Classroom DIY: Pioneer Journals

If you are anything like me, you are always in search of ways to keep your writers writing.  When I can integrate writing with another subject area, it is a win-win!  During our study of pioneer and The Oregon Trail, pioneer journals are fun way for students to use their creative brains, practice their narrative writing, and share what they are learning with others!

Every year, the fourth graders at my school participate in an Oregon Trail simulation.  Students are grouped in wagon trains groups, select a wagon master to lead them on their journey to Oregon, and buy supplies.

Wagon trains earn points which help them move along the trail.  As they move across the Oregon Trail map, they learn about the landforms, native people, and the dangers pioneers faced as they made the treacherous journey.

One of the ways students document their trials and tribulations along the trail is by writing in their pioneer journals.  This is a great way for students to practice narrative writing while learning about a history!

Before my students make their journals, we talk about how important the journals of the pioneers are to preserving history.  Much of what we know about pioneer life and the trip west we know because of these primary documents.   After that introduction, we get busy making our journals!

The materials you will need for making the journals are pretty easy to come by.

You will need a large paper bag for each student.  I just had students bring them from home.  You will also need yarn or twine, masking tape, a heavy duty hole punch.  An electric hole punch would work the best, but I have a two hole punch at school that I used.  It is heavy duty and works great!  My three hole punch works well too.  You'll see a picture of it a bit later.  The one shown above DOES NOT work well.  I'm not sure why I added it to the photo.  :)   For the journals you will also need either lined or unlined paper.  I gave my students a choice.  Each student will need 10 - 15 pages.

At some point, you will need your students' pioneer portraits.  On the day my class was building their journals, we held our photo shoot.  I photo edited (more on how to do this later in the post) and had the photos printed over the weekend so that we could finish our journals the next week.

The first thing your students will need to do is cut the bottom out of their bag.  Using a good pair of scissors, model for them how to cut down one corner crease and then around the bottom section of the bag.  When you are done, you will have one large section.  If your bags have handles, they can be used for a latch which I'll explain later.  

 Now for the fun (and LOUD) part!  In order to soften up the paper and make it easer to work with (and make it look and feel more like real rawhide) students will need to work their paper.  This means they will need to crinkle it up and smooth it out over and over and over and over and over again!  The more they work their paper, the more it breaks down the paper fibers and it gets softer and softer. This gets noisy!  I suggest having students carefully roll it up and then step on it, putting as much weight as possible.  They will need to be careful though.  The paper will rip pretty easily.

Once students are happy with the feel of their paper (or when you can't take the noise anymore) have students carefully smooth out their paper as much as they can.

Now students can either measure how big their covers will need to be or, how we did it, eyeball it!  

The paper should wrap around both the front and the back to make both covers.  In the end, the cover should be be one continuous piece that just gets folded.  This could be a great math lesson!  Students will need to trip their paper so that it isn't too much bigger than the paper it will hold.

When the covers have been trimmed, you will now need to hole punch them.  I suggest punching 4 - 5 holes.   

 This Swingline hole punch is adjustable with a little effort and I was able to punch 5 holes.

 In class, we used yarn that I had on hand to bind our books.  You could also use twine.

After journals are bound, have students title their journals.  Each of my students have pioneer names to go with their pioneer identities.  Students used Sharpie markers to write on their journals.  The Sharpie bled through the covers, so next year, I'm going to have to remember to plan for that.  

If you are adding Pioneer Portraits, each student will need to leave a large space in the middle of their journal for their picture.  

As a fun added element, students could put "latches" on their journals.  Some of our bags had handles and one of my students creatively came up with this ingenious way to keep her journal closed!

Using the handle pieces, she glued a small part in the front to make a loop.  and a larger piece in the back that wrapped around the side of the book and tucked through the loop on the front.

 I was pretty impressed!  This may become a regular addition to the pioneer journals in the future!

Now that the journals are done, let's talk about the Pioneer Portraits!

This year, I tried something a little different for our journals.  I included a Pioneer Portrait of each student.  They turned out amazing and were very easy to do.  All I used was my iPhone and a photo editing app called Snapseed.  

