Honestly, it was my BEST year teaching ever! Some will say "you got lucky with the group you had" and yes, the Firsties were a great group. A lot of hard work went into making them such a great group. They accomplished beyond my own goals. They led the way and I followed.
Alternative seating was a staple in the classroom. Their choices lead to their learning. I challenged that learning. Through four Donorschoose.org grants, the classroom moved into the 21st Century. The class had 3 Chromebooks, a wireless color printer/copier, and a camera. Our fourth Chromebook came from a grant written from a teacher's car/home insurance company. The class loved every opportunity to set their own learning goals and outcomes.
A variety of writings were published. Firsties had the choice of publishing handwritten stories and articles or using Google Docs or publishing on our Kidblog site. It just wasn't writings from Writers Workshop either. We began our day by writing in Quick Write notebooks..about anything important to them. For many, those were shared on our Kidblog site. It wasn't just writing it became on opportunity to respond as well. "Ms. Mason, can I respond to writings on the blog?" became a frequent question. And they always wanted more.
Firsties engaged their learning on http://www.tumblebooklibrary.com/. They were choosing to read and watch about topics of their personal interest. If it was in the news, there was someone learning about it on tumblebooks. Seriously. One day, as I looked over at a student who was engaging their learning about Mohammed Ali. He had just passed away. Talk about real world inspiring learning.
My next move? A Google 21st Century classroom.
Oh, and writing more about those moments over the last year.
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