Five For Friday: FIVE days left!!

We had field day today! On top of the normal end of school madness, we enjoyed a fun filled day outside... but now I am wiped out! I missed last week's five for friday, so this is going to be a recap of the last two weeks! 

{one}

Last week we brainstormed all of our favorite first grade memories. Click on the picture to read that post!

Then the kids wrote all about their favorite memory, and we drew a self portrait with a scene of the memory in the background. I have a picture like this from the beginning, middle, and end of the school year, so I look forward to sending those home at the end of the year!

{two}

Our team has been doing LOTS of grade level rotations recently. We did a math fun day last week, and then this week did some IB related ones so we could make sure we had everything we needed for their portfolio. I started off strong with that, but it kind of fizzled after the third unit... 

You can read more about our portfolios here. I have to say though, I think it would be much better if we did a single year portfolio instead of one that follows them through elementary. I already know of 3 kids in my class that are moving, so it won't follow them through the years like we want. 

Anyways, the groups loved this marshmallow and toothpick shape building activity last week! It kept them very busy and engaged!

{three}

We celebrated sweet Liam's 2nd birthday on Saturday! I can't believe he is 2 now! It also shocks me how much he talks! He is a much earlier talker than Alex was.

I always take pictures of the boys in the backyard around their birthdays! They were very cute and cooperative in the picture taking this time! :)

{four}

The fifth graders have been busy working on their exhibition projects as a culminating activity for the IB PYP. Lots of them are wanting others to take action too, so we spent some time picking up trash this week to help a group out!

Another group was did a cold water challenge to raise money for an organization who helps stop tiger poaching. One of my former first graders, who is now a fifth grader working on the project nominated me to participate!
It was a cold ending to field day that is for sure!

{five}

I think there should be "I survived Field Day" T-shirts! I don't think people truly understand exhaustion until they go through a field day either! The kids had a blast and we had great stations, but I am ready for the boys to go to bed so I can do soon after! These days wear me out!

5 days left for me! It feels longer when I keep seeing other teachers finishing up, but there is still LOTS to do before the end of the school year!

Joining the five for friday Linky party over at Doodle Bug Teaching's blog! :)

Using Portfolios in the Primary Classroom

As an IB school, we are required to have the students keep a portfolio that they use to reflect on each of our transdisciplinary units. At our school, the students start their portfolio in kindergarten and it follows them until they get to 5th grade. 

This is our third year doing portfolios. Our first year I created the framework for what I wanted mine to look like... Of course, keeping up with it was a whole different story! 

But its a new year and I have new goals for making sure we keep up with it better! :)

Here is what our portfolios look like...

The Cover... 

Some kindergarten teachers use the pages I made, so I am excited that the kids will have a cute self portrait from kindergarten follow them all the way to 5th grade!

Table of Contents...

We have areas in our Portfolio for our 6 Transdisciplinary themes, Learner Profile, and Action/Student Choice. I've made some blank editable pages for those who are not an IB school too! You can choose what ever areas you want!

The trickiest part of portfolios is keeping up with the work that can potentially go in the portfolio. 

I usually have my kids keep an inquiry folder and we store work in there for each unit then at the end of the unit I let them pick a piece of work that they want to add. This first time around I don't give them as much choice because we are building the routines so I gave them the summative assessment and we all reflected on that.

Reflection Choices:

I give my kids three choices

1. I enjoyed this

2. I learned

3. It was difficult. 

Even though it is some times hard to read what these first graders write as their reflection, I really want them to write about it. If they just put a happy or sad face, they are just hitting the surface. I want them to start thinking about the WHY. 

Now remember... this was our very FIRST reflection... First graders are still learning what it means to reflect, so whatever they write down, I will take! :) 

As the year goes on, I will encourage the kids to go a little deeper and work to pull more out of them. 

At this point, I want them to get used to looking at their work, 

reflecting on how they felt about it, 

and trying to express why they thought that.

Our first year doing portfolios we didn't even start them until the middle of the year. 

Last year, we were reflecting on pieces of work from two or three units ago and doing multiple ones at the same time...NOT okay!I knew this year had to be different!

Goals for this year:

I hope that at the end of each unit our choices and reflections will deepen. 

I really want the students to be proud of their portfolios and be able to self-assess their work. 

I don't want it to be a chore or a hassle. 

I would love for my students to share their work with their parents at the end of the year. 

The last two years, I don't think my parents even knew these existed! 

We are off to a great start with our portfolios, I hope that we can keep it up! :)

You can get the portfolio page for FREE at my TPT store! Go check them out! Several pages are editable, including the cover, table of contents, and spines for the binders (I put their names on them).

Click on the picture to find it at my store!

Sharing the Planet!

Last week we finished up our first unit Who We Are...well mostly! We still need to dive more into the Learner Profile and Attitudes, but we made a good start. We actually reflected and added work to our portfolios (more on that soon!)... which was a first. Usually we are reflecting on two or three units at at time, but this year I really want my kids to be proud of what they are putting in their portfolios. I would love to meet with parents at some point to have kids share with their parents about their work. I think the more they are internalizing their learning, the more transdisciplinary it will be!

Our provocation to start out our new unit, Sharing the Planet, was a little nature walk. I gave each student a ziploc and told them to go collect some earth.--whatever they thought the earth was. So they ran out of the building and "Collected Earth"! It was so interesting to see what they came up with... and for the most part they were right on target! (it double as a preassessment too! :) )
It was starting to sprinkle so one girl wanted to collect the rain... "Is rain the earth?" she asked me!

We will use these collections for more investigations!

Today I read Our Big Home and then they shared some questions they had...

We went off on a little tangent on what is a country vs state, but while we were exploring the world on google maps we talked about the difference between land and water too. It's all learning! I love it! 

Here are some of the questions they asked:

Not all are supposed to be covered in this unit...the ones about if the whole earth has the sun at the same time are technically another unit, but I'm sure we will get them answered now too! ;)

Who We Are

One of the great things of the IB program is that is requires a lot of collaboration among teachers. We are also constantly reflecting on what we taught previously and how we can change it to help the kids make better connections to what they are learning. We had a great time collaborating and hashing out the wording on our central ideas.
(Maybe that makes us total nerds, but it is fabulous!)
We wanted to make sure our planners were working for us this year, so we chose a central idea that would be practical for the beginning of the school year...

Self actualization guides personal interactions.

We are going to focus on our students' strengths, weaknesses, and needs to help them see how to best work in our classroom community. We want to teach kids how to respond to what they are feeling, how to take care of their bodies to help them be good learners, and start to internalize our Learner Profile and Attitudes. As they learn how to respond to the other first graders around them, we will be able to teach them classroom procedures and workshop routines and get our rooms running smoothly for a great year!

More to come on our unit later!