I am a passionate teacher in Oregon, Wisconsin, USA, who has taught 4th, 5th, and 7th grade. Proud techy geek, and mass consumer of incredible books. Creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI, and believer in all children. I have no awards or accolades except for the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day. First book “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classrooms Back to Our Students” can be purchased now. Second book“Empowered Schools, Empowered Students – Creating Connected and Invested Learners” is out now from Corwin Press. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.
I wipe the last table off, position the pencil cup, shut off the lights and close the door. Supposedly my room is ready for the 26 brand new students that will bounce in Tuesday morning. Supposedly I am ready to meet their needs once discovered. Supposedly I don’t have to go in these next few days, I will keep my door closed, and my room ready.
But I am not ready yet. A hole exists. A need that has not been met so my room feels unfinished. As I drive home it finally dawns on me what it is: my students. My room will always be unfinished without them. My room will never feel ready without them.
I can set up, prepare, write plans, make copies, create welcome back bulletin boards, but in the end, my room will never be quite done. My room will never look ready. My room will always seem empty until they come. And what a wonderful feeling that is. My students are what make us a classroom. Not the tables, the books, the bulletin boards or all of the supplies. The kids. They are the ones that matter. I cannot wait to finish my room.
Every year I try to have various community building activities for the kids to do on those first few days of school. And while I detest ice breakers, in 5th grade, we do like the occasional get to know me activity. Though the years I have used various scavenger hunts, time capsules, and bingo games to get to know them a bit better, to get them to know each other, and also for me to keep until the end of the year. Then when summer beckons and we cannot believe that the year is over, I pull out the forgotten letters, the time capsules, the about me’s, and we reminisce and we laugh and we shake our heads at the answers we gave so long ago.
As I shared some of this with my teammates yesterday, I realized I should share it here as well. Some of this is me created, some of it is adapted from others a long time ago. Either way, I hope you have a phenomenal back to school and that some of these may be useful to you.
Around the Room Scavenger Hunt – customize to fit your room, helps the kids notice the things they need to find or know.
Human Treasure Hunt – great for when you have a lot of new kids so they can discover things about each other
A Letter to Me – I use this to peek into the kids’ thoughts and then save it until the end of the year to see how they have changed
Me Collage – a secret collage where the kids have to guess who made it
3 minute time test – there are so many variations of this one but it is used to discuss the importance of following directions
Group Bingo – Instead of numbers they have to find kids that match the description
Time Capsule – Students fill in the blanks (this one always cracks me up)
The Bloxes Challenge – a favorite of mine the past few years and this year the whole grade level will do it.
Create a flag pennant: Cut a white piece of 12”X18” construction paper diagonally to create two pennants. Students write their name in large letters with color and then fill in the pennant with things about them. Laminate and display above their lockers.
Writing sample to see how they grow, a great prompt is; “What color is (blank) grade?”
Every year I have the outgoing class write “Dear Future Student” letters so we read these in the first couple of days.
Using Animoto.com the students create a classroom vision video. Educators can get a free account and then use that for student work. We use the stock pictures and add out own sentences to show what we want to get out of the year.
Random pictures of you slideshow. Create a slideshow with pictures that are meaningful to you and have students guess what they mean – this can be a lot of fun as students guess their meaning.
The firs test of the year! Surprise them with a pop quiz that is all about their teacher, true/false questions work best.
Connect the students – this is a great activity that only requires a large sheet of paper and sharpies. Students all write their name on the border of the paper and then one person makes a statement about something they like or do such as, “I play soccer.“ Anyone else that plays soccer gets to draw a line from his or her name to the name of the person who made the statement. Then the next person states something and so on until everyone has had a turn. Great way to visualize all the things we have in common.
Name your table and create a banner for it.
Toilet paper introduction. Pass a roll of toilet paper around and instruct students to take as many squares as they want. Once everyone has taken their squares, tell them they need to share as many things about themselves as they haven taken squares.
Guess the like. Every student writes down something they do or like on a piece of paper (no name on it!) then crumble it up. Have a paper toss battle for a few minutes and then everyone grabs one “ball. Try to guess whose paper it is.”
Some of these I use, some I don’t but either way, feel free to use.
I am a passionate 5th grade teacher in Middleton, Wisconsin, USA, proud techy geek, and mass consumer of incredible books. Creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI, and believer in all children. I have no awards or accolades except for the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day. First book “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classroom Back to Our Students Starting Today” will be released this fall from PLPress. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.
I was fortunate enough to have my very first article published by EdWeek this week in anticipation of my book release this fall. I have been so excited to move into the editing stages of my book, titled “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classroom back to Our Students Starting Today.” This book is meant to be a how-to book for new teachers and veterans that want to change a little or a lot of how they have been teaching. It is a practical book filled with ideas and examples to hopefully inspire you to give the classroom back and give students a voice in their education.
So here is an excerpt from my article, please click the link to see the rest
No teacher begins a teaching career with ill intentions. Yet most of us make our biggest mistake on our very first day. I was no different, nine years ago. I chose to do everything the way I had been taught in college—the way the popular new-teacher advice books said I should.
Sure, I laughed with the students and made noises about our “class community.” But as the all-important first week of school progressed, I went about dictating rules, establishing who was in control, and setting tight boundaries for the year.
As a result, I lost the opportunity to create the kind of relationship with my students that leads not only to motivation and engagement but to real ownership of learning and ultimately greater achievement. At the time I didn’t recognize the loss—it took several years, in fact. If you’re a new teacher about to begin your journey, maybe my lessons learned can help you avoid the pitfalls of a pretend partnership with your students.
