Making our MARC

I know I have posted about the MARC (McKenzie's Academic Resource Center) before- our little seed of an idea for an on-site tutoring center in a community of 1000 mobile homes that lies on the border of our school boundary.  But I was reminded once again tonight about how a little idea and a small group of committed people can change the world.

Two years ago our Leadership Team had this small idea for improving the outcomes for some of our at-risk students.  We met with the owners of the mobile home site and asked for a small space and soon a few very dedicated teachers began tutoring some of our neediest students after school.   As I sat in the Recognition and Appreciation Dinner tonight, I was surrounded by Girls, Inc who  furnishes counseling to families; Beaches Resource who matches families with resources; Second Harvest that now comes through the mobile home park once a month dropping free food; Beach United Methodist Church volunteers that put on a faith based program every Saturday for the children that includes games, praise and worship, and lunch: Angie, who facilitates a preschool program and lunch that has just mushroomed; a second language teacher who volunteers her time at night to teach adults English as a second language; and a slew of teachers from Chets Creek who volunteer their time every single week to tutor along with some retired teachers - all of this now hosted and funded by the McKenzie Wilson Foundation.  All of this from just a little seed of an idea!

How fortunate we are to the McKenzie Wilson Foundation that funds the activities at the MARC.  The Wilson's lost their beautiful teenage daughter to a sudden illness.  Instead of having her death ruin their lives, they decided instead to dedicate funds to doing something special in her honor.  Funds for the MARC is just one of the many projects that they selected.  It makes a profound impact on me that they would allow their beautifully-spirited daughter's name to adorn our little Center.

I am just so proud of the school and teachers that I work with.  One of our teacher assistants now runs the Tutoring Center and our Behavior Interventionist's salary is being paid by the McKenzie Wilson Foundation to the school system as she works as a liaison between the programs.  My little group of four faithful Kindergarten teachers, who make sure the Center is manned on Mondays for our Kindergarten tutoring day, average about 12 kindergartners each week.   They are some of our neediest students and we can see each week how the extra tutoring is making a difference.  I just feel blessed to work at a school with a Principal that allows her teachers to dream and then steps outside- of-the-box to make those dreams a reality.  We believe that dreams really can come true!  Blessed indeed!

Narrative: Is this really Kindergarten?

I have been watching a series of lessons on narrative writing in a Kindergarten classroom that have just blown me away!  Below is an example of one student's narrative story.  She has worked on this one story for a couple of weeks - an accomplishment itself for such a young writer! The red indicates where she used a red pen to edit her story.

It was a really chilly (red pen edited from the word cold) in my glass room.  I was freezing. Brrrrr.

Mom didn't know what was wrong with Shadow. Shadow was eating.  Hmmmm.  Shadow was eating - crunch - mulch with germs in there.  I was frightened.  I screamed on top of my lungs, "MOM!"

I didn't know what to do.  Ahaaaaaa.  Mom got an idea.  Mom went outside - creak - and mom took my hula hoop - chch - and shook the hula hoop at Shadow and Shadow ran away from the mulch.  Shadow is a yellow lab.

Make sure you watch your dog if you have mulch because maybe your dog will eat your mulch up.  I hope you learned a lesson.

I hope you can see all the lessons that were taught that are evidenced in this student's work.  First of all, children were taught to think of a "story" with a main character, a setting and then a problem and a solution  Then they learned to think through the beginning, middle, and end of their story by telling the story over their fingers (a Lucy Calkins technique).  They started with the characters and the setting in the beginning of their story, as you can clearly see in this work (Shadow is the main character and the author is in her glass room - the Florida Room on the back of her house.)  The students then thought about a problem with the main character and finally a solution.  After they had written the beginning, middle and end, they were taught to develop a closing for the story instead of the typical kindergarten closing of "The End."  This work clearly shows that closing by telling the reading to watch dogs eating mulch and hoping the reader learned a lesson!  Students were taught to make sure that their pictures matched their words and in these pictures the student has even labeled  much of her work. 

But this teacher took it even further.  This is kindergarten and this child is using a red pen to edit her work!  Oh my!  One of the extension lessons was about choosing extraordinary words to replace ordinary words ( a vocabulary in synonyms!)  This was actually a series of lessons where students chose words and then brainstormed some extraordinary words they could use in small groups.  This work was transferred to a word wall that students were taught to use.

