrils!  Will keep you posted…and yes, I delude myself that you care!

So, I go on and on about vocabulary.  We have to load up our students with vocab — not too much, but load with quality vocab teaching…building background, yadda.

But — what do we do when the students are sick of the same old vocabulary activities?  Not one to suggest ideas that I haven’t tried in my own classroom, I’ve already been hitting up my students with these resources from my website:

Four Square Blackline Master

Describing Vocabulary Blackline Master

Yes/No Blackline Master

Comic Creator

Wordo Gameboard

[Yes, all of these are links straight from my website for teachers -- check it out!]

So last week, I was thinking that I needed something new.  Yet, I wasn’t in the mood to reinvent the wheel.  So I combined a few ideas and just had the students make their own flashcards.  Flashcards with the word on the front, a picture and the definition on the back – kinda like a 4 square vocabulary but on a flashcard.  I differentiated by challenging some students to design their word (not just write in their “oh, so neat, I’m 10″ writing) with the meaning of the word.  Maybe it’d work, maybe it wouldn’t…might be boring, might not be boring.

A Twist on Flashcards

In a word?  Rockin’!  Yes, rockin’.  They loved it.  And check out the position word/diagram…challenge completed!  Maybe because it wasn’t just the same old flashcard; maybe because they got to really decorate them — but I was impressed – every single student handed them in.  Seriously — no missing flashcards!  And when does that happen?  There’s usually the, “sorry Ms. Straus my sister got a hold of it and ripped it.”  “uh huh!”

So I’m thinking that will be the “idea” for the unit.  The students will make flashcards for each word that we do — and bam, an instant review/study tool for the test.  I can picture it now — a sunny, cloudless day, and a student voluntarily making fun flashcards for the next unit without it being homework — aaahhh — they’ve learned a study skill in a content area!  Bliss!  Well, we’ll see…I’ll keep you posted on that one!  Let’s just go with the initial enthusiasm and see where it leads.

How are you really teaching vocabulary this week?

Do you ever just wish that people would read your mind?  I’m going to try to have my students read my mind next week — during the connection/building background phase of my lesson.

Take a look at the instructions I’ve attached – basically, you pick a vocabulary word and then give broad (which subsequently become more narrow) clues as to what the word may be.  The students have 5 tries to guess (i.e. read my mind) the word.

Have a great long weekend!

I talk with teachers about making sure that they have a connection at the beginning of each lesson — whether it’s a connection to prior learning and/or a connection to prior knowledge.

It’s all too easy, though, to start the lesson with “yesterday we…”.  Yes, it’s a connection — yes, you completed that requirement of the lesson plan…but is that really what teaching is?  Completing a ticked list of requirements?  Nah!

Sure, once in awhile it’s okay to fall back on the “yesterday, we…” but the way I see it is this:

If we expect our students to be engaged for the entire lesson, we need to typically start with an engaging connection.  If we generally start with “yesterday, we,” students will tune out…they’ll soon realize that they don’t need to listen to that part of the lesson…not until the “real teaching” begins.  In fact, we may not even get some students in the lesson at all!

My challenge to you this week is this: How can you package your connection so that it does connect to prior learning and knowledge, but is also engaging and packs a “Powya!” of enthusiasm?

My students are working on advertisements for their fantasy book clubs.  A great project – but tons of leg work before groups could work independently.  To ensure that students had a sense of what an advertisement was (mainly the audience and purpose), I shared examples advertisements from the internet and examples of fantasy advertisements from previous years.

Perhaps as a result of this, my students are now more frequently showing each other examples when they are teaching each other.

Are there ways that you can share examples of projects or give examples of what you are teaching?  Showing advertisements when teaching advertisements makes sense, just as reading mysteries when teaching the mystery genre makes sense.

What types of examples are you using right now or are planning on using?