I'm Back!

I have spent the last two years focused deeply on my classroom -- on making things better, finding inspiration (looking at you, Terri Eicholz!), and creating a learning space that I would be excited and proud to share.

This year, I've dipped my toe into the next level as a teacher, (how's that for mixing metaphors?), providing professional development to other teachers. 

It's been terrifying. And thrilling.

Today, I spent the morning with a dear friend creating a pitch to present at next year's SXSW EDU. We want to take what we've learned from Making in our classrooms and translate it into something teachers can use in ALL classrooms.

To find out more, check out our video. 

And stay tuned -- Ed Remix has lots of ideas, just waiting to be shared.

Creative Chaos

My classroom is an utter disaster area. So bad, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies. With our showcase two short weeks away, my kids are in full creation mode.

It doesn't help that two of my fifth graders have chosen to study Rube Goldberg machines for their Genius Hour projects, and have been constructing a roller-coaster like device that incorporates marble runs, dominoes, K'nex, LEGOs, Snap Circuits and cocktail umbrellas -- among other materials. I believe its purpose is to ring a bell.

I have, strewn around my room right now, a miniature physics museum for kids, a student-invented air cannon and more robots than the entire Transformer movie franchise.

Posters and tri-folds are tucked away in a corner; LEGO movie sets are hiding on high shelves (to keep kindergarten fingers away).

I have had kids begging to work on their projects at lunch, at recess, before school and after school. I promised my second-graders, who have lunch bunch tomorrow (a time set aside only once every two weeks for stories and bonding), that we'd make it a "working lunch" so they could keep typing up their research.

They are so engaged because of choice. I've already written about the LEGO robot dinosaurs. With my third through fifth graders, I've jumped on the Genius Hour bandwagon. Basically, they got to choose any topic or skill they were passionate about, then researched it to present at our GT showcase. 

I created a rubric to ensure quality projects (we've talked a lot about quality this year), and they are definitely rising to the challenge.  Will every kid finish an amazing project? Probably not -- I wish I had the key to motivating 100 percent of my kids, but I'm still learning what makes some of them tick.

Still, this year's showcase products are amazing me right now -- and we still have two more weeks to see what they come up with.

I just need to look at all that chaos, take deep breaths, and keep reminding myself of that.

Growing Storytellers

"I wrote a chapter book!"

This pronouncement, unexpected from the lips of a first-grader, made me smile. She had taken to our latest project with gusto, and had been writing on Storybird for hours.

This fantastic website was shared by a friend last year, but has really taken off with my storytelling group this semester. (For more great tech ideas, check out Cristina Popescu's blog "Think Appy Thoughts!")

Basically, the website provides the artwork, and your students pick the picture that inspires them. They can write poems, chapter books or picture books, and can even "publish" their stories to share.

The basic level of the website is free, and teachers can sign up 30 students (after that they have to pay for subscriptions). It's also safe: Teachers can moderate all stories and comments that their students make, and any stories published in the public realm are moderated by the website's team for family-friendliness.

I shared Storybird with the teachers on our campus, and the first grade teachers decided to sign their classes up. One of their students enjoyed writing so much, she authored the picture book "How to Write a Book on Storybird."

Although I'm using it in class with younger elementary students, I can see this working with kids through high school -- or even adults. 

I'm personally working on a children's chapter book right now -- it's pretty rough, but I promised my students that if they're writing, then I would, too. They love being able to see my writing take shape, and giving me suggestions on it.

Enjoy!

Curing Done-itis

For the past few months, I've been working with small groups of first and second graders, helping them to learn the ancient art of storytelling.

I call it storytelling, and not simply writing, because writing, at least in school, has been reduced all too often into a boring, drill and kill skill. Being able to turn that skill into a story, however, is an art (plus, kids are much more excited to learn "storytelling" than plain old "writing.")

I started with Mensa for Kids' storytelling packet. I turned their introduction article into a video, then played Robert Munch reading his Paper Bag Princess.

The kids were hooked.

We practiced our voices and movements, then learned about the story mountain (and I mentioned they would learn later it's called the "plot diagram.")

Finally, time for the writing. I found "Yolanda the Yarnspinner" in the Primary Education Thinking Skills books. She talks of using "colorful language" to tell a good story, encouraging kids to use words like "billowing" and "sparkles."

I turned them loose with sentence starters: "The baby cried" and "The dog barked."  

Then came what I had been afraid of.

"I'm done!" one munchkin announced, about 5 minutes into her writing. "Me, too!" another exclaimed.

I had to act fast.

"Oh, my friends," I announced in a dramatic voice. "I think you have that disease. That terrible disease."

