We have spent the first few weeks creating a community, getting organized and learning routines. I intentionally do not start the school year with heavy academics. It's important I build a relationship with each student in ways that feel safe, are culturally responsive, and build trust. You can not ask a student to take risks in their learning when they don't trust the teacher. In my opinion, the older students get the more important it becomes for me to know my students as a person before I know them as a student.
You will see a reflection of this strategy when you look at parentvue. There isn't an abundance of graded work. We have have done several assignments that have been easily accessed by all students and have helped me learn about them. Not all of those will be put on parentvue. Language and Lit For our first IB unit, our statement of inquiry is: Author’s assign roles and beliefs that connect characters to impactful plots. We will be using text evidence to support our claims about character development in literature. Last week I read Grace For President as an example of how to recognize factual information about characters and inferential claims about characters. For example, for factual information, we recognized the main character is Black and a female. For an inferential claim, a student said she was a feminist because she was upset that there has never been a female president. This week students will be reading a picture book with a partner to pull out text evidence about the main character. They will use this information to make a character chart. Finally, they will give a book talk to the class about their book. The books have settings all over the world. There is a woman in Iraq trying to provide literature to women after the war. There is a black man in Harlem that starts a book store after he was denied a loan from the bank because of his race. His goal is to give Blacks the power of reading to create change in their community. All of the books celebrate characters who use reading to make social change. After this role modeling through picture books, students will be placed in reading groups based on their lexile score where they will practice this skill while tackling a chapter book. We will also focus on various comprehension strategies in our book groups. I will meet with book groups once a week to promote discussion, critical thinking and checking for understanding. Students will complete a character chart much like the one they did with a partner for the picture book as their final assessment. Their writing piece will include how to incorporate text evidence into their writing to support claims. Individuals and Societies We haven't started our first IB unit for Individuals and Societies. I'm working on how to mold the 6th grade time period of Ancient Worlds into a culturally responsive curriculum while integrating current social issues. For now, we are using the text book and responding to what we are reading in a traditional way. Those responses are in a large, district provided workbook so you will not see any of that work going home. (But do expect to see it on parentvue) After students have finished their work in the workbook, I give students a menu of options when they are done. For example, we just read about cave drawings, so they were able to create a cave drawing to explore their individual rituals, beliefs or passions. Or they could create a replica of the cave drawings we explored in class. This was an optional extension. Students who didn't participate in the cave drawings read in class. Until we start our book groups, we don't have a ton of reading time in Lang and Lit so I have no qualms about borrowing time from ind and soc for reading. As students are working on the optional activity or reading, I walk around and score work and offer feedback. Tidbits We are still working on some middle school growing pains. The biggest ones being getting to class on time and being prepared. I'm sort of amazed at the level of movement students are doing after starting an assignment. It seems to be a combination of work avoidance, bad habits (maybe) and lack of being prepared. I've been extremely structured in class to work on creating new norms. I do think I need to make the stakes higher so I will be implementing a scoring system for the following: 1 point showing up on time and prepared (that means text book at your desk, pencil sharpened and ready to go, all materials ready. Basically, no need to get up to start an assignment.) and 1 point for getting started right away. Students will start out with 10 points for the week. If I have to give ONE reminder to get started, they will lose a point for the day. If students have to visit their locker during the period to get materials or are tardy, they will lose a point. It's maddening to me that we don't have a bell system! With student advice, we created a system for tardies. Upon entering the room, we have an "on time" and "tardy" sign. When most of the students get to class, I will flip the card to "tardy". Everyone who enters at that time will be tardy. This is completely self managed. I refuse to have my first words be to a student when they enter my room be "you are tardy". Not only is that a negative first interaction but it really encourages a response from the student. The sign will take out any need for discussion or arguing. I will mark them tardy in synergy and they will lose a point. Please check parentvue for tardies! Unfortunately, MYP doesn't have a unified system for how to deal with tardies. So please check with each individual teacher. I am not a big proponent of this type of classroom management but I do have high expectations of all students. I like to utilize class time to the max so I need transitions to be swift. Finally, these are just basic self management skills. I do not expect nor desire to do this point system for a long time. The goal is students take care of these things because it's their job as a student. Not for any sort of extrinsic reward or punishment. The points will not effect their grade as both my classes grades will be on a proficiency