I have been tossing around the idea of a blog in a first grade classroom and what that might look like. I have to tell you, at first I thought this is crazy, I have 1 child that draws symbols and shapes to spell her name, 4 at a kindergarten reading level and 3 that entered 1st grade with a second grade reading level. However, with much thought, I have decided to incorporate the ideas from a conference I went to this summer on differentiating in the classroom.
A speaker talked a lot about differentiating homework with choice boards or tic-tack-toes. This allows children to pick the homework that best suits their learning abilities, learning styles, etc, but still has the same learning outcome as all the other choices.
With that said, I believe that I will make my blog a choice on the homework. I will post several questions based on the weeks theme or literature from the reading curriculum. They will then need to post their thoughts, favorite parts or an answer to a question. There can be three choices for three levels and/or learning styles.
For example we discussed animals and their body parts (teeth, eyes, tails), I could have one post suggest they explore their stuffed animals and sort them based on teeth, nose, eyes, etc. They can then tell me how they sorted them and how many was in each group. Another group could write a list of words that describes an imaginary animal with 3 eyes, 2 noses and 600 teeth. Lastly, I could have a choice to pick 4 animals and write a word that rhymes with that animal or it's body part. Ex. cat/hat, pig/wig, eye/my, nose/rose. Most likely parent help will be needed beyond logging in.
Technology as homework would excite a lot of students. We do work on the lap top cart at school, visit the computer lab, use iPod shuffles and utilize the SMART board. Taking that excitement home may show parents another side of what we do all day at school. Of course this would only be part of the options for homework since technology may not be accessible in all homes.
I would love your thought and any ideas!
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I think the idea of using tic-tac-toes is a great idea, not only with your first graders, but with different levels. For example, I have a co-taught class of 10th grade students, 21 of 24 are special education students, and all have a variety of needs. Providing them with a choice of how to complete an assignment, such as discussion questions on a story, such as written, blogging (technology) or orally, can be a great way to reach some of my students. Thanks for the idea!
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea of differentiating homework. I teach kindergarten and I know how difficult it is to #1 get homework from these little ones and #2 use a computer with them! I think it's a great idea to use the blog to post questions from the week's theme. One challenge that you might see is the children's ability to use the computer and do these things individually. Will you be able to work one-on-one with each child at school on the blog? I am curious because I just started teaching my kindergarteners how to use the computer and it is very difficult! Do you have a lot of parental involvement at your school? Maybe you could have parents sign up to come in and take your class to the computer lab. The parents could walk around with you and assist the students with their blog answers. If the children were not able to type their answers, maybe they could tell the parent the answer and have the parent type for them.
ReplyDeleteI realize that something like this with kindergarteners would be next to impossible, but your idea brought a lot of things to the table for me. Thanks for sharing!
You have thought of an interesting idea. Good job figuring out how to account for such varied abilities. It is unreasonable to expect a child who cannot write his or her name to be able to type and blog about an idea. One thing I was curious about was how you plan to train the students and parents involved. In order to get students logged on at school you can create a hyperlink page with a picture or icon (I forget the name of it -- you can make them in MS Word). How do you plan to train parents. And how do you plan to get them on board? Blogging for a first grader could be a touchy subject for the parents.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of using the tic-tac-toe boards for homework. I use them for classroom work but for some reason I guess that I have never put them to use outside of the classroom. The blog would be a great way to engage students in learning outside of the classroom. You had mentioned ideas for homework but you could always but links to educational websites. This way they can have fun while learning. When they are done with the website they can check back into the blog and share with other students what they did and learned. It will create a learning community outside of the classroom. Great idea!
ReplyDeleteThank you for all your comments. This is definately a stretch for first graders to attempt. My hopes were that typing a few simple instructions out and including them on the tic-tack-toe sheet for how to log in would be enough for those tech savy parents. I do have a classroom website and also thought of putting the link on there to get to the classroom blog.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Bailey, we do normally put links on our homework. For instance this past week they had to visit: www.kids.nationalgeograpgic/animals.com and watch 5 animal videos and then make a list of the animals they studied. That would be a great way to add the blog. Thank you for your idea.