On the move

We participated in Hour of Code to celebrate Computer Science Education Week! Our students were among the 73, 188, 519 who tried coding this week. Even the Kindergartners tried coding. To learn more about the Hour of Coding and the benefits of computer science, visit  Code.org . Happy Coding!

Dan and I hung extra large number lines in the gym to track our school reading and math goals. We are aiming for 100,000,000 words read and 500,000 correctly completed math problems. We use Scholastic Reading Counts to track our words read and MobyMax to track the number of correct math problems. Each week I update the number lines. Starting my day on a ladder keeps things interesting. Our 6th graders have been charged with choosing a reward for the school. Last year we went to the Evergreen Aviation Museum. Who knows what we will do this year?

There are lots of amazing things going on at our school.  Here are a few highlights. The 6th grade classes are building 11 foot row boats. We have with Wind and Oar  through a collaboration the Portland Metro STEM Partnership  to make this opportunity possible for our students. I recently asked one of the 6th graders what he thought of the project. He sat up in his seat and declared, "I never thought I would ever build a boat in my life." The staff from Wind and Oar come to our school every Friday to work with the students on the boats. The students rotate through stations so that everyone has a chance to do this hands-on project. They work on boat design, boat construction and learning about the water cycle. The anticipated completion date will be in December.

Our school has gained a new benefit this year. We are an "Everyone Eats" school. This means breakfast and lunch are free for all students. This change has made our mornings busier as many more students are eating their breakfast at school. It is great to know that everyone has the opportunity to start their day with a full stomach. We also begin our school day with a morning assembly. Most mornings we keep the assembly short with just a quick message to get all of us "flying in formation." We then recite our school pledge and then stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance facing one of our large American flags. I enjoy seeing all of our students together in the morning saying the school pledge and showing reverence to our country. One of our 6th Graders reads to the Kindergarten students as they wait for the morning assembly to begin. This is just one example of our incredible school community.

We have exciting new learning opportunities and challenges happening at our school. The 6th Graders have embarked on a boat building challenge with the organization,  Wind and Oar Boat School .  The students move through 3 stations every Friday. The stations include boat design, boat construction and lessons on the water cycle. This project should be completed in December and will produce two full sized row boats. The sound of power tools is not the only buzz being generated in the 6th grade classrooms. Our Americorps Member has added a new challenge, chess club at lunch time. This club is for all levels of chess players. Many students are learning to play chess for the first time. It is great to see the students challenging themselves and to hear their conversations about the game of chess. I overheard one student say, "I've got checkmate." His friend replied, "Show me how you got there." What a great way for students to engage in sharing their strategie

I began this blog to chronicle my experience with our school program. I did this because I believe that the story of public education needs to be told by those of us who live it. Too often the story is told by outsiders, the media, researchers, bystanders. Their reporting does not tell the complete story and often times is negative. I am committing this space to telling the story of public education in a Title I school from my perspective and that of my students. The summer program was an amazing experience and I hope it inspires others to try to think outside the "inbox" when it comes to extending the school year. My plan for this blog is to continue to tell the story of our school. I am in a unique role this year of serving a class of Kindergarten students as their teacher and the rest of the school as an Instructional Coach. This blog will share the story of the entire school. I will create a separate blog for sharing my journey as a Kindergarten teacher. They deserve the

We celebrated our last day with popsicles, loteria and game time. We had a lot to celebrate. The Young Scholars of the Summer Program completed 24, 241 math problems. Over the 8 weeks over 60 students came to the summer program, with an average of over 30 students a day. We launched rockets, built tables, floated canoes, tested bridge designs and visited a virtual  farm. We read news articles and listened to stories in English and Spanish. I was fortunate to work with 3 wonderful professionals who supported and encouraged the students to work hard all summer. This program was an experiment in extending the school year for our students. I believe it was a success and I look forward to planning another summer program and expanding access to summer learning. Loteria with Jovanna

I challenged the students to invent something using an ordinary item, a paper cup. This idea came from the activity,  What can you make of it?  from the Chicago Children's Museum. I put the paper cup in a bag and told them I had a mystery item that we needed to investigate. I think some of them were a little disappointed when it was only a cup. We talked about which direction the cup should go and why. I have to say it was more difficult than I realized to push the students to think of other ways to use the cup. We passed out scissors for them to change the cup's structure and give it a new purpose. Once we allowed them to use tape, aluminium foil and straws their were able to think of new ideas. It could have also been just allowing more time for thinking and collaborating as well. I have to remind myself that there needs to be discomfort for new learning to happen. Ultimately the time was successful, students used their creativity to form the cup into other items. List of

