As many of you know, I have been lucky enough to have a truly fabulous program called The Walking Classroom in use with my students.  If you have read my previous posts about it (you can read them here , here , and here ) you KNOW how much my students and I love being able to put those headphones on and head outside to learn. Well, because of this really cool program, something really cool happened to us at the end of April that I wanted to share with you.  We in Room 6 got our 15 minutes of fame!  We became TV stars for the day.  :) In a nutshell, Laura Fenn, the creator of The Walking Classroom, met the director of a show about the benefits of walking and exercise that is produced by a local PBS affiliate in my area.  She referred him to me, we set up the filming schedule, and 7 people armed with cameras and equipment descended upon Room 6. It was such a great experience for my students and I.  Having a camera follow you is such a trip!  I......

Look at this!  Posting two days in a row!  I don't know what has gotten into me :) Actually, I do.  I opened my email this morning and read something that I just HAD to share with you.  If you have been following me for a while, you know that last year I had the amazing opportunity to use The Walking Classroom with my students (click here and here  and here to read all about our experience with it.).  It truly was (IS) an exceptional program and I couldn't say enough about it.  My students gained so much from using the walk kits and heading outside to do our lessons instead of sticking with the same old routine indoors.  They instantly loved the program, and so did I. (I can't wait to get back in the swing of things when I got back after my maternity leave!) Luckily for me, I teach 5th grade, which just so happened to be the grade that the lessons were aligned to.  Unfortunately for many of my readers, there was no 4th grade kit writte......

Over the past few weeks, as the school year winds down, I have been getting lots of emails from you guys and gals (ok, so it was all gals, but I am sure some guys were curious too ;) ) about what I really thought of the Walking Classroom now that I have been using it for some time now.   So I thought it was about time to let you in on my end of the year thoughts on this program. If I could sum up the Walking Classroom in one word it would be GREAT!  It really has been a wonderful and fun addition to my curriculum.  I was lucky enough to receive a grant for the program (which you can apply for here ) but if I had purchased it, honestly I can say that it would be worth every penny spent.  Pros: *  My students LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  They ask me daily (literally) if we are going to be going for a walk.  Then, when we are out there walking, they are focused and serious and learning.  *  The lessons are things I would be teaching in my......

A little dramatic of a title, huh?  Well, since we are studying early exploration, I thought it fitting.  :) We have moved into our unit on Early European explorers and this time around I thought I would start off a bit general before we moved into specific explorers.  So we did two things to introduce the era that I thought I would share with you. Reasons for Exploring Flipbook We started out by reading an informational article about the various reasons WHY explorers would venture out into the new land.  There were basically 5 reasons:  seeking adventure, the lure of gold, searching for spices, gaining new land, and to spread Christianity.  We found information in our article (though if you read this post a few days ago, you will know that there was little bias to be had in that article!) and in our social studies text.  Then, each of those five reasons became one flap on our flipbook.  The students summarized each section, finding key w......

So it has been a month since I last wrote about the Walking Classroom .  Since then, we have started to find our groove and are making this more a part of our routine.  We still aren't getting out quite as much as I would like, but we are slowly getting there and I am hopeful that this upward swing of making the walking part of our routine will continue. Today, I wanted to share a bit with you on how I have tried to hold them accountable to the lessons they are listening to.  I have begun a Walking Classroom folder for each student.  It is a simple manilla folder into which I stapled these two sheets that I made. This is mine.  I forgot to take a picture of a student's.  Sorry! You can see spaces for when we do the walk again.  One is a lesson record sheet.  The first time we do a lesson, we write what the learning goals are (which I take from the synopsis in the Teacher's Manual)  This, I am finding, keeps them focused on what I w......

There are SO many things I am required to teach my students.  Between math, reading, writing, science, social studies, art, character education, and everything else, PE seems to be the last thing on my list.  Giving up precious "core" content time to go outside just never seems to work for me.  I try to get out, and somehow manage to get my time in, but really....it is a stretch. But about a month ago, I heard about this really neat program called The Walking Classroom .  This non-profit program, designed by a 5th grade teacher, really jumped out to me because it is unlike anything I had ever seen before.  It is a way to combine those essential content areas with exercise and movement.  The basic idea of the program is that students are given these little WalkKits, which are little iPodish things preloaded with podcasts, and the students head outside to listen to them.  I knew I had to apply for a grant to get these into my room as soon as ......