TBT Kinder Research

We've only just started ... but we're starting out pretty similarly to a couple years ago.

In some classes we read this book (in others we just used Pebble Go) and

even though it's totally 80s we also watched this video.

We talked about all the different tools we'd seen in the book and video. 

Then we filled out these note pages.

The font is Kimberly Geswein. The firefighters are from Digital Bake Shop. The book is from Scrappin Doodles and the computer is from Ashley Hughes.

Not sure if I will still use this next time or not. Reading the first few pages seemed to work well last time. 

Now one "problem" we have is that I weeded a bunch of the old, outdated job books last spring in our renovation ... thinking I would order new ones this fall. Then this fall we had ... budget issues to work out and didn't get any book money for a while ... so that order hasn't come in yet. May be totally Pebble Go this time round. Limits their jobs a bit but what else can be done?

Thinking ... still have to cross check. But with a mini-grant last year we got some Duplo figures of people with jobs. If any of those happen to be the same jobs on Pebble Go we could do something fun. 

If you are interested this post also has a few more kinder job research organizers.

Guided Inquiry with 2nd Graders

So I just finished day two of our district activity. I'm excited for the activities a second grade teacher and I have planned so far.

If you aren't familiar with this model ... it's a little different in that you actually take make the time for students to get immersed into the subject BEFORE deciding on a question. Time is always an issue and we've all been guilty of "here are your questions now go find your answers." Of course they consider copying ... why would they care? But how can they know to care when a student doesn't have any background knowledge or experience with a topic?

 We'll work harder than usual to connect students ... to meet them halfway between the curriculum and their personal interests in what the authors of the model call the "third space." The pilot schools that tried it last year had great things to say so I am interested to see how this will go.

Our overall big idea is INTERDEPENDENCE. How things we do affect the environment and how the environment affects us. As it will be really an on and off year long activity we're tying it in with manmade and natural resources, habitats, and endangered animals ... all science standards they would be covering anyway. Immersing the kids in the topic BEFORE we start reading we'll also use rainforest, endangered animals, deforestation, and pollution themed fiction and non-fiction texts and media to cover English and Language Arts standards. We also thought we'd try to tie in some math with tallying and graphing recycling around our school ... how much of it happens or doesn't happen.

Once we figure it all out. The coolest, most comprehensive and coherent cross curricular activities take some advance thinking, don't they!


I never saw this movie. But we thought it might be one of the introductory activities ... during rainy recesses or as a "reward" over several days of "lunch in the classroom" with a teacher. I would say "lunch in the library" but because of our location (hallway, every class has to go through us to get to the cafeteria which is only 15 feet down the hall and only has glass walls to contain noise) right around lunchtime is not particularly conducive to learning or attention. :X Save it whenever possible for just open checkout and running out to classrooms to try to "fix" things or small groups with very focused at a table work.



Would be even COOLER to Skype but hello ... rain forest and Skype not necessarily perfect partners. Still looking around to see what's available and what's not already totally overwhelmed with requests.

Then there is a Marcus Pfister book (think Rainbow Fish) called The Yellow Cab that looks like it's right on our topic. The reviews are a bit lukewarm ... no one LOVES it OR majorly DISLIKES it. We'll see.

Anyone have any ideas? Or doing anything remotely similar where the kids might have fun chatting?

Busting Myths

Great possibilities for a project with a 5th grade class today. Execution ... not as much.

Taking what was called "urban legends or old wives' tales", researching background information, then actually experimenting to prove/disprove these myths.

1) Why must all the background knowledge be obtained in one 50 minute session? Pretty hard to do in one session.
2) Why can kiddos, no matter what you say, not think to do anything but go to google and ask "Will soda dissolve a steak?" or "Does exercising at night make it hard to sleep?" or "Will crossing your eyes make them stick that way?" Or may favorite "Does dropping a utensil mean a guest will be visiting?"

I didn't have any idea of what they would be specifically researching until about 20 minutes before they got there.

Is that why I am frustrated? Cause it was vaguely planned idea from the get go? So many hours spent on can kiddos bubble in a test ... and yet when push comes to shove they haven't a clue how to problem solve. Look up "digestion" or "eyesight"? I just wanted to help because this teacher had never asked for anything before.

