My Bucket is Overflowing...

My students are the best.  Seriously.  My amazing student teacher, Megan, told them about my participating in the #INeLearn Flipped Class Conference on Saturday in Indianapolis.  Well, somewhere along the way, they made me this beautiful card.  When I read it, I cried.  I had to reassure them that my tears were HAPPY tears!  I told them that my bucket was so full that it was overflowing.  It really was! 
There are moments when this job is so overwhelming that I wonder when I will ever complete all the items on the to-do list.  Will I ever catch up?  It's so tough.  But, those moments are small compared to the countless times when my fantabulous 4th graders fill my bucket throughout any given day.  Wow.  Just wow.
At the end of the day, as the students were leaving, one of my boys came up to me and said, "Good luck, Ms. Beard.  You'll do great!  We believe in you." 
Well, needless to say, the tears began to flow again...

My card traveled with me to Indianapolis, as a gentle reminder that those precious young people believe in me.  All I had to do was share what we do every day, and that's easy peasy!

My Favorite Tweet...

This is my favorite tweet of the day...

Are 4th graders awesome or what?!?!?!?!

This is what Lyon tweeted this morning!
9.19.12

We're Tweetin'!

One of our fun adventures this week included creating our Twitter account! 

Check us out:

Each of my fantastic 4th graders has his/her own Twitter space in our classroom:

At the end of each day, we take time to reflect on our learning and our day's events.  We think about our "aha" moments and we record our homework in our agenda books.  Using the document camera, I model this process in my own agenda book.

We then do a "think - pair - share" activity in which they share what their tweet will be before they write it down.  This helps the students who feel "stuck" and are unsure of what to tweet.
This daily reflection has been so powerful!  Knowing that their "tweets" must be brief reminds my students that they must get to the point.  No rambling aloud!  :-)
Those who tend to want to include lots of details when summarizing are forced to think about the most important information, and not all the "fluff!"  This has been an incredible summarizing exercise.

I didn't realize that our individual tweets would be such effective tools for absent students.  When students arrive to school after an absence, the first thing they do in the morning is check our tweet chart!  So cool!

Dr. James MacLeod, Professor of History at the University of Evansville, visited us and taught us about his journey to become a U.S. citizen.  We had fun sending him a note of thanks via Twitter! 

Follow us here.  See ya in the Twitterverse!

Night Ranger & Cemeteries...

Yup.  You read that correctly... never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd ever post a video that included Night Ranger and a cemetery, but indeed I did.  (Well, a modified cemetery, that is...)
I'm flipping some writing strategies as part of my daily writing workshop and this is a lesson on getting rid of boring, "2nd grade" words.  (No offense, 2nd graders!) 

For those of you who are young pups, you probably won't recognize the song in the background.  Being a product of the 80's, and not too proud to admit that, I chose "Good-bye," a song by one of the all-time greatest bands, Night Ranger! 


Flipping sure takes me places I never thought I'd go...

Going for it!

During our first few weeks of school, we had lots of conversations about what we wanted to accomplish this year.  We recorded our goals on our "hands" shown in the picture above.  We talked about why it is so important to set goals and reflect on them.  Here's a great article by Zig Ziglar on goal setting.

I was so touched when several students wanted to "fill a bucket every day..." as they remembered a book I had read the previous week by McLoud and Messing, "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?  A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids." (More information here.)
 
As we began to reflect on those goals we posted, we decided that we wanted to identify some group goals as well.  We're all in this together, as Habit #6 reminds us: 
Habit #6 — Synergize - Together Is Better
I value other people’s strengths and learn from them. I get along well with others, even people who are different than me. I work well in groups. I seek out other people’s ideas to solve problems because I know that by teaming with others we can create better solutions than anyone of us can alone. I am humble.

When we work together, we all can win, as we know from this habit:

 Habit #4 — Think Win-Win - Everyone Can Win
I balance courage for getting what I want with consideration for what others want. I make deposits in others’ Emotional Bank Accounts. When conflicts arise, I look for third alternatives.

(More information on our 7 Habits can be found here.)

Now, we want you to weigh in on one of our class goals.  How many books should we read this year?  Click here to tell us!

We can't wait to get started on reaching our goal!