25 Days of Classrooms: Better Together in D100!

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 25!!!!  Better Together in D100!

     #25DaysofClassrooms!  I really wanted to celebrate the wonderful things going on in our district, so I decided to write about classrooms across all of our 8 schools in the first 25 days of December.  My goal was to spread a bit of holiday cheer in the form of professional recognition and gratitude for the spirit of collaboration I see in D100.  As the month got busier, I started to fall a bit behind.  But, I did it!  #thatwasclose

     Here, on Day 25, I want to recognize everyone in Berwyn South District 100.  We are truly better together.  All 8 schools have opened their doors to me in 2017, and I look forward to 2018 to get to know you all even more.  Thanks for helping me learn and grow as an educator by being in your rooms, in your meetings, and through conversations.

25 Days of Classrooms: Essential Questions

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 24: Essential Questions to Guide the Learning with Mike Saracini (Freedom)

     Mike Saracini is a pretty innovative teacher.  I have been watching his classroom for years, in his elementary days, during his summer school days, and at Freedom.  He always teaches me something, and I usually tease him about his pop up green screen.  :)

 

     This year, I stopped in his class during the week of 9/11.  This time, I was just stunned into silence, as were his students.  He had them watching videos and viewing images from that day so long ago now, but yet seems just like yesterday to those of us who lived through it.  To these kids, though, it was like they were hearing about it for the first time.  They were sitting silent in the halls and at their seats, stunned.

 

     A former student of mine from 2nd grade, now an 8th grader, called me over to talk to me about his thoughts after viewing The Falling Man.  Instantly, I was back in my classroom in 2001, listening to my then 2nd graders describe the images they were seeing on TV.  Today, I was hearing a touching reflection from a student that I have always found to be thoughtful and wise beyond his years.  I was touched to tears.

     Mike didn't want his students just to respond to the media.  He didn't just throw some links together when he saw the date approaching on the calendar.  He was very intentional, and wanted to promote inquiry.  So, on that day when he started the lesson, he posed this essential question:

How has life changed in my community, city, or state because of 9/11?

     He didn't want facts or dates or random information.  He wanted to know the impact it had on our lives.  That essential question is so very important to all of history.  In this case, it certainly helped his students understand, and I'm sure they will never forget.

     Thanks, Mike, for letting me walk in that day.  It made a huge impact on me.

25 Days of Classrooms: Reading Intervention

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 23: Reading Intervention with Colleen Noffsinger (K-2 Literacy Coach/ Specialist at Piper)

 

     Watching Colleen Noffsinger teach her intervention group made me think of multiple literacy experts. I saw Jan Richardson, mixed with Burkins and Yaris, with Jennifer Serravallo sprinkled in.  I'd even throw in some Pat Cunningham.  She was using texts from the LLI, but she knew how and when to use strategies and language that would better meet the needs of her kids than the information suggested by Fountas and Pinnell for that text.  She knows her kids, and her literacy stuff.  The truth is, Colleen knows strategies of all those gurus, but her delivery is all Mrs. Noffsinger.  She has made all that knowledge her own.

 

     I was actually watching Colleen teach a lesson, while another literacy coach and reading specialist from our district were observing her, too.  Not only is she an expert reading interventionist, she is a really great mentor.  After the lesson, she explained her thinking, and showed us where she finds some of her favorite resources.  She truly believes that we are #bettertogether.

 

     Colleen has some great reading strategies and tips up her sleeve, like this sight word entry code!  If you ever have the chance to stop by her room, please do.  You are guaranteed to walk away with a reading tip, and a new book title.  It's worth a walk outside to the Little Red Schoolhouse at Piper.

25 Days of Classrooms: Stories that Come to Life!

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 22: Stories that Come to Life with Hiawatha Kindergarten

   

      In Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Alper, Mrs. Tameling, and Ms. Gelacios' kindergarten rooms, they start the fall off reading fairy tales. They read lots of fairy tales, and they talk about what makes it a fairy tale.  But, they don't stop there.  Let's use The Three Little Pigs, for example.

