New Year, New Adventure!

We are partially through our week of teacher meetings and classroom preparations!  Even though I have been in and out of my classroom working on things all summer, now it seems like it is a mad rush to get finishing touches put on everything and work out all those last minute details.  Rooms are being decorated and arranged, schedules are worked out, and classrooms are almost ready for students to step into in less than a week!

One thing that always seems to take more time that I anticipate when it comes to getting my classroom ready for the year is putting together my bulletin boards.  I have a few tweaks to make still, but I am excited about the one I spent part of my day on today!

Here it is, with my daughter in the middle (she will be starting Kindergarten next week).

My role is a little different this year again, now I am solely the Technology Teacher for 5th and 6th grade.  I have handed over the writing portion to a new teacher to our district and I can't wait to see how she is able to really push them and advance them in their writing since she is able to focus strictly on writing.

It is going to be an excited and interesting year, as always!  I can't wait to see what is in store for this year with our newest group of students!

Genius Hour with a Twist of Humanity

Today was the day my 5th and 6th graders have been IMpatiently waiting for since we came back to school the first week in January.  We started our second semester Genius Hour projects.  Well, we didn't actually start the projects yet, but we did start some brainstorming.  Some of them tried to start their projects already and I really had to rein them back in to remind them that first they needed to make a solid plan, give their Proposal Presentation, then they could get to work on the actual project.

For this being the first year that I have ever done Genius Hour, I really am impressed with how well my students did with it.  We had a few kinks to work out on their end as well as mine, but I feel like we are more ready than ever to get things rolling again.  Some of my students were already asking me about when we were starting Genius Hour again the SAME DAY we gave our Final Presentations back in December.  They already had ideas rolling around for what they thought they wanted to do before the ink had even dried on their rubrics from the first one!  Now, I didn't give them much to go off of except I told them we would indeed be doing a Genius Hour project for the 2nd semester and that it would be "slightly" different this time.  I loved that the suspense was killing them all over winter break!

So, what surprises did I spring on them today?  First, I said they had the option of working in a group of 2-3 students for the project.  That was almost enough to put them over the edge with excitement on its own.

After they took a minute or two to exchange glances around the classroom and give each other "the look" that meant they wanted to work together on this project, I hit them with change number two.  This was the big one!  I told them all I still wanted to make sure they picked a project they were passionate about, something they were interested in and cared about, BUT it had to be Service Learning based.  From there I got a bunch of blank stares....

I did anticipate having to explain what service learning is to most of them, and I think by the time I had explained it and given a few examples, they really did understand what I was asking of them.  I think. We work on Genius Hour one day each week.  It is always the day (usually Wednesday) that we get out early which makes our class periods just under an hour long.  That in itself doesn't sound like too much, but when I do this with two sections of 6th grade and two sections of 5th grade, it gets to be a longer "short" day than a regular day is.  

My biggest take-away from our day today was the fact that after they understood, my students really did get right down to business and started making plans.  Here are some of the project ideas we have floating around in our classes right now:

• Volunteer at the animal shelter.
• Make bracelets with charms to sell to raise money for Autism (student has a cousin who is autistic).
• Make blankets to donate to the children's hospital.
• Create a video game to help students learn multiplication facts.
• Have a bake sale to raise money for Ebola research.
• Spend one class period a week going to read books with the preschoolers.
• Help teach the first graders how to code. (We use code.org)
• Create our school's own "Play it Again Sports" type store to share sporting equipment or gear.
• Plant trees and other landscaping around our campus.
• Go to play cards and games with residents at the nursing home.
• Volunteer to play games with a small group of kindergarten students once a week at the after school program.
• Be a "Lunch Buddy" with a child from the Day Care.

Over the course of the day it seemed like their ideas just kept getting bigger and better.  I can't wait to see what they have come up with by the time their decision needs to be made next week on Wednesday.  I will for sure be coming back with more posts about where our Genius Hour with a twist of Humanity takes us over the course of the next couple of months.  It's sure to be a great one!

Playing Catch-Up.... Presentations, Coding, an Award, and more to come!