grading model. But, I'm hoping you use the points as a discussion at home. I'm not sure when I will get the points into parentvue. I have a feeling it will be Monday morning as I am trying to give myself a time limit of working on the weekends. I will send an email when they are in. This system is effective Monday. Homework The big workbook goes home on Monday. On Friday, they bring it back to class and go over it in groups. Also, on Fridays, we go over the assignment for next week. This way they are only needing to bring it to class once. I do not focus on accuracy for homework as that is an issue of access. Either access to family that can help or having the time and place to complete the homework. Additionally, using classroom time to manage homework isn't the best use of time. I literally don't have the time to check 56 homework books. When students are correcting, I walk around the room and make observations. I can glean a lot of information from those observations. Please use the workbook as a way to form healthy habits in your student's understanding that working on academics at home can increase their skills and will be a necessity for high school. However, if homework creates a negative interaction between you and your student, please don't force it. Students can make a note in their workbook that they tried. If the homework seems to be too difficult, we can work on a modified approach. This week I will work on getting all my grades into parentvue. Unfortunately, my computer monitor at work stopped working on Friday. Fingers crossed the tech department gets there quick to fix it! Thank you to parent volunteers who met with 6th graders and helped with binder organization!
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It's been a while! Although, I feel connected to each of you through our amazing night together to showcase student voice around the subject of Black History. I will never forget standing off to the side and letting the hum of voices and the visual of sharing wash over me. It truly was the best way to end our unit and will be a teacher memory I will always treasure. So, thank you. We currently are the keeper of 51 books from the public library. About 2/3 of those books are for immigration and the rest for climate change. Immigration is our next social justice topic for read aloud. The rest are for our current IB unit. Speaking of IB.... The central idea for our current unit is: Adaptations support survival. We now understand there are two different types of adaptations: behavioral and physical. I wanted to weave in some environmental consciousness into our unit so we are going to add mutations to our understanding of adaptations. We are using mutations as a way to identify the negative impact humans are causing animals. We already completed the relationship between pesticides and the decline of bees. Next we will look at climate change and polar bears. We will end with litter/plastic and sea turtles. For each animal, students are researching animal facts on websites I have previewed, taking notes, and reporting those notes to the class. Then students are completing a How The World Works book to integrate writing into our unit. Students are taking various approaches to their book and include the following: comic book, nonfiction, fictional book where characters are teaching the reader, and pictures with labels. Isn't that amazing! Our final assessment will be to create an adaptation for an animal that will better equip them to handle human impact. Students can use one of the three animals we have researched in class. They will also be given the option to research a separate animal (in the same way we did in class) to create an adaptation while connecting it to human impact. My hope (dream) is to use claymation for their final assessment. So, students would create a 3-D habitat, their animal and adaptation with clay and explain their creation as a voice over. It may not happen depending on time and resources but that's the goal. If you have any experience with claymation and could come in to help, please let me know! Family Friday Every Friday we have stations geared around math. Sometimes I use that time to reteach things we need small group instruction in. Sometimes I use that time to connect and have fun with students to support relationship building. Last Friday we played dominoes! It is so rewarding to spend time with each student in a small group setting. It's the perfect way to end the week. I wanted to extend an invitation to you to join us! The only stipulation is you are in charge of figuring out the game to share. We have dominoes, dice, and cards if you need them. Sometimes, we have had a special snack during those times so you could bring that if you wanted, too. (If you are going to bring a snack, please let me know so we can be sure and respect our food allergies.) The times are the following: 12:20-2:20 or 1:00-3:00. Please send me an email with the Friday you can come and we will get you on the schedule. Most likely we will be doing it every Friday for the rest of the year. Please remember FRIDAY is the only day we can do stations. #thankfulthursday
Every Thursday, we show appreciation to an adult at school. Having a real audience to write to is important. But, the most important reason we do it is being appreciative can help shape our behaviors, increase motivation and give a sense of belonging. We have written notes to all our janitorial staff, specials teachers, Mr. Keefer, secretaries. We will continue to do this for the rest of the year because we have more people to thank! Math We have been working through math standards at a quick rate. Several times I haven't given a pre-assessment because I know enough about student's ability to predict it will take one lesson for mastery. We are almost done with place value. Our next focus will be measurement. Please practice those math facts! Reading Tomorrow we are starting new reading groups. This week I did a quick check in on students because some reading groups weren't feeling quite right. In addition, I've added a 6th group which means I will be meeting