The teacher also took a group of six of her top flyers and taught them to use the Thesaurus on the Microsoft Word program so that as she taught the class to replace words using their own imaginations and the word wall, she taught this small group to replace words using the Thesaurus - which is what this student did with the word "cold" changing it to chilly.  She set up six laptops at the back of the room for these students to use.  This is a skill that these students will use for the rest of their writing careers!

The next series of lessons were on writing craft, onomatopoeia.  You can easily see how this child was able to add in these sound words with her red pen!

To continually assess the work the teacher used a rubric as she worked through each part of the narrative standard. She worked with the students to write each element, adding them one at a time, deciding with the students what would be a 1-2-3 for each part of the rubric. (S on the rebric stands for strategies which were the extention lessons.)

The children self-assessed by dropping a popsicle stick in one of the 1-2-3 buckets at the end of each element lesson.  The amazing thing is that as they dropped the popsicle stick in a 1 or 2 most of them were each able to talk about what they needed to move their stick to the next number point.

What is astounding about this unit of work is that the teacher had 18 of her 35 students exceed the class rubric (which far exceeded the kindergarten standard for narrative writing) by forming a story with a beginning, middle and end and by editing their work to include both extraordinary words and onomatopoeia!  She actually pushed her student well past the standard simply because she had so many students ready for the enrichment! WOW!

Update:  I had a very angry e-mail from a reader after this post that told me to quit posting writing that obviously a parent had done!  I had to laugh, realizing how little some teachers expect from their kindergartners!

"How to" Writing

Two kindergarten standard-based bulletin boards feature our writing work this month. "How to" writing is also referred to as procedural writing or part of our non-fiction writing.  One of the kinder classes chose to use class experience with making fun foods as the basis for their writing.  They fixed a food with the class step-by-step and then had the children write about the common experience, using the step-by-step recipe approach.  Mrs. Mallon and Mrs. Dillard's kindergarten class wrote about making popcorn, chocolate pudding, chocolate dipped strawberries and chocolate drizzled pretzels.  Each piece of student work is accompanied by the teachers' commentary.

How to make chocolate pudding

1.First you read the directions.

2.  Then you put the jello in the bowl.

3.Next you put 3 cups of milk.

4.  Finally you wait for 5 minutes.

How to make chocolate drizzled pretzels

1.  First you put the chocolate in the microwave.

2. Next you get the chocolate out of the microwave.

3.  Then you put the chocolate on the pretzels.

4. Finally you put the M&M on the pretzel.

How to make chocolate covered strawberries

1.  First you read the directions.

2.  Then you get chocolate chips.

3.  And pour them in a glass bowl and put them in the microwave

and every 30 seconds to count.

4. And get your strawberries and put the chocolate on.

Eat and enjoy.

How to make popcorn

1.First you turn on the popcorn maker.

2.Next you put two teaspoons of oil.  Then you put the kernels in.

3.Finally you wait for it until it pops.

Now doesn't that sound like a yummy unit!

"Out takes"

So we are picking work for the bulletin board.  The children were given shapes and asked to use the shape in their picture.  This child chose a dog and drew the dog at a dog park.  Although this picture clearly met the standard, after very careful inspection, and a few laughs,  we decided NOT to use it on the bulletin board.  Can you see why? (1. poop! 2. the wrod "bench")  LOL!

Above What is Expected...

Sometimes things happen at our school and I am just blown away by teachers who go so far above and beyond.  Something like that happened recently.  I had a cute little pudgy, in that baby sort of way, towheaded munchkin in Kindergarten and first grade.  He struggled in a quiet sort of way and was identified for Special Education services.  In the process I met his Dad.  It was obvious that this Dad cared about his son dearly.  He reminded me of what I would call "a good ol' country boy," a little rough around the edges but he always showed up to let us know that he cared.  He tried to do the right thing, worked hard and did the best he could for his son.  I'm not sure where Darrin's (name changed) mother was but she was out of the picture entirely.  This was a Dad raising his son alone.