Where to begin??  It's been over a month since I have wrote a blog post, but that doesn't mean I don't have many blog-worthy things going on, it just means that I have been too busy and/or too tired to take the time to sit down and write!  I started this blog partially because I wanted a way to document things I have done with my classes that went well so I could modify and improve them to use again in the future, but now that I have started this, I also want to use it as a way to showcase some of the AMAZING things my students have accomplished.

Most recently, that includes seven of my 5th and 6th graders that were brave enough (or too scared to say no since the principal was asking them the question) to present various projects to our Board of Education at a meeting this past week.  I was SO PROUD of them for being able to do it, as a 10-12 year old I'm not sure that is something that I could have done! Not only that, I was blown away by how well they did!  They are my rockstars! A few of them shared the Genius Hour Projects and some others shared some Stop Motion movies they had created.  I will link up some of the projects/presentations in a different post.

Another proud teacher moment for me recently was when my classes were participating in the "Hour of Code".  Not only did almost 110 5th and 6th grade students spend one hour learning to code on December 12th, 2014, but our school was awarded with a $4,000 grant from @IowaStem and @Google to purchase any instructional technology we need for our students!  During that day we have some guests in our classroom from the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa Department of Education STEM offices as well as both of our school principals, our curriculum director, and our superintendent.  It was a busy and exciting day to say the least!  I would have to say that the "Hour of Code" did it's job in getting students excited about coding too.  In my 6th grade classes we have started working in www.code.org and the students are really loving it.  (That's a whole other post which will hopefully come soon!)

Hour of Code: Coming Soon

This is my first year to give students a chance to participate in the Hour of Code.  I think it comes at a great time of the year, a time when it's hard to get students excited about most things school related because they all are focused on the fact that Winter Break is in sight!  When I explained to my classes that I was going to be gone from school one day a few weeks back, they all wanted to know why.  And of course, who my substitute was going to be, but that is an entirely new blog post.  Anyway, when I told them I was going to a training for code.org, they immediately wanted to know what that was all about and what it meant for them.  As I explained it the best I could and had them all sign up for their accounts so I would be able to fully participate in the training, I had no idea they would be as excited about it as they were. **

Generally, students get excited when their teacher is going to be gone for day, because let's face it, days where there is a substitute, significantly less work gets accomplished....depending on the sub.  However, this was more than that, they were already asking me when they were going to be able to "Code" and could they log in and use their accounts without me.  There aren't many things that kids want to do like this in school very often, so for me just mentioning this, I had a feeling this was going to be something that I was excited about doing as soon as possible!  Now that Hour of Code is coming next week, I am even more excited to see what they think of it.  All of my 5th and 6th graders will be participating in Hour of Code on Friday, December 12.

I love that code.org has tons of resources on their website to promote Hour of Code, like posters, videos, and banners, however, I feel like it's pretty unnecessary when it comes to getting my classes excited about coding.  They are PUMPED and I haven't even mentioned that we are going to be doing this on Friday yet because they have big presentations to give for their Genius Hour projects on Wednesday and I don't want them to lose focus on that.  I'll still show the intro videos and all of that, but just the idea that they are going to be able "Create" and be producers of content online is enough to hook them that I probably wouldn't even need to!  I think Friday will be one of the best teaching days I have had all year, and that's saying something because I have had some pretty great days with these students so far!

After Winter Break, we will spend some time each week following the full code.org curriculum as well, and I also have some plans to introduce some of them who really take off with it to Scratch as well.  

I have a feeling that I will have another blog post all ready to go next weekend after our code.org session next week with the Hour of Code!

**On a side note, the training that I attended was great.  It was lots of fun, we learned a lot and we had some time to go through some of the code.org curriculum ourselves.  I have to admit, it was hard for me to stop and focus on the trainer when he told us to stop working, which is something that I will have to keep in mind if I try to stop the kids from working to do something else. 

Genius Hour x100ish = Holy Guacamole!

I'm a year-round teacher.  Not that my school runs year-round*, we have summer break during June, July, and a bit of August like most schools around our area, however, even in the summer I am thinking about my classes for next year, what my plans are, hopes and dreams, all of that.

*We do have quite a good summer school program so if you count that we really do sort of run our school year-round.  I opted out of teaching summer school last year to spend some much needed time at home with my own two kids.