On our journal making day, I asked all students to bring clothing and props that we could use as part of our photo shoot.  Students brought hats, bonnets, vests, scarves, aprons, and more.  I put up a brown piece of butcher paper on the wall and each student stood in front of it as I took their photograph.  While I took the photographs, the rest of the students were working on their journals or getting dressed in their pioneer garb.

Once I had all of the photographs, and later that night, I sat down with my phone and worked on the photo editing.  Like I said, this was my first time doing this and I am no photo editing expert!  I'm going to share how I did it.  If you know of tricks and tips that would make the process better, please share them in the comments.  Actually, editing the photos wasn't painful at all.  Once I figured out the filters I wanted to use, it was just a matter of repeating the steps over and over again 28 times.

The first thing I did was open up the app Snapseed on my iPhone.

I opened a photo of one of my students...

 then I clicked on "FILTERS".

The first filter I chose was "BLACK & WHITE" and picked the "film" option.  This gave the photo a bit of a grainy look to it.

 The second filter I chose was "GRAINY FILM".  This added a bit more graininess to the photo.

The third filter I used was "VINTAGE".   This filter made the photo more brown, which is what I was wanting.

 The next step was "LENS BLUR".  This filter blurred out the edges of the photograph.

Finally, I opened the tools and chose "VIGNETTE".  

 This tool darkens the area around the subject of the photograph.

When it was all said and done, this is the beautiful photograph I ended up with.  It makes my heart happy!

When I was done editing all of the photographs, I sent them to Costco for printing.  They cost me about 17¢ each to print.  Well worth it!

The next week, I had a wonderful parent volunteer cut ovals in the front covers of all of my journals.

 We used this oval cutter by Fiskars, purchased specifically for this project!

Once the ovals were cut, the photos were added.  

 It was as simple as using masking tape and taping the portraits on the inside cover of each journal.

And here are the final results!  They turned out great and the students love them.

I think this would be a great project for any history class.  Almost any time period would make great material for a personal journal!  I can imagine Civil War and Revolutionary War diaries, Lewis and Clark journals, Civil Rights diaries (just to name a few)!

Since the events and language need to be historically accurate in the writing, journals and diaries written from the perspective of a historical figure or an imaginary person during an important time in history is a meaningful way for students to construct a deeper understanding of the past and share that understanding with others.

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If you are interested in more things "Pioneer", click HERE for my post on our annual Pioneer Day!  It's a day full of pioneer activities, crafts, food, and fun!

Thank you for visiting Literacy Loves Company!  If you have any questions about the project or ideas that would enhance it, please share in the comment section!  I'd love to hear from you.

End of the Year Awards

Click on the photo below to be taken straight to my TpT store and this resource!  

It is that weird time of year when some of us are spending out last days with our students and the others of us feel like the end of the year is still miles away.  Personally, I have 4 weeks left.

I'm trying to think of those 4 weeks as 19 days to make a lasting impact on the little brains I have in my class.  19 days to see their smiles, laugh at their jokes, and enjoy their company.  19 days to solidify fractions, make it to the end of the Oregon Trail, and finish up our last science and health units.  19 days!

I'm trying not to spend my thinking moments dreaming of sleeping in with no alarm clock, sipping hot coffee in my pjs on my deck, and enjoying lazy days puttering around in my yard... ahhh...  19 days.

But as I'm contemplating the end of the school year, I always come back to how much I love my class.  They are great kids.  They are funny.  They are smart.  They are caring.  They are unique.  I love them.  I started thinking about what I could do to send them off, that last day of school 19 days from now, with the knowledge that they are all of those things.

End of the Year Awards!  Yes!  That's it!

Okay...  I've been around long enough to know the end of the year drill...  crazy day!  Excitement, sadness, chaos, bags of supplies, papers shoved into backpacks,  and then everyone is gone and I'm standing in my classroom by myself surrounded by...  forgotten papers, pencils, and miscellaneous supplies.

I want my end of the year awards to be something that students will keep, will use, will see often.  Not just a piece of paper that will end up shoved into the bottom of a backpack.  So I came up with End of the Year Award Bookmarks!

