Magical Milk

THIS IS AN AWESOME ACTIVITY!

You will need:

-Milk (whole is preferable, or 2%)

-Food coloring

-Shallow dish or bowl

-Dish soap

-Toothpick or q-tip

Pour milk into the shallow dish or bowl so that the bottom is completely covered. Next, add a few drops of food coloring, about 2-4 drops of each color.

You can add the dish soap right to the center of the milk, or you can dab a toothpick/q-tip in soap and then gently touch the middle of the milk with it.

Watch as the colors DANCE and move quickly across the surface of the milk. Continue to swirl the colors. Eventually, it will no longer work.

Violet literally wants to do this experiment DAILY. Multiple times a day! (Check her out down below, doing the experiment with me last weekend.)

Also, for the older kids, you can definitely go into MAJOR science details about the surface tension, how the soap and milk interact because the soap is attacking those fat molecules in the milk (AKA why whole milk works best), and more!

Here is my link for the experiment, if you want more structure for students or kids.

Happy experimenting!

Center for the Collaborative Classroom: Our New ELA Program

Let me first start by saying that I am not a program person. I have always used a balanced literacy approach to teaching reading and writing - and my students have always been very successful. The problem was that I was an island. What kids were doing in my class, they were guaranteed to continue in their next class. Our school was all over the place and there was no consistency. There may have been pockets of great teaching happening, but there was no cohesion, and so our students could not sustain any great learning that was taking place from year to year. We basically had a patchwork quilt of teaching going on.

Enter Collaborative Classroom. This year, we adopted this program k-6. When I say that our elementary school teachers are obsessed, I mean it. Finally, we are all on the same page! And our teaching is connected - reading, word work, writing, interventions, small group reading, spelling, grammar, SEL, EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE!

By the way, I am definitely not cool enough to be paid to say any of this. I am just sharing my thoughts on a "program" that is sooooo not a basal, but is structured enough that any teacher should be able to follow it and find success.

PS the program is only 30 weeks. So there is plenty of time to integrate other types of learning into your year, take a break for a Social Studies/Science unit, or do some test prep.

Here are the big programs:

- Caring Classrooms - We don't use this component because we follow Responsive Classroom, but SAME THING. It is basically morning meetings and basic SEL practices that make sense. FYI, the entire program integrates these practices throughout and builds a strong foundation of SEL for kids starting from day one.

- Making Meaning - Our reading comprehension program. It is based on the BEST read alouds ever. I seriously love every single one. It is rooted in discussion, partner talks, sharing, quick writes, etc. So, of course some testing grade levels freaked a little. They love the program but the big bad test is always looming, so we chose one read aloud text for each unit to buy class sets of, and I created test prep questions for that text. Now, the teachers feel better!

- Being a Writer - Again, based on mentor texts and a Writer's Workshop mentality. LOVE IT. Our teachers always struggled with teaching writing. Everybody did it differently. Some people didn't do it at all. Yes, that is real. 

- Being a Reader - This is mostly K-2, based on teaching kids to be independent during small group work. It also comes with "sets" of books for small group reading. Now, these text levels go through third grade, so our k-3 teachers use them for small group reading. Our fourth grade teachers use them for their lower readers, in addition to continuing to use Literacy Footprints, which we love. *Also, second grade has a word work component here and there is a letter learning piece to K-1.

- SIPPS - The interventions! OMG, the interventions align with the tier 1 instruction, can you believe it? I love it. As a classroom teacher, I hated not knowing what my kids were doing when they received a reading intervention. I am very controlling. But now, the program is fairly scripted, research-based, and I know exactly what every kids is doing - and it aligns with the Being a Reader program. In fact, kids getting a reading intervention are also receiving small group instruction in their classroom and literally see the overlap of the program. They say, "Hey, I learned this word with my reading teacher!" Yes, yes, you did. Not a fluke.

- Guided Spelling - Only for 3-6, but awesome. We were kind of using Words Their Way for a while. I love Words Their Way, but some teachers taught it really thoroughly and others...didn't. So this program is better. It is setting up a strong foundation of understanding patterns within words. There is some differentiation, but definitely not like Words Their Way. So some of our teachers ARE still using Words Their Way for their lowest spellers during their Academic Intervention Support time, but those are only the very motivated and dedicated teachers who previously used Words Their Way and understand it at its core.

And that is Collaborative Classroom! In the nuttiest nutshell ever. If you have more specific questions about it, ask! I love talking about Collaborative Classroom. Also, go make a free login in their Learning Portal or Hub. They are nonprofit, so all of their resources are right there for you to check out and try - I'm talking teacher manuals, student workbooks, printables, professional development videos/blogs/articles - you name it. I literally taught SIPPS for a year before we bought the program. It is way easier now that we have all of the materials and I'm not making everything from scratch, but I was definitely able to do it! And you can too!

Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper - Let's connect our subject areas and use our valuable classroom time wisely!

Cross curricular planning. SO IMPORTANT! I always feel like the clock is my greatest enemy in the classroom. Do we ever really have enough time for everything? The answer is no. So, we need to plan smart. Use read alouds to foster a love of literacy and learning - hook your little readers and get them excited to pick up a book on their own - but also tie it to your curriculum!

Stella by Starlight is a great example of a read aloud text for intermediate grades that will definitely connect to your Social Studies content. (I tend to find a lot of book relate to Social Studies well, and that's fine by me since we could only get to Social Studies a couple of times a week for a formal lesson, anyway.) 

Stella by Starlight is set during the Great Depression in the South, which was still segregated at the time. The Ku Klux Klan has an increasing influence over the residents of the small rural town of Bumblebee, North Carolina. The protagonist is Stella Mills, 11 years old and ready to confront racism, as well as deal with the everyday problems in school, her family, and friendships that a pre-teen tends to be challenged by.