So, while I was supposedly enjoying my 2 months off of school with not a care in the world about my next school year <sarcasm is high>, I spent a lot of time doing my own professional development.  We all know that means Pinterest and Twitter  because let's be real, that's where all the best ideas come from.  My biggest take-away from my personal summertime PD was Genius Hour.  I came across it at some point and it peaked my interest, so I dug a little bit deeper and before I knew it I had dug my way to China finding out everything I could about Genius Hour and how to make it work in my classroom next year.  It sounded so AMAZING!  There are so many resources out there and great ideas that I couldn't wait to get my students on board with this idea.

Then I had to take a few steps back and remind myself it was only the beginning of July.  After I calmed myself down about it, I realized that this type of an idea might be something that I needed to run by my administration before I decided to take one day a week to let my students do whatever they wanted....Genius Hour Explanation....in case you are wondering what I am talking about.  I spent some time planning out how I would fit this in to my schedule, what Common Core Standards my students would be meeting throughout the project, and logistics of how this would work in my classroom. I presented this idea to my building principal and he told me to go for it.

I introduced the idea to my students in the first 2 weeks of school.  Their gears started turning about what they would do with an hour (technically about 50 minutes) each week if they could work on whatever they wanted, and before I knew it, we were 3/4 of the way through the first semester and finishing up projects and getting ready for final presentations!  In another post I will outline exactly how I have implemented Genius Hour and give all those great "teacher details" that took me the longest time to work out.  For now, I want to share a few ideas my students have been working on:

Tearing apart old computers and building a sculpture.
Building a remote control car (from a kit)
Making pottery
Creating a website
Making a YouTube Channel (a few are doing this with different focuses: baking, gaming, fashion)
Building a dock for their family's pond
Building PVC goal posts for football games at home (this turned into a model on the 3-D printer due to time, weather, and expense, but he still has hopes of getting them built before summer)
Making a video game
Building a model of the solar system
Building a model of a bridge out of toothpicks
And MANY more!

Building volcanoes out of clay which they will erupt with baking soda and vinegar.

Tearing apart an old computer to build a model farm.

Browsing Pinterest for Baking ideas.

Tearing apart a computer to make a sculpture of a person.

Working in the shop cutting boards for birdhouses.

The MANY part is where the title of this post came from.  In retrospect, I wish I would have started a little smaller and not had all 100+ of my students (5th and 6th grades) do this project.  It's a lot to keep track of and manage, but I do have to say, they are motivated and interested, and as much as they do not like the idea of giving a public presentation, the fact that they are presenting on something they are passionate about makes a big difference!

The Chicken Mummies (Yes, that is plural, we have 2 chicken Mummies) *Part 1*

Who doesn't love learning about Ancient Egypt?  It is one of those topics that is easy to get kids engaged in because they all know just enough about it to have some background, but there are so many unanswered questions that it is intriguing to everyone from age 9-99!  I will still stop channel surfing anytime I click by a documentary about something Egypt related.  Granted, I may have a little bit of a bias because I spent 6 months there back in 2006 doing my student teaching....it was a very safe place at that time, even though my grandma was very nervous the entire time I was there.

I feel lucky to be a part of the 5th/6th grade team of teachers that work together so well because when the Social Studies teacher said they were starting to learn about Ancient Cultures in class and one culture they would spend a significant amount of time on was Ancient Egypt, I shoved my way right into that unit of study as the writing and technology teacher.  I brought a TON of my photo albums and scrapbooks, I shared items that I brought back from my time in Egypt to share with the students, as well as lots of stories because they had even more questions about what it was like there.  Among other things, I had the students take a virtual field trip of a few main attractions of Egypt, like walking inside Khufu's pyramid at Giza (which I have actually done in real life, but sort of prefer the virtual way because it was a lot less dirty and there wasn't anyone hassling us for money "baksheesh" on the virtual trip) from NOVA's Explore Ancient Egypt website.  They are also in the process of writing a research paper about an Ancient Egyptian topic of their choice and making stop-motion movie depicting something relating to their research topic.  But, aside from all those other things, I think the thing they are most excited about is making their own mummy.  I have two sections of 6th grade that I see every day and both classes are in charge of making their own "Chicken Mummy".