Also it was SO HOT in the library today. I probably sweated off 10 pounds. I hope the book bugs don't come back. #causethatwasgross




What a grump. More fun ...

I have been weeding like CRAZY. Teachers and parents think I'm nuts. They don't realize that as they go to the shelves and things are less crowded and more orderly they are finding things much more quickly and easily. We may not have one specific book ... but what we do have looks nice. And we are rearranging our everybody section a bit. The non-fic was separate but in Dewey order. We separated them and I made some shelf labels that we'll see if it helps the kids find things more independently (also maybe help with time spent reshelving). What I can't decide is how to "label" the books so we don't have to redecide every time "we put that in transportation and community helpers" or "we put that in space and our planet." I also pulled all of the "reader" type books (think tall and skinny, if nothing else) and put them in a browsing cart. All day kids thought it was full of new books (even though hello, some of them look decidedly already much loved). How to label those as well, when they're not on a shelf in alpha order? The browsing cart has 6 different compartments on top and bottom.

Do you have any books on papayas?

Had a teacher come to me today all excited. "You'll never guess what my kids want to research. Never." "I give," I told her. "What?" "FRUIT!"


Fruit?

Source: bqfy.info via Karen on Pinterest

These are second graders. Most of them cannot independently navigate, read, or comprehend most of World Book Kids. Pebble Go doesn't have anything.

In terms of print resources we have a few books on apples. One Gail Gibbons on berries. And then  plant books and books on healthy eating.



Does ANYONE have an idea of something we could do that would NOT be copying interesting facts out of the few books I did find? SO not interested in that kind of project. But ... I do no think we have the age appropriate resources for like "design a fruit garden where something will be ready to harvest every month" or even "what kind of fruits grow best here in Texas?" She found the hole in our collection.

I hate to say no. But ... I would foresee a lot more success with something like animals or even a place they wanted to visit. Or an important person. Fruit? Yes, we need to give kids some leeway in choosing their topic. But when they choose something like this ...

Help me think this through if you can!

Finished Kinder Research

Here are some examples of what the kiddos did. I think they're super cute.

And of course none of the ones you see here are in this packet (didn't pay attention and by chance the examples were ones I didn't have the right to share the files) ... but here you go.

Kinder Community Helpers Research

DOUBLE POST IN ONE DAY WARNING! #bloggernono

Super simple but hey it WORKED! I cannot always say that about my attempts with kinder. But I can't take credit. Two colleagues came up with the idea. I just put my spin on it.

Last week we read this book and

watched this video.

We talked about all the different tools we'd seen in the book and video. 

Then we filled out these note pages.

The font is Kimberly Geswein. The firefighters are from Digital Bake Shop. The book is from Scrappin Doodles and the computer is from Ashley Hughes.

This week? We read the first few pages of this book. Could have skipped it but it was a fun intro and the kids liked it.

Then the kiddos worked with a partner. Their job was to find 5 different tools in the pictures of the books they were looking at. Know what I discovered? One: our "job" books need updating! The TV reporter book showed the reporter carrying around a giant tape cassette recorder. The doctor and astronaut computers were HUMONGOUS. Two: Kinders don't always work so well in partners. But Three? Three: They are so cute. They come up with some of the funniest ideas and reasons for each tool. Most of 'em were spot on, too.

Stick around. You might get more of our notepages next week. And maybe a shot or two of the kiddos in action. If Ms. O gets her act together and remembers to take some.

Biography Research Part 1

I am still a bad blogger who doesn't have any pictures of kids in action. Or in the case of today's posts even of examples. #notsogreatwiththeorganization :/

We'll start with two activities that we've done past Februarys, because they involve presidents or famous African Americans. Both were completed with second grade

The first promotes timeline skills. We've varied it a bit from year to year but the basis has pretty much always started with materials from the H.I.P. Pocket Change site. It's old now ... started with the new quarters ... but I like it.

Lincoln Penny

Some years we've directly used their penny images. Even read their info. Kids didn't do much but color the page and put the pennies into chronological order according to his life but hey, that's a start.

