With Great Expectations

Kindergarten does Science!

2012-01-26T21:19:00.004-05:00

In Florida fifth graders are the first to take a state Science test based on Florida's Science Standards. While kindergarten teachers have always done Science there is an urgency now to make sure that each grade level has done its part by the time our students get to fifth grade. There is an emphasis on hands-on experiments, lessons that help students explore and provide a strong foundation for new ideas to build upon the next year. Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Griffin's board demonstrates the current Force and Motion unit as the students show their knowledge of Push and Pull in pictures. The photographs at the bottom of the board show many of the activities that the students participated in before they were asked to draw examples of push and pull.

Yzrael drew a picture of a basketball with a goal and a picture of people playing tug-of-war to demonstrate push and pull. When asked about this picture he replied, "I can use my hands to push the basketball up to the basketball net. I can also use my hands to help push the rope back on a game of tug-of-war.

Dahiana drew a picture of pulling the car door open and pushing the car door shut. When asked about this picture, Dahiana replied, "I can use my hands to pull the handle of the door open. I can also use my hands to push the door shut. Some car doors are really hard to push."

Chelsee drew a picture of a flag pole and a wagon. When asked about her picture, Chelsee replied, "Well, you see, you can turn your hands to pull the rope and make the flag go up the pole. But you can also use your hands to push he rope down and then the flag will come down. I can also use my hands to pull the handle of the wagon."

Science is alive and well in Kindergarten!

Miss Nelson is Missing!

2012-01-25T22:08:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Ruark and Mrs. Timmons have done an outstanding job with this month's kindergarten bulletin board. They used the book Miss Nelson is Missing to introduce this narrative unit. The story is about a teacher who decides to teach her disruptive children a lesson by pretending that she is a mean substitute named, Mrs. Viola Swamp. She comes dressed as the mean sub and gives the children work until they are thrilled to see their real teacher again. After reading and discussing the book, the teachers invited the children to use the characters in the book and write their own story. They encouraged the children to write their fictional narrative using themselves and real people that they know mixed in with the fictional characters. This bulletin board shows three different levels of kindergarten writing.

The teachers began by having the children help them write an alternate story. They discussed variations and decided as a class how the story would go. Then they modeled each step over several days. That story is shown on top of the bulletin board.

The first piece of student writing was done in a guided writing group with the teacher and a small group of students. The teacher and student went page by page, first talking about what the group thought should go on each page and then each student writing his own sentence. The teacher supported each child by helping him stretch words so he could write his own individual thoughts. This group had difficulty veering away from the original story and basically did a retelling of the original story.

The Kids Are Crazy

by Mikaela

There is paper on the floor. There was a knock at the door. It was Viola Swamp.

She said, “Do your homework!” They did their work. The kids did not like Viola Swamp. She gave lots of homework. Mrs. Nelson came back. The kids were happy.

Each child did a picture of Miss Nelson and Viola Swamp which the teachers used as a border on the board.

The second student piece on the board, which was done independently, is a short story using the writer's teachers along with Mrs.Viola Swamp as the main characters. The teacher supported the student by having her first envision what she wanted to write on each page and then rehearsing it orally. As the student told the teacher what she wanted to write, the teacher drew a line for each word to help the student remember the sequence.

by Jaylene

             Paper all around.
            The children are being bad.
            The children made a mess in the classroom.
             They are coloring on the carpet. Miss Viola Swamp came in the door.
             There will be homework today. When school is over we see Mrs. Timmons
              and Mrs. Ruark at the beach. Mrs. Raurk and Mrs. Timmons are back!

The final piece of student work is amazing. The fluency of the piece for such a young writer is striking and shows natural talent beyond that taught in the classroom. This kindergartner is able to write the story totally independently and to control for much of the spelling. She wrote a delightful, imaginative story over a series of days.

by Morgan

Crayons are all over the place. The bookshelf is tipped over and all of the kids clips are on red! Mrs. Timmons and Mrs. Ruark decide that something must be done. The very next day Mrs. Timmons and Mrs. Ruark were missing and the children said, “All right now, let’s really act up!” They started to throw all the clips in the trashcan. They started to color all over the white board and the worst thing that you could ever imagine, they were flipping the tables over and they made a piñata. Then they hung it up somewhere in the classroom. Then they turned off all of the lights in the classroom. Then they found a bat in the classroom. Then they swung the bat to see if they could make the piñata break and they also had a blindfold. Then one of the boys in the classroom (his name was Ryan) swung the bat and he broke it. Then lots and lots and lots of candy came out of it. Then all of the children gobbled the sweets up and they said that it was so so yummy. Then all of a sudden Miss Viola Swamp ran in the classroom door and screamed, “Stop playing around. I have lots of homework for you today!” and the children started to listen to Miss Viola Swamp. After that Miss Viola Swamp started treating the children sweeter. Then Miss Viola Swamp read them a story. It was called Miss Nelson is Missing. Finally Miss Viola Swamp left, but the children were not very excited because they wanted her to stay, but the children also missed Mrs. Timmons and Mrs. Ruark. Finally Mrs. Timmons and Mrs. Ruark CAME BACK! And the children did a silent celebration.

Each piece of work on the board includes a chart that shows a teaching rubric and then discusses the child's work as compared to the standards. Morgan's commentary is included below.

Elements

Orientation and Context · Demonstrates an emerging grasp of context	Morgan brings the reader into the narrative and engages by opening with a description of what is going on in the classroom. From that initial grounding she begins to describe events.
Plot Development and Organization · Creates a “story” or recount made up of several incidents or actions, some of which may be loosely linked · Controls for chronological order	Morgan’s story is an interesting sequence of events including the teachers leaving, several incidences involving the children’s misadventures and Miss Swamp entering the picture. Then she includes several more events with Miss Swamp before she closes. The story has a natural, easy sequence that is in chronological order.
Closure · Provides a sense of closure	After establishing the problem in her story (the children misbehaving while the teachers are missing), Morgan brings the teachers back as her closing. She even adds, “And they did a silent celebration.”
Strategies
Details · Uses detail to describe incidents and people	Morgan’s uses details throughout her story. She begins with details describing the opening scene, “Crayons are all over the place. The bookshelf is tipped over and all of the kids’ clips are on red!”
Dialogue · May attempt dialogue	Morgan uses dialogue naturally when she says, “…and the children said, ‘All right now, let’s really act up!’” and also when she wrote “Miss Viola Swamp ran in the classroom door and screamed, ‘Stop playing around. I have lots of homework for you today!’”
Other · May use simple transition words · May use drawings to expand or illustrate the text	The transition word then pops up often in Morgan’s writing. She also uses after that and finally. She does not depend on her drawings for meaning as she spends all of her time in the Writers' Workshop on her writing. Morgan also uses capitals to provide emphasis when she writes CAME BACK, a fairly sophisticated strategy for a kindergartner!

State of the Union

2012-01-24T21:48:00.000-05:00

As I'm listening to President's Obamam's State of the Union tonight, I wanted to stand up and applaud (or maybe scream and jump up and down) when he got to this part...

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies – just to make a difference.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.

Where can I sign on the line? I believe Chets Creek would take that deal tomorrow. Give us the resources just to teach so that we don't have to spend our time figuring out how to get technology that works or even how to supply toilet paper, for heaven's sake! Let us use the amazing gold mine of talent that we have to teach creatively and with the passion that is inside us. Free us from teaching to a test so that we may once again teach children to love losing themselves in a book. Make it easy for us to get rid of teachers who need to find their paycheck in another profession. Is it possible that these ideas can become our reality... or are we just caught up in another season of political retoric? How I want to believe...

14 years old!

2012-01-21T22:06:00.000-05:00

Today Chets Creek turned 14 years old. The children all ate birthday cupcakes in the Dining Room in celebration. We sang Happy Birthday! Pictures through the years were displayed so the children and faculty could study the history of the school. Many of the faculty were there when the school firsh opened, taking students from three different schools in the middle of the school year to form a new elementary school. Each year a candle is painted by the art faculty to depict the year's theme. This year the candle depicts our Superhero theme. We're not really getting older - just better!

Bulletin Boards

2012-01-11T17:43:00.000-05:00

Each time bulletin boards go up at our school, a group of teachers go around and read all the bulletin boards and then choose the best bulletin board for K-1, the best for 2-3 and the best for 4-5. The winning board gets a "superstar ribbon" to keep ( sort of like a "Yard of the Month" sign!) The best part for the winning teacher is that the bulletin board stays up for the next month so you don't have to put up a new board when everyone else does! It's a friendly competition. The point in selecting a "winning" bulletin board was to find a way to encourage teachers and students and parents to read more of the boards and to find a way to archive our work over time. If you interested in looking at some of our best board, you can check the bulletin board blog. The blog allows you to search by grade level and by subject!

Author Visit: Carmen Agra Deedy

2012-01-08T23:31:00.002-05:00

One of most special traditions at Chets Creek is Media Specialist's KK Cherney's commitment to bring a children's author or illustrator to our campus each year. This year the children and staff had the opportunity to hear the delightful children's author, Carmen Agra Deedy. The children were captivated by her stories. She was born in Cuba and came to the United States when she was three years old. She told the primary students about leaving Cuba and about her first year in school in Decatur, GA as a first grader and as a second language learner, and about finding common ground in baseball and the peanut man. Not only was her story heart-wrenching but it was so funny! She had the children in the palm of her hand! She told other stories to the assemblies of older students and even met with a group of second language learners during lunch.

Principal Susan Phillips used one of Carmen's books in the morning to provide monthly professional development for the teachers around her book-of-the-month. This month the teachers walked in to find the Cuban folktale, Martina,The Beautiful Cockroach as their selected book for the month. The table was set up with Cuban coffee ( which was wonderful!) and Cuban bread! However, the beautiful book was written totally in Spanish! The Principal asked the teachers in groups of three to read the book and figure out what the story was about as the author watched!

It was quite interesting to watch the teachers - responses mirrored what we see from our second language students on a daily basis, from those that simply gave up because it was too hard, to those that tried to figure out the story from the few words that they knew (often incorrectly), to those that used other strategies such as looking at the pictures to figure out the story. The point was to put teachers in the place of a second language student... and it worked quite well. Principal Phillips then gave the teachers a list of researched based strategies for teaching second language students and asked each group of teachers to write ways that they would use the book to reinforce one of the strategies. Those teacher-generated ideas will be housed on the school's book-of-the-month wiki so that teachers can return to and use this book, that is now part of their classroom library, each year.

Students were allowed the opportunity to order one of the author's books before the holiday, so after lunch each of those children was invited to the Media Center to meet with the author and have the book signed. What a thrill it is for these young students to actually meet a published author! I loved hearing some of the older students talk about how they have a signed book from each year they have been at Chets Creek! What a treasured gift of memories.

It was such a special day for the teachers and the children, especially some of our second language learners. Many of our students heard books by Carmen Agra Deedy for the first time and others revisited books they have loved and had been hearing for the weeks leading up to her visit. For many this will be a day that is pressed into their memories for a long time to come and it will help them realize that authors are real people and help them visualize the possibility of becoming an author themselves! For some of our second language learners who are struggling each day to comprehend what is going on around them, I think this visit must have renewed hope as they look at how well things turned out for Carmen. Amazing day!

Check out this delightful retelling done by a Cuban-American (former teacher) mom with a kindergartner in Mrs. MAllon and Mrs. Dillard's class! People just wouldn't believe what happens at our school!

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-05T18:13:00.000-05:00

One of the writing assignments we do at almost every grade level as we return to school for the new year is to explain to our children about goals and resolutions and then have them write a New Year's Resolution of their own. In Kindergarten the teacher started by reading the book Squirrel's New Year's Resolution and then discussing with the children her own goal for the new year. Then she had the children turn and talk to a partner about a goal each might have for 2012. Finally the children shared out their goals giving each child even more choices and expanding their thought process. Finally the little writers were asked to go write a resolution ( or "revolution" as one little kindergarten put it!) Enjoy the adorable writing of some of our youngest writers below!

My resolution will be to help my sister make better choices at home so she does not get in trouble.

Taking out the garbage

My resolution is to clean up my room.

I will recycle because it can help the environment.

The First Day of the New Year

2012-01-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

The first day back to school after Christmas is always hard. The alarm clock rings so early and this morning it was so-o-o cold - at least for Florida. It was hard to crawl out from under those warm covers. I got to school to find the laminator out of film so I couldn't use the centers I had worked on over the holiday. Then it was printers that didn't work and teachers stressed by their inability to print their Newsletters and morning work. Computers had been "deployed" over the break and every bit of a semester's work for four of my students vanished. Their daily computer intervention was lost for today, and probably forever, since I can't ask them to repeat a semester's worth of work to figure out where they are in the program. I HATE technology. I'm sure at some executive level, decision make lots of sense, but for those of us in the trenches, technology is a nightmare.

With that kind of start, I guess I could say it was a dreadful start to the new school year but then the students walked through the door. Their new haircuts and clothes - Kayla with her special toboggan knitted by mom, Christian's adorable Superman hat, Grace's cute little gingerbread tee-shirt that made us all laugh - and all those little toys sneaked into backpacks to share. They walked in with such enthusiasm - smiles ear to ear -chattering away about all that had happened since we had last been together. Their faces were so eager and some of them seemed to have grown while they were away. A million stories had been etched into their memories - both good and bad - and they shared so willingly - places they had been, nanas they had seen, cousins they had played with, hugs they had shared... and then there was the one child who said nothing good had happened over the break and told about her dad being so mad on Christmas Eve and crying all night. Even with the few sad stories, the sun shined as the children began to take their places in the room melting the fog and dark clouds of the earlier morning. I guess this is why I teach... because no matter what is going on in my own life, no matter the distractions and roadblocks of the "system," the children warm the air. They remind me of all that is good in this world and of my responsibility to them for these 180 days that we have together. Life really is good... and I feel blessed to be able to spend my days teaching children... Welcome new year!

The Best of 2011

2011-12-31T14:14:00.022-05:00

Much to my surprise the Most Popular Posts on my blog for 2011 all centered around bulletin boards! I like this, because we spend a lot of time at my school on bulletin boards. We gave up the "fluff and stuff" boards years ago to move to boards that are a "window into the instruction in the classroom." They are teaching boards. They are learning boards. They have common elements, such as posting the standards, student work with commentary, and a description of the lesson or the lessons leading up to the artifacts. The best bulletin boards are those that are taken from a naturally occurring lesson. A special lesson should never be taught just to get a bulletin board, but the bulletin board should be a natural lesson plucked out of the sequence to highlight the learning. It doesn't have to be a final lesson or project with a completely finished piece of work. It can be a lesson anywhere in the progression and the work can be at the beginning, anywhere in the middle, or at the end. I think the reason that I so often write about bulletin boards is because they chronicle the work that we are doing. Take a look back at these posts from 2011.

A Board Walk, February 2, 2011
Bulletin Boards: Are They Worth It? August 8, 2011
First of the Year Bulletin Boards September 21, 2011
Pattern Book Bulletin Boards December 6, 2011

And so we end 2011 with a look back -reflection - and welcome the new year! We've been waiting for you 2012.

Run run as fast as you can...

2011-12-17T00:30:00.000-05:00

Check out Timmons-Ruark's classroom blog to see what was happening on the last day before the holiday and to listen to Angel read his delightful pattern book based on the Gingerbread Boy story.

Writing Letters to Santa

2011-12-16T21:46:00.001-05:00

One of the things that Kindergarten teachers like to do this last week before the holiday break is to invite students to write letters to Santa. Below are a couple of examples.

Dear Santa,
How are you doing? Are you making any trains this year? I like trains. Asher

Dear Santa,
How are you doing? I want to buy a present for the children at the hospital but I do not have enough money and I do not think that my mom will because she already bought a lot of stuff for me, my sister,

and my brother. What should I do? And before I go I just want to ask how are your elves doing. Merry Christmas. Love, Morgan

You just have to love the way kindergartners think!

Traditions I Love

2011-12-16T12:05:00.000-05:00

Every school has traditions, especially around the holidays. At our school we have a huge holiday tree that decorates the entry way and has a picture of every single child in the school. It wouldn't be Christmas at Chets without walking in each morning and seeing that big holiday tree. Another tradition is our 12 Days of Cookies. The 12 last days before the break, teachers, who want to participate, bring cookies and candy and put them on a buffet in the Office and then anyone that wants can stop by for a little sweet cheer. I always stop by, even though I don't often partake. It do love that the office often has the smell of the holidays. M-m-m-m-m.

Another tradition that I love is the ornament exchange. I don't participate in this group of 20, but I love that 20 women on our staff decided eight years ago that they love homemade ornaments, so each year they each make 20 ornaments and then meet one night near Christmas at someone's home and exchange the ornaments. I love that the tradition was grass roots. Someone always brings the samples to school. It just wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't get to see the beautiful handmade ornaments that this group makes.

I think traditions should continue because they make sense to the people involved. They are special. They evoke emotion. They should die when they are no longer meaningful. It's easy to overdo this time of year to the point that you enjoy nothing because you are trying too hard to make everything perfect. It won't ever be perfect. Giving ourselves permission to make the special very special and to discard that that is simply obligatory or without heart, just makes good sense to me. May your school traditions make this the merriest, most joyful holiday ever!

ESOL

2011-12-15T12:09:00.002-05:00

In Florida, because of a lawsuit many years ago, all teachers are required to take courses in teaching second language students once they have their first student. I have been teaching for over 40 years and I have never been flagged for ESOL which means I've never been told I had to take the hours. That's because I am a Special Education teacher and it used to be highly unlikely that a second language student would be identified with special needs in the early grades. However, two years ago three little Hispanic children from the same family all showed up in my classroom on the same day (two were twins and the other had been retained). They had already been identified as students of a second language and students with developmental delays, so... I was flagged that year - the same year that I officially retired and entered DROP (our state's retirement program). I was NOT happy. I just couldn't believe after all those years, that now, at the end of my career, I would have to take college courses on strategies to teach second language students to continue teaching.