 They try some real porridge.

 They analyze and graph the stories.

 

 

They make houses out of sticks, bricks, and straw, and try to huff and puff and blow them down (with a hairdryer!).

     The kindergarten team at Hiawatha does a really nice job of bringing the stories they read to life.  Literacy is not just about reading the words on the page.  It's about making meaning and learning about the world, too.  They need to be able to read the pictures, read the words, retell the stories, and learn life lessons in the process.

     They don't stop making books come to life in the fall, though.  They continue it all year long!  Here is what they were up to last week when they read The Gingerbread Man!  Click the link in the tweet below, or take this link to watch a video of The Gingerbread Man coming to life.  :)

Happy Holidays from the Kinder Team at Hiawatha! #d100pride #hiawathapride #traditions @kara_weso @maestragelacio @MelissaAlper @RitaTameling @kirstinmcginnis @JodiMeyer21 pic.twitter.com/qcsCOdQeg4

— Leah O'Donnell 📖📝 (@leahod) December 22, 2017

      Thanks, Kara, Melissa, Rita, and Lily for making literacy FUN!  A shout out goes to Jodi Meyer for being the Gingerbread Man, and to Kirstin McGinnis for supporting the fun.

25 Days of Classrooms: Dot Day!

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 21: Dot Day with Lori Horne, Kayla Kaczmarek, and Anna Waszak (5th and 1st at Hiawatha)

     This classroom visit takes us back to September to visit with some 1st graders and 5th graders who celebrated International Dot Day!  This day celebrates the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds, and his challenge for all of us to make our own mark in the world.  

 

    The first graders in Ms. Kaczmarek and Mrs. Waszak's room read the book, and then did a tissue paper activity where they explored with colors and creativity.  The literacy coach, Mrs. McGinnis, came to be their guest reader before they unleashed their creativity making their own dots.

     My favorite part?  They all signed my copy of The Dot!

   

     After that, I headed upstairs for a 5th grade celebration of Dot Day.  I read the book to Mrs. Horne's class, and then she had them do a Breakout EDU with clues all around the room!  When they got it open, it was a challenge to make their own mark, so that is exactly what they did.

 

     Here is a video capturing their celebrations!

     Want a few for resources?  Here is a link to a website all about International Dot Day, and a link to the video that we watched as Peter Reynolds gave us an art lesson.

     If you are looking for someone in D100 to talk about Breakout EDU lessons, talk to Lori Horne!  She has become a bit of a pro at them.  :)

      Thank you Kayla, Anna, Lori, and Kristin for taking some time to celebrate literacy with your kids!

25 Days of Classrooms: Sentence Patterning and Writing

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 20: Sentence Patterning with Parisa Asgharzadeh (1st Bilingual at Pershing)

  

     Writing complete sentences is so hard for students.  Teachers often make comments about how their students struggle with writing on a sentence level.  Parisa Asgharzadeh might have a lesson for you!  It's a GLAD strategy called sentence patterning.

      She gathered her students on the carpet, and they used a noun from their community helpers unit to get them started.  In this case, it was a fireman.  They then generated lists of adjectives, verbs, and prepositional phrases that would match a firefighter.  When they were done listing them, they practicing putting those pieces into complete sentences using oral language.  In this case, they put it to music.  :). Here's a link to a clip of their song.

 

    After they orally rehearsed multiple sentences using the anchor chart, she modeled using the words to write about a fireman.  The students watched, and then she released them to their own independent writing.

     In this chart from a previous sentence patterning lesson, you can see that you can take it to the next level by making the noun plural, and then changing the adjectives and verbs to match!  What a great language lesson for our students to see.

     Parisa did this lesson for us while Manuel Escamilla, coauthor of Biliteracy From the Start, was in her classroom on a site visit!  Thanks for welcoming us into your classroom to watch a shared writing lesson that focuses on grammar, yet directly applied their learning to independent practice.  Since this lesson occurred, Parisa has now become the Assistant Principal of Pershing, so I am glad we caught the lesson when we did!  Congrats, Ms. Asgharzadeh.

