If you haven't noticed I love to make learning fun! I want my students to go home everyday excited about school, about learning, and ready to come back for more. This is my eighth year teaching and I am confident as a teacher. I feel like I am finally at a point in teaching where I truly understand the curriculum and know what my students need to learn and how to get them there. Now I have time for the fun stuff. I have time to think outside of the box, to not only teach my students but engage my students! This is the best part of teaching - getting just as excited as your kiddos.
So a few weeks ago it was time for the story Nature Spy, Shelley Rotner, Ken Kreisler in our reading series.
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There isn't thing wrong with this story. It is a great story to learn about main idea. When I read books I want to make them come alive. Make them real. (Give the students a way to connect). So I took it as my job to make it more - more than just a listening center.
I do literacy stations on Monday - Thursday. On Friday (Fun Friday) we do literacy based activities. I usually pick on or two books and focus on those.
I chose to do Nature Spy on this particular Friday. We listened to the story, discussed the main idea, and then we took it a step further...we became Nature Spies! I am fortunate enough to work at a school that has one to one iPads for our kindergarten students so I wanted to incorporate these into the lesson. I have had an iPad in my classroom for five years. This is the first time in five years that I have let my students take their iPads outside and walk around with them. Ridiculous, I know!?!?
But I do have some control issues and iPads are expensive!
So what I did was pass out a nature hunt list to each student. The students were then given the challenge. They were to take their nature hunt list and their iPad and see what they could find. Once they found an item on the list they took a picture of it with their iPad. Once they found all of the items we went inside. I must admit...I had no idea that my students would be SO excited about this.
We have a huge fenced in area outside of our school and the students could go anywhere within the fence. (Between my assistant and I we could see the students at all times.) I am not sure if it was the freedom they had, being outside, or just the fun of discovery - they LOVED it!
Here a few pictures of the day!
Once we came inside the students looked back at the pictures on their iPads and checked their "data".
They then marked their findings off of their Nature Hunt lists.
I took a typical book and made it into an entire lesson that the kids enjoyed and will remember.
Okay, so here is something I need to admit!
I have a bulletin board problem! I blame it on my love for teaching. If I didn't do so many fun and engaging things I wouldn't have to share them. But since I do, I am always changing my bulletin board! Sometimes twice a month!!! Lucky for me my assistant doesn't mind! :)
So here is my bulletin board.
I have also included some of the pictures that they took with their iPads.
So what started out as a typical day with a typical book ended up being a day where my students were fully engaged and excited to learn!
That folks is what teaching is about!
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