To see the rest and my ideas for a better way to start, go here
I realized today that I am about to start my 6th year of teaching, not counting the 6 months long-term subbing I started with. 6 years of first days, first weeks, and incredible students to get to know. 6 years of having the hardest time figuring out what to start with, what to share, how to set up my room. 6 years to figure out that every year it feels like you are brand-new and the back to school nightmares come earlier and earlier. So I went through my archives of posts as I was looking for some old ideas myself to tweak and in the process thought I should share some of my favorites from the past 3 years of blogging about back to school.
I am a passionate 5th grade teacher in Middleton, Wisconsin, USA, proud techy geek, and mass consumer of incredible books. Creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI, and believer in all children. I have no awards or accolades except for the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day. First book “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classroom Back to Our Students Starting Today” will be released this fall from PLPress. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.
Disclaimer first: I love Scholastic and have for many years. The ease of getting books in the hands of my students, the shiny catalogues that stop our day because we have to circle all of the books we want to read, and also the prices. Scholastic has indeed been good for this teacher. And yet, Scholastic I may have to break it off with you….
Dear Scholastic,
In my other post, I first noticed the standardized testing focus that seems to jump form your new pressed pages. As you may know, it broke my heart and many others’. But now I find myself shaking my head even more, not quite sure if I should even send home your lovely catalogue or just keep it to myself. See you went ahead and created leveled catalogues. Probably with great intentions to make book selection easier for kids or to help teachers by grade level appropriate books. But you forgot a couple of things…
My students aren’t levels. They are readers. And they don’t want someone to tell them what a 5th grader should read, they want to trust their own voice as a reader as a pursuer of fantastic stories and knowledge. I teach them to trust themselves. I teach them how to find their perfect book. I know their level but they don’t, they don’t need to to know what they need to do become even stronger readers,
Their grade does not define them. My students read all sorts of books and not because they are “just right” based on an assessment, but because they are just right in interest, in action, in creativity, in mood, in readability. They don’t pick a book because it is perfect for 5th grade. They pick a book because it is perfect for them.
And yet they know their grade. Some of my 5th graders wouldn’t be caught dead reading something someone had labeled a 4th grade book. Even if it was a great book. Even if I thrust it into their hands and told them to trust me. By splashing 4th grade or 3rd grade all over your many colored pages, you have guaranteed that some of my kids will never consider reading those books simply because they are too proud to read something that is labeled for younger kids. And what about when they become 6th graders? Do you think they then want to read 5th grade books? No, that would be for elementary students, not the big middle school students. I am saddened by the books they will miss out on.
And me? I had to pretend I was a 4th, 5th ,and 6th grade teacher to get the catalogues that I want for my students. See some need 4th grade reading levels, while others are ready for middle school action and stories. And I need to be able to supply them that. Yet, I don’t know if I can give them the catalogues anymore, I don’t know quite what will happen if they see the push for standardized testing and the need to level. Will they think that reading is only for tests? Will they think that they can only read certain books because that’s what someone told them?
I don’t think I am ready to take them down that path. I hope you change your mind, Scholastic, perhaps put the levels on the teacher part but not on the flyers. Perhaps, go back to your old ways that were not broken. You don’t have to follow all of the crazy fads happening around us, it is okay to just love reading and let kids love reading too. I haven’t lost the faith in you yet.
Best,
Pernille
Edit: It is not every day you receive a phone call from Scholastic headquarters, but today I did. After a very pleasant conversation with them regarding my latest blog posts, I hung up the phone understanding that they are trying to please many people at the same time. I was also told that many teachers and parents had asked for the recent changes, which had led them go through with it. Their intentions were to help. Yet, I stand by what I have posted and told them that many agree with me; this is not what we had hoped for from this bastion of reading. While I doubt my posts will change their minds, I urge you to start your own conversation with them. They are there to discuss and listen and perhaps if enough of us do engage, something will change. Either way, I continue to respect Scholastic and what they strive to do: provide teachers with great books, even if I am disappointed in their choice.
Yesterday as I eagerly browsed through the new Scholastic catalogue, my eyes caught this
And my heart sank
And then I got angry
And then I knew I had to blog about it
Whatever happened to the notion that reading expands your mind? That reading helps you see the world through a new set of eyes? That reading, whether fiction or nonfiction, makes you a well-rounded human being? It seems to have disappeared, swallowed by Common Core, test prep, and scores that determine the fate of every child. Now reading is to cram as much as knowledge into your head only so you can regurgitate it onto a test. Shove it all in there by memorization, who cares about deeper connections or questions to ponder? Just read, read, read, read and please make it nonfiction so that it is all facts, more knowledge, more things to know so that we can test you on it. After all, facts is what makes a great problem solver, right?
I hate the bastardization of reading that is happening here. I hate how reading becomes quantified through logs, broken down into data pieces, smothered through a heavy-handed focus on nonfiction rather than just reading. Reading for the love of it. Reading for the sake of it. Reading for the joy of it.
I hope Scholastic comes out with a catalogue that says, “Parents: Reading leads to new adventures!” or “Parents: Reading can be an escape for your child!” Or “Parents: Reading will deepen your child’s creativity!” Somehow I am not sure that will happen anytime soon, but we must hope, and we must fight. Our love of reading depends on it.
PS: As it was mentioned in the comments, look at what they highlight as great nonfiction reading: An encyclopedia, a math dictionary, a spelling handbook, and a world atlas. Couldn’t they at least have highlighted some great nonfiction books like “Bomb” or “Lincoln’s Killers” which I know they sell?
Pernille Ripp 