Week by Week in First

Good morning followers.  Just wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about what I'm doing to FLIP my classroom.  We have heard a lot of information about flipping classrooms at the high school level, but not much has been done at the elementary level.  Another first grade teacher I work with and I have decided to change that.  We were inspired to see how flipping could work in a lower elementary classroom. 

So we meet and decided to start small and see how it went.  We started with a short video home to the parents letting them know what we would be doing and how excited we were.  Then we divided up the videos we wanted to do for the first nine weeks deciding on one phonics and one math video lesson a week (to start out with).  It ended up being that I was in charge of 3 phonics lessons and 5 math lessons for the grading period. 

For the phonics lessons I video tapped myself using a flip camera.  Here is an example...

 

For the math lessons I used the smartboard and tapped a lesson as I was talking the students through

it.  Here is an example...

 

The students then download the videos to their ipads and watch at home for homework.  The next day we will have a brief discussion about what was on the video to review.  Doing these video lessons has really allowed for more time in the classroom to work on differentiated instruction, Daily Five and Guided Reading, and Guided Math.   

 

We plan on adding more video lessons as the year goes on.  So far the students seem really excited about it and have enjoyed watching us at home.  Check back later for updates on how flipping is going. 

 

Have any of you thought about flipping or are flipping?

Nicole Berg