Itsy, bitsy spider....

I love how observant L is! The other day I found her climbing outside the rocks...

I asked if she was being a mountain goat & she told me, "No teacher, it's a spider--see!!!"

I couldn't, until she pointed it out to me (it's that itsy bitsy black spot in the middle of a rock). I never would have noticed it.

Now, for an official poll question....is it the itsy bitsy spider, or the eensy weensy spider??? Think we may need to graph that question at preschool tomorrow!

Chalk Talk

To continue encouraging writing skills I brought out a bucket of sidewalk chalk. Wow, did the kids get excited about that! B. was my primary focus on this activity, we continued to work on proper grip & writing "B". He's doing well with this, I think we're going to move on to his next letter!

K decided to create a "hop scotch" grid, and wrote all the numbers herself. She's been extremely interested in writing numbers lately, and can write most of the numbers from 1-20. I think she must be working on this in her kindergarten class, but her interest has motivated the others in the class group as well. I love when that happens!

P & L worked together--which is great because that isn't a typical grouping. They drew lines all the way from the driveway, up the sidewalk and around thehouse. L. was extremely focused on how to draw a great big line without picking up the chalk--this was an interesting challenge! After observing K for a minute P. attempted her own squares with numbers in them, showing a distinct preference for the number "7" for some reason.

The best part is after our class the rain washed the chalk away so we get to do it all over again!

Group time woes...

Since I didn't get an opportunity to attend Bev Bos' conference this month (hopefully in the summer!) I used the funds to purchase resource books & videos instead. One of them being Bev's "Starting at Square One" video. I've watched it all the way through once now, and re-visited several clips multiple times, then decided to apply my newly rediscovered knowledge (beecause most of it I've heard several times before, on one occasion by Bev herself) to my major challenge at the moment--group time. I warn you, I've spent hours thinking through this & it's not a simple fix, therefore I'm closer to writing a chapter for a book than a blog post. Gee, that's an idea....

Here's what our group time sessions have looked like lately. Ms. Heather pulls out several music CDs. She throws together a few "structured academic activities" to offer and selects a few books she thinks the children might enjoy. Then the children pull up chairs (their choice--not mine) & sit down for group. They usually tell me which songs they want and we start in with one or two. By that time K & N have decided they no longer want to participate in group (an option I do allow) & have pulled their chairs to the back of the room. B & E have fallen off their chairs and are wrestling on the floor. L. is hiding under the table, presumably because I didn't hear her request or didn't respond in a manner she found acceptable. And little D. is sitting silently on my lap, probably wondering what the heck is going on. Ms. Heather herself is sitting there staring at the chaos trying to figure out what she did wrong in the heat of the moment, and getting nowhere.

Which leads to two possibilities the following day, both of which have happened. #1 when I announce it's group time the kids declare "I don't want to do group today" & since it a unanimous decision (myself included, I don't want to deal with the chaos!) we don't. Or #2 the kids declare they don't want to do group today and I become authorarian and declare that we are absolutely doing group, demand that everyone come, review "circle time manners", insist on participation, and become totally stressed out when the kids still don't respond. How are either of these scenarios productive? Obviously they are not. So it's time to revisit my thinking & determine what the root of the problem is.

To begin, I decided I need to determine what I want out of group time. Do I see group as a time to infuse the children with neccesary knowledge? To prove to everyone (parents, children, and myself) that I can control a group of six children without difficulty? To make the children sit still? If this is my focus I can keep going with the authoritarian approach, pull out the tape and make a line for them to sit their chairs on, assign seating so B & E aren't sitting together, insist that K & N leave their chairs where they are, drag L. out from under the table and force her into a chair, and shove D off my lap because that's not appropriate "group time" behavior. I did that last year. I hated it. The kids hated it. It worked, if those were my goals--but they are not.

I want group time to be a chance to build a sense of community. To involve the children in the learning process. To provide times for creative expression, sharing of ideas, a "joining of the minds" so to speak. A chance to dialouge with the kids, to play with the kids, to be silly and occasionally to be serious when the situation calls for it. I want the children to be actively engaged learners, not passive well-behaved little munchkins who can sit still and listen to me talk for 20 minutes. So why isn't this happening? Watching clips of Bev's group time gave me a few clues.