A group of students and I learned how to use iMovie today. Of course the students were able to figure it out faster than I could. I was impressed that even though I could not lead them through the steps, they persevered. One of my students had asked to use stop motion to create her video trailer.  Here is the result. She did an excellent job capturing her ideas and working with another student. We had five fully finished trailers and a few movies projects started by the end of our work session. This project allowed some of my normally quiet students to show their creativity and talent. It definitely fulfilled the promise of technology being an engaging tool for students to demonstrate their learning.

It's hard to believe that we have reached the final week of our summer program. The beginning of school is just around the corner. Teachers have been coming into the building to prepare their classrooms. Our office staff returned today. I have been spending time in my classroom setting up and anticipating what my new class of kindergartners will be like. All of these signs of a new school year make me both excited and nervous. I am looking forward to seeing the results of the extra learning from the summer program. I will be comparing their math placement results and their Lexile level at the beginning of the year with their end of the year score. I asked the students to interview each other about the summer program. We brainstormed some questions to ask in the interviews. I modeled how to ask follow up questions based on what a person replied to the original question. We used the iPads to record the interviews. I explained that the purpose for videoing the interviews was to creat

Here are a few samples of student writing from their virtual field trips to different farms. This writing lesson offered the opportunity to compare and contrast two farms and get some typing practice. These paragraphs written in response to assignment given through MobyMax. I visited  the horse and wheat and farms. One thing that was the same about the two farms was they both have animals.  Another similarity about the two farms was they both have tractors.  There were some things that were different about the two farms also.  One of the differences was that one didn't have wheat.  Another difference was that some had grass and some didn't.  I learned a lot visiting these farms. The Two Farms are similar the animals live on a farms. People take care of the animals. In Virginia the have dairy farms.Wheat is on many kinds of bread,cookies,tortillas and they grow Wheat in Virginia the two farms i visit where really helpful so i got to learn many new things on these two farms.

Today the students went on a virtual field to visit a farm. They made this trip via the website  4-H Virtual Farm . The students could choose from 6 different types of farms to visit. Their task after visiting the farms was to compare and contrast two of the farms in a writing assignment on  MobyMax .  The students have until tomorrow to complete their writing assignments. I am looking forward to reading about their visits in their own words.

The students created 3-dimensional shapes from 2-dimensional paper. We used an activity from Exploratorium called  Cut-Fold-Staple . I modeled the template and first round of cutting with the students. We made predictions about what the shape would look like when it was unfolded. From the student responses I could discern that most of the students could conceptualize what the shape would look like unfolded. It was more challenging for them to choose their own shape to create. There were lots of tiny shapes and a few without a straight edge.  I introduced the concept of rotational symmetry and reflections. The students then used Educreations to label the line of symmetry on their shape. I was excited to see one of the quietest students share her labeled photo with the whole group. She often declines to work on group projects or share her ideas so it was a big step to speak in front of others.

In our program we have students in grades ranging from 1st to 8th. We are fortunate to have 4 adults working with the students so our student to adult ratio is low. This has allowed us to provide support one on one or in small groups. For example I read a story with the 1st and 2nd graders today and there were 8 students. I was able to ask comprehension questions and solicit responses from all of the students. A group of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders were able to work on an informational text and comprehension questions with another teacher. We were able to check in with all the students to set their math goal for the week. We were also able to use technology for individualized math practice and support as needed. We have worked to create a balance between the relaxed, informal atmosphere and still working hard to learn and practice skills. The hands-on projects have generated excitement and authentic learning opportunities. It is my hope to continue project-based learning in my classroom

This week I put out a basket of dominoes on a table in the library. I invited a group of students to make domino trains. I was not sure how this "old school" activity would compete with using the computers and iPads. The students were excited to try their hand at this activity. There were many groans and cheers as the dominoes would fall over and knock into each other. I even attempted an English Language Development lesson on cause and effect with this activity. We generated sentences based what happened with the dominoes. It was definitely a concrete way to demonstrate cause and effect. I could push the students to be more specific with describing the cause and then the effect. What a simple and engaging activity that produced authentic learning opportunities!