25 Days of Classrooms: Sketchnoting in 6th!

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 19: Sketchnoting with Ms. Caprorola (6th at Heritage)

 

   I got an invite to visit Ms. Caprarola’s class on their first day of sketchnoting!  We had just come back from the Illinois Reading Council Conference where I had presented on sketchnoting, so she knew I’d like to see it in action.  :)

     Cap was reading Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (James Patterson) which is a lovely book that incorporates a visual narrator of sorts in addition to the usual main character narrator.  Because of that, this book makes the perfect book to use to show students that pictures carry important ideas, too.

 

     When I came in, they were all sketchnoting from the first few chapters.  I saw some students using their iPads to teach themselves a new font (which is an idea I'll have to try in the future!).  One student hadn’t been there the day before, so Cap was conferring with him using Google slides.  I happened to catch her on my favorite one: IDEAS not art!

      This book actually helps clear up an important question that people often ask about the difference between visualizing and sketchnoting.  Is there a difference?  In my opinion, yes!  Visualizing is the act of illustrating ideas from the book, and so is sketchnoting.  However, in this book one of the characters, Leo, illustrates LOTS of events and ideas as they happen.  To me, a sketchnote does not try to capture everything in images.  It is meant to synthesize important ideas from the book, or important ideas that you have as the readers.  Visualizing can capture anything and everything that you hear/read in the book.  Sketchnoting is visual thinking about key ideas and understandings.

     Are students sketching as they read?  That might be visualizing, rather than sketchnoting.

     Are students sketching after they read, and deciding on a few key ideas to add?  That might be sketchnoting, rather than visualizing.

     Can they do a bit of both?  You bet.

     How did I come to that analysis between sketchnoting and visualizing?  I read the book, of course.  I asked Cap to borrow a copy of the novel.  It is GOOD.  Check it out!

     Thanks, Ms. Caprarola!  I did not get a picture of their final sketchnotes, so I apologize that I can't share any.  I'm sure they were great!

25 Days of Classrooms: Focus Walks

This month I am sharing stories from

classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 16 & 17: Focus Walks at Pershing with Foltz/ Ziegler/ Huerta/ O'Brien/ Arvis/ Wagner/ Szalko/ Asgharzadeh/ Reckley (Pershing)

     This post will count as 2 days, since I went on 2 Focus Walks.  I know that's cheating a little bit, but that's ok.  

     Pershing decided to try Focus Walks out this year!  I was very excited, since they were one of my favorite things while I was at Hiawatha.  Focus Walks are basically times that you slot that allow teachers to leave their own classrooms go down the hall and see another classroom in action!  Typically, there is a common focus for the teachers, usually a topic that has been a focus of building PD or the SIP team.  At Hiawatha, we have done walks for math, EL strategies, writing workshop, RtI block, and a bunch of other topics.  This time, Pershing was simply going to Notice and Wonder things that make #teampershing a pretty special place to work.  The walks were organized, led, and debriefed by their literacy coach, Meg Reckley.  The classrooms you can visit are volunteered by classroom teachers, and the teachers that visit choose to sign up for a slot.  Here was their schedule!

Walk 1

      

     The first walk was through all three 2nd grade classrooms!  At the same time, there were all in 3 different parts of their literacy block.  We got to catch a glimpse of a read aloud, reading workshop, and word work.  Our observation structure was Notice Wonder.

     In 2H, I noticed a fantastic interactive read aloud in Spanish.  Maricela used a simple boxes and bullets anchor chart and modeled her thinking as they read about the prairie.  The students showed their understanding both through conversation and hand motions, and made inferences about the topic as well.  My wondering was if they use that same boxes and bullets organizer in their research, since Ms. Huerta did such a nice job of modeling how to pull key details about a topic in her own words using that structure.