For starters, let's look at the songs I'm selecting. I've been using several CDs with songs that I know children tend to enjoy, and true to the typical pattern the kids do seem to like them. They request the songs they want, and I dig around trying to find the right CD and get it into the CD player. In the meantime, I've lost the kids. I've listend to these songs for 3 years straight. Most of them I know by heart. So it's time to implement Bev's #1 rule for music--no CDs. Let's see how that works (this may be tricky, since I've already trained the children to rely on the CD for direction, but I think we can figure it out). What are the automatic results of instituting this new rule? I am presuming I can pull a song off the top of my head & sing it without that momentary lapse where I am trying to get things "set up". Getting rid of the CDs also allows for further creativity. A CD has the same song, sung in the same way, every time--what fun is that? Take our pizza song for example. We roll out the dough, pour on the sauce, sprinkle on the cheese, slice the pepperoni, add some spices, then put it in the oven. The kids absolutely love this song and request it almost every day. But B doesn't like pepperoni on his pizza, he likes peppers instead. Sorry bud, you can pretend it in your head, but the song doesn't call for peppers. WHY ON EARTH NOT? Ditch the CD, substitute peppers for pepperoni, and B suddenly has ownership of the song. Come to think of it, why do we need to limit it to food? I wonder what would happen if we put race cars on our pizza? What if instead of putting it in the oven we put it in the FREEZER? Wow--all of a sudden a million possibilities have opened up that make the song engaging and interactive, rather than predictable and routine (BORING!!!).

But what about when I want to introduce a new song? Last week I wanted to introduce the song "Harvest Time". In this song the children pretend to harvest potatoes, corn, and pumpkins with hilarious results at the end of each song. To "get the kids ready" I had them color and cut out a picture of each item, so they had something to hold during the song (that makes it interactive, right?). Then I sat them down and told them to be quiet while I played the song. The only one singing along was me, since I'm the only one who knows the song. The others in the group were completely passive except for the parent helper, who showed them which picture to pick up. Guess what happened? B. didn't want a potato, he wanted a pear (are we starting to pick up on a pattern here and notice who my free thinker is?). D hadn't cut his pictures out "properly" and thus was completely lost as to which one to pick up. And L, not surprisingly, was hiding under the table because she'd only colored her potato and I was insiting she pick up her corn.

Let's think about this for a minute. What was the last song I learned? I'm going to have to say it was "The Climb". Guess how I learned it? I heard it on the radio once. The lyrics clicked with me. I hummed along to it. The next time I heard it I had the chourus figured out. A couple times after that I actually sought it out to listen too at which point I discovered it was a Miley Cyrus song--believe me, I would never intentionally have chosen to listen to a song by Miley Cyrus--think what I was missing out on because of my pre-concieved notions! That song "speaks" to me, because I've got plenty of mountains I want to move, and they're not going anywhere. I have ownership of that song because I can picture myself climbing those darn mountains. I can now probably sing the entire song without any help whatsoever, in fact I find myself doing so at random moments throughout the day. Did someone sit me down and say, "Heather, today I am going to teach you a new song. This song is about mountains, so I want you to draw a picture of mountains. Now, let's listen to the chourus of that song....can you sing it with me? Very good, we'll review this song tomorrow at our next group time." If they had I probably would have looked at them like they were crazy. So why am I doing this to my kids?

OK, one problem down, a million more to go. Can you see why I spend hours thinking about what to do in class the next day? It's certainly easier to be authoritarian.