I shook my head.

"What disease?" one asked, completely hooked.

"Done-itis," I pronounced. "You think you can rush and rush and yell 'I'm done!'"

I hammed it up. "I'm done! I'm done!" I yelled in silly voices.

They giggled.

"Do you think Robert Munch -- the guy who wrote the Paper Bag Princess -- rushed through his story and yelled 'I'm done!'"

"Noooooo," they chorused.

"Nope," I agreed. "Or do you think he wrote, and he thought about it, then wrote some more, then thought some more, then wrote again -- and finally, finally, after lots and lots of work, he leaned back, smiled and nodded, and announced, 'Yes, I am done.'"

They nodded. Yup, that's exactly what he must have done, they concluded.

"So, my friends," I asked. "Are you really done? Or do you still have more thinking to do?"

They smiled and turned back to their writing, and for another ten minutes (an eternity in a 6-year-old's world), my room was silent as eight little hands put pencil to paper. I got stories of alien mothers and snowman babies, robbers and werewolves.  Stories they were proud of. Stories they were excited to share. Stories that they knew they had put some hard thought into -- and stories that, when they were done, were really, truly done.

Sure, Guys, We Can Make a Robot Dinosaur Out of LEGOs...

   A few months ago, I was having lunch with my second graders (I do this with every GT group, every other week). 
   And I asked them, "What ideas do you have for our next project?"
   "Oooh! We should do dinosaurs!"
   "Robots!"
   "Learn to blow stuff up!"
   "Basketball -- we should learn about basketball!"
   "LEGOs! I love to make stuff with LEGOs!"
   I took a deep breath, preparing to settle them down a bit, when one of the boys (it's an all-boys group), piped up. "Guys, guys -- we can make this a win/win."
I sat back in my chair and listened as this 7-year-old negotiated a project that every single kid was on board with.
   "We can make a robot, out of LEGOs, in the shape of a dinosaur -- and it can throw a basketball!" he said. (You will notice that even the 7-year-old knew the blowing-stuff-up option was a no-go.)
   "Yeah!" "Yeah!"
   Then seven sets of big eyes turned to me. "Can we do that, Mrs. Zepeda?"
   And I was so impressed at the level of conversation, and their use of Covey's 7 Habits to listen and negotiate with each other, that I said,

   "Sure, guys, we can make a robot dinosaur out of LEGOs."

   Now, to figure out how...

Putting the "F-word" Back in School

"Oh, your kids really have fun, don't they?"

I've been asked this question, or versions of it, more times than I can count over the past year as a GT facilitator, in tones ranging from wistfulness to sneer. And I reply, "Yes, they do -- and they think hard, too."

Because really, people, what's wrong with a little fun in school?

I'm thinking of this after spending an hour watching my fifth graders just have fun today. We were supposed to teleconference with NASA, but due to technological difficulties, had to reschedule. Which left me a classroom of fifth graders and an unscheduled hour.

Pentago

"Free choice!" I called out, deciding to give them their Christmas present early. They scattered -- LEGOs, chess, marble runs. Some chose new challenges, like Pentago or In a Pickle. Others went to old favorites -- Quoridor and Quirkle.

To be honest, I struggled with this decision -- was I wasting an hour? What would their teachers -- strapped for time with the stress of state testing in three subjects -- say if they found out?

Then I stepped back and just watched. Part of our district's mission statement reads: "...ISD,where we encourage collaboration and communication, [and] promote critical thinking..."

In their play, my students were embracing all three of those district goals. So yes, they were having fun. And thinking -- a lot.

Releasing Creativity

My classroom is a mess this afternoon.

Paint spots on the table, clay fingerprints on the counter. A spare goggly eye stares sightlessly from under a chair where it fell, and small pieces of yarn have attached themselves to the carpet. Space critters in various stages of completeness dry on top of the bookshelves (safe from curious fingers).

I am exhausted, but must smile as I survey this scene, the culmination of a weeks-long study into outer space. We launched it all back in September with this great Reading Rainbow video, followed up with IIM research into chosen planets.  Then my third-graders had to create annotated diagrams of space creatures and exploration vehicles that would be specially adapted to their chosen planets.

As we worked through the research and planning process, I quickly realized my students' pacing was all over the place. I didn't want to hold back the fast workers, or frustrate the more thorough thinkers by hurrying them. So I drew on this summer's Langford training and created a modified capacity matrix, so kids could track their own progress through the project -- and know what's coming next.

I love that this project has been a blend of research skills and divergent, creative thinking. Now, to clean up the creative mess.