Here are a few other great texts that connect Social Studies curriculum:

Toliver's Secret

The Hope Chest

Eagle Song

Journey to Nowhere

Any of the I Survived series books!

LEGO STEAM/STEM Building Blocks Challenges for Every Child!

Hi everyone!

I'm here to talk LEGO! Now, if you are anything like my husband, you literally have TUBS AND TUBS of Legos from your youth. Just taking up space in the basement. Waiting for your children to be interested or old enough to enjoy them. (Our kids are 2 and newborn - we're not quite ready for the little Legos.)

I have used Legos with my students more and more over the years. For EVERYTHING! It started as a STEAM/STEM challenge. I did it with summer school students because I didn't know if I could fit Lego STEAM challenges into my regular school day during the year. The kids were completely engaged and into it. We used to have a Lego club at school, focusing on MindStorms, but that went away with budgetary reasons. So, now the kids finally had something similar back in their lives. Now, I structured it. Each day we engaged in a different Lego building blocks challenge or activity, such as building a marble maze or a rubber band powered car. Every child had a plastic tub with Legos plus extra materials they might need for a challenge, plus their Lego design book, which laid out all challenges, space for ideas/blueprints, and reflection. It became my go to summer enrichment activity in summer school.

Flash forward. I started to realize that I could integrate Legos all over. Busy bins. Recess tubs. teaching science and social studies! Literature units. You name it, I figured out a way to use Legos to teach it. Some of my favorites included morning tubs for kids when they came in. Each child got their own tub and a challenge. I also taught landforms using Legos to create them as we learned each. I also had kids setting up settings of texts with Lego scenes, practicing following directions and writing How To pieces with Lego creations, and learning all about fractions. We've done plenty of science experiments: density, water displacement, hurricane tables, and more!

Click here to check out the full array of Lego activities I've integrated into grades 2-5 classrooms over the years!

State Testing - Try this short response resource!

Good morning!

We're in it. And by it I mean testing season. As an instructional coach, I'm helping kids AND teachers prepare for upcoming state assessments in New York. I made testing survival kits for my teachers - motivational coloring pages, secret parent notes for encouragement, testing treats, letters to the students for support, and these short response checklists!

I love using pens with my kids to color code their Restate, Answer, and two pieces of Text-based evidence. When they become automatic at it, they will write with one color and use different colored highlighters to check their response. It's difficult to get full credit on the written response without a strategy like this!

While kids can't use them on the test, they can use this leading up to the test and we can hope it sticks! I have several strategies - RATT, RATTS, RAPP, and RAPPS - depending on the strategy different teachers use in my school. What strategy do YOU use successfully for short response questions?

Click here for this resource!

Five for Friday

Our poetry unit has officially begun in third grade!

We are writing acrostics, couplets, haikus, free verse, perspective poetry, and black out poetry.

The kids are so excited!

We've also been experimenting with our sharing time during Writer's Workshop. Instead of sharing whole group and only having time for 2 kids to share what they wrote, every once in a while we have sharing partners. The partners share with each other in the final five minutes of Writer's Workshop and offer feedback. It has worked out really nicely!

LEGOS!

They are the most engaging toy that I can convert into a learning tool, by far!

Use them for morning work, STEM/STEAM time, or incorporate them into subject areas.

Lego Bundle of Awesomeness!

It's time to prepare for our annual NAKED EGG EXPERIMENTS!

I do this every year with my class. We practice writing experiments, using an observation journal, and writing a hypothesis through this super duper engaging experiment.

If you have never done it, it is basically putting a raw egg in white vinegar for a few days. After a few days, run the egg under warm water and gently rub the shell off. It will feel like rubber and be bigger. The kids love it. From there, I let the kids design their own experiments to conduct on their naked eggs!

Be aware...sometimes eggs pop. So, I always have a few extra ready to go!

Naked Egg Experiment

Exciting news...

I've been crazy busy lately, but I am thrilled to say that I'm in the midst of looking for a new home, and I think we've found it! Since my boyfriend and I moved in together and I sold my house, things have been a tiny bit cramped. It's hard to stay organized when you're smushed and a lot of your stuff is in storage! So, I'll cross my fingers and hope that this new house works out for us! :)

I tried cleaning Lucy's toy bin (one of THREE toy bins) out today. But she hoarded her toys. Toys she NEVER plays with until I want to clean house. Of course.

Five for Friday

Our report cards are due on Friday and I am completely done!

YAY!!!

We basically took two potatoes and stuffed them with cheddar cheese and bacon.

No, it's not healthy. No, I probably was not supposed to put that much cheese on. BUT it was tasty!

This is the closest to a Pinterest success as I have ever had.

I became a Seesaw ambassador a few months ago and I'm putting on my first big workshop, where the entire focus is on Seesaw! I'm so excited and I've been preparing like crazy. Recently, I started using Seesaw Plus as a way to track student growth and it has been really amazing! I wish I had started this a long time ago.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Seesaw, it is a digital learning portfolio in which students track their growth and send their parents updates through an app. (Which kind of reminds me of a Facebook feed, but totally private and kid-friendly.)

Check it out!

I started using STEM bins from Teach Outside the Box recently as morning work and it has been SO MUCH FUN! We only have about 20 minutes for morning work, breakfast, and turning in homework before going to special each day, so instead of rushing the kids through a million things, they can pick a box and a card and start building! They can work independently or with a friend. Kids are excited to get into the classroom each day! The more we do this, eventually I will add the writing component.

How can we not end with Lucy?

It's snowing today, but earlier in the week we lost power due to high winds! I'd take snow and electricity over winds and darkness any day!