Let's take L's situation, where she consistently hides under the table if she doesn't get "her way", oh goodness, what a terrible and demanding child she is!!! Of course this isn't true. I love how L. can engage with "the boys" even though she is younger than they are. I love how verbal she is, and how she comes up with her own ideas and stands up for them if someone challenges her thinking. I love how eager she is to explore, and how creative she can be! I want her to think of new ways to do thinks and figure out how to make them work. L needs an environment where she is supported emotionally so these traits can grow and develop, making her a more confident, self directed learner. The other day L. brought me a book to read during story time. The book had nothing to do with my 'plan' for the day, but since I'm child-centered I promised her we would get to it after we did x, y, and z. By the time we got to x L. was under the table. She never did come out, and we never did get to the book. The problem isn't L, if it was it would be a simple fix--stick her in the corner until she agrees to come back to group and behave appropriately. The problem is L's emotional needs aren't being met. L doesn't have ownership of x, y, and z--therefore she has no reason to participate in group. Why on earth didn't I drop EVERYTHING and declare, "Wow, that sounds like a great book. I wonder what happens in it? Let's find out!!!" I can absolutely guarentee L. would have listend to the entire book. Instead, I handed the book off to a parent volunteer a couple days later while I dug around for a missing CD, just as a 'filler' while I got ready for our "real" activities. Guess what? L. really REALLY wanted to count the ghosts at the beginning of the book. That's the part of the book that appealed to her. Guess what one of my major "academic" goals for L is? The ability to develop one-to-one correspondance and count to ten. Instead of grabbing ahold of this opportunity to reach that goal, L. ended up under the table. Nothing short of tragic. Thankfully, kids are forgiving, and tomorrow is another day. Next time L brings me a book I know what to do.

Onto B & E. E has been out sick for a couple weeks, so he's readjusting to the class group. B has missed him terribly, and is excited to have him back. The boys spend much of the group time wrestling. Guess what? A few weeks ago B completely ignored E. E was significantly introverted, and prefered to watch activities rather than participate. I spent hours trying to figure out how to get B & E to engage with each other. And now that they are it's ticking me off!!! The problem is obviously with B & E. Don't they know that they are only allowed to engage with each other when it's not group time? For heavens sake...they know I let them wrestle during our work time--why do they have to do it during group? Can't they JUST SIT STILL for 15 minutes??? Back to Bev's clip. CHILDREN ARE NOT MADE TO SIT STILL. B & E aren't hyperactive, ADHD children. They're not behavioral problems who need to be seperated so they don't distract each other. They are normal, healthy rough and tumble boys. The problem isn't B & E, the problem is my expectations for B & E. Both are perfectly capable of engaging in group time when they are interested in what is going on. So let's get them interested. First off, the chairs have to go. I know the kids are the ones choosing them, but this is one of those times I'm going to take that choice away. These boys need to be up and moving, and that's not happening. So get rid of the chairs, give them songs that are going to get them up and moving, or down and rolling around on the floor, or jumping and crawling and laughing and giggling and hugging each other, and maybe even wrestling. That's going to build a sense of community a LOT more than 6 silent, well behaved children....

My inclination is to go on, and on, and on....but I need to stop. I have so many new ideas, but if I implement them all at once I'm going to be overwhelmed. I've got here three new concepts for group time.

1) Get rid of CDs, introduce songs in a more natural way
2) Get rid of chairs--find songs and stories that are going to keep the kids up and moving
3) Give the kids ownership of group time, follow their lead

I'm going to try implementing those concepts next week. And I'm going to revisit them, and see how they work. Then I'm going to adjust them, and implement them, and revisit them again. THEN I'm going to figure out what to do with N, K, and D. And by then hopefully I'll have a couple new kids as well, who are going to completely change the dynamics of the class group so I get to revisit everything all over again!!!
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Did I mention when you use child centered teaching the process should never be boring??? Because things are constantly changing, it's a new adventure every day!!!

Curriculum guided by documentation...

Thought I would throw out a sample of the document/assess/plan approach so parents & educators alike can get a "view" of the process. Please feel free to add your comments. I especially love to hear insight from parents! For those wondering, I pull terminology and approaches from every which way & can probably not state my sources, but if you want to know where a specific "take" on things comes from I'd be glad to try to figure it out myself!

There are two ways to look at documentation.

One way is the standards based approach. The question is a common one--"What is my child learning from this experience?" followed by several questions usually all centered around the same thought, "What do I do to move this child to the next level/standard?".

The second way is what I like to call the process approach (a varient of the typical know/what to know/what we learned approach associated with the project approach). The guiding question here is, "What is my child experiencing?" Followed by a vast array of questions---What is there in the environment that has contributed to the experience? What do other individuals have to offer that may expand this experience? What are the commonalities between what I've observed here and other observations I have made? What can I do to provide further opportunities for exploration?" And perhaps most important, " What is the guiding power behind this experience for the child?" Nothing is 'wrong' per say with the standards based approach--but the process approach feels much more authentic, at least to me, and gives me a deeper appreciation for the child as a competent learner.