Most of my friends have had to take the courses and most described the time of sitting three hours a night as similar to that of any other college course. The strategies they described were so similar to the ones that we are already using for our students with language deficits and other academic challenges. They learned about diversity but the lessons they are learning from books, I have experienced. I come from the years when home visits were a regular part of a school year. How was sitting in those courses now going to help? Then, as often happens (Divine intervention?), I had the idea of doing an independent study and actually doing action research to meet the requirement. I was already spending time at the MARC (our tutoring center in our large Hispanic area). Why couldn't I use those hours for ESOL certification instead of sitting in a classroom and simply reading about the problems. The time with the kids actually requires me to apply the strategies and it forces me into the community where our tutoring center is housed. It took several phone calls through the Ivory Tower to find the "right" person, Karen Patterson - someone to share my dream and my enthusiasm.

As time passed, that simple idea began to germinate. If it would be better for ME to meet the ESOL requirement through service, then why wouldn't it be better for the many other teachers at my school who were already involved in this volunteering effort? It wasn't long before I shared that idea with KK Cherney, our dynamo Media Specialist. She immediately realized the potential of this small idea. She had already been thinking about spreading the idea of our volunteer tutoring center all over the county and this was one of the answers on how to help staff those centers. Teachers from all over the county who needed ESOL hours could choose to spend their time applying the strategies instead of just sitting in a sterile classroom and reading about them. It would put teachers directly into the community working with children and their families.

That "big picture" hasn't happened yet. The dream has not been fulfilled but the dream has spread. Karen and Sharon Patterson are helping us realize the dream. Today, our first little wave of putting teachers into the community through ESOL hours, came to fruition. A handful of teachers met with Karen and Sharon, our ESOL supervisors and shared their written reflections and artifacts - pictures, blog posts, student progress. Teachers not only participated in weekly tutoring. They were in the community for Second Harvest food giveaways and hosted children while their moms worked through classes in English. They participated as 50 families were helped through our Angel Tree project this week. They helped host a huge Christmas party that included crafts and stories and even the big red man himself.

Has this experience changed any these teachers? There is no question that each of these teachers have logged hours in this community. They have formed strong relationships with children and families. They have been inside homes. Some have shared meals. They have had conversations, often through interpreters, with parents who would never have come to school for a conference. They have been touched by the dreams that they have shared with the children. This grassroot effort has the potential to mushroom into something beyond what we can now imagine. Stay with us for the ride. The best is yet to come...

Writing Reports in Kindergarten

2011-12-08T11:19:00.001-05:00

In Kindergarten children begin to write reports by writing about themselves. After all, what subject do they know more about than themselves?! This unit comes during our annual Pow Wow celebration so it is natural tht many of our kinder classes choose the tribe that they are studying to write their next report. Thus was the case in Debbie Harbour and Tenean Wright's kindergarten class. Their bulletin board this month reflects the reports that some of the children wrote about the Nez Perce tribe.

The bulletin board includes the reports of four of the children with the teacher's commentary and many pictures from the Pow Wow event. Below is one student's report and the teacher's commentary.

They use buffalo skin. Their teepees face east. They eat fish. Indian kids play with dogs and in the winter they stay in longhouses. Nez Perce can shoot 10 arrows in the air before the first ones fall down.

They ride Appaloosas. They sleep in tepees. Indians have stew to heat up the fish.

Commentary: Patrick wrote easily about the Nez Perce tribe we have been studying in class. He recalled eight different facts and used pictures to help support his text. It is obvious that Patrick has made the letter sound connection and can sound out many of the words that he does not know how to spell. He also has mastered the spelling and use of many sight words (they, in, up, the...)

Pattern Book Bulletin Boards

2011-12-06T17:22:00.000-05:00

The most popular bulletin boards in kindergarten this month feature pattern books.

Barnhardt and Daniels board (above) features four delightful pattern books while Alvarado's board (below)fearures pattern books that were written in writing and Math patterns, so children could begin making connections of seeing patterns throughout their day. One of the pattern books on Haley Alvarado's board features Tanner's work with a Question and Answer Pattern Book . He chose the topic himself, "All About Kindergarten." These are his words:

Do you read books?

Yes, you read books at school..

Do you do ABC's?

Yes, you do the ABC's at school.

Do you count?

Yes, you count at school.

Do you read at school?

Yes, you read at school.

The Mall-ard's board (below) is another great example of patterns showing both pattterns in writing and patterns in math as children think about what Lucy Calkins calls "echoes across the day."

The book below from the Mall-ard's board is a typical kindergarten pattern book for this time of year.

Things I Found Outside

I found a pinecone. It was pointy.

I found an acorn. It was green and it was tiny.

I found a daisy. It was yellow and it was little.

I found a rock. It was big.

I found a leaf. It was brown.

I found a stick. It was big and it was gray.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2011-12-03T21:28:00.002-05:00

The children made holiday ornaments to decorate the school's holiday tree in the lobby the first day back from Thanksgiving vacation. The tree is a Chets Creek tradition and has a picture of every single child at the Creek! It is an amazing sight to behold!

New Teacher Evaluation system

2011-11-30T19:27:00.001-05:00

I hadn't thought much about the new teacher evaluation system in Florida... until Thanksgiving.
As I shared the holiday with my family, I sat around the table with teachers from all parts of the state - kindergarten and first grade teachers, high school teachers, PE teachers and Guidance Counselors. As the topic of the new state-wide teacher evaluation came up they were fairly unanimous in their opinion about how hurtful and painful the system has been in their individual schools. One of the kinder teachers talked about veteran teachers who were in tears as they were told after 12 and 18 years of teaching that they were "beginning" and "developing". They considered it a slap in the face after giving 110% for so many years. This seemed to be pretty common experience across the conversation. The kinder teacher said that her Principal told her faculty that it was impossible for a K-1-2 teacher to get "highly effective" because it was impossible for students of that age to meet the highest level expectation on the rubric. In every single incidence, these usually dedicated, committed teachers agreed that the system was out to "get 'em" and was designed to have few teachers at the top so they wouldn't have to pay them the top dollar when performance pay comes into effect across the state. One teacher said that Principals in her county had been told that there would be repercussions for Principals who scored too many teachers too high! The older teachers in the group talked about retiring early - now - and looking for other work to "get out." The younger teachers talked about other professional choices - these are the same teachers who have been so excited about a career in teaching just a year ago!

I could hardly participate or even listen to the conversations because my heart was breaking.

I haven't had my first informal evaluation yet - that's scheduled for next week - but I have looked briefly at the rubric. After 40 years of teaching, how will I feel if I am scored as "beginning" or "developing" in any area? Will the fact that the students I teach struggle with language be a consideration on the level of conversation that they have? I'm actually having the Principal come during a combination third/fourth grade intervention group - a Phonics for Reading, Level 1 group with 5 students with special needs. The lessons are scripted and according to the developer of the program, Anita Archer, every word is researched, so I do not veer much from the text. In fact, my challenge is staying with the exact wording, knowing that it stands on the shoulders of research. It can be rather boring, I guess, but it is what I do with that particular group of students, and the program is effective. So... should I develop a "dog and pony show" instead to meet the little blocks on the rubric or should I plan to do what I really do? I have opted to do what I do and just take the evaluation with a grain of salt. Whatever the outcome, it is what it is. I will try not to feel defensive or personally attacked and be open enough to see the learning that is just under the clouded surface. I doubt it's any easier on my Principal - who is over 20 years my junior (I could have birthed her!) - to have to evaluate me than it is for me to sit through someone discussing my shortcomings! I actually feel sorry for my Principal. We have over 20 Nationally Board Certified Teachers at our school and another huge block of teachers who go above and beyond every single day. I am sure telling any of those teachers that they may not be "highly effective" will be very difficult, especially if it is tied to pay. To her credit, I don't feel the same sense of doom and gloom that the rest of my family seems to be feeling, although we are only at the beginning of this process. If the culture at our school is nervous, they are also still upbeat and unbelievably committed. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds across our state...

From a young teacher's perspective...

Pow Wow 2011

2011-11-19T01:06:00.002-05:00

Today was the culmination of our month long study of the great Native American Nations. When Chets Creek opened, Chief Jumping Frog was a Kindergarten teacher and she brought the tradition of a Native American Powwow around the Thanksgiving holiday with her from another local elementary school. Today Chief Jumping Frog is Principal Susan Phillips and that tradition has evolved from one of teaching our children that Native Americans use bows and arrows to hunt buffalo and all live in tepees to an in depth study of tribes across this country. As the years passed we became dissatisfied with our simple ceremony and began to delve into all of the differences among the first Americans that inhabited our land. We learned that the Sioux really did live in tepees but the the great Iroquois Nation were people of the longhouses and the peaceful Lenape built wigwams and Inuits actually lived in igloos... As each tribe researched the clothes that their tribes wore they found that many of the Natives used the skins and feathers of the animals that they hunted in their area and that each tribe had different traditional garb so the costumes of the Powwow took on different colors and shapes.

It was not long before we knew that we wanted to involve parents more heavily into our study so homework for the month became family projects. Families were asked to tell their children stories of their own childhood and their child's early days and to make knots in a counting rope as they told each story just like the beautiful Iroquois story of a Grandfather who tells the story of the birth and childhood to his blind grandson in the beautifully written Knots on a Counting Rope. Children bring their ropes back to school and share one of their favorite stories with the class.

A cardboard gingerbread shape is sent home and families are asked to decorate the native child after researching how their child's tribe might dress. These colorful First Americans hang in our hallways.

Parents are invited in Tuesday before Powwow for a night of fun as each tribe gathers their families to make replicas of the types of houses that their tribe might have lived in and then these are also displayed in the hallways. You can walk through the halls and see Seminole chickees, Hopi adobe homes, and plank houses with totem poles from the Nootkas...

Several years ago we decided to keep all the information together on a Native American wiki. Not only is there space for each of the tribes to upload information but on the home page there is a copy of every letter sent to parents, lists of materials to gather for the many projects, invitation sent to first graders, and a million of the other little details that help to keep us all organized! What a gift each year as we recreate this tradition at our school. This is a HUGE project and is only accomplished because the work stands on the shoulders of the teachers who came before.

It wasn't long before we began to worry that we were sending our children from Chets Creek with many stereotypes about Native Americans because we were only talking about how Native Americans used to be, but we knew that our five years olds were too young to take on the rich, but sometimes difficult histories, of our tribes, so we decided to bring the tribes alive again in Social Studies in fifth grade. Our older students do projects that include "compare and contrast" and then do models and PowerPoint's and include many different kinds of technology. They join us on the night that we have kindergarten parents in for "Make 'n' Take" and make their presentations to the kindergarten children and their families. Each child gets a "passport" at the beginning of the night and has it stamped at each stop. When they fill their passport, they can collect a Native American bracelet from Chief Jumping Frog as they leave for the night. This addition to our curriculum brings our study full circle.

Today was the great Powwow celebration. Fifth graders joined us by helping to give out programs, holding authentic Native American flags, dressing with colorful tribe-related sashes and roping off the Powwow area and performing a million different chores. Kindergartners performed Native dances and songs in Native tongues, dressed in their Native costumes. Chief Chets Creek performed a traditional grass dance that is actually performed to lay the grass flat before a Powwow. He had researched, not only the dance and specific dance steps, but the costume, which was replicated by a parent. Parents and children enjoyed the entire Powwow presentation, led by Chief Jumping Frog, of course, and snapped a gazillion pictures.

But that is just the start of the day. The kindergarten children visit centers throughout the day, led by our Resource Team and each one teaches something important about the tribes. A real tepee is erected around the flagpole (amazing to behold). The children enter in disbelief and look up at the beautiful paintings on the inside wall of the tepee. This is one of the most anticipated and meaningful stops of the day. Peaceful Waters (Media Specialist KK Cherney) tells stories about the "three sisters." Each child leaves with seeds of corn, beans, and squash to plant at home. As she tells the stories Drawing Hands paints a picture. Peaceful Waters then tells of the native tradition of a talking stick and as she passes the stick to each child and adult, she asks them to tell of one thing they are thankful. Many of the children are thankful for family and friends - Daddy coming home from Iraq. A few are thankful for their teachers (thank goodness) and a few are also thankful for dinosaurs and videogames and toys! The adults always seemed surprised when she asks each of them to name the thing they are most thankful, but it is not unsual to sometimes see grown men cry.

Next the children visit Colorful Wind (Art Teacher Jen Snead) and she teaches them about the natural dyes used to paint and communicate. Children are surprised to learn that the Native Americans so long ago could not run to Walmart for paint and brushes! Then the children experiment painting with such things as beets and blueberries and spices. At another art center the children mold clay into balls and then discs and use shapes of native designs to make a keepsake that will be fired and returned. Some of these will be used on necklaces and some will find their way unto Christmas trees commemorating the child's first Powwow. At that same center each child is given a piece of animal hide (or crumpled brown paper bag) and encouraged to use some of the Native American designs from a chart to write a story.

Chief Sing um Song invited the children in and taught them a Native song. They got to beat the steady beat on drums and then used paddles pretending to row boats to the beat of the paddle song. Today my class visited this center as the last one of the day and Music teacher, DeeDee Tamburrino, was just as upbeat and excited to teach this last group as she had been to teach that first group so much earlier in the day.

The children always need a break to run and play so the PE teachers divide the tribe into groups and let them compete, much like the Native American kids did. They have a list of things that they can find in the elements on a picture list and have to find each of the items in the wooded area of our property. Some of the items are planted such as bird eggs and nests and animal fur and others are found in the natural surroundings such as rocks, sticks, bark, and pine cones. As they come with their treasures, the teachers discuss how the Native American's used each of these items from their environment. Today, because it was a little blustery, the children gathered around the natural fire heat, much like children must have done in days gone by.

The tasting center is always a fun break. The children get to taste carrots, dried fruit and apple slices. They enjoy corn muffins and popcorn and even a taste of beef jerky. Our Speech Teacher, Moe Dygan, a true hunter, also prepares venison from one of his catches, pork from a wild bore and turkey. Many of the children make their first connections to the game that the Natives hunted and our own food supply. Moe also brings in many artifacts of his hunting days for the children to see. He shows the children real horns and hooves, reinforcing vocabulary we learned during The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children, and parents, sit spell bound as he speaks.

I don't even know how to explain how I feel about this day or this entire unit. It has evolved over time, but there is just so much to be proud of as we complete this unit. I am so proud of my colleagues and our parents who give and give and give - all who really put out the extra effort to make it such a rich learning experience for our children. Am I tired? EXHAUSTED! But it is so worth it... The learning, the fun, the collegiality... It just makes me proud to be a Creeker!

P.S- Oh, and did I mention that my daughter-in-law helped lead the great Iroquois Nation and my granddaughter was with the peaceful Lenape tribe? Yes, Kallyn I know that is is Lena-PAY and not Lena-PEE! So-o-o-o proud to be a Creeker and have the opportunity to watch the tradition pass through the generations of my own family!

Million Word Pay Off

2011-11-11T21:40:00.001-05:00

Each nine weeks we ask our students to be responsible for reading 25-30 books with the goal of reading a million words each year. In Kindergarten we log the books during class and also begin to teach the parents and students to begin the lifelong habit of reading each day by requiring them to log at least one book each day that they read at home. If 90% of the students in the entire school meet the goal, the Principal does something outrageous or fun for the students. She has been slimed, kissed a pig, treated the kids to Bingo and even invited them to a carnival. This year she was taped to a wall and read for two hours. She says she would do anything to get kids to read. I guess this is her way of walking the talk!

The End of Molasses Classes, Part 3

2011-11-09T12:55:00.000-05:00

The final part of Ron Clark's book is Reaching Out Beyond the Classroom. He talks about traveling around the world with his students and all of the creative and innovative things that he has done at the Ron Clark Academy. One of the things that I love is #85 where he suggests always watching a applicant teach before you hire them. He suggests that you can't always tell from an interview how a teacher is going to do with real live kids. I remember a Teacher of the Year finalist a few years ago that knocked my socks off in the interview and had a resume that was one of the most accomplished I think we had ever seen. Then we went to watch her teach and what a disappointment. She had a marvelous lesson planned but the students were totally disengaged. One was even asleep on his desk and she just went on teaching, as if every student was actively engaged. She never stopped. When she asked a question and not a single hand was raised, she just answered the question and went right ahead. The problem was that there was no teaching going on in that room. That's the kind of scenario that Clark suggest administrators avoid by watching the teacher BEFORE they are under contract.

Ron Clark also talks about what it has taken to get and to keep the Ron Clark Academy going. He has worked 24/7 and has given up many things for his success, including a family. As much as I love his enthusiasm, dedication and commitment to our profession and I see dozens of things that he is doing that I can infuse into my own daily teaching life, I don't think we should ask teachers to lay it all on the line to be successful with children. I am glad that there are educators like Ron Clark, but we must find a way to have his success without risking the other, balanced parts of our lives. We will only have global success if we can find that balance.

The End of Molasses Classes, Post 2

2011-11-09T12:08:00.000-05:00

The Role of the Parent in the Success of the Child
Ron Clark spends time talking about a parent's accountability in Part 2 of his book. There are so many of his points that I would like to turn into little articles for parents and even for teacher parents with their own children! I really like #26 where he talks about not being a helicopter parent. He reminds parents that they can't always come to the rescue and bail their children out of trouble. It is sometimes better that the child deal with the natural consequences. That is the better lesson, but as parents we want to save our children from the hurt and pain. But... it's the hurt and pain that are the lasting lesson and change the behavior- something we call learning! He also cautions against buying a video game system unless you want to police what the child is playing. I love this because I don't think parents always realize that a gaming system can become a lifelong addiction and can fill too many hours that are meant for play and fun. My all-time favorite - #32: Realize that even very good children will sometimes lie! How many times have you heard a parent say, "My child does not lie!" But the reality is that even the best of children will sometimes lie to get out of trouble. Think about your own childhood. Can't you remember at least one time that you lied. because the lie was easier than accepting the consequence? The point to this section of the book is that parents are the long term answer to a child's success. We, as teachers, can touch a child - maybe even change a child or save a child - but long after we have come and gone in a child's life, the parent will be there. Ron implores parent to be the difference in their own child's life. Right on, Ron!

