Fire Safety Week

This is Fire Safety Week so Kindergarten Team Leader Debbie Harbour arranged for three fire fighters to visit Chet’s Kindergartners. In the school’s Dining Room the teachers staged a dark house with a tissue paper fire and a fog machine as smoke! Debbie pretended to be asleep as the three fire fighters came in low to the ground to rescue her! The kids loved it! After the simulation the fire fighters answered questions stressing the 911 phone number for emergencies, having a family meeting place outside in case of fire, and “stop, drop, and roll!”

Then it was out to the fire engine for a tour of the big red engine. Students loved seeing the engine and all of the fire fighter's gear.

Students went back to class to write about what they had learned and to write thank you notes.

Thank you Stations 41 from _____. I learned if you have fire on you, "Stop, drop and roll!"

Kindergartners were given the homework assignment of asking their parents to check the batteries in their fire alarms. In my class, 20 students returned this morning with a note about checking their fire alarm and one even told us that the batteries in his alarm needed to be changed and his mother said he may have saved the family’s life! This is live research, non-fiction information meant to save lives - Social Studies at its best! Wonder how many little fire fighters were sitting in the audience today?

Knots on a Counting Rope

As we enter our integrated Pow Wow unit, we want families to become involved from the very beginning. This week's Kindergarten Homework is another family project based on the book, Knots on a Counting Rope. This touching story is about a young blind boy who enjoys hearing his grandfather tell stories. Each kindergartner is given his own "counting rope" to take home. Family members are encouraged to share stories about the child's young life, about their own life and to share family stories that are passed down through the generations. Each time they tell a story, the family ties a knot in the rope. Youngsters can also tie a knot when they read a book to a family member or when a family member reads a book to them. The point is to encourage families to spend time together, just as the First Americans once did. Children will bring their knotted ropes to school next week and will share the stories of their lives. Sounds like we might have some great new topics for Writers' Workshop...

Positive Postcards

 I was reminded of how powerful our weekly positive postcards are to our culture at Chets Creek.

Each Wednesday a positive postcard is stamped and placed in our cubbie. We are to fill in the postcard and drop it in the Principal's box by the end of the day. She reads each one and then sends it out - great way to keep up with all the positive things going on in such a large school! Postcards can be sent to students, staff or parents. Last week I sent my positive postcard to Eleana, a kindergartner, because she has been such a good friend to another student in our class that has his own challenges. I had watched as she had gently reminded him of the class routines and helped him when he seemed confused. I wanted her to know what a difference her thoughtfulness was making. That same week I received a postcard of my own at home in the mail. Maria Mallon sent me such a thoughtful, generous note. It caught me by surprise and caused tears to well up. I know how Eleana must have felt, because Maria's postcard touched my heart. It made me feel like what I was doing was making a difference... and is there any stronger feeling that that?!

Positive postcards are a cornerstone of our work and our culture at Chets Creek - such a simple routine that infuses positive pixie dust throughout the Magic Kingdom.

Relationships

We understand that when teams work well, they are successful in solving problems. Teams are about harnessing the collective talents of a diverse group. In order to provide teams with opportunities to build strong relationships, Chets Creek provides events such as holiday breakfasts, collegiate days, and other celebrations at school, but we also encourage outside events such as Happy Hours after work and team parties and showers, engagement celebrations, etc.. Team leaders are trained on the dynamics of teamwork and are expected to be the one to make sure that no one on the team feels left out. They are expected to provide for opportunities for the grade level to meet outside of school to get to know each other better.

We realize that strong social relationships are the leading indicator of our overall happiness. From Vital Friends we learned that if you have a best friend at work you are more likely to: "engage, get more done in less time, have fun on the job, innovate and share ideas, and feel informed and know your opinion counts."
The Kindergarten Team is an excellent example of how organized events have spilled over in time so that the team directs its own social connections. Tonight the Kindergarten Team met at a local restaurant for dinner after school to celebrate one of its own being named Teacher of the Year. They laughed. They shared stories about each other. They reminisced about other times when they had been together. Sure, they all have families and outside responsibilities, but they know that spending time together is meaningful. Being balanced may be about having great friendships that extend between work and home. These teachers really like each other. They trust each other. They depend on each other. They are not willing to let each other down or to let the Team down. This personal foundation provides the trust that is needed for teachers to truly deepen their work - for teachers to begin to ask for help from their peers and to give honest feedback to each other. They say that many teachers leave the profession because they don't have a friend at work. It's important that we make sure that each teacher has that connection. Each kindergarten teacher has a friend at work that she can go to and ask an embarrassing questions. She has someone that will help when its needed and that will lift her up when she has had a difficult day. And all that makes Chets Creek a GREAT place to work - a place you NEVER want to leave.