with 3 different groups a day to read. I'm so impressed with the reading growth that has happened. I know a HUGE part of that is all the work and practice that goes into reading at home. So, thank you! Here is the directions for logging on to Myon at home: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uwPP3lIyvwd3Yg6jKtoGFMdN_BhUwXOwJIVV0f-n2ys/edit?ts=583df7a7 Research Article I read this article and wanted to pass it on: www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-girls-boys-brilliant-20170126-story.html Basically, research shows by age 6 girls are less likely to believe they are as smart as boys. I'm so glad we started the year with Women's History because all 25 of our students have a list of positive and powerful words to describe women. Coming up! Student Led Conferences: May 3rd 5:30-7:30 Please expect to see a student reflection on IB profiles, students sharing their reading group book, Lexia and Myon and an overall viewpoint about first grade. As you know, teachers did not complete a 3rd quarter report card. Which means, I don't have formal feedback to give you. In addition, student led conferences at Vernon are to be "student led" which means it isn't the time to have a conversation about academic and behavior performance between parents and myself. Not only would this devalue the philosophy of students being in charge, as a teacher, it doesn't feel respectful to converse about personal narratives in a group setting. Additionally, since the time slot is 2 hours, there definitely isn't enough time to have 25 individual conversations. I know the absence of a 3rd quarter report card isn't ideal and can seem unsatisfying when wanting to know specifics about student performance but please trust me; if there were concerns from me, I would be communicating those directly to you. IB Night: May 10th 5:30-7:30 Please expect to see the class created notes from past units. (You already saw all our work from our last unit.) And, the work in progress of our current unit. I didn't have any pictures of students because I haven't seen them! But, here is a picture of Mt. Tabor! We will be ending our social justice read aloud unit on Native Americans in a couple days. Our next unit will be on Black History. As a white teacher, I am so aware of how I teach Black History. Last year I asked my Black parents how they wanted Black history taught in schools and the answer was without hesitation and with affirmation. They said, "Teach the true history. Not the white version." With that heart, I think about what research says with an article a parent from our class shared with me. (www.raceconscious.org/2016/09/paul-kivels-suggestions-white-racial-justice-parenting/) The most influential quote was, "Children don’t need to be protected from racism. They see it all the time. They need to be given critical thinking tools for recognizing, analyzing, and responding to the different forms that racism takes. Our children need opportunities to listen to the experiences of people of color. " As with all social justice curriculum, we will be reading pictures books from a book list for elementary students. As with everything we have discussed in class this year, I know my students (your children) will grow, think, and analyze in ways I wouldn't even imagine They are so capable, smart and empathetic! If you know of a black community member (including parents!) who could come in and read a black history book to our class, please let me know! Math I'm so amazed at our classes ability to learn. We took a pre-test last week where 98% of the class didn't have any strategies for solving. I taught it 3 times. They practiced twice. We now have a 100% success rate as of last Tuesday. Having taught 1st to 8th grade, I have seen the importance of strategies/habits/consistency in tackling a math problem. For that reason, I consistently teach "required strategies" for math. I preach the importance of attacking math the same way, with each problem because it creates accuracy. (Literally I use those words.) I have noticed as concepts have gotten harder students could work on memorization of facts. It would be helpful if you could work with your student on memorization for facts up to 18. Dollar Tree has flashcards. Or on my symbaloo page there are some online games that work on fact memorization. For other addition or subtraction problems, students need help using count up or count down. For example, 13+4 sounds like 13...14, 15, 16, 17. Students can use their finger for the 14, 15, 16, 17. The goal being they don't use fingers to get to 13. Same with counting down....15-5 sounds like...14, 13, 12, 11, 10. If students could memorize facts and easily access the counting down/up method it would help them immensely in math. For lifeskill math concepts, we are always working on counting money, telling time to the hour and half hour, and understanding 1/4 and 1/2. Those are easy to work into everyday life. Reading As I mentioned last week, our reading coach was able to assess students on reading fluency and comprehension. Those results will be reflected on report cards for February. As your child's reading fluency has increased, please work on comprehension. In first grade, it's typical to get so blown away with the reading (which is so deserved!) to forget that kids understanding what they are reading is just as important. Here are some questions to ask while reading (I attached an copy to the email, too.): Fiction Question Prompts Ask your child any of these questions as you read together. What do you like about this book? Why? What do you think about ____ character? Why? Who do you think is the most interesting character? Why? What do you predict will happen next? Why? What do you think is the most important part of the story? Why? What do you wish would happen next? Why? What do you wish the author had included? Why? How would you would change the ending of the story? Why? Would you read other books by this author? Why or why not? As always, your main job is to ENJOY reading with your child. While doing that, you can ask them some questions about what you read or they read.