I'm so happy with the end result:  54 Most Likely To...  Bookmarks.  Each bookmark has a different graphic.  A few of the awards are the same, but with a female and a male image.

Some of the awards are open to interpretation, which I love!  It gives the teacher flexibility when choosing awards for students.  For example...
•Most Likely to "Find the Evidence" could be a reflection on a students curiosity, love of mysteries, or ability to locate evidence in a text.
•Most Likely to "Knock it out of the Park" could be referring to a students baseball hitting ability or it could refer to the cliche and reflect on a students ability to do much better than expected on a project, assignment, life, etc.

•The bookmarks are editable, so it makes it easy to personalize for students.

•With over 50 bookmarks, you might think it may be difficult to plan and organize your awards, but I've included 3 planning pages.  The planning pages include all 54 bookmarks with space to write students' names before you begin personalizing the book marks and printing.

For a free sample of the End of the Year Bookmark Awards (an un-editable version), click on the image below!

If you are interested in the full resource, please click HERE to visit Literacy Loves Company on TpT!  

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Thank you for visiting!  I hope your last days of school are full of ah-ha moments, smiles, and enjoyable moments!  

Flexible Classroom Seating

We always hear that it is good to give your students choices.  Why then do we very rarely give our students choices in where and how they sit in class each day?

So, here is a little class information before I tell you about my foray into flexible seating.  Over the last 10 years or so I have had between 27 and 34 students in my class.  I went from having a library area, computer center, and 6 tables to waving good-bye to my desktops and adding two more tables. With 8 large tables, 34+ chairs, backpacks, lunch boxes, and jackets, it left little space for much else. I've refused to give up my carpet area and my class library, but pretty much everything else extra had to go.

THE IDEA

I don't know about you, but I've always been a little bit of a flexible-seater at heart.  I expect my students to be at their table and in their chair when I am presenting a lesson, but when it comes time for independent, partner, or group work, students are free to choose where to sit around the room.

Recently, I've started seeing blog posts, Instagram pictures, and  Pinterest pins portraying teachers' classroom conversions to flexible or alternative seating.  I've been intrigued.

This year I have a class of 28 full time students.  They are amazing kids.  Well behaved.  Responsible.  Respectful.  I also have a wonderful new principal who, when I shared this idea with her, told me to go for it.  It seemed like the perfect time to give this a try.

GETTING STUDENT BUY-IN

Before I ever rearranged anything or invested any money,  I involved my students.  They were the ones this would impact the most and I didn't want to do this unless I had their buy-in.  

One morning, when they came into class,  I had a chart posted on the white board and I asked each student to write his/her name on a sticky note and put the post-it in the column that best described in which situation they do their best work.

Once all students had responded, we met in our community circles and I shared my idea with them. They were full of curiosity, excitement, and questions.  Together we brainstormed the pros and cons for a flexible seating classroom.

 

ACTION RESEARCH - A ONE WEEK TRIAL

Before we continue, there's something you should know about me...  I tend to jump feet first into new ideas.  One year I ditched my teacher's desk and totally regretted it.  Lucky for me, it hadn't gotten taken away when I figured out that I needed it in order to function. I've also leaped into math centers, interactive read aloud, Genius Hour and much more.  Most of what I dive into I love, but I was not about plunge into full fledged flexible seating without a trial run!

 On a Monday morning, one week before our spring break, I sat my students down for our weekly class meeting.  After our greeting, I asked them if they would like to participate in an experiment with me.

Of course, my students were gung-ho to try something different and we set to work re-arranging our class.  We raised two tables to standing height. and took the legs off of two tables to make them sit-on-the-floor tables.

Another table we lowered to use with the mix-and-match set of stools that my students love to sit on.

A few tables with traditional chairs were kept for students who prefer to sit that way.  All of these table spaces were located around our meeting rug, which we moved to the center of the classroom.

Everyday, at the end of the day, we would debrief on how it was going.  I shared my observations and concerns and they shared theirs.  If we had problems, we tried to find solutions.

