Pipe Cleaners and Clothes Pins
10/17/2020
This week first graders put spoons on their fingers and used them to dig in the dirt like an animal with claws! I feel so blessed to be teaching in-person and at a school that encourages hands-on learning, especially when I see how engaged and happy the students are. Not only do students reach higher cognitive skills through hands-on activities, but they are working on multiple skills and content areas, like fine-motor skills and art, and are directly observing, doing, and understanding what is happening.
In math, you can see our students adding and subtracting with tools like dominos and number racks that they made with beads and pipe cleaners. The number rack is a tool that helps them see and represent a number, and allows them to move the beads as they count, add, and subtract. Math also includes workshops that allow students to explore through games and activities like: domino games, making objects and designs with pattern blocks, and measuring furniture with number cubes and popsicle sticks. Students enjoy these hands-on activities because they can interact with peers (with distance and sanitizer), use their creativity, and do something that they are likely to do in the real world, like measure. Play-Doh is another fun, hands-on tool that students can use to make things like their weekly spelling words. Students also enjoy building their spelling words with magnet letters, pipe cleaners, and their personal letter cutouts. It’s wonderful seeing students get creative with making the letter K out of pipe cleaners, and hearing other students help give ideas and explain the process to their classmates. Science and social studies include many hands-on activities, as well. As you saw earlier in the year, first graders practiced using a compass that they each made from a paper plate. This week in science students explored animal adaptations with many household items. After digging in the dirt with their “claws” they had the task of finding cheerios and gummy worms with different bird beaks, or in their case, with chop sticks and clothes pins of different sizes. After exploring a few more adaptations, like blubber with Crisco, students made an organism with spikes. The goal was to make it so a bird could not eat their organism. These activities weren’t only fun, but allowed students to use their creativity, communicate and discuss methods and ideas with peers, and see the importance and function of an organisms structures. In the time of Covid-19, hands-on learning can be tricky. However, students have many of their own tools and manipulatives that they keep in their own bins. Hands-on supplies are also sanitized before and after use. Along with this, students wash or sanitize their hands before and after touching the items, and all of us work hard to maintain our distance. We all work together to stay safe so we can reap the rewards of hands-on learning, including the wonderful memories we are making. Nature's Influences
10/3/2020
Scientists today look to animals and nature for inspiration on how to make human lives easier and longer. For example, our airplanes are shaped like birds, burn victims are treated with fish skin, and scuba fins for diving look like the fins you see on some marine mammals. Researching the capabilities and adaptations of plants and animals is especially important today as scientists search for a cure for things like cancer and Covid-19.
As scientists in our world look to nature for cures, the scientists in our classroom are looking at the Driving Question: How can humans learn from the way plants and animals use their external parts to survive? The real-world problem of the pandemic might not be solved in our classroom, but these independent thinkers are definitely excited to think like scientists and learn about how animal parts help animals survive and see how humans are inspired by them. As we research, students are not only learning about science but are also working on their reading skills and discovering how much we can learn through reading. This week students listened to the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" from our StemScopes science curriculum to see what animal parts help the wolf use its senses and survive. As we look at how each animal, like the wolf, uses its parts to survive, we go back to our Driving Question. In this case, students realized that animals can inspire our writing. After hooking students with this fairy tale, we listened to the story, What if I had Animal Teeth by Sandra Markle. This put our small scientists in the shoes of the animals, taught them some fun facts, and set them up for our project on animal teeth. For this project, students selected an animal and began recording facts they already knew about their animal’s teeth. After recording their background knowledge, students helped me look at unknown vocabulary and inferences we could make on the texts about elephants and beavers, so that they could do the same for their own animals. These reading skills not only help readers understand the text but also help them see how we connect things we know with new facts to come up with answers to questions that may not be answered directly. In the coming weeks, students will continue using technology and reading skills to explore animal parts. I’m excited to see what their new facts, inferences, and imaginations come up with. Maybe, with the vision and independent thinking these students exhibit, these small scientists will grow up and create a new invention or cure inspired by nature. Wrapping Up
5/12/2020
As we enter this last full week of school, I am shocked as I look back at how much time has past since we started distance learning. When we first began this new "adventure" I wasn't sure how I would even begin to teach first graders over the internet. So much of what we do and learn happens in our togetherness, in the messy work of classroom activities, and in the daily hands-on work children are meant to be doing. Yet, here we are, our final trimester coming to a close and I see that my students have learned new skills and even mastered new content. As we moved away from our comfortable and stable schedule and into the arena of PBL for the final two weeks, I felt panicked. In the classroom, I can answer questions immediately, guide my students through each step of the project, and help them see the purpose behind their actions. Doing PBL virtually has not been without its challenges, and I can see that it's not ideal for young children; however, even with its challenges, first graders have shown up and presented their ideas, wonderings, and creations all on a digital format. Not only did these 6 and 7 year-olds transition to a virtual learning platform, navigate new technology and programs, conquer poor zoom connections but they also stretched themselves to learn about a topic they were interested in, create, and manipulate their pages in an online book creator. I am proud. I haven been reading some distance learning blogs during this time at home and trying to figure out the best way to serve my students. I read something on EducationWeek.org that stuck out to me recently: The more that we teach remotely, the more I believe this. If we can accomplish one or two things a week and continue to build reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills along the way, we are doing it right. We have kept it simple and allowed our students the chance to breathe. There is no need to overload them with work and stress in an already stressful time.
