Storage Seating

I am so excited to participate in Made-It-Monday for the first time!

I have been teaching for 16 years. I have taught a total of 6 different grade levels or programs. That being said I have acquired a lot of...materials. Yes, that's what we'll call it. At the end of last year I weeded some things out and either pitched them or donated them. But even with all that, I still have materials that need a better place to be stored.

Let me also add that I teach Kindergarten in a small room with very little storage. I have a closet and three under-the-counter cabinets. That's it. Last year I had 25 students and had to find room for a fifth table. My room was crowded - I will admit.  So for this coming year I have decided to get creative with my storage. 

I have seen the milk crate seats on Pinterest, but I wanted more storage than they could offer. I found my answer while pinning one night this summer. I followed a pin about guided reading and it led me to a picture of DeeDee Wills' classroom. Right there was my storage solution. She had made seats out of storage tubs. I could do that.

So I gathered my materials. I bought my tubs at Target. I found some tubs that had a recess in the top.

I bought my material and padding at Hobby Lobby. The padding was my biggest expense - but I wanted my Kinders to be comfy. (But I did use my 40% off coupon to save a little $.)

The hubby got the wood for me in the scrap bin at Menards - yeah, money saving hubby! My hubby cut the wood for me, but you could also pull the teacher card and ask them to cut it for you at the hardware store. We had a hot glue gun and staple gun at home.

I hot glued the padding to my wood boards so that it wouldn't move when I wrapped it with the fabric. I then laid it padding side down on the fabric. My hubby helped me staple the fabric down. I needed his muscles since I still have restrictions from my back surgery earlier this year. 

And voila! A seat for my guided reading table as well as a ton of storage since I made 5 of them!

Daily 5 - Chap. 8

I was very curious about Chapter 8 in The Daily 5: Second Edition by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. I have known about Daily 5 for Literacy since the first book came out, but Math Daily 3 was all new, so I was excited to read this chapter to see what it was about.

I loved the statement that The Sisters shared from Van de Walle and Lovin. Math..."is about providing tasks and activities that engage students in the mathematics they are expected to learn." Its not about specific content. In this chapter The Sisters also talk about how many math books do not provide the kind of mathematics problem solving and activities that result in deeper understanding of math concepts. I could not agree more.  I have not used a math book in the last two years.  We have a math series that we can use as a resource, but the work pages were way too easy for my higher students and did not meet the language needs for my ELL students. I have abandoned it in favor of hands-on lessons that allow the students to use lots of manipulatives to solve problems and aide their thinking.

The Sisters use the gradual release of responsibility method in Math Daily 3 just like in Daily 5. I, too, use this method, but I will admit mine is usually within one whole group lesson and not broken up like in Math Daily 3. The Sisters suggest introducing a new concept whole group, then a round of Daily Math, then regroup and review the concept further, then another round of Daily Math, and then a brief independent work time on the concept followed by a third round of Daily Math. I struggle with this set-up a little bit for Kinders.  I would fear that my struggling students would feel disjointed with this layout. I worry that their little brains would have a hard time switching gears that many times in a short period. I could see this layout working better in the second semester of Kindergarten than in the first. So many of my students are learning how to be a student that I am not sure they would be able to handle it. Even with I-charts and frequent review, in May I still had students unable to work independently in math centers. I need to ponder this more.

Presently, I do one round of Math Centers a day. I have 10 centers that last for two weeks. The 10 centers are focused on skills the students already know and the 10 are differentiated into three levels. I am not sure that Daily Math 3 had enough differentiation built into it. Differentiation is an expectation my district has so that each student has their needs met at their level. Letting students choose their own partners in Math with Someone, as suggested in the book, is an area where differentiation would be difficult. Students who are working on identifying numbers 1-10 would have difficulty playing the same games as students working on identifying numbers 50-100. The above level students would be great models for the lower students, but the above level students would not not be challenged. 

These are pictures of Math Centers in action in my room. I use a variety of activities that I have found on TPT as well as open-ended activities. When I counted up the centers between the three parts in Math Daily 3, the total was 8 - so my 10 is not that far off. My organization and layout is just different.

A center from A Differentiated Kindergarten on TPT.

A center from Tara West on TPT.

Patterning cards I found on the internet.

Bear patterning cards from Scholastic.

Addition center created using dominoes and sandpaper numbers.

Another center from A Differentiated Kindergarten.

