Visit to Pittsburgh Dilworth Elementary School

I hope you all had a fantastic Easter!  Over the break, I got the chance to visit my mother at the school she works at in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Dilworth Elementary School.  I jumped at the chance since I, myself, am a graduate of Pittsburgh Public Schools, and because my mom told me about a second grade teacher that works there that uses 100 % flexible seating, which I want to implement in my classroom very soon.  Not to my surprise, I was very impressed with the school during my visit.

Dilworth is an urban public elementary school in the Pittsburgh neighborhood East Liberty.  Upon arrival, I was reminded of my childhood school- Pittsburgh Greenfield (Pittsburgh Public Schools has added "Pittsburgh" to the front of every school name).  It is a beautiful, old building with some parking, but visitors have to find a spot on one of the surrounding streets, since the school, play area, and garden takes up an entire city block.

As you enter the building, you are greeted by a very old-school entrance, a sign, and two mosaics that represent the school and the surrounding area. 

 I came in toward the end of the school day, with about an hour left, and heard fantastic music being played from the open-door auditorium that was straight ahead.  There was no audience, this was just something that the kids were working on.  It was great to see and hear students who were playing music, and a school that not only tolerated it, but also welcomed it with open arms.

Looking around, it was great to see flags hung from the ceiling of various nations.  As my mom walked me around the building, she pointed out that the flags were those of the students and teachers that were at that school.  It was so nice to see the school teaching how to be inclusive of everyone! I also noticed that all of the students were well-dressed in their school uniforms.  Every shirt was tucked in, every shoe was tied, and the students showed respect toward themselves as they walked through the halls.

Walking up the stairs was another delight.  My eye was immediately pulled to the beautiful stained-glass windows, which my mom told me were done by a community members a few years earlier.  As I went up the stairs to take a closer look, I saw the creative way to help memorize multiplication facts implemented by the school's teachers.  Each stair had a different fact on it, which is such an easy way to give students more exposure.

The school was incredibly beautiful, but some other really cool things I saw on my visit were:

1. Students were engaged in every classroom I looked in

2. Teachers were incredibly flexible to students. They were catering to the student wants and needs, and not the other way around

3. Both students and teachers seemed very proud of the school they went to

4. The last part of the day was devoted to student choice.  The students got to choose a special interest and then got to take part in it, solely because they were interested in it

5. Teachers were clearly trusted to do with their students what they knew was the best strategies for their own students

I first went to Pittsburgh Public Schools as a kindergartener two decades ago.  I was incredibly impressed with what I saw 20 years later.  I highly recommend going to see other schools, districts, and settings to other teachers, this was a wonderful experience.  Hats off to Pittsburgh Dilworth Elementary School!

Irregular Past Tense Verbs With Flap Books

Something I've been working on with my second-graders for a couple weeks is irregular past tense verbs.  At first, I thought this would be easy.  As it turns out, this is very tricky!  One thing that makes this so difficult is that these verbs are exactly what they say- irregular.

The first thing I did was see what my students already knew.  I did this by giving them a simple pre-assessment that I made.  Click it to get a free download of it from my TPT Store.  

Once I knew what they knew, I was able to go to the Powerpoint about irregular past tense verbs and skip ahead to various points for each of my groups, based on their prior knowledge.  The Powerpoint is available by clicking or tapping the photo below.

Despite showing this Powerpoint, it was still a little difficult for students to understand which verbs were regular and which were irregular.  One thing I realized I was saying over and over was that it was just something you have to remember- that if you say the past tense verb and it doesn't sound right, it probably isn't right.  I decided to make a flap book with them to give them something they could look at over and over and take home to practice with their parents.  This worked really well because the flap book includes the most common irregular past tense verbs.

Field Trip to the National Museum of the United States Air Force

Last week, I got the opportunity to take my second-graders to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.  I was a little worried that it wouldn't be a great trip because there wasn't the same excitement surrounding the trip that was there before we went to the Columbus Zoo.  Fortunately, the kids LOVED it!

Let me start by saying that if you ever get the opportunity to go, either by yourself or as a class, take it!  It is completely free to get in and the place is enormous- it has four hangars of exhibits ranging from the first flight to today.  The exhibits the kids liked the best were the Word War II Gallery, the Cold War Gallery, the Missile Gallery, and the Presidential Gallery, which has a number of airplanes you can actually walk through to see what they look like on the inside (super cool!).  The place is loaded with interesting facts and history.  

One thing the kids found really exciting was that you can download an app called Cockpit360 to take a look inside the airplanes that are right in front of them.  I definitely recommend this field  trip during the spring, summer, or fall, as there is no place to have lunch inside (they don't allow food or drinks in the building), but there is a large picnic area outside

where we were able to grab lunch off of the buses we took and have a seat for a little while to give the kids a much-needed break (did I mention this place is huge?!).  As an added bonus for me, I got to see my favorite plane- the Lockheed F-117a Nighthawk.

When we got back to school, the kids were very tired from all of the walking so I was happy to give them some time to themselves.  Walking around, I heard so many great comments about how much they loved the trip and about what they got to see.  This field trip was a complete success, and I recommend it to anyone in the Ohio/Indiana/Kentucky area, or to anyone who loves planes or the Air Force!

Introducing Similes

Today I introduced the concept of similes to my class of second-graders, and I thought it went really so I wanted to share it!  

The first thing I did was create a sheet for students to use as a pre-assessment, for them to work on during the lesson, and then as a post-assessment.  I then asked students to answer the following question on it: "Do you know what a simile is?"  I had students do a round of Daily 5 (LOVE Daily 5!) as I checked over their responses.  To no surprise, not a single student knew what a simile is.  After the Daily 5 round, students came back and I showed them the Word Girl video about similes (below).  The video is exciting enough to keep the kids engaged and tells students what similes are though context clues, which is perfect since we just learned about using context clues!  I then asked students to go back to their seats and work on part 2- the during lesson portion.  Their job was to write down what they thought a simile is, based on the video.  I had them do another Daily 5 round as I went around and took a peek at their responses.  About a third of the class got what a simile is based off the video, which was perfect since I had an anchor chart planned as well.

After the Daily 5 round (did I mention that I LOVE Daily 5?) I had students come together once more.  Together, we made an anchor chart defining similes.  I gave them the definition and a few examples, which I wrote down.

I then asked students to work by themselves or with a partner to see if they could come up with their own simile, which to my surprise went really well!  After sharing a couple, I had students go back to their post-assessment and write down what they learned on the day about similes and write one more of their own.  After all was said and done, I was able to tell that what students knew before, during, and after my lesson, and can modify my upcoming lessons accordingly.  Success!