Last Thursday I had the pleasure of witnessing a Black History Museum at Vernon. In the conversation, the presenter asked us if we had a daily motto. I immediately raised my hand. I knew I had a motto for my life. That I felt like everyday I had a purpose. Without hesitation I knew it. But in that big crowd, I realized I was one of a few, if not only, that had my hand raised so confidently. So, I doubted myself. I went home that night and thought about my motto. What it would be if I had to express it? With some reflection I realized what it is: Everyday I find a different perspective than my own (my own being white, middle income) by who I choose to: follow on Facebook, Instagram, listen to on podcast, what news I follow, what books I read, what friends I interact with. Then I use my white privilege to act on that different perspective. To make this world better. To create change. To be a better person than I was the day before. To not add to the oppressed. For me, listening without judgement has been the best tool. I'm forever grateful I have a group of parents that give me their most prized possessions everyday. That they trust me to live my truth, give the truth of the world, and work on making this a better place to be for everyone. Every week I realize that Vernon is a great place to be for kids and adults! Native American Read Alouds We are about half way through our Native American books. We have read several different versions of the same story in regards to the assimilation of Native Americans. We talked about how Native American children were dehumanized when they were loaded into cattle trucks, taken away from their families, weren't allowed to talk to siblings at school, forced to cut their hair, couldn't speak their native tongue, and more. All for the sake of becoming "white". As always, I love the conversations we have during read aloud. Math We are almost done with our story problems unit. Students were pretested on their ability to solve story problems. Then they were taught strategies like circle the number word and write the number above it and underline the math word. We had less then 2% able to complete the task during the pre-test. We are almost to 100% now. So proud of the motivation and work ethic I see daily. Conflict IB Final Assessment Students were able to choose from the following conflicts to solve: conflicts at home, conflicts in school, conflicts between humans and nature, and conflicts in our country. Then students were allowed to pick a partner or work independently. I wanted to get our videos on the blog but I would have to upgrade aka pay so I will try to put them in the email. UPDATE: I figured out how to get the videos on the blog! Tidbits
We won the food drive! You all are amazing with your support for our classroom and the Vernon community! Also, we won the most spirit for Christmas Dress up. We now have two Vernon Cups in our room! Lice is still alive and well at Vernon. Please be in the habit of checking your child's head periodically. Can you help your child be their best by helping them decide what needs to be brought to school? I'm rrreeeaalllly close to banning Pokeman cards in the classroom. I really want students to feel recess time is theirs. Also, I want to teach them self control and restraint. Banning Pokeman cards doesn't support teaching those skills. However, it is starting to get disruptive. Maybe you could have a conversation at home? If your child has magazines they receive, they are welcome to bring them in to read during class. Please consider fostering independence in your child in the morning drop off routine. I spoke to 2nd grade teachers and they would really appreciate 2nd graders who can enter the classroom, get belongings organized, find their way to their seat and start work completely on their own. This could be a great goal for the new year! I've been working on striking more of a balance between home and school. I've been practicing mindfulness during my evenings and weekends (as I write this blog on Sunday night. Ha!). For that reason, responding to emails has taken longer as I work on being intentional in my home space while focusing on student needs during the day. Thank you for allowing me to be the best Ms. Havens and Aimee I can be by offering understanding that I am trying to honor both my worlds. Here is Daisy (and Ter'Rae photo bombing!) with her book tub. Please note she also