Other years we've used the David Adler picture biography. I gave them sentences and dates (cut apart) and they had to work together to match up the date and the sentence. They would glue the sentence on the bottom of an orange piece of construction paper. Then they'd cut out the outline of a penny (is it terrible I did that? Used their outline but covered up the picture inside, so that all that copied was the "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ONE CENT E PLURIBUS UNUM"?) and illustrate their date/sentence. Then they would display the illustrations in timeline order outside their classroom. If I can't find the file with the sentences or I'd share. :/


Washington Dollar
The general activity idea was the same. They had to match up dates and sentences from a David Adler picture book biography. Glued them on the bottom of a piece of green construction paper. To be honest I don't remember where I got the general outline for a dollar. Thought it was on the H.I.P. site but apparently not. Anyway. That was copied minus the center picture. Kids illustrated their sentence inside the oval on the dollar image and then worked together to put their sentences (ie Washington's life) in chronological order.



For Black History Month we started with an adapted organizer from Mailbox.
Some years they were completed independently. Others it was more of a group activity. Sometimes it was a challenge to find enough simple biographies that the kiddos could read them. Now that we have PebbleGo it's not an issue! Though computers working always are. :/

Some years it's just been the organizer. Other years we then took that info and wrote a short paragraph and designed a commemorative stamp with a picture of their person.

This year we are using these. I don't want to become a walking advertisement but that is what we used! The cover page prettier than when I first pinned this but I don't want to be an annoying person who even repins their own stuff.

My favorite part was the little girl who was studying Martin Luther King, Jr. Her thing that was the same or different about his life and hers? "He made good speeches and I like to speak." She was cute. She MC-ed our school talent show. Second grade!

Writing to Explore: Discovering Adventure in the Research Paper

That is a mouthful of a title, is it not?

Writing to Explore: Discovering Adventure in the Research Paper, 3-8 by David Somoza




I think this book may be this summer's Wonder (loved that one and need another reading of it, I think, to truly implement it as I wanted to ... but will I make that time? We'll see! Seems sort of sad to reread a professional book when there are so many others that I haven't gone back and enjoyed again but ...)

This was written by a former architect turned fifth grade teacher. He read his student's writing and just ... wasn't excited by it. THEY weren't excited by it and that was part of the problem.

I wish I could say the teacher librarian was mentioned extensively in this book as a collaborator and contributor to the project. I do not know if the school just didn't have one, or the author did not want to work with him or her (or even worse, vice versa!), or what happened.

Not once did I see the word library.

That said? This project sounds like so much fun! And the results are amazing. I would LOVE to try this--just not sure how to ever convince a teacher to devote that much time. Ten year old students learn to integrate facts they gleaned from searching the internet along with questions and creativity from their own minds. I don't know that I would actually call it a research paper per se ... although what would that mean differently? The kids cite their sources. They use multiple sources. They use their own words and ideas guided by experts. Inside the book the author calls it an adventure essay which just seems more appropriate. They choose a state and some sort of quest ... then they look for information that will build the story along the way. History, landforms, roads, hotels, flights, animals, weather. You name it. He couldn't keep doing it if his kiddos' test scores were not acceptable, right? So frustrating that time is always determined by test scores. What will they remember more as they grow older. This project and the pride they took in its creation? Or X number of days spent on test prep workbooks and practice benchmarks?

At one point Mr. Lourie mentions hearing a "well-intentioned, overworked" librarian say that Fiction begins with an F and we can use "fake" to remember that. Fiction=Fake. Non-fiction=real. Or, perhaps I would be clearer to say that he did NOT agree with said statement as even stories must be based in real interactions between characters or the environment. That's true. Will have to remember that for next year because I could be guilty of saying the same thing myself. Oops. :/

Examples of different handouts are in the appendix.





Here's an Edutopia article about a school visit by Mr. Lourie.
How odd that this review is longer than any I've written in a long while. I guess it's because I totally cannot remember where I heard about this book from and didn't really see much in the way of reviews online for it. I quite enjoyed it and can't believe it sat on my shelf for almost a year.

Animal Research & (of course) Bookmarks

Second grade's been hard at work learning about different animals and designing new zoo habitats where the animals would be happy and healthy.

Somewhat in honor of that fact ... jungle animal bookmarks. You can get your own copy of the clip art at Scrappin Doodles.

And ocean animal bookmarks. These came from KPM Doodles' Etsy store.

If you can't tell ... we are closing in on spring break, bookfair, and testing season. My mind needs easy stuff. ;]