We used the  File Card Bridges Activity  from  Exploratorium.edu  to build bridges. The level of excitement and engagement during this activity was contagious. There was an air of friendly competition to see whose bridge would support the largest amount of pennies. The students' experience with prior engineering design projects prompted the students to be strategic with their load distribution on the bridges. I had to challenge them to test the load capacity of the center of the bridge. The final bridge design was a corrugated bridge. The students expressed disbelief at how this design would work. They were surprised to see that the folded paper support the largest amount of pennies. I then showed them a cross-section of a piece of corrugated cardboard to make a connection between their bridge design and a real-world application. A side bar in this activity mentioned a full-sized paper bridge that supported a car. I plan to show the newspaper photo from the story tomorrow. I am

The students created characters in Scratch yesterday and then wrote a description of their characters. We took a picture of their characters on the screen. I then uploaded the photos to my Google drive to create a URL address that I used to create a QR code. From there I copied the text they wrote and paired it with the QR code. Whew! It was definitely a multiple step process. When I do this again I will do it with smaller batches of writing projects. The benefits of trying this during the summer is I have more time to experiment with new ideas. I posted the students' writing and QR codes along the walls of the computer lab. I explained to the students that good readers build a picture in their head from the words that they read. Their job was to read the description of the Scratch character and picture it in their head. They could then scan the QR code to see if the picture in their head matched the picture of the character. Some of the descriptions were stronger then others as

I started our class today by having all the students view this blog on the web. It was fun to hear their reactions to seeing all the activities we have done this summer. I asked the students who they thought wrote the blog entries and took the pictures. They knew it was me. I then invited two students to be reporters for the day so that they could add their words to the blog. Scratch By Izselle Today kids at McKinney Elementary are creating a character on Scratch. Danna's Report By Danna We made characters.

 We had another successful day of canoe testing. All of the canoes floated and were able to hold a load of pennies. We had one canoe hold 74 pennies before it sank. The students were able to reflect upon their designs and had ideas for how to improve their canoes. We could probably spend another week building more canoes. I may leave out the supplies in case some students would like to try again. I love watching their reactions as they anticipate when their canoe may sink from the load of pennies. There is a mixture of celebration and disappointment once the canoes take on water and sink. Next week we will try building bridges with index cards, possibly some gardening and writing about the characters they create in Scratch. The summer is going quickly and there is still so many ideas to try and learning to do. I am excited that our average daily attendance went up this week. I also received feedback from a parent this week. I have to admit I was a little nervous when she appr

Students tested the canoes in the "lakes". All of the canoes that were tested met the 5 seconds float test. All of the canoes were able to hold a load of pennies. The largest load held before the canoe was 67 pennies! Students pondered their designs and how to improve them. Here are some of the recommendations: Using water proof glue Sealing the joints with additional aluminum foil Not using so much tape Spread the pennies out, load distribution It took some prompting questions but they were able to reflect on their design. There was an initial disappointment when the canoe sank. I had to remind them that failure is part of the engineering process. The testing of the canoes also provided an opportunity to use vocabulary. If I did this project again I would target the vocabulary and language form and functions with this experience. Verb tense, cause and effect are easily supported by this activity. I think the hands on activity makes the language usage more meaningful. I look

Canoe Construction began today. Our Young Scholars attempted to take their 2D desgins into 3D. One question I received early was, "Does it have to look like the picture?" I replied that changing the design is part of the engineering process. The students also ran into the challenge of limited resources. I only a few pieces of wood scraps available. The students then had to configure their designs to the resources available and with the tools available. I am very curious how many of the canoes will float. There were large amounts of tape and glue involved in the construction phase. We will continue construction tomorrow and test the canoes in water. The library was a busy and energetic place to be today. We even had visitors. Ms. Acuna and Ms. Rasmussen from the district office came to see our summer program. It was a perfect day to see the students deep into the engineering process. Our new principal, Mr. Welch arrived today as well. The students were eager to share their des

Week 5! We had a few more new faces today. It is exciting to see our Young Scholars. The best comment I heard today was from a student when I asked him if he was ready to go home, he emphatically replied, "No!" Everyday I try to strike a balance between keeping the students engaged and pushing them to work hard. Today we balanced by setting MobyMax goals, working in groups to design model canoes and investigating new games on the iPads. Tomorrow the canoe designs move off the paper and into reality.