So, although our schedule and routines have changed and our workload is ever-changing, it is the consistency of communication and connection, as well as the development of confidence and independence, that is important during this time. I see the work my first graders are completing and I know that they will move on to 2nd grade with confidence and a resiliency that will carry them much farther than any additional word list I could have given them. Connectedness
4/24/2020
These past few weeks have been nothing short of interesting. There has been a lot of trial and error, a lot of laughs, frustration, questions, and a lot of screen time. However, I would take a lot of screen time over not being to connect to my students any day. Although learning has taken on a different appearance since we have jumped into distance education, I still feel lucky to be able to log into Zoom each morning and see the bright and wonderful faces of my students. I laugh out loud when I read or listen to their stories, I love to see the interesting responses in Seesaw, and I long for the small groups where I can work on specific skills and focus on each child. Even though we are not elbow deep in classroom projects, I feel that learning is still happening. Students proudly displayed their animal habitat dioramas, mastered their understanding of suffixes, created stories and pictures, practiced comprehension - all online. It's not ideal but it is working and I am so proud to see the resiliency that PNA's first graders are displaying throughout all of this. However, it is not only the first graders that are showing resiliency. Parents also deserve an applause as they have not only become co-teachers, but have also had to maintain all the other aspects of running a home and job from their house. We will all come out of this experience with a new set of skills that we might never have developed otherwise. I guess you call it the silver lining, or so to speak. I will say, I have absolutely loved having a smaller student-teacher ratio this year. It has allowed me to work with each child in ways not possible with a larger class size. A small class size is also proving to be invaluable during this time of distance learning. Some children need more academic work and to be challenged in certain areas, while others mainly need a friendly, familiar face to ask about their day and learn about their favorite toys. Some of my students thrive on a large workload yet some thrive on simple and comfortable connection. I know my students. I feel for them and love on them and I miss them. They have gone from these tiny kindergartners that arrived in my classroom last fall and have grown into these resilient, growth-minded, young scholars. PNA is not merely an academic institution for any of us. It is a refuge, especially during times such as these. And I cannot wait to give them in-person hugs and high fives in the fall!
Distance Learning
3/28/2020
These past two weeks have been nothing short of a whirlwind of changes. We all anticipated returning from Spring Break and jumping back into our regular school routine of morning meetings, building challenges, math and word work, and social interaction. Yet, what we encountered was a new reality; a quick transition to distance learning in order to ensure the safety of students, faculty, and families due to the arrival of COVID-19 in our lives. Were we prepared to jump headfirst into distance learning? No. However, I was amazed to see and experience the resiliency of our PNA community as we transitioned to an online platform with an amazing amount of communication, flexibility, and grace. I have to admit. I was nervous. I still am in ways on how I can best serve my students. Yet, my main concerns were "How am I going to continue to help my students grow? How can I be the teacher they need me to be? How can I recreate what we have in the classroom through a screen?" Well, all I can do, all any of us can do, is our best. I still see my students growing as they challenge themselves to spell new words and find patterns in their reading. To have a student struggle over a word in a text we are reading together and then master that word, reading it independently in their books shows me that they can still grow and learn regardless of how that material is delivered. I know that I cannot recreate what we have in class; our classroom - and school - is a unique place. Yet, to see each other's faces during morning meeting, to talk, share, and listen in small groups, to discover, to laugh and be silly - these are all present online and are all components of what we have in our physical classroom. It's not the same but it is still rich and full of community. This past week I feel we have fallen into a sort of rhythm. My days are full of back-to-back online lessons, working with my students and trying to meet them where they are and trying to push them a bit further. Art and Spanish rolled onto the scene and students were able to have online class and interactions with their specialist teachers. I was able to see the growth of my student's plants, listen to their recordings of their classwork and thoughts on virtual field trips, as well as feel confident that my students are ready to move forward with more challenging work that will prepare and have them ready for 2nd grade. As with all challenges, we must modify our normal and do our best with what we have. I feel that our families have shown tremendous flexibility and our students have shown tremendous GRIT, and I hope that we can establish this distance learning as our new normal so that we can make the absolute best of our time together while we all work together to make our community, and world, a healthy place again.
