Twitter Inspired: Student Choice

#AddictedtoTwitter

Every Sunday evening there is a wonderful group of teachers who "meet" on Twitter and chat about issues pertaining to first grade.  This chat is called #1stchat and is hosted by Leka DeGroot and Valerie Ruckes.  I have learned so much from this fabulous PLN!  Check it out each Sunday at 8PM ET! (Twitter chats can be a bit overwhelming to follow at first.  I recommend using a Twitter dashboard/organizer; I use Tweetdeck on my laptop and just downloaded Plume to try on my Android phone.  I've also heard good things about HooteSuite.)

Last Sunday's chat was about student choice and was guest hosted by Karen Lirenman. (Here's a link to the transcript.)  The timing of this chat was perfect as student choice has been on my mind lately.  A group of teachers at my school are participating in a book study of Alan November's Who Owns the Learning? which has inspired me to provide choice to give my students a sense of ownership and help them learn become more engaged with their learning. I've given my students a menu of activities to choose from this week for our Dr. Seuss unit.  (Read about my plan here). My class is so excited about these activities!  I introduced the menu last week, and we discussed each activity.  They've been bringing in supplies for the creative choices all week and sharing their own Dr. Seuss books for our book basket.  I can't wait to see their projects!

Oh, The Places We'll Go!

I am so excited about the next 2 weeks!  For the past several years my team and I have been doing a Dr. Seuss week at the beginning of March, complete with our own mini read-a-thon. (Read about our day 2 years ago here.)  But we've always felt rushed to complete everything before spring break, so this year we have decided to expand our unit to 2 weeks.  Two weeks with Dr. Seuss- YES!

I might be sorry in a few days, but I've decided to jump in and try something VERY different for me.  A few years ago I created a differentiated menu of activities for our Dr. Seuss unit.  Due to lack of time, I've never been able to implement it completely, but my kids have always enjoyed the activities from the menu that we have been able to complete.  Since I will have more time this year, I want to be able to give them these choices and add in some opportunities to use the technology tools we've been exploring. So here's the new menu I've created.

To introduce the menu I've created a Powerpoint presentation that I can post on our learning management system, Canvas.  (I'm loving Canvas; I should blog about it soon!) That way the kids (and parents) can easily access the menu and see examples.  Here's a link if you'd like to check it out:

Dr. Seuss Menu Directions

Hopefully I'll be back sometime next week to update how it's going!