     In 2FZ, I noticed a smoothly running reader's workshop!  The students who were all independently reading were engaged, and knew what they were practicing while reading their informational books (plus a few fake books too, as was pointed out to me by a friendly young reader).  Both coteachers had reading groups going.  Carrie's group was using a Serravallo strategy to paraphrase a nonfiction plant article, right next to a table where real plants were growing.  Ms. Ziegler reviewed vowel sounds, worked on vocabulary, used a connection Response Frame, and picture walked all in such an efficient  use of time!  My wondering was if those plants will make it over winter break...

     In 2O, I noticed word work in action.  Ms. O'Brien had students around the room working on different activities to support word work.  What I noticed was that she was roaming around doing conferences with students, with a white board and marker in hand.  "What are you noticing about your words?" she would say as she kneeled down next to them.  What a great way for students to verbalize the patterns they were finding in their words. I wondered how she organized her conferring schedule, and if that conferring helped the transfer to their writing.

     After we were done, we sat down and debriefed.  Maribel Gálvez, Elisa Anderson, and I were guided by Meg as we noted what we Noticed and what we Wondered.  The resulting conversation was such a nice celebration of the teaching and learning that we saw, as well as some reflections on our own practice and some stories of collaboration.  The debrief is SUCH a great way to end a walk.

Walk 2

 

 

Important Note:

I wasn't able to stay at Pershing to see classrooms from 10:15-10:45.  I'm sorry I missed you this time 1R, 3G, and 5D.  I returned in the afternoon for another walk.

     In 4AW, I noticed that they were working on their informational research about natural disasters.  They were learning a Serravallo strategy where they kept their topic and essential question in mind, looked at the table of contents, and then decided which part of the text they needed to read to answer that question.  They had all their books waiting for them at their tables, and they were already in their topic groups.  We left before they returned to their desks to research, so I wondered what their notes looks like.  Next time I pop in, I'll have to ask a student to share with me.  :)

     In KS, I noticed kinders writing about community helpers!  There were independently writing, with the assistance of the anchor chart they had saved in SeeSaw.  There were different levels of supports in place for students to be successful as well.  I also noticed that Ms. Szalko had a student writing sample on the SMART Board that she had annotated over to show the strategy of making their pictures a WOW Picture.  Overall, I noticed how intentional her use of technology was to support her students, and I wondered what her first steps were in the year to get her students so comfortable navigating their iPads.  I even had a K student give me a tour of their PowerSchool resources.  

This kinder student gave me a PowerSchool tutorial in @KinderPanthers #teampershing #d100pride pic.twitter.com/QIULS097sA

— Leah O'Donnell 📖📝 (@leahod) December 15, 2017

     In 1A, I noticed that they were mathematicians!  Ms. Asgharzadeh's students were all engaged in math games around the room.  One of the stations was a group with her, and they were using a deck of cards to add and demonstrate their thinking on a number grid.  I noticed that Ms. Asgharzadeh always makes the students say their math thinking in a complete thought after their turn.  This is a very intentional use of language.  I wondered if that had a positive impact on their ability to play the game with partners after she released it to them.  I think it might.  :)

     After we were done, we went again and debriefed, this time with Lynne, Amy, and Jen.  Meg once again led us is a brief conversation about what we noticed and wondered, and we celebrated the dedication, planning and intentionality of the Pershing teachers.  Without this debrief, we would not have been able to hear the perspective that we all bring when we observe the same classrooms.

     THANK YOU to Robin, Chris, and Bazz for covering classrooms for half an hour so that teachers can learn from each other.  The beauty of these walks is that teachers get to visit their coworkers in the spirit of collaboration.  We are truly #bettertogether, and these walks were an example of that.

 
These were just my informal notes.  :)

     Thanks, Meg and Bazz, for giving your staff the opportunity to learn from each other.  Thank you, Pershing staff, for opening your doors and leaving your own classrooms for just a small amount of time.  That time can make a big impact on our students, and on future collaboration.

You are #bettertogether at #teampershing.