Set the Stage to Engage!- A Way of Life in 2nd Grade!

10-27-16  Set the Stage to Engage!- A Way of Life in 2nd Grade!

To us, #setthestagetoengage is not just a hashtag.  It’s a way of life.  In 2nd grade, we believe in getting kids motivated, up and moving, and developing a love of learning.  So far this year, we’ve done two major events that our kids have LOVED!

Writing Boot Camp:

We held our 1st Annual Writing Boot Camp on September 9th.  For this fun day, we had our kids dress in camo, but we didn’t tell them why.  Along came General Capital Letters, General Spaces, General Punctuation, and General Makes Sense.  

We set up an obstacle course, and once completed, students had to work together to build a 5 Star Sentence!  Capital letters, spaces, punctuation, makes sense, NEATNESS COUNTS!    We had so much fun!

Sight Word Workout:

We held our 1st Sight Word Workout on Oct. 10th.  The kids came to school dressed in work out clothes, and we had our own Olympics in the classroom.  The students read our sight words, did excercises, and had fun learning!

#setthestagetoengage is a way of life for us, and it’s one we plan to continue!

What is Read Deed Run Doing?

10-27-16  Do you love to do nice things for other people?  Do you love to read?  Do you love to run?  If you do, check out our awesome Read, Deed, Run kids.  The students of RDR have been working hard to do great things in the community, develop their love of reading, and build their running endurance.  This week at RDR we have been given the opportunity to be apart of a new program, Teddy Cop.  Our very own Officer Santiago has brought 80 bears to school for the RDR students to dress in police uniforms.  These bears will be taken to special education classes to teach students about safety and help build a positive relationship with police officers.  We are so lucky to be involved in such a great program.  

This week students were sporting capes as they ran, and some spiffy teachers too!  Our kids truly are SUPER HEROES, so we wanted to give them the opportunity to show it off.  Check out our SUPER HEROES on Twitter (#RaeRDR, #superkidsdoingsuperthings)!

We will be meeting in November to celebrate our U.S. Veterans, learn about animal shelters, and prepare Thanksgiving baskets.  

RAE's New Coding Club!!

Have you ever wanted to learn something new?  Maybe you heard about a cool new game from a friend, or a hot new nail trend found its way to your favorite Pinterest board.  For me that “thing” is computer coding.  I don’t remember it being an option in school for elementary students, let alone female elementary students (or junior high, or high school for that matter!), but when I found it a few years ago it sparked a new found interest that reignited my passion for learning. 

I started off small – www.code.org – very user friendly, already laid out for you, and immediate results.  How fun!  I thought my students would LOVE this, so I made some generic user accounts and let them go for it during rotations.  I had several students take their information home and continue the courses over the year and eventually they had made some really neat things. 

The next year I made it my mission to have the whole school participate in the hour of code in early December.  My homeroom even Skype-ed with A REAL MICROSOFT PROGRAMER!  It was fascinating to see my students respond so eagerly to something that I had only learned about a few years prior. 

We continued to implement different coding based activities as a 3^rd grade team the following year, which was made even more engaging with different apps, lots of team work, and even some new STEAM activities that required the kids to know how coding worked. 

This year though – oh man.  This year is THE year.  This year we started our first code club at RAE!  It has been a dream of mine for the last SEVERAL years – and now here we are!  Because it is the first time we’ve tried this I went with a club that google created.  This first 5 week session the students are focusing on story telling through code using www.cs-first.com (to learn about coding, what to code, and the gist of how to code what the daily project is), and www.scratch.com to create story telling masterpieces! 

I’ve given you all this background information because one split second of the code club will forever stay in my heart.  The kids were hard at work coding their sprites to move about the screen and jump between backdrops.  They were laughing, joking, and trying to decide how to get the best story for our end of club showcase.  I looked over at one of the students who normally watches the video once and goes on to create, and they looked stumped – how was this going to work?  They didn’t have the video from the previous lesson, and this particular activity relied on the knowledge from it.  I started to walk over to help, and had to stop.  Another student who is one that can be quite reserved during our afternoons had jumped out of their seat and sprung into helper mode.  She was the guru.  She knew exactly what prompts to select to make it work.  She was helping her friend, and together they made it work.  I just watched with a smile.  My normally quiet little girl empowered by her knowledge was something that I love to see as a mom and as teacher. 

That is what it is all about.  Teaching everyone that they can do it, and all you have to do is try.  Even coding at 8 or 30 J

Kindergarten is BUSY!!!!

October 15, 2016

Apples, scarecrows, spiders oh my!   Fall is in the air with the enticing aroma of warm applesauce wafting through the halls of RAE.  Where is it coming from?    Kindergarten of course!   We have studied our five senses and are using a multi-sensory approach to build our schema about fall.  We began introducing the concept of schema (i.e., what you already know) by creating a yarn web right in the center of our circle time with the children anchoring the web points with various fall pictures.   We learned that we can increase our schema by reading books, having conversations with others and being involved in new experiences.   These web like connections in their brains are improved when the children have conversations and experiences during station time where the children can sharpen their academic and social skills while having fun! 

 Kindergarten also had a lot of fun during our recent fall festival!  We counted with spider rings, made pumpkin shapes using pattern blocks, played pumpkin bingo with letters and sounds, did spider spelling word puzzles, took scarecrow pictures, and made a spooky snack to highlight a few activities.    Parent volunteers came to help us out and a good time was had by all.

  I recently attended a workshop at Rice University on the importance of play.    It was refreshing to have scientific research to confirm what RAE kinder teachers already hold as a precious part of early childhood education.   Play promotes flexible thinking, social skills, higher cognitive function, vocabulary, and enhances executive function.   Future employers are not only looking for employees with academic abilities, but the ability to have flexible thinking and to get along with others.   We are preparing them for their future when we allow them to play.  

By the way, there was a sighting of Debby Johnson and Jennifer Perez rolling pumpkins down the hall last Friday, delivering the goods for our next kindergarten adventure!   Thank you ladies!  

1st grade and the Human Body!

First Graders at RAE just finished an awesome Health & Body Structures unit of study in Science.  The students learned about the brain, heart, lungs, and stomach.  This unit is always fun and interesting for the students, but this year it was even better.  Mrs. Nguyen and Mrs. Buller went to some professional development sessions over the summer and brought back some new and exciting ideas to RAE.  One was a paper bag vest project for the Health & Body Structures Unit.  Students brought in paper bag vests made at home.  In class, they used paper towel rolls with a baggies at the end (trachea/diaphragm), baggies with straws (lungs), and a pink paper heart to create a model of the respiratory system.  They were so engaged while creating the model and so excited to put it on later in the day when all the glue was dry.  It was a very memorable learning experience for all!