has her first place trophy for raising the most money for Run for the Owls. Great job, Daisy! Also, our class got first place for raising the most money which means we are in possession of the Vernon Cup! Finally, we were the only class with 100% participation for Halloween costumes! We are killing it! I told Mr. Keefer we need a trophy shelf built in our room! We have started our reading program! Yeah! Our literacy block is as follows: We start by gathering on the carpet with our book tub. We sit with our reading group. I do a short mini-lesson on a reading strategy. The students practice with their assigned partner using the books in their tub. Then we start reader's workshop. The students rotate to the following stations in their reading group: read with me, using Lexia on the computer, read to self, and read to someone. After reading, we move onto writing. Some days I will start with a short mini-lesson. We have 2 groups on computers and 2 groups writing so each student writes for 15-20 minutes. Students are either writing in their journal or working on publishing a book. We will have our first published book to share at conferences. I meet with students during writing time to edit their work. Another poor quality picture. Sorry! We will be wrapping up our first IB unit in the next two weeks. Our first unit was conflict. As you can see, we brainstormed as a class where and what kind of conflicts can happen. I was so impressed with their global thinking and have no doubt it is from the rich literature we are doing for read aloud. Right now we are brainstorming examples of each conflict. Students are doing a writing/art activity for each conflict that they have an option of sharing with the class. Then we will go through and talk about resolutions. My goal is for students to be able to pick which conflict they would like to be assessed on. Then use our tablets to record a video of them discussing a solution to the conflict of their choice. Hopefully, these will be done in time for viewing at conferences! Tidbits:
I will be sending out conference reminders next week. If you don't have a conference scheduled, I will be emailing or texting you! We need some hand held pencil sharpeners. Both of my electronic pencil sharpeners have died. Also, we can only sharpen colored pencils with a handheld sharpener. If you could send one in, that would be great! Our snacks are starting to run low. If you can, please send snacks that are individually wrapped and we do have a peanut allergy in class. If you drop off your student in the morning, you may have noticed I have moved from greeting at the door. Not only is there a space issue, but our mornings were starting off a little chaotic. I'm using proximity to help students remember positive choices and give compliments. It makes for a much smoother start when I can focus on the students as soon as they sit down. Have a great week! We haven't officially started our reading program. Teachers still have trainings to attend. In the meantime, we are practicing building stamina for partner reading and reading to self. In addition, we have been completing all of our reading assessments. We have completed DIBELS. Most students have completed the assessment for Lexia which is an online resource that will allow students to work at their reading level. Also, it provides lexile scores. I will be using a combination of all assessments, behavior observations, and ability to work with peers to determine reading groups. We worked with our 4th grade buddy class last Friday. 4th graders assessed students on money. Then they practiced coin identification and counting money. It was a fun time for both 1st graders and 4th grade students. This isn't a great quality photo but I just can't express enough how amazing and enriched our read aloud time is with focusing on a single topic. There are text to text connections, text to self connections and text to world connections happening daily. Students are completely engaged with topics. One of our favorite quotes from a book was "Sun you are so even, so fair, as you share your light so equally on everyone". We loved it so much we needed to post it. Every time we finish a book students are so excited to print up the picture of the person we are reading about. We've also read some pretty great fiction stories where women are the protagonist. Our next social justice unit will be on Native Americans.