Professional Development

2011-11-06T10:01:00.000-05:00

We are so fortunate in Duval County to have Early Release Wednesdays every other Wednesday of the month. These days give us an extra hour and a half for professional development. Usually we spend the time with our grade level and work on the work, but this past Wednesday the entire school worked on data. The county has finally figured out a way to give us data that is user friendly. Of course for 3-4-5, it's based on benchmarks that, in my opinion, are still questionable. I would hate to see us put ALL of our faith in those tests but at least it's a starting point. In K-1-2 we had state-wide FAIR data to peruse. This past Wednesday we looked at the data against our lists of free and reduced lunch, lists of second language children, Hispanic students (which will probably be an FCAT sub group or us for the first time this year) and other identifiers. So what did I learn? Of course I know who my strugglers are by now (it's the end of the first nine weeks!) and I already had small groups and specific interventions in place. I did notice that a much higher percentage of my strugglers are also on free and reduced lunch. That has long been a trend but it just means that I have to work harder to make sure that they catch up in these early years. It means that many of them are in homes where they are in survival mode and the children don't have the same type support as their more financially comfortable peers have day in and day out. That group continues to grow as our economy struggles and I want to give each child a fighting chance. I also identified which of my strugglers that I can also touch at our tutoring center and want to make sure to target those children and get them there for the extra service after school every week. I also realize that I have a pocket of my Special Education students that have strong academic skills and will need to continue to be challenged at a more advanced level. There is a responsibility to make sure that they continue to grow even though they are working above the aim line. All in all it was a good reflection time - something that all teachers need on a regular basis.

Outstanding Kindergarten Teacher

2011-11-04T11:02:00.000-04:00

I am not surprised that Kindergarten teacher Haley Alvarado was selected to be a feature teacher on Channel 12. She was nominated by two former students. Haley is one of those teachers that is the whole package. She is an amazing teacher in the classroom. When you watch her teach you are mesmerized by her ability to teach content and manners and respect all at the same time. She has a way of talking to kids that lets them know that she cares about them but that she also holds them responsible for their own behavior. She is the one that you will often see at the tee-ball game or the dance recital or the soccer games, cheering on one of her students after school hours. I know she is all those things because I worked in her room for an entire year, day in and day out. She was simply magic.

She is a master at organization and regularly shares the lessons and artifacts that she works so hard to provide for her own class with the rest of her grade level. She is always the one that takes the new teacher under her wing and takes the time to answer questions and check to make sure everything is going smoothly. Any time I ask her to respond to an e-mail from a colleague from out of town, she responds with cheerful suggestions and insight. She gives unselfishly of her time to her colleagues.

The thing about Haley is that she is also a wonderful mother who keeps her family time sacred. She manages a nuclear family with several children of her own and even has time for foster children. She is, in every way a model of what teachers today offer to their children in the classroom and to our society in general. It is such an honor to teach and learn beside teachers like Haley, who make me proud to be an educator.

Pumpkins! Pumpkins Everywhere!

2011-10-23T16:54:00.000-04:00

Many fun traditions at Chets Creek come this time of year. One of my favorites is that each class takes a favorite book and then makes it come alive with a pumpkin display. Kindergarten teachers chose Nursery Rhymes and some of our favorite "Star Books." Check out this link to see some amazing book productions!

What are they thinking?

2011-10-18T22:54:00.000-04:00

Last week, out of the blue, we received an e-mail with an "invitation" or rather a command appearance at an in-service. I teach in a very large county and the leadership had decided that ALL K-2 teachers would attend a half day in-service conducted by the state. The time was to be spent learning about the FAIR, our state K-2 assessment and how to plan for instruction. I was actually excited. I have been to several state workshops and in-services over the years and they are usually presented by very knowledgeable presenters. I figured if the county was making EVERY teacher go then it must be something new and cutting edge. Why else would the county take on the expense of substitutes for every single teacher and moving so many teachers in and out of the city over the course of an entire week?

So... today I sat through three hours of the most basic in-service. I think the presenters were very knowledgeable but the information presented was not that different from the information that we were presented three or four years ago. In my county, performance pay for K-2 teachers is based on this assessment so I can understand why you would need to have every teacher have a basic foundational knowledge of this assessment but the focus was "using the data to focus instruction, to differentiate for groups". The presentation was one PowerPoint slide after another with a couple of demonstrations - several Elkonin box examples (are there really K-2 teachers who don't know about Elkonin boxes?) It was... boring... It scares me to think what must be going on in my county that that was the level of presentation someone in our leadership thought we needed...

One of the things that I have learned as a presenter is that if you want teachers to really "get it" then you need to model what it is that you want them to do. There was a lot of talk about explicit instruction today but surely they also know the research on basic lecture methods and their ineffectiveness. Of course, they did throw in a couple of "turn and talks." In my opinion, if you want teachers to differentiate in their instruction with kids then the presentation itself should have been differentiated. It doesn't seem to me that it would have been too hard to give a quick assessment that teachers could have used to self-assess and then choose a workshop that was appropriate to their need and interest. There were certainly enough instructors from the sate in the room that the session could have been divided into many smaller groups. For example, I would love to have asked these real state experts about some of the questions that we are wrestling with such as how to best use the FAIR data in the RtI process or how better to use the vocabulary percentiles and what the best interventions might be or exactly how to group students using the comprehension data in the early grades. Instead we spent time looking at the same basic scores that we were taught to analyze three years ago. I hate to say it was a waste of time, because maybe it wasn't for some teachers. But... for me, I could have been much more productive working with children in my classroom this morning.

I REALLY HATE complaining... but I hate wasting my time even more...

Relationships

2011-10-15T18:29:00.001-04:00

Last week I sat on the floor with C's mom and dad at our local tutoring space in the neighborhood and taught them how to use flash cards with him to work on his letters and sounds and then showed them how they could use the same cards to put the letters of the alphabet in order. His dad listened so attentively, just like he had when we talked about how he could help C practice writing his name. And C has learned to write his name! This dad adores his little boy and he is willing to do whatever it takes. He just needs a little help on knowing what to do. It won't be long before C knows his letters because I know his dad will practice with him every night.

K showed up a the MARC for the first time this week. She hid behind her mother's skirt as her mother half dragged her in. As soon as her mom left K worked on letters and sounds, eagerly writing and taking parts in the games. She had the opportunity to work with a retired Speech Therapist to help with her language needs. I sat with her mom for a few minutes while we waited for K to finish a language game and I asked her about K's diagnosis of ADHD, something I had been told by a previous teacher. Her mom surprised me by saying that the doctor could not actually decide if it was ADHD or language that were causing her inattention. Sure enough, the next day when I hunted down the paperwork her mother was right and I had been told incorrectly. I am so appreciative of that brief conversation with her mom. I also realized that the paperwork was a year old so her mom has now agreed to go back to the doctor to see if we can get a more definitive diagnosis. I don't think this mom would have ever come to school for a conference, but she was so easy and willing to talk with when I sat with her in her own neighborhood.

And then there is D. She is new to our school and so quiet. I have run into her at the MARC several times as I am leaving. I see her on the playground with her baby sister. Today I was at the MARC with Second Harvest. Second Harvest gathers food from local sources and then makes it available for distribution free of charge to needy families. D came through with her mom and baby sister. She was so helpful to her mom, like a mini-adult. I couldn't help but think of all this little girl is carrying on her shoulders. I think she was surprised... and happy to see me, and... I think it will make a difference in our relationship in class. There just seemed to be such a special connection as she ran up and hugged me and introduced me to her mom.

One of the things that Ron Clark says in his newest book, The End of Molasses Classes, is that you have to get to know your students if you want to connect with them and that you need to form strong bonds with parents. That is the same principle that is a cornerstone of Chets Creek - relationships. I guess it has just been reinforced to me again this week - just how important those relationships really are!

The End of Molasses Classes, Post 1

2011-10-14T21:25:00.001-04:00

I have joined a book study and you can too! This is my first response to Ron Clark's The End of Molasses Classes.

I have had the opportunity to hear Ron Clark speak several times and even had the honor of introducing him when he was speaking in Jacksonville several years ago. I am so impressed with his energy and enthusiasm. At first I thought he was one of those superhero teachers that jumps into teaching for a few years and then leaves teaching to tell the rest of us how to do it. What makes Ron Clark different is that he used the money he made to open his own school where he teaches every day! I think I could comment on every one of the Core Principles and Values because I believe in every one! Of course, believing in them and acting on them with the passion that Ron Clark has can be quite different.

I guess the principle that comes easiest for me is #13: Treat every child as if he or she were your own. That comes very naturally for me and has every since I had children, and now grandchildren, of my own. I often think, "What if the child was Kallyn (my Kindergarten grandchild)?" and that often flavors the way I see things.

I think the one I wish I was better at is #19: Make learning magical. I think there are teachers at my school that do this well, but it's a stretch for me. When I am planning a lesson, I think about fun but more about sequence and depth and rigor, but I don't really think magical. I would like to challenge myself to ask that question more often.

Grand Reopening

2011-09-28T22:47:00.000-04:00

There are times when I am just so proud of the colleagues that I work with. Today was one of those days. A year ago we had a vision for a tutoring center in one of our toughest neighborhoods. We had been talking about it for years and then one day, we just said, "Let's quit talking and do something." That's all it took for Liz Duncan and KK Cherney to start. Over the last year they have partnered with Beach United Methodist Church, The McKenzie Wilson Foundation, the middle and high schools in the area and the managing organization of the 1000 mobile home community.

Teachers from Chets Creek volunteer at the Center Monday through Wednesday from 4:00-6:00. Thursday and Friday are reserved for middle and high school students. McKenzie Wilson Foundation has bought a SmartBoard and Nooks and offers a place of service for their volunteers. Second Harvest has gotten involved so the teachers come on Saturdays to deliver food. The church offered a full Bible School to the students this summer and offer Saturday Sunday School. There was a huge baby shower last Spring for all the new moms in the community, Christmas parties with give aways and crafts, construction projects that have included such things as pressure washing, stapling plastic over holes, weeding and landscaping. We are trying to make this a place where teachers who need to meet the ESOL requirement for the state can do the work at the Center. With our heavy Hispanic population, it is the perfect place to see and serve.

I guess the point is that I work with some incredible teachers. They saw a need and were willing to do the work to make it happen. I guess what I've learned is that dreams really can come true!

First of the Year Bulletin Boards

2011-09-21T12:44:00.000-04:00

Nursery Rhymes are a popular bulletin board for the first standard-based bulletin board in Kindergarten. The board to the left includes a delightful illustration of the beginning, middle and end of the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty which helps a student begin to see that even very short stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. It is amazing the detail that some kindergartners can already put into their pictures! This board also includes a worksheet where students have to draw some of the vocabulary words in the rhyme such as wall, King, men, horse. It also includes a rhyming activity where students have to draw a rhyming word for some of the words that the students have been working with such as drawing a picture of a word that rhymes with wall (ball).

This board on the right also focuses on the nursery rhymes that are part of our early learning but in this case the entire focus of the board is phonological awareness - the rhyming activites that are being taught through the rhymes. For instance, the rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock includes the rhymes hickory-dickory, dock-clock, and one-run. The board shows several rhyming activities such as listing words that are in the -ock family, being given a picture and selecting or cutting out another picture that rhymes with the pictured word. Rhyming is such a fundamental skill because it is so hard for student to move forward if they cannot hearing rhyming at the end of words!

Mrs. Roberts also features work with Nursery Rhymes on her bulletin board. Her board includes several activites, also with rhyming words but the activity that is unique is her work is with the SmartBoard to teach rhming with the nursery rhymes. Bet the children are mesmerized!

This board is all about "name" activites including combining the work we do in nursery rhymes to teach phonological awareness by using a child's name. We know that there is no more important word to a child than his own name so the board shows how you can substitute the class. Jane and Henry went up a hill...It also shows a list of the words that the class discovered that also start with the same sound as a student's name and that student's homework when children were asked to bring in items from home that started like their name. The final activity includes a list of the children's names in the class where the children have counted/ clapped the syllables that they can hear in each name.

The standard-based bulletin board below focuses on the drawings and words that are the final activity of "Star Names". After the children have done many acitivites that emphasize the beginning sound of the name of a single star student for the day, each child is asked to draw a picture of the star student. The teacher models the child's name as the class follows and then draws a picture of the student. The students begin with simple pictures and then more elaborate pictures that begin to fill up the white space and then finally stories about the student. As the drawings become more sophisticated, so do the words, beginning with the child's name and then moving to labels, sentences and then stories. This bulletin board displays the many levels of entering kindergartners, from a simple, almost unidentifiable picture with mock letters and scribbles to a sophisticated drawing with a phonetic sentence.

Mrs. Mallon and Mrs. Dillard's bulletin board focuses on the beginning stories that our youngest authors write in Writers' Workshop, showing four different levels of writing from simple drawings to detailed drawings with simple phonetic sentences. What makes this board interesting is the way that the teachers introduce writing to their class by telling the students to first imagine a story with a beginning, middle, and end over three pages before they begin writing and then to tell their stories through drawings and words. It is amazing what these youngest writers have to say and what they can already write!

Each of the bulletin boards above provides a window into the important instruction that goes on inside kindergarten classrooms so early in the school year. Can't wait to see how these boards unfold in the months to come.

Little Readers

2011-09-19T22:34:00.000-04:00

Check out Little Readers as Chet, the Chets Creek Eagle noticed our kindergarten students reading quietly in halls before school.

Pencil Grip

2011-09-11T23:27:00.000-04:00

How important is pencil grip? "Back in the day" we always changed a child's pencil grip to the standard tripod. We had a child pretend a pencil was a car. We told them to put the chubby mom (thumb) in the front seat with the tall skinny daddy (pointer finger) - to hold the pencil - and then to put the three children in the back (other three fingers). When we saw children not using the correct grip, we physically changed their fingers and insisted on the proper pencil position when writing.
Then we went through a period in education when we only seemed to care if a child could write, regardless of the way that he held the pencil or marker. During this same period handwriting practice also seemed to be de-emphasized and we rarely actually worked on daily handwriting practice in the early grades. Instead the emphasis was on the writing process and the thought that went into the writing instead of the handwriting itself. My own son came through school during this period. Last week a photographer took this picture below of him signing an autograph at a baseball game and you can see that his pencil grip was never "fixed." However, he has beautiful handwriting as fine motor skills come easy for him!

So now I wonder... how important is pencil grip really? The pendulum seems to be swinging again to an emphasis on correct grip and handwriting practice. I have used several different pencil grips in the past, usually recommended by occupational therapists who are trying their best to help my students who really struggle with writing. I guess I will still continue to show students the proper grip, especially when they struggle with writing, and I will also show their parents the correct grip and reinforce as changes are made, because I know that pencil grip is extrememly hard to change after a child reaches age 6. Certainly we now teach handwriting in Kindergarten and then reinforce it again in first grade with more enthusiasm and rigor than we did even five years ago. Maybe this generation will have neater handwriting... or maybe we should just teach them proper keyboard placement!

When It's Just Too HOT!

2011-09-04T20:30:00.001-04:00

This is Florida! And it's hot people! In this time of budget cuts, the county has upped acceptable temperatures in our building. There is also some type of motion sensor in our rooms that turns off the air when there is no movement, so... when you leave for lunch or recess or a Resource, the air cuts off. When you return, the room's heated up in our absence and never quite cools back down. The air is also off until the last minute in the morning so if you come early to plan, you are reinforced for giving of your time freely by sweating! The same is true in the afternoons, the air is turned off around 4:00 even though we have Extended Day in the building until 6 and Monday mornings - when the air has been off all weekend - oh my! The point is the building has been unbelievable hot this August. By 9:30 in the morning my hair in the back from my ears down is actually wet and in ringlets! I can feel the beads of sweat drip down my back.

To be fair, they did finally decide that there was some trouble with one of the chillers in our building, but even after it was patched back together, it was still hot. Yesterday a teacher told me that she had decided to forgo lunch because she was just too hot to eat. She also said that she didn't blame her kids for not wanting to write at the end of the day because all she really wanted to do was go to sleep. Opening the door to her room was like opening an sauna. The PTA ladies won't even do their work in my room because they complain about the heat. Another of our teachers wrote on Facebook that she went right home and took a shower because she had been sweating all day and her clothes were sticking to her. Professional dress is a joke when you're wet and smelly! This is Florida folks! We are looking at days easily in the high 90's. When I got in my car one day to go home last week, the temp read 101 outside! It's HOT!

Now think about that as you think about all of the assessment that is going on in the building. In the heat that just makes us all tired and cranky, we, Kindergarten teachers, are evaluating the Voluntary Pre-K program in our state. Is this really fair to our Pre-K colleagues? We are also beginning the state's FAIR testing and our own county's writing assessments and benchmark testing in upper grades. With heat and tempers rising, do we really have the best testing environments? Are these really the results that we want to drive our instructional decisions? When we cut educational budgets, what are we REALLY sacrificing?

Lunch and Bus Duty

2011-09-02T17:59:00.001-04:00

As part of the budget cuts in education, teachers at my school have had to take on "duties." The duties include such things as lunch duty and bus duty. In years past or at least in the past 20 years, the county has been able to purchase these services through the help of paraprofessionals. Don't get me wrong. I have been a teacher for a long time and back in the day, it was not unusual for teachers to have duties. We usually took a week here or there and had morning breakfast duty or a week of bus duty. In all of my 30 plus years, however, I don't ever remember being required to do lunchroom duty. However, for ten years at Alimacani Elementary School I skipped my duty free lunch and ate with my class of preschool children with special needs. It was just easier. I was often toilet training children and it was easier to be there than to go back to the lunchroom and find a child had had an accident, and I liked talking with the children during this freer time of the day. Not only could I work on their language skills in this more natural environment, but I just enjoyed talking to the kids during lunch! During that same time, I did morning bus duty for these same kids. It was just easier to meet their buses and watch the children myself before school formally started than to ask a para to watch them when they were not familiar with the behavior programs that we had in place. The same was true in the afternoon. I put each child in the parent's car and then escorted the rest of the children to their bus in the afternoon. Even since I have been at Chets Creek, I have not been required to do bus or lunch duty except for the first few weeks to help out with kindergartners. However,I gave up my lunchtime for a year because I had a student that just couldn't get through the lunch period without severe behavioral issues. The point is, I have done lunch and bus duty in the past, but always because I felt my expertise was needed for those specific times of the day to meet the needs of students.

