Why Word Quest?

Who: Members of Team 106
What: Word Quest Vocabulary Builders
Where: Done at school and at home
When: Minimum of one word list a week
Why: Attempt to build vocabulary, knowledge of word patterns for spelling, and application into writing

I figured I would interview myself tonight.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish with Word Quest?
A: Ideally I would love for students to be motivated to dig deeper into their reading and writing to identify word patterns, learn new words, and become better spellers.  I would like this to be a way for students to have a meaningful conversation with their families and work together to think about how we spell words and use vowel patterns.

Q: What are you looking for in the sentence part of the quest?
A: I am looking for students to write a complete sentence with proper punctuation and capitalization.  I am looking for them to enjoy writing their sentences and creating them.  I would like to see them challenge themselves with difficult words and not fear getting some wrong.  I want to see a variety of sentences and see their writing voice come out.  I am looking for them to use their current skill correctly and especially hold onto past skills.  I am going to be more lenient when I see them choose the wrong pattern for long e by using "ee" instead of "ea" than I will if they don't identify that as a long e sound.  I am also looking for them to attempt to use their dragon words in their sentences.

Q: What are dragon words?
A: It is a fun way to motivate students to learn either words I think they should know how to spell or words or patterns that they have had trouble spelling.  For some it will be fixing common sight words that they can read, but they misspell in their writing.  For others it will be working on a commonly misspelled word list a couple at a time to make sure they are solid in those words.  This is designed to challenge students at all levels.  I would like students practicing their dragon words, writing them on the back page, and even using them in their other pages in their packet.  I then want them to correctly use them in two sentences either on one quest or two.

Q: What is the minimum participation?
A: I will be basing their work in word study on the successful completion of six quests by the end of the marking period.  I made that decision with six weeks to go in the marking period.  We have some students with one completed quest and we have a couple with seven or eight completed quests.  I need to set a minimum level of participation, but I want them to also be motivated to go beyond if they choose.  I will probably set a maximum output of three quests or I would be overwhelmed.

Q: What can parents do to help?
A: This isn't as much about skill and drill spelling as it is about absorbing word patterns.  There is value to old fashioned practice of some words, but their is just as much value as bringing home some words you found during the day and showing your student how they are used at work or the store.  There is value in reading together and finding words that fit patterns.  There is value in using authentic writing assessment to test the development of the skill like writing a letter, a story, a poem, or a comic strip.

Q: Where do we go from here?
A: I am hoping after working through some basic spelling patterns that at least some students will go into Greek and Latin root words as a way to pick up some new vocabulary and skills to decode larger words based on those clues found in root words.

If you have any further questions, please send them to me and I may do question and answer as one of my normal things.  Have a great night!

Learning in Action

Excuse the volume, but I wanted to try sharing video here to show you what we were doing in Science yesterday with the assistance of our watchdog.  We were reviewing how particles change states of matter based on their energy gained or lost.  I have no idea how much kids gained from this experience, but it is more memorable than a quiz on whether ice is a solid, liquid, or gas.  I am always looking for new ways to stretch their abilities to accept new ideas in their mind.

Language

I am on a huge push towards language acquisition.  Our growth numbers on the STAR reading assessment do not meet my normal standards and I am looking for new ways to push their ability to understand and comprehend.  I have a room full of wonderful readers who now need to transition from learners who are learning to read into learners that are reading to learn.  Word quest is going to be part of that push, but it is going to need to be a team wide effort to use strong vocabulary with kids, questions them about words, and show them how to use words in new ways.

Having a large vocabulary is a huge success factor in future endeavors.  It is not the only success factor, but it plays a huge role in the type of student they will become.  I am looking into other efforts and ways to spend my time that will yield the kinds of results we all want to see.  I am always looking for new ways to introduce great vocabulary if you run across resources that you find useful.

Christmas STEM Project

The holidays are upon us and I can already feel the buzz in the building.  The holidays are a wonderful time for many families to take time to celebrate with each other and have an excuse to take time to think about others.  As a teacher, I will look for ways to allow kids to use their excitement to our advantage educationally, but we still have two weeks that we HAVE to work hard.  That final week will be filled with some holiday celebrations and fun activities that are learning based.

I want to walk you through the last week before Christmas so you know what is going on.  On Monday, December 19th, students will be traveling to every second grade classroom to learn about the holiday traditions around the world.  Each teacher prepares a lesson about another country and does a craft from that region.  We enjoy taking time to teach each class in the grade level and share some other traditions with students.  Holidays Around the Word is one of my favorite days to teach as a second grade teacher.

On Tuesday, December 20th we will be doing some Holiday themed writing and taking time to create gifts for our parents.  This ends up being a light academic day as we work through some creative processes and enjoy making something for all of you.

Wednesday, December 21st will be the date of the classroom Christmas party.  As you know, I do things a bit differently whenever possible.  I was never happy with my holiday party as a teacher until I took it and made it a learning activity together.  I created a STEM day which stands for the teaching of science, technology, engineering, and math.  We will spend the day working on a problem and measuring our solutions.  In the morning, I will introduce a problem based on the need to create a marshmallow throwing catapult.  We will be working in partners to plan an idea with limited materials.  