Hands-on Learning
2/28/2020
Students were engaged in a lot of truly fascinating and exciting activities this week. FIrst grade saw the culmination of their PBL lantern project and were able to present their work to classmates and teachers from the school. The resulting project was so beautiful! Visitors and students alike were mesmerized by the lantern's beauty and first graders did a wonderful job speaking in front of a diverse audience. First graders were also able to participate in a PBL project that they were already familiar with. Kindergarten has a yearly project where they learn about the Iditarod and create their own sleds, racing them throughout the school and stopping in other student's classrooms as checkpoints. This year first graders got to be the 2nd checkpoint and they were so excited to have this new role as the "big" kids in the race. Everyone gathered at the end of the "race" the celebrate the end of this project and the kindergarteners hard work. Our week ended with an absolutely amazing space party. Community and business members contributed to an event that was incredibly engaging, hands-on, and intensely educational for our students. First graders engaged with the Civil Air Patrol using flight simulators, learned about how oil and water are separated from ConocoPhillips, investigated fingerprints with the Crime Lab, learned about glacier formation, as physics from UAA - just to name a few of the amazing experiences in which students were engaged. First graders, along with the rest of PNA, were immersed in week of truly hands-on learning and embracing the spirit and advantages of an independent education! Moving Beyond the Page
2/22/2020
On top of our math fun, students also prepared their invitations to our lantern exhibit. Our current PBL project about lanterns has been a fun and beautiful way for students to learn about light waves. During student-led conferences yesterday, it was so rewarding to hear students talk to their parents about different materials and know how light does or doesn't travel through particular objects. Over the past few weeks, we have moved through the stages of our PBL project and we are currently at the point of distributing invitations in order to share our project with the larger community. Although I am excited for first grade to share their hard work with the school, I am also excited for the critique phase and to hear about what students thought worked or didn't work and how they could have improved their design or execution of the project. Sometimes PBL is messy, sometimes we try projects that don't work, sometimes our PBL is gold standard and other times it's not; however, what matters is that students learn from their mistakes, learn from the process, and continue to build up their confidence and feel the burn for inquiry! Our week, full as it was, still had a bit of room to go to Grant Hall to see (and support) a fellow schoolmate in the Velveteen Rabbit on Thursday. Students have read the story in class and truly enjoyed the experience. What's even better is that students were able to engage with the cast in a question and answer session after the play. PNA students were confident and ready with all sorts of questions! Thursday was an art-filled day as we returned from the Velveteen Rabbit and began working on our class auction project. Students hammered and strung thread to begin what will become a beautiful piece of authentic art in someone's home! I am so excited to see the final product as our class continues this project over the next few weeks. As you can see, our week is bursting with all sorts of activities, filled with math, theater, art, science, and PBL. One moment it is Monday morning and it seems as though I blink and the week is over due to all the fun activities going on at PNA. The best refrain a teacher can hear is her students lamenting the fact that it's the weekend and we don't have school for two whole days!