Now, however, teachers are doing lunch and bus duty, simply because there is no one else to do it. To make sure that all the duty is "fair" we often have more teachers than are really needed in the Dining Room at one time and more than are needed at the bus, but we have to be "fair." I was thinking today about the amount of money that taxpayers are paying me to stand at the bus for 45 minutes at the end of the day. I'm embarrassed to say what it is costing! I don't really offer much. Safety is not the issue here. There are five of us adults out there and a patrol for every bus - a job that could probably be handled by two adults easily. It's not hard work. I enjoy getting hugs from former students and asking how the day has been. Today there was actually a nice breeze and I kept thinking about how I was using my six years of college and thirty plus years of experience in reading as I waved good-by to kids.

The same could be said for the lunchroom. I'm sure administrators won't fight for a change because I'm sure there are probably less issues with so many teachers overseeing, but what is lost when teachers are spending their time handing out napkins and forks instead of sharing lunch with their colleagues? Although our school has a small faculty Dining Room, few teachers actually eat there. Instead, before this year, they usually ate with a partner and 90% of what I saw is that they were planning and collaboratively talking about issues and kids. There's not really a lot of personal conversation, although they certainly can do that, but instead, at our school it was mostly about the work. Because co-teachers are split this year, one in the lunchroom while the other eats and then one at recess while the other eats, they miss this valuable time of comparing notes and planning together. This really takes its toll in the primary school where teachers really co-teach the entire day. It's not like one teacher teaches the entire 36 while the other plans for half the day and then viceversa. In the primary school, where I can speak with authority, most teachers are both on their feet teaching the entire day together. That takes extra planning, but this year, instead of being together running through ways to fine tune instruction, they are opening pop top fruit and putting straws in juice bags. I wonder how business would feel about this really poor use of time... It may be "fair," but is it efficient? Funny that we would have teachers spend their day in this way in a time when we say we believe in rigor... Food for thought...

Star Names

2011-08-31T21:02:00.000-04:00

Years ago after spending a week in NYC with Lucy Calkins at Teachers' College, Columbia University we brought back the idea of teaching beginning phonics to Kindergartners using the children's names. Of course, this was not unique to the NYC schools as the idea has been around for decades. There is nothing more important to a five year old than his own name and it is often the first letters and sounds that he learns. As a result, we took what we learned and made it our own "Star Names" program and it begins both our phonics and phonemic awareness instruction and our Writers' Workshop in Kindergarten.

After we have chosen our Star Student of the day, interviewed the child, noticed the letters in the name, sung about the initial sound and listed other words that start with the same sound, we model writing the student's name and drawing a picture of the student. To write the name we fold down about two inches of paper from the top to use as a line and then model each letter (handwriting practice). Next we model drawing a picture of the child, making sure to model different ways to draw, from stick figures to using shapes to just drawing freehand. As the week goes on we begin to label the picture, using different labels each day. In the beginning we might draw arrows and label hands and legs and hair and then we might begin to use words such as friend or princess or baseball player, making sure to sound out each word and write the letters that we hear. After a few days of labeling, we begin to write sentences, using the same strategy of listening for the sounds of any words that we don't know how to spell. By the time we have spent 36 days of giving each child in the class a chance to be the Star Student of the Day, we have modeled writing several sentences, using some of the sight words we are learning, using capitals for student's names and beginning sentences, and using punctuation at the end of sentences. And... the Writers' Workshop is well on it's way.

One of the things most interesting about kindergartners is that they come on the first day with many different levels and skills. I thought you might find it interesting to look at a few of their first drawings and writings. Robert was chosen as our "Star Student" of the day.

This student, who did not go to preschool, is just beginning to draw a circle for a head on his picture of Robert and is just beginning to make letters, even though the S is not in the Star Student's name.

This student copies the name as seen on the left side of the paper and draws a picture of Robert. While he doesn't label his picture with words, he draws an elaborate picture with lots of details and can tell an elaborate story about Robert!

This child copies the word "Robert" that is modeled for the class and then with the help of the teacher, writes some letters for his thought, "Robert is my friend."

Still another child writes "Robert." Then she writes the sounds she hears in "friend" and finally writes a sentence at the bottom of the picture, "Robert is my friend."

And then finally, one student copies the name, "Robert," draws a picture of Robert with two friends and writes, without assistance, her own original sentence with each word spelled correctly!

All of these are appropriate levels for children entering Kindergarten! And the activities of "Star Names" give students the ability to complete the activity at the level where they are.

Empowering the Future

2011-08-24T21:00:00.002-04:00

First day back is always a fun, exciting time at the Creek. Each grade level meets over the summer and prepares a skit according to our theme. No 3-hour boring meetings for us on the first day back! This year, we walked into the Dining Room with each place set with superhero paraphernalia. As usual, the skits were funny and irreverent. My favorite was a Rick Scott look alike as a villain because of all of his educational budget cuts - I'm not talking politics right now - just saying... I am pleased to say that my spirited Kindergarten Team won the skit challenge with their Kinder Superheroes Saving the Day and each kinder teacher will enjoy a $50 gift card at Target! Woo Hoo! After enjoying the skits, our Principal presented her own little superhero, her two-week old baby, to thunderous applause! Now that's a way to bring a tear to your eye - seeing this newest addition to our Chets Creek family all dressed like a little superhero - in a tutu!

The Principal then introduced our hero of the day Lester Laminack who spent the rest of the day with us, making us laugh and inspiring us with so many thoughtful reflections of our current practice. You know a speaker has made a difference when you actually see change in your building. His messages validated much of what we are doing but some of his thoughts also hit home at many levels. I know for the kindergarten class next to me that they were moving furniture out away from the walls to get more of their work at eye level for kids - one of Lester's many, many suggestions. As for me I bought into the idea that we should use our 5th graders as reading heroes to our kindergartners. I e-mailed the 5th grade language arts teachers to ask if they would have their 5th graders draw a picture of their favorite book from kindergarten. They loved the idea and so I plan to feature photos of different 5th graders holding up the picture of their favorite book on the bulletin board outside my classroom. He also talked about letting your students know about your life as a reader and so I decided to put outside my door, "Mrs. Timmons is reading..." and to write what I am reading as the year progresses. This is something we used to do but have gotten away from this past year. I am hoping teachers and students will see it and ask me about what I am reading. I want to have conversations with students and adults about the words that make a difference in my life.

It is so exciting to come back to school and be inspired -to have your thinking lifted, especially before you begin making decisions that will influence your entire year. Thank you Lester for a remarkable, thought-provoking start!

Around our Superhero World

2011-08-24T20:56:00.001-04:00

As I roam through the hallways in the primary part of our building, I am always impressed with what teachers are able to do. While we tend to like our classrooms a little sparse at the beginning of the year, so that the children can join with the teacher to create the classroom together, teachers have been very thoughtful about the way they have organzied their spaces around our yearly theme. Enjoy these photos of our teachers welcoming back a new crop of Superheroes to the primary Hall of Justice.

The building is ready to welcome our new students and "empower the future"!

Revisiting Retention

2011-08-21T18:59:00.000-04:00

Today was the day in our county when you go to some type of county in-service. At my school only one person in our Special Education Department goes, although it's meant for us all. Over the years the message has always been "pretty boring" - certainly nothing to inspire you to be excited about a new school year. You usually come away stressed, wringing your hands or bored to the point of falling asleep. This year I drew the short straw... I arrived at the Convention Center and entered the appointed room - long metal tables with black lint table cloths, metal chairs in a room with two story ceilings and concrete floors. Not exactly what I'd describe as warm and fuzzy. The speaker was tethered to the mike and it was difficult to hear questions asked throughout the room. I realized I hadn't attended this in-service day since 2004, but from the sparsely populated room, I guess other teachers had heard some of the same stories over the years.

Actually there was nothing in the presentation that I hadn't heard before. The speaker tried to deliver the message in a calming, reaffirming way because really, with RtI there is a lot of disequilibrium. There were really no new answers - just the same questions and frustrations. The speaker, however, is one of my favorite speakers, one of the few in the department that I have really admired over the years. She's knowledgeable, likable.

With all that said, there was one point today that really caused me to stop and think. She quoted the well known research about retention - if a child is retained one year, he only has a 50% chance of graduating from high school. If he is retained two years, there is a 90% chance he will drop out. I have been aware of this research for years and even wrote a position paper for our faculty several years ago advocating against retention. I have sat with many teachers over the years and implored them to reconsider retention in light of those statistics. I have asked them to consider how the child's program would be different if the child repeats. If it's just going to be a rehash of the same, then the retention makes no sense. However, today I had to really think about if I believe that retention is ALWAYS so detrimental to our young Special Education children. I have certainly recommended to teachers and to parents that a child delay entrance to kindergarten which would make them overage and have recommended that a child repeat kindergarten or first grade, especially a child that needs a stronger foundation in phonics or phonemic awareness because I am well aware that after first grade there is precious little time dedicated to decoding. I think many of the Special Education teachers at our school have also recommended retention in the early grades, even though they know the statistics. I would love to see the statistics for high school graduation of just retention data on students who are identified with special needs. How many of the 50% that do graduate are special needs students who graduate because they had extra time to master those phonological skills in the early grade? I'm not sure that I believe that retention is ALWAYS an undesirable option. Of course, I certainly believe there has to be a cap on the number of retentions. There is no need for a child to be driving to 3rd grade! I just haven't been able to get the conflicts I have about retention out of my head. I guess I believe that retention should always be an option but should be considered very carefully, especially considering the research.

There... now that I have dumped the words across this page, maybe I can finally sleep.

The Nook

2011-08-15T20:42:00.000-04:00

My daughter-in-law is an avid reader. She always has a book in her hands. Even though we don't often read the same books for pleasure, I love that she is a reader. I love it because I have two grandchildren that absolutely adore her and watch everything she does. Her love for a good story is contagious and because of her, my grandchildren both LOVE books.
Last fall when we went on a trip Randi finished the book that she was reading but hadn't had time to go by the library or bookstore to get a new book. She complained several times during the trip that she wished she had a new book to read. When it came time to purchase her a Christams present, I was reminded of that trip and how she would have loved the idea of having a new book right then. I decided to invest in a Nook. If anyone deserved one, she did. I didn't know if she would really love a nook because I've always hesitated for myself because I really like the feel of a book, but I thought, with two little kids, the ease of carrying the Nook along with the other hundreds of things that you have to carry for children might be appealing.

At the last minute, I decided to upgrade to the color Nook because, knowing how my granddaughters love books, I thought it would be so convenient to pull out the Nook at the docotor's office or on a trip to entertain the kids. And, that worked out really well this summer. Randi traveled for six weeks and worried how she would read each night to her girls. She knew she couldn't pack books to go on the airplane because of the added weight and she also knew finding a library would only work for reading to the girls while she was physically in the library. She knew a public library would never allow her to check out books on the go! So, she dowloaded books on the Nook - books that the girls read over and over all throughout the summer!

I think Randi was thrilled with the gift and that could be the end of the story, but it's really only the beginning. Randi is also a teacher. When I purchased the Nook for her I never really thought about how it could be used in the classrom, but Randi is a child of her generation and technology is just a part of her everyday life. I do know, as a teacher, that I am always looking for picture books to read to my class - ones that are recommended in curriculum resources, or another book by an author that the children have really engaged with, or a book on a certain research topic or Science of Social Studies theme. I am always going to the school and public library or going by the book store on the way home to see if I can find something that I'm looking for special. Occasionally I find what I want, but more often than not it has be ordered - which, of course, takes a few days. Bythe time it comes in, the moment I needed it has passed. I never want it in just a few days. I always want the book that very minute! So, I guess it should be no surprise that Randi started downloading picture books on her Nook to share with her class. She just slips the book under the document camera - no special hook up - and uses the Nook for read alouds or just a passage from a book to teach a Skills lesson or a mini-lesson for Readers' or Writers' Workshop. She stores and organizes the books right there on the Nook, buying them for a third of the cost of actually buying the book.

Last year she actually used the Nook for her teacher observation and so today, our Principal, using her as an example, gave away two new Nooks to classrooms in our school! I can't wait to see how these tech savvy teachers find other ways to use the Nook in their classrooms. In a perfect world, I would have Nooks for every classroom at my school. A Nook in every classroom would go a long way in providing the variety and depth of literature that children need. In a perfect world every child would learn to LOVE reading and would hear lots and lots of wonderful stories every single day. Anyone have a suggestion on how to make that dream a reality?

What's new in Kindergarten?

2011-08-14T22:58:00.000-04:00

If you haven't already seen it, you need to check out Lucy Calkins' new curricular units for Readers' and Writer's Workshop which are correlated to the Common Core Standards (which Kindergarten is suppose to be using this year in our county!)

Did I mention that they are an on-line resource and can be downloaded? For only $10 each? And they are grade specific? Amazing! You can't see me, but I am dancing with delight!

Not only do the units incorporate all of the teaching that we have gleamed over the years from actually visiting Teachers' College for their Summer Institutes, but it also links together Lucy's Units of Study for Primary Writing, Fountas and Pinnell's Phonics Lessons and Baer's Words Their Way! As I have been reading the monthly units, I realize that at Chets Creek we will have to move into the first grade units before the end of the kindergarten year to account for the fact that Florida has universal Voluntary Pre-kindergarten. Our students are coming to us with more experiences so we can breeze through some of the earlier units more quickly, but this will be interesting work for our Reading Council this year. This will become our Reading and Writing Pacing Guide. Can't wait to see what each of the grade level Reading Leads think about this new resource. If you get a chance, let me know what you think about the units.

Bulletin Boards - Are they worth it?

2011-08-08T16:17:00.002-04:00

One of the things that summer school gave me was a window into the thinking of other teachers from my county. We came from schools from all over the beach area. Each day on the playground we would have a few minutes to discuss some topic or the other. Certainly the highs and lows of summer school were often on the list along with when we were going to get paid, but one day, the conversation turned to standard-based bulletin boards. I was sitting with teachers from three other schools along with a couple of younger teachers from my own school that have only taught at my school.

Standard-based bulletin boards are a type of bulletin board that raise the level of display to showcase student work. They have a specific configuration that includes a title, a description of the task the students were asked to do and the standards addressed, four pieces of student work and commentary about each piece of work. At Chets Creek one of the non-negotiables for each teacher is that they present a bulletin board at each of the six times of the year that the boards are scheduled to be changed. The bulletin board is suppose to be a "window into the instruction in the classroom." For the most part, teachers take great pride in the work that they present and are always looking for creative ways to express the depth of the work in the classroom on a board. At one time, standard-based boards were the norm in our county, but I guess as so many things have changed, that expectation has taken on different meaning at different schools. One of the teachers from another school said that they were only required to have one standard-based board on each grade level and another said that they only had to have one on each hallway. The young teacher from my own school who was sitting beside me was amazed. What in the world do you put on your bulletin board if you don't do a standard-based board? I had to laugh remembering that delightful turkey I made one year out of my husband's ties for it's tail or the cute reindeer faces that my children made one year with the colored balloon noses that we labeled "Rudolph's Cousins" or that really cute dancing hippo I made with the tutu skirt that said, "Dancing into First Grade!" oh so many years ago.

It's a little sad to me that so many teachers do not see the value in designing the type of boards that require reflection and that provide their own type of professional development as you sit in front of someone else's board and figure out what they did and how they did it. It's such a conversation starter among colleagues and pushes our thinking.

I am glad that we have kept that piece in our work at Chets. Don't get me wrong. There are times when I hate the idea of putting up a new board because they take time and effort and I have to really think... and who wants to have to think? I guess that's my point...

A New Evaluation System for Teachers?

2011-07-27T08:17:00.005-04:00

Administrators in my county have recently been out of their buildings for three days to learn a new teacher evaluation system. Ibelieve it was negotiated by our union and will be the foundation for identifying effective teachers and part of the formula for paying them accordingly. I have always been an advocate for accountability and I believe that performance and evaluation should be somewhere in the formula for pay, but spending this time and attention on an evaluation system seems to be trying to solve the problem by looking at just a tiny part of the problem. It's like the blind man who picks up the elephant's tail and thinks the animal looks like a snake!

There are strong teachers and there are weak teachers in education - no argument there. That might be the problem but the solution is not to identify those weak teachers and then pay them a substandard wage to drum them out of the profession. The problem is systemic and has been a part of education for... ever. After graduation, there is no system for lifelong learning.

The problem starts in the beginning of a teacher's career. The problem is that after teachers graduate from college, their learning stops! There is no system in place to make sure that a beginning teacher has the support that she needs in those first years to figure out how to put that book knowledge that she has gained into practice. Yeah, we give beginning teachers a "mentor" but in most cases that comes with no release time and really just means it might, or might not, be someone you can ask a few questions and who might check on you every now and then. Good teachers search out a real "mentor", someone that they can align themselves with. They watch her every move, get into her classroom as often as possible and ask a million questions. But that's not a system, that's an individual teacher figuring it out on her own.

Not only that, there's not an improvement model for teachers in the midst of their career, when they have the basics under their belt, to grow and learn, so they just continue to do what they have always done - good or bad. They might get a new little nugget here and there and if they have the money and time, they might attend conferences and really seek out educational opportunities. On-line opportunities abound for the eager learner, but it's not easy. There is no system to help you navigate the opportunties or encourage you. You often pay your own money and spend your own time for benefits that are self-motivating and self-gratifying, but not necessarily rewarded monetarily.

As you move into the sunset of your career, I guess everyone just assumes you already know everything. You've had years of experience, but if you've simply been repeating the same things year after year, without growing, are you really any better? There is always so much more to learn.

An evaluation system might hunt out the weaker links in our schools, but a better way might be to put the time and money into quality professional development offered in an array of opportunities that could be self-directed or even self-designed. If the money and time being put toward designing evaluation systems could be put instead toward providing quality, empowering professional development, then the changes would be tenfold.