As the years went by I would see Darrin walking to his bus or would hear how he was doing from one of his other teachers.  He was a struggling student, barely making it through the maze of education.  Every now and then he would be in some sort of trouble but nothing serious - sort of "all boy" stuff.  Sometimes, in recent years, it would be a little more serious.   Darrin has moved on to middle school and I had heard he was beginning to get into some trouble.  Then, about a year ago, I heard that his father had cancer.  During the last year, our school reached out to the Darrin and his Dad - meals were taken, work was done on their tailer, a local church was asked to get involved.  This past week his father died... and his son is now an orphan.  The school, along with the church, stood beside this 13 year old boy, during a time of great crisis.  At the father's memorial our Principal delivered the eulogy at the request of the son.  The pew at the funeral was filled with almost every teacher the child had ever had at Chets Creek and some that just came for support.  The Media Specialist made a slide show of pictures that the son got together.  The church, along with our faculty, provided food and desserts for the small family and guests.  Money was collected to go into an account to be used for the son's needs.

I don't know what will happen for this young man.  Several of our teachers are involved with a family that is thinking about taking this young boy in.  Even though he had wonderful teachers at our school, we were not able to remediate all of his academic challenges but we did establish a relationship that reached well beyond the classroom.  As I looked around at the Memorial, I was just so proud of the people that I work with.  I feel so blessed to work with people who REALLY care about children and their families and who are willing to go the extra mile for each one of them...  You can't put that in an evaluation or even a pay check, but when you work in a school that walks the talk, it is life changing...  You can't expect any more from your life's work than that.

100th Day of School

Teachers at Chets Creek take the 100th Day of school seriously from dressing up like they are 100 years old to making their own "100 of something" shirts and costumes!

 Gotta love those canes and "beep-beep" horns!

Each child was also invited to come with a hat, tie or shirt with "100 of something". The creativity was amazing!

sequins

popcorn

noodles

Leggos

coins

sports stickers

Most of the kindergarten classes strung a hundred of something.  To make sure the activity was related to the Math work they are doing, the youngsters used a ten frame - making ten frames of 10.  Some classes included their 5th Grade partners.  I'm not sure who enjoyed the counting more - the kindergartners or the 5th graders!

Most of the kinder classes made some kind of 100 hat. Some of the classes counted 100 stars or stickers for their hats and others counted by 10's.  Some simply celebrated that it was the 100th Day!

Every class also did some type of counting activity for snack.  The kids counted 10 of 10 different snacks, e.g., raisins, gummies, popcorn, chocolate pieces,  pretzels, cereal pieces, marshmallows, cheese crackers, etc.

Of course, each class also did a little of their own thing.  Timmons-Ruark made a list of "100 Reasons Why We Love Maria" because it was Maria's last day before moving.  Mallon-Dillard had the children come in with 100 balloons on the ceiling and had 100 cupcakes to form the numeral 100.  Many of the classes searched for 100 numbered Hershey Kisses and put them on a 100 number chart.   Some classes wrote a list of 100 words around the room. The Kindergartners ended the day with a presentation by Zero the Hero who read a book and had the children do exercises such as 100 jumping beans, 100 jumping jacks, etc.  All in all it was a 100 Perfect Day!

Gizmos

As budgets have been slashed, we have had to get really creative about professional development.  Today we had a consultant come in and do a demonstration lesson for every grade level!  We had a rotating schedule using a few subs and lots of in-house coverage so that every teacher that teaches Math or Science could attend their grade level demo.  Each grade level gave the consultant a topic that they were studying and she came into a real class and used Gizmos to teach the concept to the children while taking time in between to answer questions.  We have been talking about Gizmos for some time but, honestly, until I actually saw it in action, I really couldn't envision all that it could do.  It's really a way to set up experiments on the computer.  For our kindergartners who have been studying the effects of gravity, she set up an experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pizza.  Of course, Angel identified the Tower and let us all know that it is "a landmark in Europe!"  The children suggested different scenarios involving a ping pong ball, basketball, backpack, etc. dropping two items at a time and predicting which they thought would hit the ground first and then making a hypothesis and testing it out on the next scenario.  The students were so engaged!

Of course, like so many things, the Gizmos are designed for our 3-5th graders and not for Kindergartners.  Of course, the instructor showed how they can be adapted and used but it would still take lots of time to search the bank and figure out how to modify the different scenarios for such students.  However, this is a post about being creative in designing professional development and this set up provided such a "real" experience with our own children.  Doesn't get any better than that!