This and That: Desks, Tally Boxes, and Fluffy

     My students have desks now, instead of tables, and it has made a huge difference in management.  I love being able to say, "Get your ____ out and _______," instead always having to store, pass out and collect everything.  In other words, they manage their own crap stuff.
     They still sit in table teams, some facing each other, or with their sides to someone's front, but during certain periods, I let them turn their desks to the front of the room.  I've started saying, "You are allowed to  ______," and for some reason, they think the simplest thing is super special because they are "allowed."
     "For the spelling test, 'you are allowed to turn your desk facing front' ready, go."  I count to 5, there is a hurried scramble to get their desks in just the right spot, then they have to stop right where they are when I say 5.  I am constantly being amused and entertained, especially during the spelling test.
     If you've never witnessed the first spelling test in first grade, I urge you to volunteer, aka:  spy, on the class when one is scheduled.  We move desks, I pass out papers, check that absolutely everyone wrote his/her name, and tell them, "Put your finger on number 1."  I check that everyone has their finger in the right spot.  "Nope, that's not 1, put your finger on 1."  When I believe most of them know where to write the word, I instruct, "Say 'rat'." They don't say it, but rather:

     In unison, "rrrrrRRRR.  aaaAA. t."  I don't tell them to do this, it just happens.  It happens for all 10 words and is so cute.  I'm lucky to have a parent in the room at the time, doing homework folders, and we exchange glances/smiles.

     Remember the dog homework folder tub I made?  Well, it's working like a charm.  Whenever a student tries to hand me a homework folder, I simply say, "Go give it to Fluffy!"  The lit-up face exclaims, "oh yeah!" and scampers off to do just that.

     A colleague shared her "morning work" that she does every day, so I tried it out.  I like it, especially the back which has a sight word to read, a sentence to read, and then a little rhyming ditty with the sight word in it.  Each has a tally box in which the students put a tally mark after they read.  GENIUS.

     Now they tally everything they read and it has changed my world!  The poem of the week, the sight word sorts they make, mini books, etc...are all have a tally box, or the kids can make a tally box.  I've even started using tally boxes for when they finish a worksheet early.  I have them practice an element of the worksheet on the back and tally, "Practice 'the' on the back and tally each time you write it."
     And when they read something to somebody;  a classmate, me, a parent, the principal, they get to collect the initials of whoever listened.  They love to show me how many initials they have on whatever they are reading!  Since repeated reading of familiar text is the key to building fluency, and kids are typically more drawn to video games and tv than to reading, anything that gets them excited to read excites me.
     Finally, Highlighter Game.  Every week they have to sort their spelling words by whatever concept the list is focused on.  To take it one step further, I started "Highlighter Game."  I used to use real highlighter pens, but due to $$ issues (and the fact that using a highlighter pen in the proper fashion is lost on 6 year olds), I have them use their yellow crayon.  To play, they have their completed sort and their crayon.  I have the words and call out hints.  If the word is pig, I might say, "Find the word that means a mammal that says, 'oink'."  Or I might do a cloze (fill in the blank), sound out a word for them to put together and find, or just say the word and help them decide on which column to find it.  It's a fun way to encourage higher level thinking while also practicing the spelling concept for the week.

They cut and sort words on Tuesday, then read and tally until I ring the bell.  We play Hightlighter Game on Thursday afternoon as a quick review.

     Every minute of every day is filled with meaningful learning activities.  So sometimes, I get overwhelmed by all I have to do to keep the cog moving along.  The resulting knots in my neck and shoulders is the evidence that I stress out.  But, on Pinterest I saw the most fitting verse that had a very positive effect on me:

"Stress is caused by giving a f __ __ __."  

     When I no longer give a F, I'll look for something else to do with my time.  Until then, let's hang out with Fluffy and play Highlighter Game!

     

Cats

     This year marks the 10th or so year that I've been teaching out of the Houghton Mifflin reading series.  I won't go into budgets/categorical funding/state of California or whatever is the reason behind having the same series for this long, but suffice it to say, it's stale.

     We start off with very easy, phonetic and predictable stories like The Cat Sat and The Mat.  Both are about cats, which are typically a high interest topic with first graders, but I think they each have about 25-30 words total, with the featured sight words making up about a third of that.  When I thought about teaching this again, I was filled with dread.  Ugh, the same old same old...

     But being trained in GLAD strategies, I was able to breath new life into Sam, the cat who sits on the laundry, tv, and dining table no matter how many times he's told "Go, Sam Cat!"  I gathered pictures of cats and taped them to a blank "mind map" which had the word "cats" in the middle of it.  I had the kids put their "heads together" and talk about cats, then tell me words that describe cats, which I wrote on the mind map.  Doing this readied them for reading the story and making it more interesting.
 

     Later in the day, we chanted and put motions (total physical response) to a poem about cats.  When they put it in their poetry folder, they had to copy the simple sketches, highlight their words, then read and tally.  It was an awesome day and made me look forward to more cat activities during the week!

I don't know the author of this poem.  I've been using it for Forever, though.

     The next day I used the Sentence Pattern Chart strategy to teach sentence building.  GLAD encourages using academic vocabulary, so across the top of the chart I put the parts of speech that would be in our sentences.  I had to complete the chart over two days, as the kids got antsy more quickly than I had anticipated, so the first day, we just brainstormed the verbs and prepositional phrases (the where? and when?).  The next day, we reviewed the poem and the story, then finished the chart by adding adjectives.

Made by First Graders who talked it out first.  I messed up on the color for verbs, which is ok, since I don't encourage perfectionism.

     We practiced singing the sentences to the tune of Hickory Dickory Dock and had lots of practice orally.  By the next day (day 3) I had the parts written on strips, color coded.  Their table teams were tasked with building ONE sentence with the parts I had given them.
     Their first cooperative learning lesson went pretty well.  There was some protest such as, "I don't have enough"  or "She took mine," which I knew would happen.  It's so interesting that even though I modeled and explained, had individuals repeat directions back, and I had the whole class repeat directions back, that this still happens.  It must completely baffle new teachers.  Anyway, it took some maneuvering (thank goodness there were 3 adults in the room!), but they were able to successfully make their sentences.

This was the 10th day of school, as evidenced by the Zero the Hero puppets!

        Each team then had to make sure everyone at their table could sing the sentence.  Each table got a chance to show off!  A few tried to hide and not do it, but when we all encouraged and clapped after their second try, their faces lit up with huge smiles.  This makes my heart sing.

        So on the final day, a Thursday, I wanted them to write their own sentences using the pattern chart.  Again, we practiced some singing to the tune of Hickory Dickory Dock all together, then I told them to "turn and talk" and tell someone a sentence.  Then I had volunteers say their sentence aloud.  After I modeled how to build my own sentence by using the parts of speech on the chart, I gave them some cat stationary on which to write their own sentences.  They ALL did a great job!!

Serious, orange cats sleep on the couch.

I didn't worry so much about punctuation and capitalization, as the objective was to build a sentence properly.

      GLAD works, and I encourage anyone who has to teach anything at all, to get trained and utilize the strategies.  There is no other way (that I know of at least) to get kids talking and using academic language quite like it.  

    Next week, we will read another tired story, Ten Dogs in the Window.  I plan on doing these same activities, plus some others...