Field Trip: Pow Wow

Like all schools, Chets Creek Kindergarten includes field experiences in its learning opportunities. The first such experience this year for kindergartners was at the FCCJ Theatre where students had an opportunity to watch Native Americans dance and sing. Some of the children were riding the bus for the first time or sitting in a theatre for a live performance for the first time. The kindergartner sitting next to me wanted to know when we were going to get popcorn when we first sat down in the theatre! However, the actual information of this field trip is most important to this group of youngsters because they will soon be deeply involved in a Native American unit and will refer back to the music and dancing that they heard today over and over.
About six years ago Kindergarten teachers became uncomfortable with their generic "Indian" Pow Wow celebration around Thanksgiving where all the little "Indians" wore brown pillowcase garb with feathers and pounded homemade drums. The teachers began researching Native American tribes as a professional learning community and decided that each class would research a specific tribe and bring those traditions to our annual Pow Wow celebration. That decision to bring more authentic experiences to our children led to the field trip today. Today the students got their first taste of what a Pow Wow looks like and sounds like. As always, when we begin this unit of study, I am impressed with the teachers willingness to go the extra mile to teach our youngest children how to research and how much they care about getting the "real" information. I am also impressed with the Native Americans' deep spiritual connection with the Earth and their understanding that they are stewards of our natural resources. This year their message particularly resonates with our Kindergarten.

Video streaming: Readers' Workshop

Duval County is very fortunate to have a professional development site called the Schultz Center in Jacksonville. All of the county's professional development runs through this state-of-the- art facility. One of the most popular Schultz courses is Literacy 101 which gives teachers a background in Readers' and Writers' Workshop. For three year Chets Creek has had an agreement with the Schultz Center to provide live demonstration lessons through video streaming. Literacy 101 drops into Chets Creek classes and watches a specific lesson. After teachers at the Schultz Center watch, the teachers teaching the lesson debrief from Chets Creek. This is real time observation and sharing.

Today Literacy 101 dropped into Haley Alvarado and Meredy Mackiewicz' co-taught kindergarten Readers' Workshop.

The lesson began with a musical introduction to the Readers' Workshop using Jack Hartman's Ready to Read.

The mini-lesson was the perfect 4-parts (from Lucy Calkins The Art of Teaching Reading) lasting about 12 minutes:

1. Connection - The teachers began by connecting today's lesson with yesterday's lesson. Yesterday the children looked at a familiar fiction book (Goldilocks and the Three Bears) and compared it with a non-fiction book. The class began a chart of non-fiction features that the teachers quickly reviewed today.

2. Teach - The teaching focus for today's lesson was to add to the non-fiction list, so the teachers showed the students some features that were in a non-fiction text that they would not see in their familiar fiction books.

3. Active Involvement - For the active involvement the teachers had the kindergartners turn and talk ( Can you believe it? Kindergartners turning and talking after 7 weeks of school?!) about the non-fiction features that they had noticed. After a few minutes of talking with partners, the kindergartners returned to the group and "shared out" what they noticed. The teachers added to the list.
4. Link - To link the lesson to the independent reading which followed the mini-lesson, the teachers put a sticky note at each child's place so that they could put the sticky note on any page where they noticed a non-fiction text feature.

As the children transitioned to the independent work period the teachers stopped to debrief their lesson with the Schultz teachers. Some of the debrief was around the lesson but much of the conversation was centered around the positive discipline that Haley and Meredy use in their classroom and that the teachers had seen demonstrated during the viewing.  

After the camera was moved out of the room, the children continued reading until Haley and Meredy were ready to close. At Closing the children shared their sticky notes of the non-fiction text features that they had noticed in their independent reading. 