I know because I was part of a reform design that provided that type of on-going, job-embedded, quality professional development. The buy-in by teachers was exciting. I believe that we were able to turn very ordinary teachers into exceptional teachers becasue of the support that we were able to provide. One of the things about good professional development is that it changes a teacher's practice from then on. Most teachers really want to improve their skills. They didn't go into teaching because of the money they are going to make. Most become teachers because they want to make a difference in the lives of the children they teach and unless they become disillusioned along the way, they continue to believe and are eager to learn new techniques that work. So instead of spending our time on designing a complex evaluation system that labels teachers proficient and failing (haven't we seen how well that has worked with our school?), why not spend the time and money on a system that supports lifelong learning ?

Summer School Concerns

2011-07-25T10:53:00.006-04:00

Wow-I just looked through the Benchmark Assessment that my students have to pass to pass their grade in Summer School! I can't help but be concerned about what I see as a disconnect. The students that I am teaching took at Pre-test and then have been taught 6 units in 6 weeks with a unit test after each unit taught. They then take a post-test - all of which is curriculum-based. The pre-and post-tests don't count toward their grade, but the six unit tests make up their summer school grade. They must pass summer school to be promoted. They must also pass a benchmark assessment. Passing both of those parts enables a child to be promoted.
Passing Summer School + Passing Grade Level Benchmark = Promotion

Concern #1
The pre-test could have been used for planning - could have been - however, we didn't receive the results from the pre-test until we were giving the post-test (!), so we never had the pre-test results during the time we taught the units. The pre-test information came as a single number -e.g., 68 - so we couldn't even use it to analyze which questions students had missed to know which types of questions, which units, should be emphasized while teaching. The pre-test information could have been helpful and useful if the results had not been received so late and in such an unusable form. The pre-test was actually in the teacher's manual, so had we known we were going to receive the information so late, we could have hand-scored the tests before sending them off so get what we needed for planning. Too little information, too late.

Concern#2
Each unit test was one story long with 12 questions at the end. Such a short assessment didn't really require reading/testing stamina. However, both the pre- and post-tests are two stories long, requiring a little more stamina. Stamina, especially with third graders who have failed reading, is a huge problem. They begin to loose focus, if they have not practiced reading intensely for longer lengths of time. They get tired, sleepy if they are forced to read for longer that they usually read.

Concern #3
I have taught students to underline and number their responses - requiring them to go back and prove their answers - which has been fine for the unit tests and the pre and post-tests, but when we get to the benchmark, the directions clearly state that students may not write in the test booklet! Ouch! How are they going to be able to prove their answers? Every time we practice and they don't go back and prove, they take the easy way out and just try to remember the answer - a proven road to failure.

Concern #4
The benchmark assessment uses a scan sheet with the questions numbered and then choices A, B, C, D. however in the test booklet, the answer choices are alternately A, B, C, D, and then E,F, G, and H. While this might not cause confusion for an older, more experienced test taker, for 3rd graders who have already failed reading, this can cause a problem. They get easily confused and off the correct number. These students need every possible chance to succeed.

Concern #5
The unit tests that we have been giving throughout the summer are not timed. Many of these students suffer with fluency issues (they are slow readers) so this has been to their benefit. However, now, all of sudden, the benchmark assessment, that must be passed to move on to the next grade, is timed! For students that suffer with fluency issues - and that often relates to comprehension difficulty as students read so slowly that they are unable to remember what they've read at the end of the text - this can be disastrous!

It almost seems as if Summer School is an afterthought instead of a well thought-through remediation for students who are truly struggling. Administrators, who are so loosely connected to the students probably had to make quick decisions for large groups of students in different grades and situations. I'm sure their decisions had to be based on global needs. But these are the students who deserve our sincerest effort. They need curriculum individually designed for them. they have already proved that they can't function in a regular situation by failing. They need the most experienced, most thoughtful teachers who are truly experts in their fields. I wonder if the summer program would have been any different if it had been designed by the very teachers who are making the decisions on who is passing and who is failing and who needs to go to summer school - teachers who are in the trenches, Who have relationships with children, who have cared so deeply for these students during the year, who have their own blood, sweat, and tears in every detail of each student's learning. If they had designed a summer school experience, would the concerns be the same? I wonder...

Overheard in a first grade Summer School class...

2011-07-21T07:53:00.005-04:00

The teacher was trying to access background knowledge for a small guided reading group as an introduction to a story about Thomas Jefferson.

Teacher: Who was our first President?

Child: O'rock Obama.

Teacher: No, Barack Obama is our President now. Does anyone remember who our first President was?

Another child: I know. It was George Lincoln.

Child: No, George Lincoln was our fifth President. I know because my mother showed me his picture in the Bible.

Another child: That's not right. It was George Washington. He fought in the Silver War. Both the teams had boats with B-I-I-I-G cannons and one of the teams won.

Child: Oh yeah, I know him. He lives in Washington,D.C., right beside the Statue of Liberty.

Oh my! A little more background knowledge might be needed so this group can understand what they are about to read! Thank goodness for Summer School!

If I Were In Charge of Summer School

2011-07-19T12:28:00.002-04:00

If I were in charge of Summer School (and I certainly am not), I would make some changes.

The first change I would make would be where we have Summer School. I would designate a single school in an area to be the Summer School site and that same location would be used year after year. Of course, there would have to be a financial incentive for a single school to step up to the plate (such as access to the Summer School materials by the home school or extra pay for the administrators, office staff and custodial staff who have to do extra work because of summer school). What I see as Summer Schools moves from school to school is that nobody owns the process and therefore, the process is weak. For instance, I was expected to do guided reading with 3rd graders but no guided reading levels were sent, because the summer school administrator wasn't in on curriculum decisions and didn't know that would be needed. If the same school had summer school, they would know from experience what was needed. Right now no school administrator wants to be designated as the Summer School site - it's just extra work for no real benefit to the school or administrator. If a single school owned the process, they wouldn't waste lots of time each summer figuring it out all over again - valuable time lost for students. An administrator might look forward to having summer school because of the incentives instead of every administrator dreading his turn in the cycle.

The second change would be who teaches Summer School. I am sure the process now is negotiated by our Union because it meets the needs of teachers first. If I were in charge it would meet the needs of children first. Only accomplished teachers who had proven results in that particular grade level would be eligible to teach a particular grade. From that list of accomplished teachers, those who wanted to apply could. They would be interviewed by the principal so the teachers that were selected would know the administrator's expectation instead of having teachers who were there simply for the money. Summer school would be staffed with teachers who really want to make a difference and who know what is expected of them. Right now teachers have no reason to really come together and work for a common goal. They are simply putting in their time. I would also want teachers to teach in summer school the grade they had taught during the year so that they are well aware of what a student needs to know to go to the next grade. They would readily have materials, ideas, games and materials to fill in any holes or a wealth of knowledge for reteaching. Right now teachers teach in areas where they are certified. In my case I am teaching a grade I have never actually taught. Am I really the most qualified person?

The last change I would make would be what we teach. I would open the school's media center for a few hours each week. In fact I would open it to the entire neighborhood! When you are teaching children reading that really don't like to read, you need to have the widest possible selection of books on their reading level that are of interest to them. If you are going to convince a struggling reader that he can really learn to enjoy reading, then he needs thing to read that really draw him in and awaken his interest. There is no way a single program of books can keep a variety of students' interests in independent reading for an entire six weeks. These children need an expanded selection. The books are there but the Media Centers are closed to summer school. How sad is that?

Of course, I have lots of other suggestions. I'm sure that most of the teachers teaching have suggestions too, but I doubt anyone will ask. (A senior district administrator did come through recently and ask my opinion, but she's not the person really making these decisions... unfortunately.) It seems that decisions are being made by those that have little access to the actual trenches where the work is being done. Today I was told by a teacher (infromation that I hope is incorrect) that we won't even know how the students do on the final benchmark because it has to be sent in to a county office as a scantron. So we will leave summer school, after developing relationships with students (relationships that I intend to take into the school year by sending postcards and giving them my cell number and e-mail), and not even know if they passed of failed that final test. Wow, do you see the same disconnect that I see?

Teachers and Cell Phones

2011-07-15T08:23:00.009-04:00

I didn't grow up with a cell phone, so maybe that's why I'm not quite as addicted as it seems some of my younger friends are who seem to see a cell phone as a fashion accessory and wouldn't be caught dead without it. I'm pretty famous in my family for not answering my cell phone because I never have it with me. I taught many of my early years without access to any kind of phone in my classroom. Even ten years ago I taught in a school where there were only a handful of phones in the entire building, even when you needed to call a parent. I almost never considered making a private call at school - such as making an appointment with a doctor - because there was really no privacy to make that kind of a phone call.

My, how times have changed! There was talk last year at my home school that there were some teachers in my building that carried their cell phones with them all day - that they took calls and would even interrupt teaching to take and make personal calls. Some kept their cell phones in their purses and the children would let them know when they heard it ring so the teacher could answer the phone call. Not on my hall, however, because we rarely had a signal inside the school walls! There was also talk about a teacher that texted all day and would even make persoanl comments to her teaching partner about a text her boyfriend had just sent her. I actually found that hard to believe. How would a teacher find the time to do that with a roomful of children? You barely have a minute to breath, much less text back and forth and chat on the phone.

It was not unusual in my home school however, for one of my teaching partners to bring the phone into the classroom if they are expecting an important call - from a doctor, for example - or if they had a sick child at home and thought the child might need to call if they began to feel worse, or even if they sent a child to daycare and were worried that the child might get sick during the school day. I have even seen a few teachers bring their cell phone to the playground and hang on to it for some of the same reasons. However, I have never seen a teacher consistently use her cell phone throughout the day for personal reasons. We have an open door policy at my home school so teachers walk in and out all the time and I have just never seen a teacher constantly on her cell phone.

However, this summer, teaching in a school where teachers come from schools from all over the beach, I have noticed that there are teachers who take their cell phones to the playground and use it throughout the entire play period. Now, I have no idea what they are doing. Writing a lesson plan? Looking up a resource to help teach a lesson? Texting a friend? Checking their e-mail? Updating their Facebook? Playing a game? I do know, however, that it is hard to watch children when your head seldom comes up from your phone. That has made we wonder if what I heard about a teacher last year just might be true - that she was constantly using her phone during teaching time.

In our school system, we do not have access to Facebook on our computers, which I am slowly becoming addicted to this summer. At first, I was indignant that I didn't have access at school because I thought I would like to check it when I first got to school or during lunch - sometimes even for professional reasons! - but now I wonder if it wouldn't just be too easy and too tempting to sneak a peek during other parts of the day... Then I realized that it would be easy to check on my iphone, so I really do have access!!

Wow - now I'm beginning to wonder what really is the ethical and professional use of cell phones and teaching? Certainly they can be used for teaching and learning. I can think of a hundred different ways I could compliment my lessons, so I would never want anyone to ban them just for the possibility that they might be misused. But I can also think of many ways cell phones could be abused. Do we need guidelines? Should we be allowed to police ourselves? Could a teacher get fired for using her cell phone for personal reasons during school time? Where should the lines be drawn? What do you think?

Who goes to Summer School?

2011-07-14T09:41:00.005-04:00

Children go to Summer School for all different reasons? Sometimes it's for enrichment. Many of our second language students are here this summer listening to English every day - singing, laughing, learning. What a difference it makes when they've had that extra enrichment when they come back for the new year. Some students that come are really strugglers and need the extra time to master the grade level skills. Some have actually missed skills and have holes in that need to be filled.

But the students that I am teaching this summer are here for other reasons. They all made a 2 or 3 on the Reading FCAT but they all failed Reading! They are here for grade recovery. How does that happen? What do these children have in common?

They each came with story. Ronnie (names changed) blows up like a frog every time he's corrected. You can tell he has trouble with authority - any kind of authority! His mom came with him the first day to tell me that he didn't get along with his teacher last year (no surprise there!). Jamie openly admits he simply hated his teacher and refused to work for her (I just had to ask him how that worked for him since he's the one in Summer School and she's enjoying her vacation!) Sammie is passive aggressive and simply doesn't do what she doesn't want to do. She's not openly defiant, just doesn't do. Tries to slip around when the teacher's no watching to do what she wants. Trouble is this class is too small for her to get away with it! Her mother came with her the first day too to tell me how unfair her last teacher was and how Sammie shouldn't have failed. According to her mom, it was ALL the teacher's fault. Chris makes up for his insecurities in reading by being the class clown ("Is pooproom a compound word?" he asked recently). Ian came the Friday before FCAT and just hadn't had time to assimilate to the new school and expectations before he got his first grades.

Most of these children openly admit - even with false bravado - that they did not do homework last year. A little sullenly they also admit that there was no one at home that worked with them daily - no one seemed to really care until the Fs came on the report card.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, each one in this group comes from a broken home. Some are living with a single parent. Others are living with a parent and step parent. Some are shuffled between families. This became apparent as we made connections to an early story we were reading and each of the children in turn talked about his or her life situation! I was surprised to find that it was true for every single child in this class. That is certainly not to say that every child of divorce is doomed to Summer School, but it was an interesting factor in each of these children's lives.

Almost all of the kids have difficulty raising their hands before they speak and most of them have plenty they want to say - they really like being the center of attention - and don't really mind if it's negative attention! When I first walked into this group of angry,sullen kids who didn't want to be here and came with a truckload of bad habits, I wondered how in the world I could turn any of them around in six weeks. In a normal year, it takes six weeks just to establish rituals and routines, but with this group I needed to work fast if we were going to make a difference. After some trial and error and some pretty tough days, we are, three weeks in, finally working more as a team. That's not to say that bad habits don't rear their ugly heads every single day with at least one student. I've had to seek out every single parent to help make this work and I've had to have many individual conferences with each child quietly in a corner of the room to let each one know that I care and that I am willing to do whatever it takes to make this experience different. We are almost through with class clowns and angry huffing and fabricated boasting ("I was in Alaska yesterday." "I go skydiving after school every day.") Finally, we are beginning to function as a team. The children (and even in 3rd and 4th grade, they are still children) are beginning to laugh naturally and ask for help when they don't know the answer instead of pretending that they are too smart to ask. They have finally realized that they are all in the same boat and that we will all be better off if we pull together instead of all pulling in a different direction and going nowhere. They have learned that it is safe to take a risk within these four walls. Just as it always is, it's first about relationships. You cannot teach a child until he knows that you care and are interested. That never changes - no matter the age.

So now... let's see if we can get some more reading strategies into these children so they can quit faking it and go back to their home schools as stronger and more confident readers!

Summer School - What I Miss?

2011-07-12T08:24:00.004-04:00

Teaching Summer School can be a time of disequilibrium. You are not at your home school. Most of the children are not from your home school, so you have to learn faces and names anew. While you may know a few of your teaching peers most are not friends that you have known for years. And, like for me this summer, you may not be teaching the curriculum that you have come to think of as second nature because you have been doing it for so long that you think you really know what you are doing. You are thrown into a new pond with a new school of fish!

So what do I miss about my home school this summer?

I miss the coffee brewing when I walk into the school in the morning. I don't drink much coffee but I love the idea that it's there for anyone that wants a cup. It's just such a welcoming smell when you walk in.

I miss Julie's friendly face in the front office. No matter how busy she is or how many people are waiting in line, she is always sunshine. She has a smile that says,"I'm so glad you're here today!"

I miss the first day debrief. At the end of the first day at my home school the entire staff meets in the Media Center to debrief the day. What went well? What do we need to fix? It just gives you a chance to voice concerns and celebrate the first day which can always be stressful. You just feel "in the loop".

I miss the Principal's Memo on Friday. At my home school it comes every Friday - sometimes late, but always before the new week starts - to remind us what is coming in the week ahead and to let us know important dates and issues. It just makes me feel informed.

I miss the Media Center. Because it is Summer School, the summer school's Media Center is closed (no money to pay for the help) and we are not allowed to check out books. I really miss the children being able to have a really large selection of reading materials. It's hard to fall in love with reading when you don't have things you really love to read! I'm teaching reading for heaven's sake! I also miss KK's (Media Specialist's) smiling face and her, "I will do whatever you need to make learning possible" attitude.

I miss being able to print at school. Because teachers pay for their own ink cartridges in their printers ($100) at this summer school site, the print cartridges and/or printers were all removed and Summer School teachers are not allowed to use the school's printers. I had to take my progress reports home to print!

I miss Suzanne (our Standards Coach) because she could answer any curriculum question that I had, and teaching in summer school something I haven't taught in years, I have plenty of questions. I also miss her because she is the one in my home school that tracks down books and supplies and makes sure that I have everything I need to teach. I have come to understand that this is truly luxury.

This is the first time I have taught Summer School in over 20 years. In those earlier years, Summer School was always in my home school. Back in the day, teachers generally taught in their own classrooms (where they were already set up and knew where everything was) and they always had a few of their own students and others from classrooms of teachers that they knew. They generally just continued teaching what they had been teaching during the regular school year. Before Summer School even started, I knew what each student was going to need and how to prepare. In this situation this summer, Summer School is at a single site where students from a dozen different schools gather. The Summer school is in a different school every summer, something no principal looks forward to because of the extra work. Nobody owns summer school. Administrators know they just have to get through it this year so they don't have to have it again for years. I am sure all of this is because of budget - offering smaller summer schools - but I really miss the days when summer school was a simple extension of the school year for students who needed the extra - when we were really invested in the children because we would see every one of them and their siblings and their parents the next year. Some things were really better back in the day...

Summer School

2011-06-22T10:29:00.004-04:00

I'm not really happy about teaching summer school, but my daughter is getting married next Spring and the money is good... Hmmmm.... The children I will be teaching this summer really deserve better than that. If I am going to commit to teaching summer school for 6 weeks - teaching children who are needy or they wouldn't be there - then they deserve my best. And so... as I closed out one year and begin summer teaching the very next day, I know it will have to be with an improved attitude.

On my first day I am assigned to third grade!!! Whoever thinks I can teach 3rd grade has more confidence in me than I might deserve! I have NEVER taught 3rd grade - the first FCAT year - and haven't taught anything above 1st grade in over 25 years - but it is here that I find myself. As I look down my very short list of students I recognized one of the names on the list. The 3rd grader was a child that I heard lots about last year because she was a bright child, who really suffered from focus issues. The child had documented ADHD and the teacher had worked so very hard with her and with her family. I remember observing in the classroom and the child sat right in front of the teacher and all through the lesson the teacher gently touched the child to bring her back on task. The teacher's management system was constant redirection. Somehow the child scraped out a 2 on the FCAT but failed Reading for the year. She simply could not consistently pass the comprehension assessments in the classroom that mirrored the FCAT. Now she sits in Summer School hoping to pass a final benchmark test at 70% so she can go on to 4th grade next year.

