Coding with College Students

*In my attempt to keep my students anonymous I used a lot of s/he, him/her, etc.  I know it's confusing but I need to keep this as private as possible.

A couple of weeks back there was an article in the newspaper about the (Half) Hour of Code club I do in my library.  I was super excited to have my school in the paper for something positive.  Having it be about something I was doing was in the library was an added bonus.

Because of that article an education professor from Stephen F. Austin State University emailed me asking if I'd be willing to demo my Code Club to her future teachers.

Ummm, YES!

I didn't really know what to expect during our time together. So as any good teacher does I wrote down some things I wanted to highlight about our club and planned to be flexible.


During this brainstorming I decided to ask 6 of my Code Club students to join us.  I wanted them there to help teach the college students and tell why they liked being in the club.

Y'all.

Y'all!

My students so far exceeded my expectations it's not even funny!  I had tears in my eyes and goosebumps on my arms. I saw so many awesome behaviors from them!  I texted my principal to come down and see the awesomeness and called my assistant principal too.

So let me back up a bit.  I'm getting ahead of myself.  Ha!

I picked the 6 students who had never missed a club meeting. I also chose a range of students from GT to those who have an IEP.  I wanted my students to experience being the one who knows the most in a situation and I wanted the college students to see a what a student with an IEP can do.

My initial plan was to highlight a few points about my Code Club and how I knew nothing about code when I started.  I wanted to show the college students code.org, have them create an account, have my students walk around and help and show the college students where they were at on their own courses.

My plan went as planned until I turned my students loose.

My IEP student immediately broke the college students into groups and picked the college students that s/he was going to work with based on the color of their shirts.  S/he worked with everyone wearing a purple shirt.  Ha!  S/he took control, showed them the website, helped the college students create an account then started walking them through the courses.

I was shocked!  S/he took control and became the teacher.  S/he did not hesitate.  S/he used her manners and his/her polite words.  S/he was a different student than I had ever seen.  S/he was in her/his element.

And it made me cry and gave me goosebumps.  Here's an IEP student that struggles.  Like really struggles. Learning is not easy for him/her.  And now this student was shining.  Shining brighter than any of the other students who we all expect to shine in any given situation.

And that's why I called/texted my principal and assistant principal.  I wanted them to see him/her in him/her element.  I wanted them to see him/her shine.  I wanted them to have a positive interaction with him/her.

S/he started a pretty hard course with degrees, pixels and left/right turns.  I worked with her through the first one. Then told her to go show the principal.  The next one was even harder and they worked it together (I was secretly happy I had suggested s/he show the principal! HA!).  It was awesome to see them working the course together and having a positive interaction.

After, my principal said he wished he recorded her/him to show her/his teachers what s/he can do.  I wish I had thought to record it too!

I've tried calling his/her parents twice.  I know they need to hear some positives about their child. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get a hold of them but I did leave a generic message saying how awesome this student did during the day and that I'd like to tell them all about it.  The student said her/his dad let her/him listen to my message last night.  If I don't get a hold of them soon I'll just leave the story on their voice mail but I really want to speak to them person to person.

This is my why!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

For pleasure:

Always by Sarah Jio I am a huge fan of Jio's books! Since reading her first published book Violets of March I was hooked. Always is in my top four favorite list. The story did leave you feeling like something was missing. It left you wanting more. But I wonder if that was on purpose. The story is about traumatic brain injury. And a love triangle. I'm a sucker for love triangles!  Back to the TBI. We learn what lead up to the TBI but not the how or the why. I wonder if the feeling of missing something is suppose to be there so we as the reader know what it feels like to be Cade (who has TBI). Then again maybe I'm being too deep. Ha!

Like I said I'm a sucker for a love triangle. Kailey losses Cade when we drops off the face of the Earth then falls in love with Ryan. Then Cade shows up in the least expected place. And Kailey has to make some hard decisions. Some things were typical of a love triangle but there were still enough surprises to keep me happy. 

If you've never read one of Jio's books I highly recommend you do!

For School:

My Book Fair is in two weeks. So to get my students excited I read Book Fair Day by Lynn Plourde. Dewey Booker loves books! His class is going to the Book Fair but his class has to go last. And Dewey's so worried all the books will be sold!

  

Five For Friday-Random

1.  It's be a long 4 day week.  Having Monday off really isn't worth it.

2.  Jay got sick but seems to be recovering much faster than I did.

3.  Reagan's got her 2nd babysitting job Saturday.  I'm super exciting for her!

4.  It nearly killed me to have to go to bed last night when I only 20 pages left in my book.  If I don't get enough sleep I'm a grumpy pants so I had to "adult" last night and make myself go to bed instead of finish my book.

5.  It's pajama day at school today!  But I had to run into Walmart this morning... in my pajamas.  I was one of "those" people.  I wanted to announce I was in my pj for school.  I really didn't think that trip to Walmart through! lol

Wordless Wednesday-WOW

My Houston Girls (minus one) at our Bible Retreat this past weekend.