A ten-frame center from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard.

Open-ended center with peg boards - excuse my finger.. 

Open-ended center with transportation manipulatives.

I wish The Sisters had put some Kinder specific suggestions in this chapter like in many of the Literacy Chapters. I found myself asking "How would this work in Kinder?" a lot. How does Math Writing look in Kindergarten? How do students write about Math when they cannot write words yet? How would I design this portion of the Math Daily 3 to meet the needs of non-readers and writers? I find myself wanting visuals and examples. I know my Kinders could draw pictures to show their thinking - but what are they looking at or using in order to do this?

As you can see, this chapter raised a lot of questions for me. It has made me think of my classroom, my teaching, and my students - which is great. It's when our thinking is challenged that we grow and learn. Even as teachers our learning is never done. What works one year may not work for the students the following year. Teachers have to learn to adapt each year to the new group of students. I have a lot of thinking to do!

An InLinkz Link-up

Teaching With Intention - Chapter 5

With each chapter that I read of this book, I come to the same conclusion - Debbie Miller is phenomenal. What I amazed the most by is the succinct language she uses with her students. She so clearly explains the purpose of things to her students - the what and why. This is my big take away from this chapter. I need to train myself to tell my students the what's and whys of each lesson. I would be modeling how to articulate thinking to others. I also need to begin using the word scheme

I am also going to be making myself a laminated file folder come August. I absolutely must have one to ad to my repertoire of anchor charts. I like to mix it up throughout the year so that students don't become bored. I use Venn Diagrams, Tony Stead's RAN chart (similar to KWL - but I like it better), Can/Have/Are charts, Story  Element Charts, and Alpha Boxes.

I earned my Masters in Literacy in 2013. I learned so much. The professor of my Multicultural class, a wonderful lady named Barb Mallinger, taught us a new way to do Venn Diagrams which helps both ELL and struggling students organize their thinking. Instead of circles, which inevitably are too small in the middle, she recommends using squares so that the middle can be of equal size to the outer sections. She also suggested that when first doing this, provide students with some beginning topics to think about. This made such a difference for my Kinders who struggled with language. It really helped their thinking hone in to particular parts of the story.

The bat above me is an example of Tony Stead's RAN chart or Reading Analysis of Nonfiction. It is similar to a KQL, but I find it more user friendly for Kinders. The first section is "What We Think We Know." My students either draw or write what they think they know - in this case - about bats. The second column is "Yes, I Was Right!" This is my favorite part. After doing the first column, I read nonfiction books about the topic. The students then have to look and listen for their thought to be proven true through either the illustrations or the text. This part really keeps the kids in tune. If their thought is proven true, they get to come up and move their post-it over to the second column. The third column is "New Things We Learned." After reading Chapter 5, I want to bring in some of Debbie's concepts. Next time I do this chart, I want to put the new learning on another color post-it so that we can connect our thinking. So excited to try this! The last section is for questions we have as we learn about that topic. If a student has a thought that is never proven true, their post-it stays in the 

first column. As we read we discuss why that thinking was not accurate. And because I teach Kinder, I sometimes allow that student to revise their thinking on a new post-it - but the first post-it still stays in the first column.

The graphics and headings of this Can/Have/Are chart are from Deanna Jump's Spider Unit. I again want to bring in Debbie Miller's concept of connecting our thinking so will again use a new color post-it the next time I do this. 

I LOVE reading several versions of traditional folktales to compare and contrast story elements. One of my favorite to do this with is the Three Little Pigs. There are so many fun versions out there that have some unique twists, characters, or settings. I chose not to do problem and solution in this particular chart as that was not my focus.

Alpha Boxes are another thing I learned about in my Masters program. I thought they may be too hard for Kinders, but actually do great when used with the whole group. I always tell my students that we will NOT have something in every box and that is okay. As you read non-fiction texts about a topic, in this case owls, you add the students' thin kings to the letter that it corresponds with. I like to draw a quick picture next to as well just to make the learning more visual. You can also use different colors each day as a way for students to see the volume of what they have learned. 

In my Chapter 4 post I talked about wanting to write down the question prompts that Debbie Miller uses. I am also going to jot down some notes for myself to use as I model making my thinking visible and phrases which will help students connect their thinking and create mental files of all their learning.

Be sure to check out the posts for this Chapters Hostess and the post from the coordinator The Kindergarten Smorgasboard.