A Little Bit of Love
2/14/2020
Of all weeks, this week is the week to talk about love, friendship, and kindness towards others. Students have been talking about Valentine's Day for the past five days non-stop and anticipating all the pink, red, hearts, candy, and exchange of trinkets and cards. We have read and listened to stories about Valentine's Day, about friendship, and one of my favorites, a book called A Little Bit of Love that is about a mouse who teaches her child about how very simple acts can be done with love. Acts such as holding the door for a friend, helping a teacher clean up, sharing and offering kind words to others - these are all ways we can teach our children to do simple acts with a little bit of love. Of course, first graders laugh and scrunch their noses at any mention of love regarding Valentine's Day but it's a wonderful holiday to come along after learning about Dr. MLK, kindness, and servitude. It allows us to continue the conversation about how we treat others and how simple acts can make a HUGE difference! As Dr. MLK said, "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend." This week, we practiced being kind and using encouraging words as we worked on engineering challenges, solving number line problems, word sorts, reading in our book bins, and listening attentively while others shared in morning meeting. I also witnessed a lot of love during our parent snack on Thursday. Students were counting down the hours until parent's showed up and I even had another teacher say, "I've never seen students so excited for a parent snack!" Despite being Valentine's Day themed, family support and love was the most obvious theme during the activities. To see the interaction between parents and students revealed how even simple acts such as designing a Valentine's Day bag or solving math problems and riddles can be filled with love. We worked through our math unit assessment Friday morning and students had to effectively count backward by 10 from different numbers, some starting at 100, others 88, and so on. They also had to solve multi-step equations using a number line and use their estimating skills to solve word problems. I also worked with another student who has been struggling with certain aspects of reading. However, after working with this student a light bulb went off and he exclaimed, "Oh! Now I get it! That makes sense!" and he began firing off word after word now knowing how to break the code. It is moments of success like these that make my heart feel full of love as a teacher. I adore these kids and love watching them grow and learn! 100th Day
2/8/2020
We celebrated the 100th day of school on Friday and students had so much fun! We began our day by breaking into pairs and focusing on a design challenge. Students worked with 100 pieces of a particular object to build a hollow core tower that could hold a piece of paper with a plastic bear on top. Students had different methods counting to 100; some counted by 5s, others by 10s - skills we have been working on throughout the year. They also displayed teamwork, listening and communication skills, and patience. Students had so much fun and to see how far they have grown in their teamwork abilities since the beginning of the year was a very proud moment for me as their teacher. An aspect of PNA that stands out is how much interaction there is between different ages and grades. Students in PK become familiar with students in 5th grade because of fun and engaging experiences such as our 100th day celebration. As students gathered in the gym, they mixed and mingled and Pre-K through 5th grade were playing and learning side-by-side. It was so joyful and exciting to see students from all grade levels not only helping each other but having fun and learning together! Students displayed respect to one another, self-confidence, and had a lot of fun engaging in the 100th day celebration in the gym - isn't that what we want for our kids educational experience!? Something I truly have come to appreciate and cherish about PNA is that I get to interact with students from all grade levels on a daily basis. As we move into February, the end of the school year is rapidly coming upon us; however, I am also looking back over the past 100 days of school and thinking that they went by so quickly, how much students have grown and matured, and how much fun I have seen these kids have over the past months. Celebrating the 100th day of school with all grade levels was just a reminder that PNA is indeed a special community and a unique place of learning!
I Do and I Understand.
1/31/2020
First grade is a time of immense change for students. They mature, become better readers, further develop their independence and confidence, and grow their understanding of the world around them. We have been covering types of energy over the past couple weeks, as well as discussing transparent, translucent, and opaque materials. As Chinese New Year is at the end of January, it seemed to be the perfect opportunity to broaden the student's awareness of cultural celebrations and tie in ways of celebrating different holidays to our unit on light. We couldn't necessarily study different cultures, celebrations, and holidays around the world without learning about where these celebrations take place, which was a perfect opportunity to expose them to the globe and all it's components. Talk about cross-curricular material! We have spent our PBL-devoted afternoons learning about cultural celebrations that use lanterns and light as part of their festivities. This week we studied Chinese New Year and Diwali, and made beautiful lanterns with translucent and opaque materials as part of an art installment piece we are going to share with the school. Next week, students will learn about how different cultures use luminaries and about the Mexican tradition of paper mache lanterns. All of this ties to how different materials allow light through in different ways, as well as exposing them to the amazing variety of cultures around the world. Students are encouraged to do their very best work because the culmination of all this learning and work will be the display of their creations. They will design an invitation to present to other classes, set up their lantern installation, and welcome students and teachers to pass down the hall and enjoy their works of art!
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Hali TuomiMs. Tuomi has over five years experience in ASD, where she taught first and fifth grade classrooms. An avid skier, Ms. Tuomi is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Alaska Pacific University’s Bachelor of Arts in K-8 Education. Archives
April 2021
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