World Read Aloud Day

Thursday, February 16 was World Read Aloud Day.  To celebrate I set up two author Skypes.  One for  K-2nd and another for 4th grade.

4th grade Skyped with middle grade and picture book author, Molly Burnham.  She talked with students about her writing habits, how long she had been a writer, her past jobs and a little about her personal life.  She asked for questions from students.  I forgot to remind students to not ask personal questions.  So of course some one asked her how old she was.  Instead of answering she gave them a math problem.  She was 10 when her favorite movie Star Wars came out in 1977.  How old would she be now?  We had a few students come close to the answer.  She told students to work on it then to have their teacher email her their answer and she would respond back.

We did get some really good questions. One student asked her how long it took her to write her first published book.  She explained that it took her two years to write the first book in the Teddy Mars series but only one year to write the second book in the series because she already knew the characters.  Burnham encouraged students to email her questions and she would respond.

K-2nd Skyped with children’s book author, Stacy McAnulty.  She show students her picture books and then read part of her book The Dino Files.  She shared pictures of her family digging for dinosaur bones.  Her two dogs made an appearance during the Skype and had to be asked to leave because they were a distraction. Ha!  

I got our times confused for this Skype.  I was working with Central time and McAnulty was working with EST.  She worked with us and was able to postpone her Skype with us.  I really appreciated her working with us especially since it was my mistake!

At the end McAnulty encouraged students to go home and read a book to celebrate World Read Aloud Day.

Bullet Journal-Reading Challenge

I've wanted to do a reading challenge for awhile now but just never did start one.  Mostly the problem was I knew I couldn't keep up with the paper.

I know.  That sounds dumb.

But y'all, I hate paper.  I hate keeping up with it.  It's never where I am.  I ALWAYS have to go find it. It gets wrinkled and worn.  Blah, blah, blah.

But since I started my bullet journal I thought "why not glue a reading challenge in my journal?!?" So that's what I did.  I found this challenge on Pinterest, printed it out and glued it in.

My mother-in-law said she hadn't thought about gluing things in her bullet journal.  I got the idea from the interactive journals I used to do with my Deaf Ed middle school students.

I've really enjoyed doing a reading challenge.  It's had me read genres I don't normally read like steampunk.  I totally had to google the definition for steampunk. Ha!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

For School:

Secret Valentine by Catherine Stock, I read this book to Pk-2nd.  It's a sweet book about a little girl making her own Valentine's cards and passing them out.  She also gets a card from an anonymous person.

With 3rd-5th I read Valentine's Day poems from this website.  A couple of them are suppose to be sung to familiar tunes.  So I belted them out.  A little embarrassing but the kids loved it.

For My Book Club

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson is the winner for the 2016 Bluebonnet Award.  It's a graphic novel about the struggles of adolescents, friendships and new and different interests.  Two best friends start to drift apart as they enter junior high.  One is interested in roller derby while the other is interested in dance.  Hurtful words are slung and so's a drink....  Emotions run high.

My order of 2017-2018 Bluebonnet Books came in last week.  I read all the picture books and picked out 4 chapter books that I for sure want to read.  I haven't started those yet.

Follow The Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles by Philippe Cousteau is an activist book about loggerheads (sea turtles).  Vivi moves to a coastal town one summer.  She attends summer school where they are doing a service project.  With the help of another girl in her class they decide to present to their class the problem that baby sea turtles have after they hatch.  The class choices their project to work on and get everyone in town from the school to the newspaper involved.

Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hood is a moving true story of children living in a city made of trash.  They live in the poorest slums in all of South America. Ada's grandmother, who loves rock 'n roll from the 1960s, signs her up for music lessons.  The only problem is there are a lot more kids than there are instruments.  So their instructor gets creative and makes instruments out of recycled trash. My favorite quote in the books is "They had discovered the surprise waiting in the landfill.  Buried in the trash was music."  There is good in everything even if it's buried.

Whoosh by Chris Barton, The illustrator of this book is Don Tate.  He did an author visit in our district a few years back.  I try to read every book he writes or illustrates!  Whoosh is a true story about Lonnie an African American scientist/inventor.  Lonnie started inventing things as a kid.  He grew up to work at NASA and left his job to work on his inventions.  The Super Soaker is one of his most fun inventions!  Make sure you read the Author's Notes at the end of the book.  Very interesting!

The Great Pet Escape by Victoria Jamieson, is a graphic novel chapter book about the great escape of the class pets in an elementary school.  GW is the brains of his little group of mischief caged pets.  He wants to escape the confines of his cage in the 2nd grade classroom and tries to get his furry fiend friends to join him.  But mouse is out to stop him and his furry fiends.

What book are you reading that I should add to my "to read" list?