The Best thing since Sliced Bread!

So today was a day I've been waiting months for. Today was the day I was going to see Dr. Jean. It was everything I hoped for.  (Actually this was yesterday. I started writing my post but then realized I left my notes in the car.)She's so amazing and energetic and nice and funny. One of the things that impressed me the most is that she tries to do a free concert every week in Charleston where she lives. She still volunteers at schools as well.  She shared so much. I made sure to write down some quotes that struck me as important. Here are some of them:
"You shouldn't teach small children if you can't put a smile on your face."
"Children take it in, take it in, and then something comes out."
"You learn on your feet, not on your seat"
"We think we have to give children the state fair, but in reality less is more."
She also talked a lot about how one thing or another was the best thing since sliced bread. Hence the title of my post. If you haven't checked our her website or blog, you should. She has a ton of great ideas on there.
Her blog is http://drjeanandfriends.blogspot.com. Her website is http://www.drjean.org/.
I was also really impressed that she had the research to back up what she was saying. She's big on brain research and what she does she can tie into the research and the common core. Here are the top 5 things I took away from this professional development and how I"m going to incorporate it in my class:

1.  She sited some study that tracked kids who knew nursery rhymes. The statistic given was 4 year olds that could say 8 nursery rhymes were the best readers in 3rd grade. - I've been incorporating some nursery rhymes into oral language but I need to step it up a notch. I plan on devoting the last bit of school this year to nursery rhymes. I'm going to finish up the reading series the first week in May. I see a unit in my future. 
2.  There are a ton of ways to make books in the classroom using things I already have. I'm limited on my copies this year and have to hoard copy paper sometimes. But I have a ton of brown paper bags. She showed us some cool books, backpacks and cameras to make from these bags. She also showed books made out of gift bags and napkins. This is exactly what I need for the rest of the year. If they write it, they'll read it.
3. Story Sticks - Dr. Jean showed us a sock with tongue depressors inside the sock. On the sticks you write the different story elements. Students pass the sock around and pull out a stick. You can use character, setting, beginning, middle, end, problem, solution, who, what, when, where, why.
4. Start everyday with song and a smile. I got some new cds that have some great movement songs on them. I try to do different songs everyday already with my kids but it's great to have some new songs. And to see Dr. Jean do some songs I already have and see the hand motions.
5. Interest Boosters - This was  a list of a variety of ways to read things and repeat things out loud. You use different voices like the three bears, or read with different emotions, or with different motions. We read a poem everyday of the week to practice fluency. This is a great way to wake up the reading and engage the kids.

 I did get a picture with Dr. Jean. I have it on my camera but I can't currently locate my camera cord. I'll have to add the picture later. My favorite part of the day had to be when we sang the banana dance. This is my kids favorite song we sing. We even sang it in the talent show before Easter. I was sitting on the end of a row and Dr. Jean grabbed me to tango with. (I'm such a nerd for being so excited to tango with Dr. Jean) It was truly a worthwhile professional development. I was engaged the whole time and had a blast.

Kiss your brain!

     Last week I joined the linky party at Clutter Free Classroom about how I spent my winter break. (You can check that post out here.) I blogged about a song book that I made using the Dr. Jean songs we sing every morning. I attended a workshop by Tim Rasinski right before break and he was a big fan of singing everyday. But he said the kids needed to see the words for it to be reading. So I got the idea to create a song book. Camille at The Open Door suggested that I just email Dr. Jean and ask her if it would be ok to share it on my blog. So I left Dr. Jean a comment on her blog and with my email address saying I wanted to contact her. She emailed me that day and gave me her email address.(Thanks for the suggestion Camille) I was so excited to get an email from THE DR. JEAN! I'm going to back up and give you a history of my love of all things Dr. Jean. When I did my internship (year long student teaching) in first grade, my mentoring teacher was all about Dr. Jean. I think she had attended a workshop led by her. This was the beginning of my love of all Dr. Jean. When I taught 3rd grade, I didn't use her music as much but in kindergarten and first grade I use them all the time. I love Dr. Jean's blog as well and all her other ideas. I've been dying to meet her and this past fall she was in Tennessee for a conference but I couldn't get the money to go. Hopefully this summer I'll have another opportunity. Ok back to my story at hand. So I emailed Dr. Jean my song book and my reason for creating it. And she emailed me back the very same day. The subject line read Kiss your Brain. She told me my songbook was adorable and that when I posted about it on my blog to let her know so she could link up. I was so excited that I texted Chris all about it (He does such a great job of understanding all my crazy kindergarten teaching blogging self) and called my sister to tell her. I was dying to blog about it but I already had posts planned for the next few days. (The emailing occurred on Monday but this won't post until Thurs.) I'm super excited to share my song book I created and even more excited that Dr. Jean emailed me and was a nice as I would have thought she'd be.
    I 've been wanting to share some of the ideas that I learned about from Tim Rasinski. The workshop was all about fluency and word study. It gave me a ton of ideas and was very developmentally friendly. So I'm going to try sharing an idea a week and how I'm going to use it my classroom.
       I spent a lot of time last year when I was teaching first grade, working on fluency with my class. It was nice to here that it was a research based method I was using without even knowing it. I can also see some places that I can improve in. Mostly about the sources that I'm using to practice fluency. Rasinksi talked a lot about reader's theater and having kids perform things they are reading. I really like this idea. I don't think my kinders are ready for Reader's Theater but I can see using Nursery Rhymes to work on fluency. This was the routine he suggested for working on fluency:
Monday - Introduce material and read it to the kids
Tuesday - Choral reading of material
Wednesday - Read on their own
Thursday - Dress Rehearsal
Friday - Perform
Right now I do phonemic awareness activity everyday using poetry. Right before Christmas break, we worked on one poem for the whole week doing different activities with it. I got the idea for what I was doing everyday from Leslie at Kindergarten works (You can read all about her wonderful strategies here. If you haven't read her routines on poetry, you should. ).I think I add in the reading on their own, and performing the poem. I'm thinking maybe part of their homework might be to work on a poem every night at home. I could start out with nursery rhymes because kids don't have as much exposure to them anymore. One of other strategies that Rasinksi talks about is having kids read along with recording readings. I'm exploring what I could do with that. I have 6 out 18 kids in my class are ELL and this strategy is suppose to be good for ELL kids. I'm not sure how to make this accessible to my students. I'm thinking if they have access to the internet then maybe on my website or some kind of podcast.
So this is a long rambling post. For sticking it out with me you can download my song book from google docs.

Click here to download the file

Please leave me a comment if you download. I love comments and the diaglogue created by blogging. I would love to hear your thoughts on fluency instruction. I'll give an update on how these strategies are working and an new strategy next week.