MACUL 2014 - Thank You!!

Funny.  I started this blog while AT Macul last year.  Think I got two posts written before life took over again.  This year?  This year will be different!  It already has been! (as evidenced by the number of posts previous to this!)

I am still a little hung over from my Macul experience.  And no, I don't drink.  At all.  But boy…… the energy, the enthusiasm, the collaboration….. enough to ignite anyone's fire for learning!  That was the theme, too, IGNITE LEARNING.  Yep.  Definitely fit that theme.  Might even be burning strong enough to be the theme for next year's Macul, too.

Anyway, this is (hopefully) the first of a few posts that will be devoted to my Macul experience.  Last year was my first year going, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, experiencing the same kind of high and hangover effect that I am experiencing now.  The difference is, this year, not only have I gotten super handy at twitter…… but I also presented.  Talk about WOW!  I can't believe I actually got to present at Macul!  It was such a rush!

This post is actually a thank you post.

Thank you to those who came to my sessions!  I hope you gained something new that you are able to put in to practice as soon as you're back in the classroom!  PLEASE feel free to tweet me or email me if you have any questions about anything shared.  There was a lot of information packed into a short amount of time!  The presentation is available via the Teaching with Technology link on THIS page.

Thank you to Macul, for allowing me to present at the conference.  It was humbling to be presenting among so many outstanding educators, and I'm honored to have been able to share with my colleagues.

Thank you to Meghan for staying with Sparky while I was gone.  I loved having him at home so I could spy on him via webcam!

Lastly, Thank you to my district, Bloomfield Hills Schools, for allowing me to go spend two days in Grand Rapids learning and sharing with some of the best and brightest!

Goal for my third year at Macul?  Presenting again, AND finally, student showcase!

#macul14 was awe inspiring…….. It's going to be tough waiting for 2015!!

Love Letters

A HUGE component of the PYP is the action piece - the one where kids take action because of something they learned.  This really comes into play during Exhibition, the culmination of the PYP, which in our school, is at the end of fourth grade.

And it's one of my favorite parts of the whole year.

To model different ways to take action, I try to involve the class in as many service projects as possible.  We've done a lot of different ones over the years, and it is always an uplifting experience.

However.

The project we participated in this year, Love Letters, was by far one of my favorites. 

I found it through the website DoSomething.org (check it out if you don't know what it is!) and loved it as soon as I read it.  The project involved making Valentines and sending them to designated Meals on Wheels locations, where said Valentines would be distributed with meals to seniors on Valentine's Day.  Many of these seniors don't have family, and are quite alone, which always feels worse on Valentine's Day.

Anyway, I sent an email to my colleagues, and many of them jumped on board, too!  We sent nearly 200 Valentines, made by kindergarteners through fourth graders, all hand made, all personal and festive.  I liked this project because it was relatable for all the kids - even the little kinders understood that they were making cards to send to people who don't get happy stuff very often.  It was an eye-opening experience for all!

See. Think. Wonder.

This is another fantastic Thinking Routine.  In lower grades, they call it see-think-wonder.  In upper grades, we often call it observe-think-question.

What do you see?

And that's exactly what we did.

As we were readying to do some close reading, I remembered an old game we used to play at camp.  You know the one I'm talking about?  The one where one person stands in front of the group for a minute, and the group has to "memorize" that person.  Then, the person steps out of site of the group and changes ONE thing.  Just one.  They return to the group, and it's the groups job to try and notice (see/observe) the difference.

Well, it did wonders for helping the kids start to NOTICE details in their reading.

It was a short, but extremely engaging way to kick off a new reading unit!

Graphing

I love integrating technology into as much as possible (if you couldn't already tell!)  Therefore, when I found the Create A Graph website, it was a natural connection to our culture unit, where students were researching how "The movement of people has an impact on culture."

Students worked in pairs and researched another country's impact on the culture of the United States.  (You can see their presentations HERE.)  One of the components was looking at waves of immigration, finding the largest wave, and uncovering the push/pull factors that were present during that time.

 Enter Create A Graph.  And calculators.  And rulers.  And lots and lots of thinking!  What you have at the end are very well done, clear graphs, that can, in addition to the project, be used for a plethora of problem solving pursuits!