I am taking it as a positive sign that we are halfway through our summer program and there is still tons of positive energy. Mrs. Gonzalez and Ms. Ayala's phone calls resulted in 5 new students today! We are expecting even more new students on Monday. My hope is that we can bring the average daily attendance to 40 students. This article affirmed our purpose for the summer program and pushing the students to work on their math skills in addition to reading. http://www.vox.com/2014/7/13/5891583/summer-slide-achievement-gap-vacation I am looking forward to comparing their end of the year MobyMax math placement with their beginning of the year placement test score. Plans for next week... Model canoes, gardening, writing a Scratch character description and an art project 

We used the Create a Graph feature of the NCES Kid's Zone webpage to graph the results of our straw rocket launches. I worked with the 3rd through 8th graders for this graphing project. For some students this was an introduction to graphing and others were more comfortable and organized their data before entering it. We talked some basic ideas of range and the median. Here are a few more questions we asked about the data. Using the data, what distance would you predict a straw rocket would go? If you were building a straw rocket, who would you choose as your partner? Why? Why is it better to use a bar graph instead of a scatter plot for this data? Entering the data was a slow process for some of the younger students. It was still worth the time to walk them through the process. They were very proud of the graphs when they created. The website was easy to use and I would definitely use with students again. I think if it was a regular part of classroom instruction they wo

We used the  Straw Rocket Aeronautics Activity  to launch rockets in the library! The simple design was accessible for all the students to participate. Our rocket flight distances ranged from 130 cm to 581 cm. I modified the activity to only measuring the distances of the flights. We did not change the cone design or length. Tomorrow we will use the data to create graphs using  Create a Graph from NCES .

We began our week by revisiting our goals from last week and setting new ones for this week. As a group they have solved almost 7500 math problems! I read the book, Tomas and the Library Lade by Pat Mora and illustrated by Raul Colon. I focused on listening comprehension. As I read the story, I stopped at points to have the students draw a picture of what they heard and then I would show them the pictures in the book. The students used Educreations  on the iPads to draw their pictures. I had them partner share their pictures and then I asked them about their pictures. I want to try this again with a shorter piece of text that we can read two times, once to enjoy the story and then the second time for comprehension. The students wanted to hear the story and it was difficult to stop the story to draw a picture and keep track of the story line. Mrs. Crowell played a math game with the students that challenged their multiplication and addition skills. I overheard one student say &q

It is hard to believe that 3 weeks of the summer program have already passed. We are averaging about 30 students in grades 1st through 8th a day. I would love to have more students come but it is also great to spend extra time with the students who do come. Nothing matches the look of pride on a student's face when they meet or exceed a goal they set. I had the opportunity to see this look of pride multiple times this week. The students took great pride in meeting the challenge of building a newspaper table. There were definitely moments of frustration and a couple even walked away from the project. My oldest students initially gave up when their design could not hold as many books as one of the other tables. I had one of those great teacher moments when they walked back into the room and stated, "we've done some planning and we are ready to try again." They still were not able to build a table better than the one that held 22 books but they impressed themselves with

After yesterday's successful day of building, we challenged the students to see how many books their table would hold. I reviewed the concepts of trusses and load distribution, using pictures of bridges and their tables. The review of these concepts prompted one student to ask, "Why suspension bridges are longer than truss bridges?" My response was that would be a great question to research and share the answer with the whole group. The students eagerly took on the challenge of reinforcing their designs to hold more books. I was also happy to see students who had passed on building yesterday decide to join in the design process today. It definitely looked like chaos at times but there was an amazing energy in the room. Winning design held 22 textbooks! Our next step tomorrow is to write about the design process. I hope the level of engagement carries over into their writing.

The students constructed tables out of newspaper and cardboard. The only requirement for the table was that it needed to be able to hold a heavy book. This activity came from the  PBS Design Squad  video of DIY Paper Table. I saw an impressive amount of creativity and collaboration as the students worked. Tomorrow we will challenge the student to improve their designs to see how many books their table can hold. We will also write about this design experience and post the writing to this blog.

I used Scratch to introduce the coordinate grid to students. This primarily and exploratory lesson since most of the students have not been exposed to integers. I had a few middle school students who could understand and apply the information right away. I then challenged the students to include at least 4 scripts with coordinates in them. The students still enjoy making backgrounds and changing the sprites best but I am working a little math in when I can. The first and second graders and I added to our addition compendium. We found examples of addition from the stories I have read aloud over the last two weeks. Tomorrow I hope to add examples with word not just equations to practice the addition vocabulary. I also challenged the students to set a new math goal in MobyMax as well as a reading goal in either MobyMax, Newsela or Reading Counts.