As I picked her up on that first day it was obvious she had been crying. I guess no one really enjoys the idea of coming to summer school. As I have had this child for the first few days I have learned that she reads well, even with expression, but when asked about what she has just read, cannot answer questions with any depth. Actually she even struggles with literal questions. Her writing is much the same. Her thoughts are jumbled and repetitive. It must be difficult for this child who has so much going on inside her head to organize her thoughts and to stay with any topic for any length of time. In thinking about different ways to help this youngster, I contacted her 3rd grade teacher and asked her if she would be willing to write back and forth through e-mail, thinking this might be an incentive. The child talked lovingly about her teacher. The teacher was delighted. The child mailed this first e-mail:

hey Mrs.T it's K, i'm in summer school and i made 2 new friends there names are Kaitlyn and Joe. My 2 friends and i met your friend our teacher.I am going to do so good in reading summer school i might go to 4th grade. since i am going to anew school next year but it's going to be to far away from my house and how can i stay in Chets Creek even when i am going to be rezoned to the new school since Chets Creek is not so far? please write back.

The teacher wrote back this delightful message.

Inside of a cool, dimly lit living room sits a relaxed teacher. Mrs. T is what most of her students call her, mommy is what she is called at home, and Randi is her name to her family and friends. Musical notes flow, dance, and swirl out of the radio on this special day as Mrs. T sits down at her computer. Ding, da, ding, da, ding... her computer wakes up from it's sleep and says hello in only the way a computer can. Light flashes from the screen as her computer stretches and yawns to prepare for a little work. A soft clicking sound can be heard as Mrs. T's fingers strike the keys, her email opens, signing in... hold one moment please... oh okay there we are. A puzzling look crosses over her face??? There is an email in her inbox that is from a teacher friend and it says K. K??? Mrs. T only knows one K. Questions popcorn around inside Mrs. T's brain. Is this my sweet, brilliant K? How does K know her teacher friend? What is going on? She is as curious as a newborn kitten. "Double click on the email and see for yourself," thinks Mrs. T. "Oh my goodness!!!" she exclaims. "IT IS MY K!" Mrs. T is so incredibly delighted to hear from K that she jumps up from her chair and does a leap and a twirl in the middle of that cool, dimly lit living room. Quickly she plops back down in front of the screen, pauses for a moment to think, and begins to type a story about a time she met the loveliest girl in all the land.

There was once a beautiful girl named Princess K...To be continued... your turn...

K was so excited to hear back from her teacher that she grinned all day long. Now I have to admit that the story K started as a response about Princess K needs lots of work, but I certainly had no trouble getting her to start writing! She couldn't wait to get started. Maybe this summer school thing might be fun after all!

The Graduate

2011-06-11T11:17:00.007-04:00

It's rare that a teacher gets to keep up with a young student throughout all of his school years, so I feel especially lucky to have watched Trevor bloom into such a strong young man. (That's his little inquisitive head poking up on the right of the picture!) Trevor actually entered my preschool class for children with disabilities as a two year old. It was a paper glitch because children could not come until their third birthday but once he was there, I just kept him. For ten years I taught a class for three and four year old children who were identified with learning disabilities, language difficulties, attention deficit disorder and children on the milder end of the autism spectrum. Often children were identified who were just delayed a bit, but it was a wonderful assembly of little ones who needed a strong educational start. Trevor was the cutest child ever. I told his mom that his smile lit up the room... and it did. On the first day, his mom looked scared to death - more nervous than Trevor! I am sure she was questioning her decision. I am sure it was extremely difficult for her to hear that her handsome young son might have a problem, for her to trust him to someone she didn't know, and then for her to leave him in a class with children that all looked or acted just a little different. She knew Trevor was smart. It was evident from the first minute you met him, but he had difficulty making his needs known and that frustrated him. The frustration in this tiny two year old came out in the loudest tantrums ever! I'm sure his mom had been embarrassed on many occasions in the grocery store or at family outings by her son kicking and screaming. She probably stood her ground initially but his shrieks would wear anyone down and then when she finally gave in, it just meant that the next time, he would scream louder and longer (I told you he was smart!) By the time he entered my preschool class I'm sure he was pretty much running his household. His parents knew it had to stop and there was something wrong, but I'm also sure they really struggled with what to do. I so admire his mother for having the courage to do something to turn it all around. On that first day his mom's eyes pleaded with me for help. She wore her fear for her son like a cloak wrapped tightly around her heart.

Trevor was a challenge. Often other teachers and parents walking down the hall would peek their heads in to make sure everything was all right as Trevor's screams pierced the air. However, with time and consistency Trevor found ways to make his needs known and ways to ease his frustration. With speech and language infused into every moment of his day, he began to use his words. He was eventually identified with a learning disability but because it was identified so early - because his mother had chosen early intervention, we knew there was a good chance that he would learn to compensate for many of those early challenges. After two and half years in my class he left for a kindergarten class in another school. It was no surprise that he did well and learned to read on schedule. After a year I transferred to the school where he was so I ran into him and checked on him often. During those elementary years he tested out of the program (we all celebrated!) because he no longer needed the extra support. I ran into the family again as his younger sister entered school and was in an inclusion class where I had students. His family spoke out eloquently as I went through the Teacher of the Year process. I cherished their voice. Over the years, I would run into Trevor, his sister or his mom. This year I ran into Trev at a local fast food restaurant where he had an after school job and he reminded me that he was a Senior. Last night I had the thrill - the absolute thrill - of watching him receive his high school diploma. I was so proud! He will go on to college. His mom told me that he'd really like to work in theatre and had been bitten by the acting bug. I know that whatever he does, he will be successful. I have to credit his mom's courageous decision so many years ago, to do whatever she had to do to make a difference for her son, for his success now. Early intervention put him on the right road but it is his family's dedication and commitment along the way that has made the difference. Thanks, Trevor, for giving this teacher such an incredible gift! And yes, your smile still lights up the world!

Readers-to-Leaders Carnival

2011-06-10T13:11:00.001-04:00

This is the end of the fourth nine weeks and first graders are expected to have read 105 books over the course of the year at home. It's a difficult routine for many families. At the end of each nine weeks, the children who have met their goal get a special prize. This year they got to watch the principal get slimed, had a Barnyard
Bingo, got to watch the Principal kiss a pig at a picnic and finally got to participate in this carnival. We want the children to remember these over-the-top events so that it will encourage them to read each night. Below are pictures of the carnival events. The children chose five events and got tickets from each event to turn in for prizes. They had a grand time!

Look out world!

2011-06-06T19:19:00.000-04:00

Each year our first graders work on a unit of persuasive writing. As we work through the unit we ask each child to choose a topic that he is passionate about and then to write a letter stating his position and then trying to persuade the reader to come around to his . We actually mail the letter that is chosen as a final polished copy. The children often write to their parents asking for a pet or video game or some other "thing" that they desire. They promise to clean for weeks, to do chores and even not to hit their little brothers and sisters anymore if their parents will just consider their most earnest request. Often a few children will break our hearts. One child this year asked for a house with a backyard so he would have a place for his little brother to play and another child asked for more food because he is often hungry and his refrigerator is empty. A few children always write to the Dining Room manager to ask for a change in our Dining Room's food and many children write to the Principal asking for everything from a water park on the playground to shorter school days. They must think she is a Superhero with unlimited powers! Occasionally a child will want to write the President or the Humane Society or some other popular person or agency. We never discourage the children, even though we are often doubtful that the party will reply. Our little writers believe that they can change the world (and so do we!) I pray each year as we mail out the letters that the parents will listen and value what their children say, even if their response is "No!" I always hope that the Dining Room Manager will reply in some way although that hasn't happened yet and that the Principal and school personnel will value the children words and will show them, by responding to them, that their words matter.

This year the most remarkable thing happened. Jardale decided that he wanted to write the Mayor. He decided that we need to go to school for six days instead of five to keep children out of trouble. His P.S was that he would like to be Mayor one day. Much to our surprise, Jardale received a reply from Mayor Peyton. It included everything that we would ever want in a response. The Mayor valued Jardale's thoughts and ideas and then gave him some reasons why he didn't think six days of school a week was the best idea. He closed by acknowledging Jardale's dream of some day becoming Mayor. How does it get any better than that?
I am totally impressed with a Mayor or any public figure that would take the time to read and then thoughtfully respond to the ideas of anyone - much less a first grader. This is a powerful lesson in our little classroom. Our children realize that their words really do make a difference. Look out world!

The Trio That Stole Our Hearts

2011-05-29T09:08:00.005-04:00

Last year I was called to the office. The principal informed me that we had three first grade ESE students registering at the same time! Oh my! My shock at having three from the same family enrolling in the same grade (twins and an older brother that had been retained) was immediately overtaken when I saw the three adorable, but desperately sad children. In broken Spanish and with tears, the mother told us that their teenage brother had been shot in a drive-by shooting just days before and that she had moved to our area in hopes of a safer place to raise her children. The little ones had been very close to their older brother and were heart-broken by the events. Although we decided to place all of the children in the same class, it was a difficult few weeks for them. They had to be pushed into the classroom each day and mostly stood at the back of the room. If one was having a hard time, I think they each felt like they needed to stick together and have a hard time too. I remember one day one of them tried to climb into a cubbie at the back of the room and then they all tried. There were meltdowns and tears and just the saddest eyes that I have ever seen. It was difficult, but slowly the teacher with her magic belief coaxed each of the children into the classroom. Her love and support radiated.

As the year progressed you could see the children coming out of their shells. The teacher, who is fairly fluent in Spanish began to push with an empathetic hand and they began to trust her. Our Behavior Interventionist invited the children to attend a weekly support group for children who had lost someone they loved. There were very few smiles that year, but with the help of our second language assistant and the teacher we were able to help the family in many ways outside of school. At the end of the year, the teacher recommended that the brother twin stay back and even with the mother's support and comparison information from the sister twin, the ESOL Office believed the problem was basically language and refused to let the bother twin stay behind.

As we ventured into the second year the boys looped to second grade with their same kindergarten teacher and the girl went to another first grade class with the ESE teacher. The teachers felt like she would blossom if she didn't feel like she had to support the boys - such a heavy load for such a young child.

The boys blossomed too. The teachers secured a counselor who saw the children weekly during the school day and the mother made sure that all three children were at the ARC (outside tutoring supplied free by the school in the children's neighborhood) every Tuesday to receive extra help. All of the children began to speak more and they all became readers! They were so proud of themselves.

Last week the teacher brought three blue balloons to the playground and invited each of the children to write a special message to their brother. It would have been his 18th birthday. After they wrote their message they stood together and released the balloons to the sky. There was a momentary hush that fell over the playground as all the children turned to watch the three balloons disappear over the building. The children smiled. There wasn't a dry eye among the adults as they watched this precious trio who had come so far. The older brother and sister twin will go on to second grade next year, both strong readers. After another meeting the brother twin will remain in first grade to strengthen his skills. Each child will be in a different class for the first time and will have the opportunity to shine.

This doesn't mean that all of the problems for this family are over. They have another older brother that has had trouble with the law. They still suffer from many of the same problems that are inherent in poverty and being citizens of a second language navigating a highway of language subtleties, but I am just so proud of the way that individuals in my school responded to the needs of this family. The caring individuals - the teachers, the second language assistant, the Behavior Interventionist, and so many other people along the way who reached out their hand and said, "How can I help?" This is what "school" and "learning" are all about.

End of the Year Certificates

2011-05-25T16:21:00.003-04:00

We have an end-of-theyear Awards Day. The parents are invited and we like to do something a little differently than our usual nine week awards for grades and citizenship. We also like to make sure that every single child gets an award. This year we gave out a list of each of the children's names to each child and asked them to write a word by each name of something they thought the student did really well. Then we brainstormed a list of good things we could say about our friends on the board. The students were welcome to use words from the list or to think up something on their own. We then took the lists and typed them into Wordle so that each child had a list of superlatives and printed a unique certificate for each child. We are so pleased with them because they capture the child and their first grade year in a word picture! I think children and parents are really going to like the result!

The ARC Birthday

2011-05-22T09:21:00.007-04:00

Last week we celebrated the ARC's birthday. It has been a year since we opened this tutoring program in the midst of a 1000 mobile home community that is zoned for Chets Creek. I have written about this effort several times and the inspiring people, KK Cherney and Liz Duncan, who jumped into action over a year ago to make it happen. At the birthday party, a group of students from the community, chosen by the Music teacher, opened with the National anthem. Honestly, they sounded like angels. A fourth grade student who wants to be a teacher and comes on our first grade afternoon to tutor students, spoke about his experiences at the ARC. There were jumpy houses for all the children, ice cream and cupcakes and presents (books and pencils donated by Scholastic) for all the children. The school presented the Management of the Community with a framed picture that included a picture of each of the 250 students who had been serviced at the ARC that will hang in the Community Center. The children brought their families from across the community.

We have entered this project into a $1000 local competition to earn a few extra dollars for books and technology. We hope this will become the hub of activities for this community, that will not only meet their academic needs but will improve their quality of life. Please help us by going to Community First's blog to "Like" our project! What an inspiration this project could be if the idea caught on across our entire county.... It's possible... dreams really do come true... Just take a look at the ARC!

The ARC

2011-05-16T23:14:00.006-04:00

I have written before about the ARC which is a tutoring center in a mobile home community that is filled with students that are zoned for Chets Creek. The Center is manned by volunteers from our the school. I volunteer for two hours each Tuesday along with three other first grade teachers and we serve about 20 students. We do homework, monitor time on the computers, play learning games and simply enjoy our time with our students outside of the school day. Other teachers come on other days of the week. The ARC is open from 4:00-6:00 Monday through Friday. We are trying to raise some funds for the ARC so that we can add books and technology. We have entered a competition offered by Community First Credit Union for $1000. This is how it works. We have posted our project on their Facebook page. You can help by going to this link and hitting the "Like" button. If you have other ideas for funding, feel free to let us know!

The Curious Garden

2011-05-13T20:25:00.008-04:00

April's Chets Creek Book-of-the-month was The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. The strategy that we worked through was asking deeper questions with medium and high cognitive complexity. We met in small groups and then came together with our grade level to write questions for each page of the book. Today Mrs. Ruark read the book to the students, asking them the more complex questions that we had discussed as a group. The idea is that children have to comprehend text by talking about the ideas before they are able to do the work independently on a comprehension assessment. This is a really great book that tells the story of a garden that grows from a railway that is no longer used. The text and illustrations challenge the children draw inferences and think deeply about the message in the book. After reading the delightful story and asking questions throughout the text, Tracy showed the children an article that she had read in National Geographic that is based on the real story of an abandoned rail line called the High Line in Manhattan. The city turned this abandoned rail into a walking park with chairs to sit and read, an amphitheatre, and a leisurely strolling path filled with greenery right in the middle of the city. This additional piece gave the children an opportunity to draw conclusions between the two pieces of literature and worked well with the idea that we are working with in writing - that children can use real experiences to base their fictional writing. While we could have pulled one of our laptops to the document camera to share the on-line magazine article, instead Tracy used her personal ipad to quickly pull the story up for the children to see. The site even included a video in elapsed time of someone walking the path! Using the ipad was quick and convenient. We first tried just holding the ipad and showing it like we would a book but quickly realized that the pictures and video showed very well through the document camera! How exciting it would be to have an ipad at our disposal. It was so quick - so convenient! I can see how we would use the Internet so much more often in our lessons and with such great ease! Anyone know where we can find the money for ipads?!

Douglas Wood, Children's Author

2011-05-08T15:45:00.010-04:00

One the best traditions at Chets Creek is the Author Visit each spring. I don't know where our Media Specialist KK Cherney finds the funds and the authors, but she always manages to bring the faculty and children a most awesome adventure. How fortunate are the children at Chets Creek to be able to meet an author/ illustrator each year? Douglas Wood is an author with 40 books and also a songwriter. The day started with the faculty meeting for the Principal's Book-of-the-Month. I would think it would be a little intimidating for a principal to read a book in front of the author, but Susan Phillips is a master at reading aloud. I'm sure Douglas Wood enjoyed every moment of hearing someone else read his book! She chose the beautiful The Secret of Saying Thanks. The lyrical text and imagery are a perfect blend with appreciating our beautiful world. This is a book the children will love hearing.

Douglas Wood then entertained each grade level. He told first graders the story of The Rabbit and the Moon which is Native American (Cree) folklore. It's one thing to hear a teacher read a book, but it's something very special to hear an author tell the story. I once heard Bill Martin, Jr. tell The Ghost-Eye Tree and I will never forget the impression that it made- much like the impression Douglas Wood left on Friday! Being a song writer he then taught the children two different songs and answered so many of their questions.

He also told us that he had ADHD and that it was hard for him to think of just one thing at a time. As a result he had ten new books in his mind all the time! He talked about how difficult it was for him to learn to read. Finally a second grade teacher helped him to understand that the squiggles and blots on the page really held a message. He said he didn't learn to read immediately - it took some time - but that teacher made the difference. He wrote his story in Miss Little's Gift.

Douglas Wood's first book was Old Turtle. The books has sold a million copies and won many awards. Douglas Wood told the students that they too, are authors and encouraged them to dream big. He left us with the message that it's good to have dreams, to never give up and to not be afraid to ask for help. What an inspiration!

Arts Extravaganza 2011

2011-04-28T22:09:00.011-04:00

What an incredible week! This is the week that we celebrate the arts at Chets Creek. I am always amazed at all that is done at our school! The school is alive with the student's work. There is a beautiful sunflower garden as you enter the school that was produced by 3rd graders using recycled water bottles! Then there is art work on every single wall as you walk through the halls of projects that have been completed all year. It's like going to an art gallery!