How is homework going? I am hoping it is the perfect mix of creating some responsibility but flexible enough that it works seamlessly with your family. Please let me know if I can be of a support for homework completion. "My coach said I ran like a girl, and I said if he ran a little faster he could too." - Mia Hamm Manny and Tildyn working on Minute Math which is our warm up for the day. Other than being told I forgot to change out of pajamas this week (I intentionally left those pants on for Back To School Night because I decided to own it.), the page of this book was a favorite first grade moment. This is a great story about a girl who learns there has never been a female president. She decides to run for school office. Her opponent is a boy. It does a great job explaining electoral votes. She wins office and we all cheered and clapped! Then we got to this wordless page and someone said with much glee, "She got married!" So, everyone started cheering and clapping again. I just laughed. Then quickly clarified the inauguration process. :) What a fun job I have! For read aloud, we read about Ruby Bridges. In fiction stories, we also read about an African American girl who wanted to join an all boys baseball team and an African American girl who wasn't accepted at her ballet studio because of how tall she was in comparison to other girls. All stories were great examples of never giving up! I snuck a picture during mindfulness. We come straight from recess to the floor and refocus ourselves. When I asked, "Why do we do mindfulness?" Ter'Rae said, "It keeps us balanced" . Imani said, "To calm our minds and bodies". It has been a great addition to our schedule. Looking forward to seeing how long we can sustain our meditation by the end of the year. We played a fun game in math called "Bugs On A Grid". We talked about columns and rows and how to plot points on a grid. We watched this video, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6vhjpnfd3c&nohtml5=False. Thanks for the GREAT turn out to Back To School Night. Here are some follow-up items: New wish list: www.teacherlists.com/schools/53779-vernon-elementary-school/864784-wish-list/ms-havens-first-grade/wish-list Book Group Opportunity: Are you interested in reading Pushout with me? Here is the link for the book: www.amazon.com/Pushout-Criminalization-Black-Girls-Schools/dp/1620970945/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473643788&sr=8-1&keywords=pushout If you are interested, please fill out this survey: https://goo.gl/forms/F65ihrEe9lsDmBSh2 Feel free to invite others! Just have them fill out the survey, too. Parent Surveys: If you haven't done so, please fill out this parent survey: https://goo.gl/forms/OG5vhur8QrBja9hj1 Homework: Here is the research I referenced at Back To School Night regarding homework: www.edutopia.org/blog/research-trends-is-homework-effective-youki-terada I'm very interested in using this PYP approach to homework (ignore the student agreements and some boxes): Thoughts? Let me know! Finally, a parent offered this article regarding teaching Social Justice in the classroom and it said perfectly why I choose to focus our read aloud books on social justice topics. http://www.raceconscious.org/2016/09/paul-kivels-suggestions-white-racial-justice-parenting/ Everyday this week I will have a substitute in my room for 40 minutes so I can assess kids in reading. I'm so thankful for this time to spend with each individual student. Knowing where each child is at in their reading development is one of the most important pieces of knowledge I can have as a teacher, because I can give each student exactly what they need.
Vernon has been such a supportive community. From administration to parents to the PTA, I've felt the support from the community. It's nice to know you are exactly where you are meant to be. Have a GREAT week! Aimee What an amazing start to first grade! Logistics: When I send group emails, I use parentvue. If your email address isn’t correct in our system, then you won’t be getting emails. Please check with the verification papers that went home last week. The attendance secretary will be using those to make changes to your information. She is the only person who has access to make changes. If something comes up you need to have a conversation with me about, please send me an email, text or note to let me know. (Of course, light chit chat is always welcome!) The morning times are hectic and my focus needs to be on my 25 students. (For pick-up in the afternoon, sometimes I can have a conversation. It depends if I have a meeting or am waiting with several 6 year olds making sure they get to the right person.) To reiterate, please don’t use the morning drop off time to communicate a concern. It’s important we all have a positive start to our day, including teachers! I work really hard to create a positive environment in the classroom. Because of that, it isn’t appropriate or helpful to have concerns voiced around children or to put that sort of energy into our room. It could be upsetting for children to overhear those types of conversations. I’ve given my personal cell number and my email to use for communication. Please start with one of those. I often give up my personal time to communicate with parents and prefer it over conversations with a classroom full of children. Thank you for respecting our classroom space! We have the following specials schedule: Monday: PE Tuesday: Music Wednesday: Library, Mandarin and PE (We get 90 minutes of team planning!) Thursday: Mandarin Friday: Art Please come to Back To School Night on September 8th 6:00- 7:30! The picture is of Harriet Tubman. Our first read aloud series will be on Women's History. I have loved witnessing the critical thinking happening while reading stories about