On Friday, before students left for spring break, I had them write a letter to me in their journals.  In the letter, they could privately let me know their honest thoughts, concerns, and their vote on whether or not we should keep this seating arrangement once we got back from spring break.

Out of 28 students, 27 voted "yes" to keep the flexible seating.  Only one student voted no and it was because she didn't like that students were rushing to get the "good" seats.  Many students commented about their increased ability to focus.  They liked being able to choose what worked best for them and move if it wasn't working out.  They were pretty insightful in their letters to me and that made me feel even better about the decision to get rid of our chairs and move to a flexible seating model in our classroom.

THE PROS AND THE CONS

Now, as you may recall, one of the reasons I wanted to try a one week trial was to see if I would be able to handle the affects of students not having assigned seats.  Its interesting because it didn't really bother me.  My kiddos actually seemed to be more attentive even if they were sitting next to their friends.  Don't get me wrong...  there were times I had to ask a student to make a better choice or remind a kiddo to get back to work, but I didn't miss the chairs at all.  Actually, the class looked more open and spacious without all the chairs.

Another positive impact of this arrangement is that I found myself moving around the room much more.  I could teach from the front, the back, and all four corners.  I found myself sitting on the floor, standing with students, and squatting on stools while I worked with my class.

The only negative that came from our one week trial is where to put our backpacks.  My students have always hung their jackets and backpacks on the backs of their chairs.  Now that there aren't any chairs, we have no place to put these items.  To solve this problem for the short term, I've brought in two large bins and students put their backpacks in them.  We store the bins under the yoga ball table and one of the stool tables during the day.

THE INVESTMENT IN SEATING OPTIONS

Once it was clear that the new way of seating was going to be beneficial for my students and for myself I started shopping.  I was on spring break, so me and Amazon.com got to know each other really well!

During our trial period, the stool table was always the one to fill up first.  To give more of these types of options, I purchased yoga balls and made crate stools.  You can read about the crate seat construction on my last blog post HERE.

For the floor tables, I purchased "wiggle seats" and floor cushions for students to sit on.

For one of the standing tables, I decided to place tall stools instead.

I also purchased four bean bag chairs, but I haven't put them in the room yet.  I'm still trying to figure out the best space for them.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS

As I am sure you are aware, organization is key to good classroom management.  The one week trial brought up several small problems that I needed to work out before we went full bore.  The first being very clear expectations and consequences for behavior.

This is the anchor chart I made for students to share my expectations and guidelines for their choices. 

Each of the table areas is named after the setting of a piece of children's literature.  Each sign has small squares to indicate how many seat spaces are at that table.  

To make sure students aren't arguing over the seating options and everyone gets a chance to choose first,  students use clothes pins with their names on them to claim their space.  At the end of each day, after students do their clean-up jobs, we meet on the carpet.  I call each student to line up for dismissal and on their way to the door, they clip their clothes pin to the sign of their choice.

I have a list of names and call a different student to go first each day.  This gives everyone a chance to try out all of the different seating options.

If a student is having a hard time making a good seating choice or is not following the guidelines outlined on the anchor chart, the consequence is that his/her clip gets removed and they don't get Free Choice Seating the next day.   (There is a free editable download of the table signs at the end of the post.)

To clean up, we put all of the seats on top of the tables so that our custodian is able to easily sweep and vacuum our room.  

We just completed our first full week of flexible seating and it went well.   The seating choices are exciting and fun for the kids, which has caused some off task behavior.  The yoga balls are noisy and students love to bounce them while sitting.   These things are driving me a little crazy, but I'm hoping that, once the novelty wears off,  the students will be less focused on the seats and more focused on their work.  Another drawback is that I've become super paranoid about staples and pencils on the floor out of fear that the yoga balls will pop.  

All in all, this has been a great experience.  There are still some kinks to work out, but I'm loving the challenge of finding solutions and the freedom it has given my students.  

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For your free editable download of the table signs click HERE.    It is in PowerPoint, so you  will need to download and then edit.  You will not be able to edit the original.  :)  The font I used is "HelloBigBen" from Hello Literacy.

If you have a question about flexible seating or have an experience with it you would like to share, please leave a comment!  I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time,