On Tuesday we heard the Fletcher Middle School Band which featured three former Chets Creek students. They were so-o-o-o good! The kids especially loved the drum line! Then on Wednesday we were entertained by a play put on by the gifted classes at Chets Creek. That program continues to grow and this year featured music beginning in the 50's through the modern era!On Thursday we heard the incredible Sandalwood Chorus. The final number which was a Michael Jackson number was my class' favorite!

The Book Fair has also been open all week and even had evening hours so children could shop with their families. The Book Fairy, as usual, gave books to children all over the school that could not afford to buy books! Jen Snead, our head Art teacher, has been selling the children's framed art work each night. If you've ever had a piece of your child's art framed, you realize what a bargain this is! Then there are the baskets that each homeroom has put together which will be part of a silent auction ending Friday night. The baskets are absolutely unbelievable. All of the money is used to help fund the art programs. And then the highlight of the week is the family night on Friday which includes fun and free art events for all the family to participate! All of the week's activities are headed by our arts' teachers but get help from teachers and families all over the school. It's so hard to believe that with all the arts program offers to the children of our school that Duval County is getting ready to decrease our money for arts by 25% . In our school it may mean that the teachers double up on students and take two classes together. How thin can you spread a teacher and still expect quality instruction? These are difficult decisions in very stressful times! For now we thank all of our teachers of the arts who give so unselfishly of their time and talents!

LOL!

2011-04-25T17:20:00.004-04:00

Sometimes children just do things that are so funny that I just have to laugh out loud. Here are two of my favorites!

This is a problem that appeared in math during our unit on patterns. The student filled in the pattern but struggled with what the 18th letter would be in the pattern. But, my favorite part is when asked about the strategy she used, she wrote, "because I smart!" While I think we do an excellent job of building a child's self confidence, I can't ever remember teaching that as a math strategy!Then last week, this was turned in on a reading comprehension test. The question asks the student to identify the type of story that they just read. I guess the student didn't like any of the answers because he added a fourth - d! He even drew a circle and bubbled it in and wrote his answer - non-fiction. He actually was right! We gave him credit for originality! Although the story was a report, it was non-fiction! Those are his initials - DB with the smiley face inside. LOL!

Such a time as this...

2011-04-20T21:08:00.007-04:00

I have always believed that you must live your passion - that if you find love in what you do, you will never work a day in your life. I have believed that if you don't work in that place that you are suppose to be that you die a little each day. Teaching and school have always been that place for me.

But recently, I have been feeling a little beat down. Last week I spent $68 on soil and seeds and planters and celery and lima beans for activities to teach my student a unit on planting. No money in a school budget for that type of hands-on teaching, but certainly the expectation is that it's the type of teaching that makes a difference. And then yesterday it was $16 worth of stamps to mail all the letters that my little ones have been so passionately writing. They believe their little voices can change the world... and so do I. I want them to mail their letters to their parents, to the Principal and the Dining room staff and to the Mayor and the Editor of the Newspaper. I hope every child gets a response so they know someone is listening , someone cares. I had asked parents to donate stamps but in this tight economy 2 stamps came in - not near enough for their mountain of thoughts. Today it was another $28 in Easter eggs and egg stuffings because so many of the families were simply unable to send in a dozen stuffed eggs for tomorrow's Easter egg hunt and holiday activities. Normally those little extras don't bother me one bit - just part of the job...

This week, however, I have felt a little like I can't quite catch my breath - smothered by politicians who are looking at the 101 ways to decrease a teacher's worth. It's not ALL about money but money seems to be the way that policy makers are currently judging our worth. I don't really remember when we last had a raise. National Boards, which was such a great promise for professionalism, has now whittled away to almost nothing. We have been told we will take a single digit percentage hit next year to pay for more of our own benefits. Then there are the furlough days - at a time when we need more planning and professional development we are looking at cutting the very thing that makes us the most successful and helps us grow as learners. How does that make sense? Now there's talk about "associate" teachers - taking a certified teacher and just paying them less if they are in a co-teaching situation. Just think about how that might play out... I can't think of any real gains in cooperative learning that are inherent in unequal yokes.

But the thing that pinches my heart and almost brings me to tears is that I have a daughter, a beloved daughter, who is a second year teacher... and I wonder if she were trying to make the decision today to pursue education - what advice would I give her? Even though I have had the most meaningful times of my life in search of learning and giving in the classroom, I think I would tell her to search her heart and soul and think about her other options. It's hard for me to even write those words for the truth of those words are so raw that they physically hurt. They sting my tongue and are sour in my back of my throat. I have never felt so powerless. I can write no more. I am overwhelmed with sadness... What are we doing to this profession?

The ARC

2011-04-12T00:20:00.001-04:00

Last Spring a dream came true for many of us that have been at Chets Creek for a long time. "The ARC" is located in the midst of a 1000 trailer park community in our attendance zone. Because there are so many families in such a small concentrated area it was a natural place for us to target. Working with the leadership of the community, our School Leadership Team worked to bring two hours of tutoring every day to the children in our school who live in that community. With leadership from our Media Specialist, KK Cherney and our Interventionist, Liz Duncan (both have been "Chets Creek Teachers of the Year" and are Nationally Board Certified), we have two small rooms in an office building that our teachers have transformed into an oasis. The leadership at the community donated five computers and our county donated another five. Teachers volunteer their time! I am fortunate to be able to go on Tuesdays for two hours. On that day I am joined by three other first grade teachers, Rebecca Roberts, Toni Chant and Maria Mallon and we serve about 15 first graders from the community. Many of them are second language students so we are lucky to have Toni who is fluent in Spanish to greet the parents and talk with them about whatever school problems that they might have. Since we have common first grade homework it is easy for us to work on the homework when children bring it in. We work on spelling words and sight words and have the children practice reading the comprehension passage that they will be tested on at the end of the week.

All of the children can spend some time on either a reading or math computer program. Often the children do not want to leave and a parent will sit down with a child and watch or help him on the computer past the hour tutoring. I have five students from my class who attend regularly. They are not all at-risk students. I am able to individualize what I do with them depending on their needs. I give them extra behavior points the next day for coming. Now other children in the classroom who do not live in the area are asking where the ARC is and how they can get to come! This really is a labor of love for the teachers at our school. Our first grade colleagues who have young children, family responsibilities or classes, who are not able to volunteer, donate books and activities and more than that - encourage the children from their class to come spend time with us. They are supportive and appreciative of those of us who go to represent our grade level. This is simply a win-win all the way around!

FCAT

2011-04-10T21:45:00.006-04:00

Although our first graders above don't take our state test, they do get into the action by supporting their intermediate friends. At Chets Creek the week before FCAT is Spirit Week. On Monday we came dressed in support of our theme - farmers! On Tuesday is was mismatched clothes. On Wednesday it was wacky hair and socks. On Thursday we pulled tee-shirts from the back of our closets from any year and then finally on Friday, the big finale. The students and teachers came dressed as rock stars! The primary students lined the halls to watch the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders parade to an outside assembly featuring skits by their teachers and some of the Jaguar cheerleaders (one of them a former Chets Creeker!) The idea is to rock out and relax before settling down for the BIG test.

I don't know if our first graders really get all that is happening, but if they have older brothers and sisters, they certainly know about "the test." Each primary class adopts an intermediate class for FCAT week. They prepare signs to pump up the intermediate students and provide morning snacks. All in all I hope our first graders get the idea that "the test" is absolutely fun! We'll see...

All they could say was "WOW"!

2011-04-04T00:29:00.004-04:00

It's time again for new standard based bulletin boards at Chets Creek and the first grade boards highlight many of the Kevin Henkes activities that have claimed the hearts and minds of our children this nine weeks. I'll highlight several of the boards in the posts to come because each is different in its focus.

The bulletin board above shows many of the activities that students enjoyed as they built to the final product for this author study, a response to literature. The top border includes pictures that the children drew of their favorite Kevin Henkes character. (Owen won by a landslide!) The side and bottom borders are pictures the students drew of Lilly's movie star glasses! The first activity on this board highlights the graphic organizer that the children learned to use to identify each of the story elements in Kevin Henkes' books. They worked with a partner to identify characters, setting, problem, events and solution. These are the same story elements, of course, that can be found in any fiction, narrative text so the next step was to have students use the same graphic organizer to identify the story elements in a "just right" book from their individual reading bin. Students completed this activity in their Reading Response Notebooks during Readers' Workshop. The overarching goal of these two activities was to have students know what to expect from a fictional story and to have an outline to write their own story.

A new activity this year was to take what was learned about the elements of a narrative story and combine that with an adventure using a favorite Kevin Henkes character. Students loved writing these short small moment pieces that were written much like Kevin Henkes' board books from his Box of Treats. Each of Henkes' board books feature a single character in a small moment around a holiday. Jesse's book about Wendell at Busch Gardens uses Jesse's knowledge about the character Wendell and his own background knowledge about Busch Gardens as the setting and puts the character in the problem of finding the roller coaster. Students delighted in designing these new problems for their favorite Kevin Henkes characters. First graders love Kevin Henkes' stories because they can identify with the characters and themes. It is no surprise that they love dividing into small groups to learn their individual lines as they read scripts for Readers' Theatre. They really worked at using expression when they spoke and also practiced their lines so they knew all the words and knew right when they come in for their lines. This activity worked on fluency. The children spent two weeks of Readers' Workshop working on three different scripts. They were able to present each "play" to the class. This activity is a popular extension activity for this unit.

One of the things that first graders learn to do to deepen their comprehension is to compare and contrast. They make connections across characters and across books of a single author. To have the children begin thinking about comparing and contrasting we had them compare and contrast themselves with a Kevin Henkes character. They love his little mice characters because they are so much like the people that they know and by comparison, there is no character that they know better than themselves!

Then of course, the final element featured on this board is the response to literature which is a retelling. This sample also includes the rubric that is given to students to help them decide when their writing is good enough and they have met the elements of a response. Although I have only included Nevin's response opening, this is the complete response.

You should read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes because it's about mean girls who become good friends.

When Chrysanthemum was a baby she loved her name so so much. she would say it in he bathroom mirror, "chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemum" and she was jaunty about her first day of school but there was a problem. People were picking on her name. Ha Ha. You have a long name." Then the children met the Music teacher, Mrs. Twinkle. the children began to make fun of Chrysanthemum again. The music teacher said,"If I have a baby, I'll name it Chrysanthemum." Chrysanthemum's whiskers stood straight out. Her tail stood straight out. "Really?" said Chrysanthemum. Now all the girls wanted to be a flower.

I think you would like the book Chrysanthemum because it is a really good book.

All in all, these are just a few of the experiences that children enjoyed as they dove deeply into Kevin Henkes' books to embrace comprehension of narrative test. The title is taken from Mr. Slingers' statement in Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, "All they could say was 'WOW!'"
Addendum: 4/29/2011 - Congratulations Tracy Ruark and dayle timmons! Your Kevin Henkes author study bulletin board has earned the "Primary Purple Cow Bulletin Board of the Month"! The board includes a look into both reading and writing lessons and student products from parts of the unit. They highlight graphic organizers based on story elements which they had students apply not only in pairs to a Kevin Henkes' book but also to the student's independent reading books, as well. Additionally they spotlight a student's Response to Literature with rubric, a comparing and contrasting characters activity that deepens comprehension, a creative story, and a Readers' Theatre lesson with Henkes' book, Owen. The border is adorned with student artwork including a drawing of each student's favorite character and colored glasses artifacts. The personalization is second to none with student pictures and puppets of the characters, too. Truly this is a unique board that you won't want to miss especially because you get a glimpse into an author study, Great work!

Celebrating Kevin Henkes!

2011-03-20T23:40:00.001-04:00

On Friday all of our first grade students celebrated author and illustrator Kevin Henkes. They began the day dressed as their favorite Henkes mouse character of in class tee-shirts so the children came dressed as Lilly , the flower girl Ginger, Wilson with the "W" on his tee-shirt and Victor with a "V", Wemberly Worried, Sheila Rae the Brave, the teachers Mr. Slinger and Mrs. Twinkle, Chrysanthemum and most of the other memorable characters.

Then it was off to visit four centers for the morning. The children designed sassy ties like Mr. Slinger's or movie star sun glasses and purple plastic purses like Lilly's. They played games like Chrysanthemum's family did to cheer her up. Twister and Parcheesi were favorites. At another center the kids played Kevin Henkes Bingo as a way to review all of the interesting facts they had learned about the author and his mouse books. Finally they watched some of the books on video while they enjoyed "cheesy" snacks. Then it was a cheesy pizza for lunch in celebration of all the mouse characters.

Each of the children has received their own personal mouse puppet this week, sewed by our own Para Extraordinaire Lee Cordoza. The children have been using these little puppets as pointers to keep their place in reading and as their own little puppet character as they read. Just ask them their character's name and they can all tell you!

On Friday in the afternoon different first grade classes did different activities but many of them performed the Readers' Theatre scripts that they have been so faithfully practicing all week. Many of the groups combined the puppets that they had made as a family project to act out the scenes as the children read. Finally many of the classes made mouse shaped cookie snacks. These final few days of this author study will be spent on completing a portfolio piece as a readers response to a single book or books across the author study. It has been so much fun to spend time with an author and illustrator that the children have so loved!

Readers' Theatre- Choral Style

2011-03-20T23:32:00.003-04:00

The children are each practicing an individual part with a Kevin Henkes Readers' Theatre script. At the same time they are practicing a script that they are reading with as a group. Both readings work on fluency - the ability to read like talking with expression. The script with individual parts gives the students a chance to really work on hearing their own voice. The choral reading has more support so that even the weakest reader can use the support of the other readers for words that may be difficult or for reading with expression. Listen as the children begin their choral choral reading practice.

Untitled from dayle timmons on Vimeo.

Transferring

2011-03-14T21:34:00.000-04:00

Transferring the skills that we are learning in our Author Study to our general reading is our goal. We want the children to understand that learning about story elements (characters, setting, problem and solution) in our Kevin Henkes books helps us understand any fictional story - that if we understand the structure of a narrative story that it will help us predict what will happen in any fictional story and understand comprehension at a deeper level. So that our children can practice using story elements across their reading, we had them use the same graphic organizer that they used for the Kevin Henkes' stories to organize "just right" stories from their reading bin. The children used their reading response notebooks to record the story elements of one their own fictional books.On the first page they drew a triangle and recorded the characters, setting and the problem in the story.On the next page they drew a large rectangle and drew the events. Some wrote three events and others wrote four or six events, depending on the action in the story. On the last page the children drew a circle and inside that ending shape, they wrote the solution to the problem in their story. In this way they are transferring the organization of the retelling of the Kevin Henkes' stories into their own reading lives.

Rubric with Response to Literature

2011-03-13T12:27:00.010-04:00

As we begin to complete our responses to literature to go in our portfolios around our Kevin Henkes Author Study, the children are given a rubric to help them decide when "good is good enough." We want them to be able to look at their own work and then look at the expectations for a response and begin to work on the revision process by themselves and during conferences with the teacher. We also want them to begin to internalize some of the editing techniques that we have taught. Revising and editing are not always easy for a first grader! Below is our Response-to-Literature Rubric and then Dazha's response to Kevin Henkes' Wemberly Worried with revision and editing comments in red. Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes

Have you ever been worried a lot? If you have, you will know how Wemberly Worried was feeling when she was worried.

This first page and the last page were actually added after the retelling was complete. As Dazha went back and compared her work to the rubric, she realized that she had not included an opening to hook her reader, a connection (which was optional) and a closing, so she added them as the last pieces of her response.In the beginning Wemberly Worried was worried about everything. She was unique because she worried a lot. She worried about big things, little things, and things in between. Wemberly worried in the morning. She worried at night. And she worried throughout the day. And she worried about her doll Petal.

The second sheet is actually the back of the first sheet which shows that Dazha used a technique for inserting information of putting a star on the front page where the insertion is to take place and then writing the information on the back of the page. In this case, Dasha wanted to get extra credit for using one of the vocabulary words, "unique," that we had been studying as part of this Kevin Henkes Author Study, so she added it during the revision process!In the middle she went to school and was worried but she made a friend that had a stuffed animal just like her. They played with each other.At the end Mrs. Peachum said, "Come back tomorrow!" Then Wemberly said, "Don't worry. I'll come back tomorrow." And when she got home Wemberly, her mom and dad danced around in a circle.

Remember when I told you that have you ever been worried a lot? Well I have. When my mom goes in the car washer I get scared, but things come our okay. If you have things that you were worried about they will come out okay.

When Dazha came to this writing conference she wanted to close her response with a connection which she had written, "When my mom..." but when she reread her closing she decided that she wanted it to connect back to the beginning so she added the first sentence on this page and then used the insertion editing mark to add in the middle of the last sentence.

Dazha has learned so much during this unit. She began with the retelling (which was easy for her) of a beginning with the characters, setting and problem and then moved to the middle with its events and then finally the ending which solves the problem. Then she used her rubric to identify the missing parts of her response to literature and added an engaging beginning and a closing to wrap up the piece. She also showed that she had learned some techniques for inserting information by using the star and writing information to be added on the back of the paper and also by using the insertion editing mark to add right above the writing. She even thought about adding a connection which was optional and a vocabulary word for extra credit! Great work!

Kevin Henkes Readers' Theatre

2011-03-12T21:52:00.004-05:00

For two weeks we are using Readers' Theatre to culminate our Readers' Workshop unit of author and illustrator Kevin Henkes. Readers' Theatre is a lot like reading a play with children assigned specific parts. The difference is that the children are not expected to memorize their lines and they don't walk around on the stage. Instead they stand in a straight row and "read" their lines. The purpose of Readers' Theatre is for students to practice reading like they talk - to help them read with fluency including with expression. The students gather in a circle each day and practice reading their lines in order. They practice being kind to each other and waiting patiently until a child asks for help before giving a word to a child that might be struggling with an unknown words - no small task. The mini-lessons as demonstration and practice or reading with expression. On Friday the children performed their first scripts. On Monday they will get a new script with a new group or actors. They will perform their new script next Friday!