I will be looking for parents who want to come help kid's plans come to life.  I will write more in the future, but I am looking for people that are dedicated to helping their plan come to life and not take it over and make it a parent competition.  One of the hardest things we have to do is let kids fail and innovate rather than steal their struggle.  There will be two parts to our party and I don't have exact times, but last year we met for design and engineering from 10:30-11:45.  The kids went to recess and lunch and then we came back to test our machines after lunch from 12:30-1:00.  Parents left after that and that gave me about an hour with the kids before gym to celebrate with our team and open gifts and hang out together.

Thursday, December 22nd will be the kickoff to our board game design project.  In this project we will be exploring creative design and technical writing when it comes to designing rules.  On Thursday, I will be bringing in a bunch of games and components and teaching an introduction to gaming past Candyland.  We will discuss what "fun" is and how to create it.  We will also be playing board games and generally having a team building day.

That is Christmas week.  Friday we have off to prepare for a wonderful holiday. 

When it comes to holiday gifts, I really don't need a lot of things in my life.  Everyone loves to get gifts, but my most cherished possessions are the homemade cards, notes, and items from kids.  These thoughtful gifts have often been the most touching things.  I drink coffee everyday, but I have more than enough coffee cups for a lifetime.  If you really want to buy a gift, I would love a gift of books or games for the classroom.  If you would like to give a gift card, I would prefer something that I can spend on my class.  I don't go out to eat or drink coffee outside of a small coffee shop in Goodrich.  I always appreciate those thoughts, but they end up getting lost and unused and I would rather be honest about that.

If you have any questions about Christmas activities coming up, please don't hesitate to e-mail me or send me a Dojo message.

Mr. Montgomery’s

Monday Memo

Learning Targets:

• I can create a bar graph and a pictograph.
• I can make generalizations about data.
• I can tell analog time to the five minutes.
• I can multiply two one digit numbers.
• I can read with purpose.
• I can begin to explain the plot of a story by concentrating on the problem and solution.
• I can use a dictionary to expand my vocabulary and define words I do not know.
• I can ask myself questions as I read to improve my comprehension.
• I can use figurative language in my writing.
• I can identify the subject and the predicate found in sentences.
• I can identify a declarative, imperative, and interrogative sentence.
• I can write a paragraph with five sentences.
• I can explore words with similar word patterns.
• I can define the words evaporation, precipitation, and condensation.
• I can explain how water acts like a solid.
• I can identify the difference between solids, liquids, and gasses.

Schedule:

12/5 - Last day for Cool to Care Drive

12/5 - STAR Reading

12/12 - STAR Math

12/13 - 2nd Grade Christmas Concert

12/16 - PTO Popcorn Day

12/19 - Holidays Around the World

12/21 - Christmas Party

12/22 - Board Game Design Kickoff

12/23 - Christmas Break Begins

01/03 - School Resumes

01/13 - End of 2nd Marking Period

01/20 - Report Cards Sent Home

Status of Word Quest

As I reflected on my teaching of reading and language arts, I realized that one of the places that I didn't spend enough time was direct instruction of language and vocabulary building.  It is tough because often you are leaning on a couple students with advanced vocabularies to help fill in the gaps of what kids don't know.  It can feel like it is not beneficial if the same kids are sharing the meaning of those tough words, but I am kind of coming around to the fact that it is helpful for kids to hear kids define words.

One of my goals this year is to make my students truly hunger for the meaning to the words that they read.  It may be a situation where I want them in a dictionary looking words up, it may be that I want them talking about books together to make meaning, or it may be that I want them to be better at using context to anticipate the meaning of difficult words.

Then we come to the spelling/word study conundrum.  The district went away from the traditional model for spelling because we were not seeing children apply it in their writing or outside of a test they were memorizing word in order to pass.  Many in the district have moved to following a word study program based on doing word sorts and basically still working in the old model but letting kids be in groups based on their abilities and not just "grade level" words.

I wanted to try something different and more self-directed.  I want to create something that helps kids see vowel patterns within their reading and take it over into writing their own sentences.  I wanted to create something that they could work on with families and share and talk about words.  I want kids to have ownership of their vocabularies and understand the words that they use and not just memorize them.  I am not a good speller, but I love learning and thinking about the origins of words and the Greek and Latin roots that help create words.

Word Quest is my attempt to create that love of words.  My goal for word quest is that they complete a minimum of one quest per week, but if that is an area that they want to grow then they can do more.  Word quest may evolve over the year as I see how effective we are on our next spelling inventory.  The kids seem to be excited and I am happy to see dictionaries being cracked and students excitedly sharing words they learned.  I want to create a video that walks through what I am looking for so you know how to help on word quest.  I am going to try to get that done this weekend.

The bottom line is that I only want to do work that shows a long term benefit.  I will be toying with this program until I see something that students will invest in and it will carry over into their work and help them use their vocabularies in meaningful ways.  Thank you for helping me out with the support at home if kids are bringing their quests for help.  I have seen some amazing work that I can tell was supported by a conversation with parents at home.  It really feels like a team this year and it feels good.