Let me start this out by saying I am not totally crazy, however, I have had a raw chicken sitting in my classroom, not refrigerated...just sitting out on a cart,  for the better part of two weeks now.  And we take it out every couple of days to re-salt it.  No stinking so far, I know that was what you were thinking....I'm pretty sure that is the concern that my principal had too, but so far so good.   *I have done this one other time a few years ago with another teacher, but this is my first time going at it alone.

Here is how the process has gone so far:
Day 1:
Bring whole raw chicken to school.
Bring LOTS of containers of salt.
Bring 1/2 as many containers of baking soda as salt.
Bring 1 container of rubbing alcohol.
Also, we needed gallon sized ziplock bags, gloves, and lots of paper towels and Lysol Wipes.

Adding salt inside and under the skin.

More salting and kids taking pictures with their phones as we work.

1. Let chicken soak in rubbing alcohol for 1-3 hours.
2. Drain chicken juice and completely dry off chicken (inside and out).
3. Weigh chicken. (ours was 6lbs exactly)
4. Watch 1/2 the students gag while other 1/2 of students ask if they can touch it.
5. Cut a few slits into "meaty" parts of chicken.
6. Cover and fill with salt/baking soda mix.
7. Make sure to shove salt/baking soda mix inside slits and underneath skin. (more kids gagging)
8. Place chicken inside gallon size ziplock bag, then place that bag inside another bag.

Putting King Cluck into his baggie.

King Cluck is all bagged up and ready for his first night of a salt bath.

For the first week or so, we cleaned off all the wet, mushy salt/baking soda mix everyday and replaced it with more. (By we, I mean the students.  After the first day I have been pretty much "hands off" and it has become their mummy.)  Each class has voted and decided on a name for their mummy also.  My first period class named theirs "King Cluck" and my 2nd period class went with "Johnny McCluckerton".

Currently we are down to only re-salting the chicken 1-2 times per week.  It is a LOT less "juicy" now than it was the first week or two.  It is also starting to feel a lot lighter.  We haven't weighed it since the first day, so we will have to do that again soon too.  This is still very much a work in progress, but so far, so good.  aka: My classroom has yet to smell like you would expect 2 week old unrefrigerated raw chicken to smell.

We have plans in the works for the TAG kids to make a sarcophagus and some canoptic jars and we also have plans for where our mummy will be entombed once the ground thaws in the spring....

Voluntary Saturday School...?

...Sort of.

Today another teacher and I took 6 students to the Iowa Student Learning Institute in Waukee, IA.  Mind you, this is a Saturday.  It is also almost 4 hours away from our home.  We left Postville at 6am this morning.  These students not only volunteered, but were excited to get up and come to this learning opportunity.  Once we arrived, we listened to a couple great keynote speakers, whom I now follow on Twitter.

So very true, and so un-standardized test mentality!

Pretty sweet new shirts....gotta love these kids!

After we had a quick lunch provided by Waukee High School, we spent our afternoon in smaller breakout sessions.  The first one I attended with two of our students was very interesting.  A school in Iowa presented about how they (the students) are in charge of monitoring, troubleshooting, and instructing students and teachers in their school for most computer or tech related issues.  The students are in charge of allowing downloads and monitoring usage of other students.  They spend a significant amount of time working on this and it is worth one credit toward their graduation requirements.  It's a great idea and I love the way the students take ownership of the organization.

All in all, it was a great day spent with some great students.  We had some great conversations, most of which were school and tech related.  There were a lot of selfies being taken throughout the day too.

The first of many Selfies for the day!  

I also had a chance to have some time for collaboration with my tech teacher counterpart.  We never get a chance to work together and talk about what we are planning and teaching so being stuck in a car together for 6+ hours in one day was a good thing.

Starbucks Coffee Selfies!

And Starbucks, we live an hour and a half from the nearest Starbucks.  The conversation about stopping at Starbucks started at about 7:00am and didn't actually happen until about 12 hours later, but it was great anyway.  I know what you are thinking, and yes, we did in fact let teenagers get coffee at 7:00pm, then after another hour and a half drive back home, sent them back to their parents....caffeinated.  You Are Welcome Parents!  Consider this payback for all the times I have been given students that had candy and Hot Cheetos for breakfast.  Karma...am I right?