influential women all over the world. I use Teaching For Change to create my booklist for read aloud. This is directly from their website: Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write and change the world. By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens. Teaching for change supports my focus on providing an anti-bias education. As a white teacher and advocate for social change, I will always make sure all races are evident in our book choices and book choices eliminate barriers of misinformation and stereotypes. All read aloud books are pulled from a list for "elementary" students. Here is the list for Women's History: http://www.tfcbooks.org/best-recommended/womenshistory We will create graphic organizers of each book we read. We will have an anchor chart of all the character traits we witness in women through the world of books. Friday we read an amazing story about a girl from Afghanistan who had to sneak to go to school. It was a beautiful story that brought tears to my eyes. Read aloud is one of my favorite times to promote class discussions, a sense of community, and instill empathy in students. I have really appreciated the positive messages about our focus on social justice in the classroom! This is why I love first grade: Everyone got the same size paper to create their full body or face portrait for our Welcome Board! Along with mindfulness everyday after recess where we calm our bodies and minds in anticipation of learning, we end each day with Circle Up. Right now we are focusing on how to create our community. Friday I went around the circle and told each student something I like about them. Then we had a very intense "ceremony" to place our purple Vernon bracelets on. Instead of me printing out Learner Profiles we are creating our own posters of how to be "IB". We will be going through each one and students will work in partners to create pictures showing examples of each profile. For this activity, I picked the partner (sometimes they pick their partner) to intentionally see how students are interacting with each other. I was ecstatic at how well students worked together and loved seeing new friendships being formed. I really loved it when a partner asked to use our skin color crayons so their picture would represent all races in our classroom! Happy Ms. Havens. :) We found this song to help us remember how to be IB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tys9MnpgBOo. We LOVED it! Finally, we wrote gratitude letters to a neighbor that donated us a fan. I sent a plea on Nextdoor for someone to give us a fan to help cool down our classroom. A retired PPS teacher gave us a fan. We wrote her thank you cards. As much as I can, I will use real world scenarios to give students practice writing.
As many of you know, I intentionally chose to work in the black community. I've felt honored to be here. I've learned so much from my students, about myself personally and professionally. I have been enthralled by the conversations I've had with parents. Their willingness to open up to me about what it means to be black in this country has impacted me immensely.
Several weeks ago I found out I was being "unassigned" from Boise-Eliot due to a cut in FTE. Although I have 17 years teaching experience, my seniority didn't come with me when I moved to PPS. For me, it's another sad reminder of how the system doesn't advocate for students. Students of color deserve and need teachers who want to be here, want to be immersed in the culture, want to teach culturally relevant pedagogy, and want to examine their whiteness and understand how that effects their teaching. I hope I have shown my willingness and desire to do those things during the short time I've had the privilege of teaching at Boise-Eliot. So much of what I believe about the school system is summed up in this article. Please take the time to read it. First, let me apologize for the time span between my last post and now. March was a complete whirlwind for me. For the two weeks after Spring Break, I was working half days to recover from a 7 day flu illness that wiped me out. I'm so proud of how our class handled substitutes.
Let me get you caught up on what we have been doing in class: Math: We are wrapping up our geometry unit this week. Check out the homework if you would like to see what we did for geometry. Also, there are some math videos we enjoyed under "student links". We are still working on memorizing math facts. Ms. Cindy (my mom) came this last Monday to do another timed test. Most kids are really close to meeting the time requirement to "pass". After addition and subtraction facts, we will be doing multiplication and division. I really can't stress enough how much fact memorization impacts math skills. We will be doing fractions for our next unit. Black History: We have moved through slavery and reconstruction for our black history unit. We are now learning about the Civil Rights movement. We read so many amazing books about slavery. There is some great literature that tells the "real" story of slavery. To start our Civil Rights study, we are currently watching a documentary. It's been so powerful. Here are some talking points/questions for you to discuss with your student:
We just finished our reading unit on Adaptations. We have been using Seeds of Science for out science and reading this last quarter so we can have more time to integrate reading and writing with our Black History Unit. Report cards go home on Friday. We have one field trip this month to see the Jefferson Dancers on April 28th. We are taking the smarter balance test in May. Please call the office if you would like to opt out of the test. Thanks for sharing your child with me! I sure do enjoy them! Aimee |
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