So, let's take a peek at one documentation sample (for educators: this sample is available on the ReggioDocumentation yahoo group). Here is a brief video clip showing three children--N, L, and B in the garden. This was during our unit study of fall/pumpkins (different than projects, as I had selected the topic based on ease of access to materials rather than the child's interests).
The children had previously had the experience of cutting, carving, and removing the seeds from the pumpkin and reading a book where the farmers in the story "Keep the best, and sell the rest". With limited assistance they had sorted out the "best" pumpkin seeds to plant. Aside from that exposure I hadn't provided any further information on pumpkins, the growth process, or gardening in general so all the children's input is based primarily on prior knowledge.

Some of the following questions are what came to mind as I viewed this clip--why don't you give me your input on them?

-What led to N & L's sustained interest in this activity, while B was distracted (by the neighbor's dog paying him a visit).?

-What prior knowledge did N & L demonstrate about pumpkins and gardening?

-Whas there anything significant about the dialouge between N & L throughout this clip?

-What was available in the environment that supported the girls exploration? (Note: I did not do anything specific to prepare the environment in this case, everything they utilized was already in the yard).

Which led to thinking about the environment & what was available, a key factor in Reggio's view of the environment as the third teacher--"What physical materials can I make available within the environment to further the children's interest?"

And moved me into considering further questions in the "What's next" category?

"Is the interest the children have in the pumpkins themselves, or is the guiding power something else about the experience?"

"How do I feel about the relationships shown between the children in this clip? Do they demonstrate a sense of community, or a sense of individuality? Do the children show interest in pursing this activity as a group? Or is one child perhaps more engaged--meaning it would be better to offer opportunites only to a specific child?"

Then questions about my own engagement in the activity...

Was this activity primarly teacher directed or child directed, or was there a balance between the two? Did the questions I ask lead to further exploration or did they detract from the children's self directed exploration? Who values this experience more--the children as the learners or myself as the educator?

The correct answer, for the record, should be the children! If the children are engaged in the process and the teacher is properly guiding them utilizing the environment as the third teacher they will develop a complete working knowledge--whereas if I value the "content" of the activity more than the "process" I'm more likely to plan and direct activities that feed my need as an educator to make the children progress, which will lead to content knowledge. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with content knowledge, it's useful to have a store of content knowledge to draw from. Most of what I learned in my general education classes was content knowledge, information someone decided it would be helpful for your run of the mil college graduate to know. But I don't use algebra (content knowledge) nearly as much as what I learned in my teaching internship (working knowledge) on a day to day basis.

I will come back and finish these thoughts later...and would love feedback please!!!

Check in...

Today we had more fun with the tree blocks, this time building on a mirrored surface to give an extra dimension to the building experience. I found the mirror at IKEA (big surprise!), it's quite reflective but also plastic-based so safe for block play (I tested it by dropping several large blocks on it & it withstood the abuse!). Highly recommend it for other teachers looking for a mirrored building surface.

Our new art shelf also came from IKEA (again, big surprise!). The kids helped me to assemble it, and I have to say they were better at the process than I was. Poor Ms. Heather put a panel upside-down & had to unscrew it and start over again--agh! Even the younger children were able to help. I still need to finish up & get the materials set up, in all of my spare time!

B has shown consistent interest in rhyming & a solid understanding of the concept, and L. wanted to play a rhyming game today so I tried to work it into group time. We read the book Miss Mary Mack and identified several rhyming words. The older kids did well with this activity, the younger children were very excited about writing but not quite ready for the whole turn-taking concept. I'll reserve these activities for a smaller group with the older kids next time!

Weekly check in...

These are some of the activities we started out our week with!


Last week B requested "water with ice" and was quite dismayed to learn we didn't have ice--until he discovered the pitcher of water in the fridge had frozen (gosh darn it, I swear I've turned it down several times now!). He decided that an ample supply of ice was just what he needed to make popsicles, and spent much of the day Thursday chopping away at the chunk of ice with a knife trying to break it up. When that failed he quickly gave me directions on exactly what ingredients he needed for his popsicles, the most important being strawberry juice. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find 100% strawberry juice? We settled on strawberry kiwi, and he directed the "cooking" process today. The cooperation was wonderful, the ability to stick with an activity and see it through to completion is excellent, and the direction giving was quite entertaining at times! I've been planning on introducing liquid watercolors, so we froze several colored "cubes" to explore tomorrow--we'll see what they come up with next! I'm hoping to read the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh to introduce the concept of primary & secondary colors.