Video streaming is an excellent tool for teachers in a professional development class because they have the opportunity to see real teaching as it happens with a chance to ask questions of the teachers. It's also good for our teachers because it gives them a chance to share their learning - to make a difference. It's a win-win for us all!

Haley Alvarado

Visitors often ask how we develop "fresh out of college" teachers at Chets Creek. Our new Teacher of the Year is an excellent example of a teacher who has spent her entire career with us.

Miss Haley Skinner began her teaching career at Chets Creek, fresh from the University of Florida. I spent some time in Haley's classroom that first year because she had two little ones that were challenged from the first day of school. As the Literacy Coach and Special Education teacher, the principal asked me to try to help. It was obvious from that first year that this was a teacher with heart, with the "gift" for teaching who would leave no stone unturned in her advocacy for the children in her care.

Haley Skinner soon became Mrs. Alvarado. We were all at her wedding, done is typical Haley style. What I remember most is watching her walk down the aisle in such a beautiful dress with her white tennis shoes! During the next several years, Haley shared an office with Maria Mallon, our own Meme. Maria came to Chets Creek with several years of inner city teaching under her belt. Maria is sunshine wherever she goes, is a Master Teacher, and is the heart of the Kindergarten Team. There is no doubt that Haley was mentored and influenced by Maria. They shared their ideas, their questions, their hopes and dreams and became lifelong friends. After only a few years Haley became a National Board certified teacher... and a mom. It seemed that she accomplished both with little effort in her same "in charge", organized style. She continued to ask questions. She was often opinionated and outspoken, but she just HAD to know how to do the best that she could for every student in her care. She was determined. She was passionate. She was emerging as a leader.

A couple of years ago Meredy Mackiewicz, a college student, was assigned as a one-on-one assistant to an autistic child in Haley's class. Haley has always been willing to take on challenging students. (This year she has a room full of second language learners.) She and Meredy became fast friends. After Meredy graduated and had a year of teaching on her own, they decided to join forces and became the "Mackarados." I spent two years in their classroom every day as their Special Education Inclusion teacher. You learn a lot about people when you see them "up close and personal," and I can certainly say that Haley and Meredy are the real thing - they are amazing! You never go into their classroom that things are not humming. They finish each other's sentences. Their lessons are thoughtful and real. They are teaching 100% of the time. They let their heart and mind, their intuition and experience, lead them. They have conversations with their children - real conversations. Their classroom is a learning village where people take care of each other. Their students are learning so much more than readin', ritin' and 'rithmetic. The Mackarados have also consistently had some of the highest assessment scores at the end of the year.

Haley has always been a "looper". She begins a class in Kindergarten and takes them to first grade. Along the way she develops deep and lasting friendships with many of the families. She is often seen at soccer, tee-ball games and dance recitals. She and Meredy actually make signs to hold up and can be quite an obnoxious cheering section! The families love it! Parents confide in her, but she intuitively knows where to draw the line as a professional. This past summer Haley became an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Florida. How fortunate are her students! Haley is the consummate professional always embracing the newest technology or learning strategy. She is a powerful mentor for new teachers to Chets. She is giving back all that has been given to her. When her mentee had difficulty completing DRAs this year, Haley was there to help. When her peers had difficulty completing all their pre-assessment data, Meredy held down their class while Haley went and subbed so other kindergarten teachers could finish. Haley is a problem solver and is always willing to be the voice for the underdog. This year she has led a movement to incorporate more social projects into the lives of our kindergartners - a movement that I think is catching school-wide. She believes that we have a responsibility to the whole child - a message that resonates with her peers. You will see Kindergartners setting up "Alex's Lemonade Stands" at every parent event to raise money for childhood cancer this year. She is the spark plug for getting Chets Creek to recycle. Each kindergarten class will adopt a family for Thanksgiving and the list goes on...

I am so proud to have learned beside Haley these past years. We are so proud to have her represent our school, our Kindergarten, as the 2007 Chets Creek Teacher of the Year. She is a model to so many of our young teachers of what they too can become. She is an example of how we mentor beginning teachers the Chets Creek-way. But Haley is young in her career. She is only beginning the journey. Remember her name... because I believe the best is yet to come...