Teach.Travel.Find.Design

I'm writing to you from Apgar Village, Glacier National Park, enjoying my "Mid-Winter Break."  The snow is falling steadily but gently.  I always say it snows here, "the way it's supposed to." Due to the break, we had a short week and early-out yesterday.  I think it goes without saying that the week flew by. On Tuesday, we retested our Reading Mastery students on their ISIP tests.  While a break-down of the results showed improvement in vocabulary and spelling, not enough gains were made in text fluency and comprehension to move students to the next tier.  We are still seeing slow and steady growth but when you look at the results in black and white, it does not look good. So, what are we doing to help these kids?  We have added a read-aloud to the reading block, incorporating the technique of "Fast Mapping."  In cognitive psychology, fast mapping is learning a new concept after a brief exposure.  What does that mean?!  When we rea...

As I mentioned before, I was invited by another second grade teacher, Ms. Taylor, to participate in a Web Seminar between her class and a class in Ghana.  Mr. Tucker, our technology coordinator, was on hand to ensure everything went smoothly.  And it did.  As the call came through, a hush fell over Ms. Taylor's students.  Once we established contact, students timidly waved and said, "Hi!" It was a brand new experience for all of us and I watched with tears in my eyes as the students communicated each other.  It was an example of technology at its finest, connecting students in rural Montana to a small country in Africa. I sat in with Ms. Taylor's class during the question and answer session that took place after the presentations and therefore did not take any video during that time.  Also, I apologize for the quality, some parts are a little fuzzy but I think the point still comes across.  Mr. Tucker also made a video and I will share it if I can....

Wow.  I am overwhelmed at the moment.  In approximately 30 minutes, I must rest my weary eyes for 8 hours and then wake-up to the start of Week 7. Week 6 was jam-packed with events. Monday marked the 100th Day of School.  During Math, Ms. Grant planned an awesome activity:  the students counted out 100 Fruit Loops and created a pattern with the different colors and made necklaces.  The students were each assigned to bring 100 m & m's, 100 peanuts, 100 raisins, etc. and we made a class trail mix.  Great fun celebrating 100 Days of School! After all that fun, the students received beads on Tuesday morning to celebrate Mardi Gras.  Also, on Tuesday, we began integrating a read-aloud into our morning Reading Block.  This particular morning I was reading "Baby Whales Drink Milk" and the students were telling me what warm-blooded and cold-blooded meant in their own words.  One student said, "Warm-blooded is when the temperature chang...

So I had to resort to making a screen recording of the Google Earth tour, I cannot remember (or figure out) how to publish a Google Earth Tour directly to YouTube. If anyone has the answer, please, please, PLEASE let me know!!!

I've dedicated my Sunday evening to trying to figure out how to publish my Google Earth Tour from Browning Elementary School to the Guiyang #4 Experimental Primary School.  I will use the tour as part of a lesson on China that I'm teaching this week.  Unfortunately, I'm not as tech savvy as I think I am AND I've been distracted by the Grammy's - The Black Keys and Jack White were amazing and I love, love, loved the Lumineers! Anyways, I hope to kick off Week 6 by having this tour up here by tomorrow evening.  We'll see if I can figure this out without calling Google!

Week 5's Excitement:  TOMS shoe drop! All of the students at Browning Elementary received a pair of TOMS boots!  The kids loved them and reported they were warm and comfy.  Perfect timing as we are forecasted to get some snow! Thank you to everyone who buys TOMS, supporting their One for One campaign.   Here's a link to the TOMS blog if you're interested: http://blog.toms.com

Tuesday was Tia's Birthday and her mom brought in cupcakes AND ice cream. What fun!

Reading, Reading, Reading Ms. Grant has added a new part of Reading Mastery to the opening block.  The students each have notebooks and for 10 minutes, we practice spelling sounds, tapping the sounds in words and most importantly, the students write the sounds and words.  The students have been engaged and this practice is enhancing their spelling and decoding abilities and it's only been one week! While on the subject of reading, we rested our students on ISIP.  We are still waiting to analyze the results but we were able to see that all of our students improved, however, they did not score high enough to move to the next level.  A few students were only one point away so they will definitely make it next month.  The data is a double-edged sword.  When taking a close look at individual student's scores, we can see slow and steady improvement.  Unfortunately, when OPI takes a look at the data, they are seeing the scores in black and white and to th...

I decided to stay on the Hi-line this weekend and spent time making flash cards and grading papers!  I felt like a real teacher! As I've mentioned in previous posts, we have several students that struggle with reading.  The students that struggle the most are the ones that struggle to make it to school on time or even at all.  These are the kids that are the most challenging to work with and the ones that need help the most.  When you have students who miss multiple classes in a row, how do you maximize your time with them when they are present? We have one student who has missed many days of school and on the days she makes it, is frequently late and misses Reading Mastery, the first block of the day.  Ms. Grant has a sight word flash card deck and we decided that any spare moment with this student would be spent working on sight words.  This little girl is now in the habit of coming to me and saying "Can we do the cards?"  One day, I wasn't able ...