Last week all of the children showed interest in writing, with the two older girls (K & N) requesting more formal "reading" lessons. Today I offered colored index cards & "grown up" markers and they quickly sat down at the table to 'work', with L joining them (still hooked on her "mountains"...will post more on that soon!).

I'm using a multifaceted approach to teaching reading, specifically because both K & N have a general undertanding of the letter/sound correlation and are able to identify and write many letters based on their sounds. I usually begin the year using the"whole word" approach as described in Doing Words by Katie Johnson & The Sun's Not Broken, A Cloud's Just in the Way: On Child Centered Teaching by Sydney Guerwitz--both books are available in the Parent Resource Library. These books encourage teaching children word that are of value to them, rather than words from a standardized list--one of K's requested words was "opera" (don't ask me why) while N was primarily interested in writing the names of her siblins.

Typically I would wait until mid-year to introduce phonics, but since K is in kindergarten (a willing 'victim' of academic push-down) she is already working on phonics in her other class & is eager for "reading lessons" in our school as well. N, of course, is interested in anything K is doing, so both are currently working on the "at" word family. They are able to sound out most of the words in this family & write them with ease, so I'm planning on introducing formal "phonics readers" later in the week. I use Scholastic Phonics Readers more for convienence than because I actually like their format, I have a more formalized program I use for teaching reading to older children but these 'easy' books do the job for short, quick lessons!

http://shop.scholastic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_16622_-1_10001_10002

I was afraid B would not want to participate in this activity since handwriting is not his favorite thing in the world, and was debating on how much I wanted to push him in this area. Much to my surprise when I simply gave him his space he soon came over & joined us. B is working on proper letter formation with his name, we are starting with BIG letters and will move to smaller later--so BIG pieces of paper on the floor were a favorite today. A bodily/kinesthetic approach is important, particularly for ALL BOY boys--using large strokes with whole body involvement is much more effective in teaching letter formation than starting with two lines with dots in between. Who invented that type of paper anyway??? Obviously not a four year old! I kind of figure it's like expecting us to write in itty bitty letters that are difficult to read & even harder to form. Forcing a child to stay "in the lines" while writing is much like insisting they stay "in the lines" while coloring, it leads to frustration & a sense of failure rather than a curiosity and eagerness to explore further. Frankly, at this point I'm more concerned about they enjoying the process than writing a perfectly formed "B"!

We'll continue with our exploration of pumpkins this week! I'm also setting up an "exploration station" with several items for making "shakers", I'm kind of hoping the interest in music will pick up again--it died out with E. sick last week but we are hoping he will be back tomorrow!

We're stirring our brew...

This was the result of my 4 year old cousin's "experiment" today. I bought him a box of items at the dollar store so he stops using our good cooking supplies! The contents of this particular "brew" include a full bottle of sage, a bag of craft sand (we'll skip that next time, hard to clean up!), half a bottle of hair gel, three bottles of scented bubbles, and some Crystal Light powder. He used the entire content of his "concoction kit" within a 20 minute period.

At my conference with Bev Bos last year I learned an important concept--children need to use "too much". Children learn the concept of moderation as they do any other concept--through practice. Ironically, this "lesson" came just a few days after I tried to introduce the concept of "moderation" to my children. After the conference I presented the children with various collage materials & bottles of glue and let them go to it! Almost every single child used the entire bottle of glue. However, by the end of the year most of the children were easily able to determine exactly how much of a resource they needed for the product they had in mind. This is something they probably would not have developed had I constantly stood over them telling them, "OK--that's enough, stop you have too much!". Thus, my current favored phrase--"Too much? No such." Or, as Bev puts it...

"Could it ever be called wasteful if it nourizhes the creative spirit and soul of a child?"

For more on Bev's view of this topic check out her article entitled "Artist--A Day in the Life":

http://www.turnthepage.com/articles.php?pid=22