Kevin Henkes Puppet Project

2011-03-11T05:58:00.000-05:00

Each year our children are given a family project as part of their homework to create puppets to go along with one of the Kevin Henkes stories. Of course, it is difficult for the parents to help with the project unless they know the characters from at least one of the books, so there is a concentrated effort to help with this. We post as many of the books as we can find that are read or have videos from YouTube so the parents can see the stories on our classroom blogs. We encourage the children to check out their favorite Kevin Henkes book from our school library and even from the public library. As a result our Kevin Henkes books from our school library are beginning to look "well used"! This year, I even made color copies of the characters for each book so parents could see each character. Some of the families used these color copies to make different versions of stick puppets.

The purpose of this project is to force the children to retell the stories to their parents as they work on the characters and to get them more deeply involved in the stories. The other purpose, of course, is to produce puppets that the children are vested in so that they will be even more interested in using the puppets to retell the stories. Below are some of the projects from the grade level.

March Madness

2011-03-10T18:23:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure what "March Madness" means in your part of the world, but at Chets Creek it means that the Principal is coming for a read aloud. Susan Phillips does one of the best read alouds in the building. She was a kindergarten teacher and you can tell the moment she starts to read aloud. She dropped into my class to read the 2001 Chets Creek Book-of-the-month, Apple Batter, yesterday. Not only was the book a delightful story about perseverance that the children LOVED, but the Principal guided my students through a question and answer session to help them think deeper about the characters and the story line.

As a Leadership Team we have identified read aloud as the starting place to deepen our children's comprehension skills in our building. While we want children to think deeply so that they are ready for our state assessment beginning in third grade, comprehension is about so much more than the ability to answer tricky questions on a state assessment! We want our children to fall in love with stories. We want them to beg us to finish reading a story that we have started in class. We want them to sneak books home and read them under the covers after lights out. We want them to speed through breakfast so they can get to school and share the latest adventure with a friend that they read the night before. In other words, we just want them to leave elementary school in love with reading. We believe we can do this by talking about books and choosing books that make children emotional - whether the book makes them excited, happy, sad or boiling mad! That is why Mrs. Phillips is spending time with every single classroom. Besides, she really likes spending time with kids! It's one of her favorite things to do!

Listen to a piece of the video below to see just what the Principal is doing during OUR March madness!

Mrs. Phillips' Reads to First Grade from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

Demo-teaching

2011-03-09T10:23:00.009-05:00

One of the best things about Chets Creek is that we do lots of demo-teaching which means doing demonstration lessons for our peers and for visitors. Today I had the pleasure of watching a demonstration lesson by co-teachers Carrie McLeod and Laurie Thompson. Our Standard's Coach Suzanne Shall arranged the lesson for both the Reading Council and primary Science Council which means the teachers watching the lesson were the grade level leads for Reading and Writing at each grade level and the grade level Science leads for the primary school, plus, of course, the Standard's Coach and Principal. No pressure! I am sure Carrie and Laurie had a moment of stressful concern, wondering why they ever agreed to do this, but Chets Creek is a forum where risk-taking is admired and celebrated, and it is a safe environment where peers support and help each other... so they took a deep breath... and it was - on with the show!

The point of this lesson was to show both Reading, Writing and Science teachers what echoes across the day can look like. We know that we get a bigger bang for our buck when we are able to integrate the Science content into our reading and writing lessons and when we are able to practice those reading and writing skills in Science.

Readers' Workshop

Mini-lesson: Today's big topic in reading was Reading Like a Writer. Carrie and Laurie, whose rituals and routines are crisp and clean, began with a mini-lesson connecting today's lesson with the bigger topic. Next for the teach, they showed the students a report written by a 2nd grader (completed in 2nd grade but pulled from a 4th grader's cum writing portfolio!) The teachers identified some of the text features in the report, such as the Table of Contents, words highlighted that were found in the Glossary, headings, captions, etc. - all text features that had been covered in earlier lessons. Then the teachers labeled each noticing with a stickie note. For the active involvement they turned to a new page of the report and had the students "turn and talk" about their noticings so that the students could practice the strategy that had just been demonstrated. The teachers pulled the group back together and had them share out their labeled noticings. The link involved giving each group of two or three students a different 2nd grade report to repeat the same - notice and label text features.

Work Session: As the students divided into small groups (effortlessly!) they each received a 2nd grader's report that had been completed in years past (pulled from cum writing portfolios). Each of the small groups worked independently until they were joined by one of the two teachers to discuss their noticings and labeling. All of the observing teachers were either watching one of the presenting teachers meet with a small group or were soon sitting with a small group themselves helping the children through the task, asking them questions about what they were learning and generally thinking about how they could redesign some of their own work after seeing the lesson. The room was full of artifacts to support the learning that is being integrated. For instance, it is obvious how the day is integrated when you look at the essential questions posted each day. You can see some of the earlier mini-lessons as you read some of the charts that are hanging around the room. As students completed their noticings of the 2nd grade reports, they went to their independent reading, half of the students on the floor reading and half reading in their seats. As the students read quietly Laurie pulled a small group together to reinforce the strategies of text features in a non-fiction leveled book that was on this small group's reading level. At the same time, Carrie, pulled a different small group to go over testing strategies of a state assessment-style non-fiction test. I am assuming this group was pulled together after a task analysis of last week's assessment to work with the students that had specific difficulties with specific types of non-fiction questions. The point is that both of these small groups are off the topic that is echoing across the day!

Closing: The presenting teachers chose two groups as they were circulating to present in the closing. Each group had chosen one example to highlight for the larger group - a text feature that they had noticed and labeled with a stickie note.

Writers' Workshop

We had the good fortune to be able to stay for the Writers' mini-lesson so that we could see how these same lessons were being incorporated into the writing part of the day. The Writers' Workshop also included the 4-part mini-lesson.

Mini-lesson: The teachers began with connecting today's lesson with what the students were doing in reading and what they are doing in Science, which is a habitat and life cycles unit. For the teach the teachers are using butterflies as their example of a topic for writing a report. The students have plenty of background knowledge for this example because they are raising butterflies during Science. The teachers have a seed journal where they have been taking notes about caterpillars and butterflies. As the students begin their writing, they will each choose different animals to write a report on its habitat and life cycle. Some of the previous lessons are obvious, both from charts in the room and the teacher's seed journal example. Today's lesson was on how to organize the notes from the seed journal. The teacher thinks aloud her decision to start with a chapter on "Appearance" and then numbers her notes so that the sequence makes sense. For the active involvement she then turns to a new page in the seed journal where she has taken notes and has the children "turn and talk" about how they would organize this page of information. The link gives the children the facts they need to use the information they have just learned as they go into the work session.

At that point, we had to leave. We had been in the classroom for an hour watching this unforgettable lesson. We will debrief this lesson after school tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if my colleagues took away as much as I did. As for me, there will be things I will tweak and change in my classroom tomorrow because I have had this opportunity today!

Kevin Henkes Attribute Chart

2011-03-02T19:54:00.002-05:00

On one of the side walls in our classroom the class has been working on an attribute chart of Kevin Henkes' books. Pictures of the books covers run across the top of the chart. Down the left side are the headings for a retelling: Characters, Setting, Problem, Events and Solution. Each category represents a mini-lesson on a different day. For instance on one day we talked about Kevin Henkes' characters, the difference between main characters and supporting characters and how characters change during a story. I modeled selecting the main character from one of the books, drawing a picture of the character and writing the name of the character on an index card. Then each student was invited to choose a favorite Kevin Henkes' book, draw a picture of the character and write the name on an index card of his own. Then we chose a card for each of the titles. To show the children how the information in the mini-lesson transfers to a book of their own, each child was invited to identify a main character in a fictional "just right" book in the individual book bin and then to share out their discovery in our closing meeting.

One another day, the children completed cards on setttings, problems and solutions. The events took a little more time since the children had to identify the events that show the steps in solving the problem of each story. In this case, I modeled one story and then invited the children to turn and talk to a partner. Together we wrote the events for each story over several days. This attribute chart will be a reference as the children begin writing their retellings.

Learning Story Elements for Retelling

2011-02-28T21:12:00.005-05:00

The children spent last week orally retelling Kevin Henkes stories. This week they have been identifying the story parts. They have used a triangle to identify the beginning of a story that includes three parts (one for each point) - the characters, the setting and the problem. The middle of the retelling includes the events of the story and the ending includes the solution - how the problem was solved. To practice identifying the story parts, the students used the shapes as a graphic organizer to identify the parts of Kevin Henkes' stories. Today the children worked in pairs. Each pair selected one of the stories that we have been using and used a large sheet of white construction paper, first drawing a triangle to represent the beginning, a long rectangle to represent the middle and a circle to represent the ending of the story. Next they put sentences or phrases from the story to represent each story element. This will be the outline that they will use to write their written retellings.

Happy Birthday George!

2011-02-22T22:14:00.004-05:00

I have the same birthday as our first President, George Washington. When I was very young my mother had birthday parties of red, white and blue and served cherry cobbler - patriotic all the way! I was quite upset when our nation decided to celebrate President's Day instead of George's specific birthday on the 22nd. While I have nothing against Abe, I just didn't want to share the day and certainly didn't want the date changed every year depending on when the third Monday in February fell on the calendar!

As we returned to school today after our President's Day holiday, I was talking to the children about George and Abe, trying to find out exactly what their background knowledge might be. They did know that George was the first President and that his profile appeared on the quarter. They knew that Abe was born poor and had his profile on the penny. It's all about the money! They even identified our current President. They also knew that it was my birthday. They had made cards and had a surprise birthday cake with a little of my favorite Diet Coke on the side planned for the afternoon. Well into my fact finding mission, Tanner raised his innocent hand and gave me that puzzled look. "Mrs. Timmons, if you and George Washington were born on the same day and he is dead, how come you're not dead?"Out of the mouth of babes!

Lobsters and Sea Stars and Crabs - Oh My!

2011-02-18T19:18:00.000-05:00

Our standard-based bulletin board this month is from our last Science unit. The board (beginning on the left), of course, has the standards and then an explanation of the six-day task which includes an engage, several explores and explains, a two-day extend and an evaluation. The board zooms in on a single explore and explain that investigated the survival needs of sea creatures.

The board includes three pieces of student work which are samples of the posters that each small groups made after actually seeing and holding each one of the sea creatures, watching the sea creature in action video, and reading books about their needs. The small groups made a poster of the things that each animal needed to survive and then commentary is includes about the lesson with the group, making sure to identify the thinking of individual children.
The board finally includes a picture of the SmartBoard activity where the children moved pictures of pets, wild animals and sea creatures into columns identifying their need for air, water, food, space, and shelter with commentary about how the activity synthesized the several days of lessons.

The board also includes many photographs of the action during the lesson so it is obvious to the reader how engaged the students were throughout this unit of study. What a sea-sational board!

Barnyard Book Bingo

2011-02-17T21:21:00.008-05:00

This year the Principal planned a series of treats for children that meet their Readers-to-Leaders goals each nine weeks. The first grade Readers-to-Leaders goal for the first nine weeks was to read 25 books; the second nine weeks to add another 30 books; the third nine weeks to add another 30 books and then even another 30 books for the fourth nine weeks. The goal is cumulative so for this second nine weeks the children had to have read 55 books to meet their goal.

First grade teachers at our school have decided to interpret this goal in different ways. Some teachers have the children record one book every day that they read at school during the Readers' Workshop. In our class we have decided to require the children to read the books to meet the goal at home. While we have time every single day for the children to read independently, it is also important to us that they develop the habit of reading at home every night. It is a part of their nightly homework and is a habit that will be required of them for their entire career at Chets Creek.

Meeting their goal is a big job for a first grader. First of all they have to remember to change out their book every morning, selecting a "just right" book from their book bin to take home. Then they have to remember to remind mom or dad that they have to read. We consider this the child's responsibility. It's not enough to just read. Then they have to pull out their login sheet and write the date, the name of the book (once the child starts chapter books, about 15 minutes of reading a night counts as "a book" which is usually several short chapters) and the level of the book. On Fridays they have to remember to turn in their log and get a new sheet for the new week. However, we have learned that first graders CAN complete this task and if their parents offer a little support, the children have no trouble at all! Last nine weeks only 11 of our children met their goal. We realized that many of them did not understand our expectation and neither did their families. It was a new routine for our families. We have worked hard this nine weeks and today 18 of our 29 children met their goal and enjoyed the Principal's Barnyard Book Bingo! We expect even more children to make their goal this next nine weeks as they realize the pay-off... and even more the last nine weeks! We think we are teaching children a lifetime habit.

Today was fun with a Dining Room full of first graders excited that they had made their nine weeks' reading goal. Our Principal called the barnyard animals as the children marked their Bingo cards. Every child had the opportunity to yell "Bingo!" and to get a prize along with a special pencil. Most of all, the children just had lots and lots of fun! They can't wait until the next nine weeks when the Principal promises to kiss a pig!

And how about the children that didn't get to participate? They were in the room.... reading, but more than that, several of them have asked to take home two and three books a night so they can catch up! Our goal is that every child in our class understands that they will become better readers if they read! Will let you know how it goes...

Oral Retellings

2011-02-16T22:39:00.010-05:00

Before a child can write a retelling as a response to literature in Writers' Workshop, he has to be able to orally retell the story. Writing a retelling takes a lot of writing fluency for a youngster so he must be able to hold an entire story in his head before we can ever expect him to put the entire story on paper.

To practice retelling we spend an entire week on orally retelling a couple of Kevin Henkes stories. On the first day we show the children a written retelling of Owen with a beginning, a middle with three events and an ending. Then the students cut out puppets of the main characters of Owen that we put on Popsicle sticks and we encourage the students to retell the story to a partner. We, of course, model how we would retell the story before the students try it on their own. After they have practiced, we have several students come to the front and use their puppets to retell the story. The children then take take the puppets home so they can continue to practice the retellings with their family members.

We do virtually the same thing on the next day with the story Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. We first show the children a written retelling with a beginning, a middle that includes three events and an ending. Then we give the children five pictures from the story that represent each of the five parts, one picture for each part. We begin by modelling our own retelling of the story with a partner. I tell a part of the story and then Tracy tells a part and then I tell a part... until all five parts have been told. Then the students practice with a partner. Finally we bring a partner pair to the front to fishbowl retelling the story for the class. Once again, the students take their pictures home and are encouraged to retell the story to their family members.

And still another day we pass out a piece of construction paper to each student. Each table (groups of 5-6) decide on one of the Kevin Henkes books and choose one of the five parts to illustrate and then to retell. After the children at the table have illustrated their part of the story, they hold up their picture and in order, retell their part of the story.

All of this oral work provides the background for children to draw their own five pictures on the last day and then to begin retelling each part of one of the Kevin Henkes' stories in writing. The less mature students will retell one of the two stories that we have been practicing all week but the more mature students will branch off to some of the other stories that we have read and studied. Until a child can retell a story orally and then hold the story in his head so that he can write the retelling, he is not able to summarize and it is summary that we will finally reach as we end this unit. The ability to summarize leads to synthesis and it is the synthesis across an author's entire body of work that will be the goal for our most advanced students. Stay tuned to watch the children's growth across this unit...

Changing Our Practice

2011-02-16T20:42:00.000-05:00

I've never claimed to be a Math expert! In fact, I haven't had the opportunity to really teach Math for many years, concentrating instead on reading, so it was with anticipation and a little anxiety that I embraced the opportunity to teach first grade Math this year.

Our school teaches math conceptually so there has certainly been lots to learn. While Math always came easy to me as a student that doesn't always make for the best teacher. Because it came easily, I always got the right answer but couldn't always explain how I got the answer! It's a lot like reading comprehension. You understand an inference but it's difficult to explain how and why you understood it! That is a real handicap when you are trying to explain strategies to young Mathematicians! Most recently Tracy and I have been teaching a unit on Measurement. While we have done most of the lessons as they are outlined in the book, Tracy just didn't feel like the majority of our students were grasping the more difficult concepts - especially as we moved into word problems. We had discussed our approaches with our office mate Suzanne Shall who is our Standards Coach, so finally Tracy just asked her if she would teach a simple lesson that we could incorporate into our on-going review that is the Skills-based part of our Math instruction. This short part that we call EDC (Every Day Counts) is a 10-15 minute introduction to our hour long Math Workshop.

What a great opportunity to watch a Master at work. I learned so many simple things! First of all, Suzanne used the white boards! Now why hadn't we ever thought of using the white boards for this introductory work? We use them all the time in Skills Block, but for some reason, we'd never thought to use them in Math! Using the white boards made a difference because we could gather the students close and easily look to see if they were getting the skill, instead of having them working at their tables. There, it was harder to see at a glance if the majority of students were getting a skill! Besides, we don't need to kill trees EVERY day!

Suzanne also approached the Math word problem much like we are approaching retelling in Readers' and Writers Workshops'. She started with, "And who are the main characters in this problem?" Main characters? While I have had students close their eyes and visualize the action in a Math story problem, I had never thought to have them understand and underline main characters and use those labels/names as they show their work. Duh!

Another simple technique that had never occurred to me was to use color. I am teaching retelling right now in reading and writing so I write the beginning of the story in one color, the middle in another color and the ending in still another color to show the different parts of a retelling. It's not like I didn't know that using different colors helps students see differences, but I had never applied that knowledge to Math! As Suzanne showed the hops of one animal on a number line she used one color, a different color to show the hops of the second animal, and then a third color to show the difference. Such a simple technique that helped students visualize the differences.

I especially liked when Suzanne said, "Now this is a little trick that mathematician use..." I could have been sitting in Lucy Calkins' summer institute listening to her say, "Now readers this is a trick that really good readers use..." It's like they are letting you in on some really top secret strategy now that you are in the club of the "really smart"! the students just automatically lean in to hear that little inside secret and you have them hooked.

It's not that I didn't learn some Math concepts along the way (such as when I was comparing hops that I needed to start my number line at 0!) or that the level of questioning that Suzanne used included so many beginnings with "why?" but there were just so many little things that just jumped out at me. That is why I feel so fortunate to be in a school that encourages teachers to demonstrate lessons for each other. I couldn't help but think if we had a demo ready - just one for every unit - how helpful it would be to teachers at all levels of their development.

Thanks Suzanne for making me think and for changing my teaching practice. Next time you're listening in from the office, make sure to notice how I am incorporating all your little hints and tricks!