structure... taken away

Today was our school's annual Field Day. Classes start at one game and move through stations every 12-15 minutes for a little under three hours. It's exhausting. It's hot. And it's very, very fun.

This was the first Field Day in several years, though, that I didn't have fun. Even though the children had practiced some of the games in PE, even though we divided ourselves into teams of five (even with little colored yarn ties around each child's wrist to help them remember), and even with a little strategy for one team to split if there were to be four teams instead of five... Even with a practiced "two whistle" signal from my whistle, even with a map looked at (well) ahead of time... even with several different lead up days with time for any and all questions the children had...

It was a hard day.

The kids mostly had fun, I would say. Also, luckily, we started and ended with a couple of fun water-relay games, which always put a big smile on people's faces. But, personally, I was miserable for most of it. Children were getting frustrated with games and taking it out on their teammates. Children weren't showing the empathy or respect for others that they have become so masterful at this year. I spent a large portion of the time redirecting children -- redirecting, redirecting, redirecting...

In our school, we spend a lot of energy on Previewing experiences -- we talk about what it will look like, what it will sound like... we discuss and practice how we will handle things that come up that aren't desirable, we talk about how to be assertive in situations like that, and we talk about how to celebrate and share joy in ourselves and in others. With 12 minutes at each place and 2 minutes to get there, we didn't have time to do that between stations.

My class is a particularly needy class this year (I did just reread this post from the beginning of the year again) and today they only had me going through this brand new experience of Field Day with them. Looking back on today and this year as a whole (and yes, there is a glass of wine here with me as I write this), it hit me just how much routine and consistency I built into the school day for the children. Not because I'm some sort of consistency or structure guru, but because they needed it. With that structure, they were able to be incredibly successful and independent. We did a lot of work together this year; we learned and laughed and thought and wondered.

But when all that structure was taken away, even with our relationships and the strength of our community, it fell apart. It was as though we were learning it all over again.

It was a hard day.

And I do wonder... what is there *to* be done for days like this? There will always be times when a predictable routine will need to change -- and the children were just happy, relaxed and quiet at the end of the day, remembering some of their favorite times from Field Day. I don't think it's necessary or even desirable to *not* have days like this. We need them! I just wonder what additional structure can be built in to make it even more successful for everyone.

Any thoughts?

sickness...

One of my students had a fever last night, but seemed fine this morning, so his mother sent him to school, but called to let us know.

Well, by about 10:15, he looked exhausted and was burning up, so we took his temperature and it had shot up again. He just appeared at the door (the rest of the kids are in Art) with a buddy.

"I have to go home!" he told me, in tears. "But I want to stay! And learn!"

We gave him love as we got his backpack and sent him down to the clinic to wait for his mom.

I just thought... how amazing is it that kids in our school do everything they can to stay IN school, that they don't want to leave. ♥

problem solving...

About ten years ago, when I taught Kindergarten, we opened a Conflict Corner in my classroom. It developed out of a belief that children could solve problems between them, and would if they were given both the autonomy to do so and the tools they needed.

Designating a space itself was a realization I had because several of my young lovelies were just not capable of solving a problem about the blocks if the blocks were right there. They needed to be separated from the problem in order to talk about the problem.

It was the sort of successful insight that I was so proud of having as a third year teacher. I was inspired by the ability to invent something that my children needed, simply by watching, learning, and knowing what they needed.

Of course, I was the tiniest little bit let down near the end of the school year when I discovered that it wasn't my invention after all, that classrooms in other schools had Peace Corners, Apology of Action spaces, and etc...

Ten years, two schools, and four classrooms later, I still always have a place in the classroom where children can go to solve problems. The needs of each class are different, as are the structures they need in place for the area. Some classes simply need the space, and the children are able to use and manage it with little to no support from me. Some classes need the ceremony of building an Apology of Action book, of developing the process for solving problems. Other classes, like my class this year, need a specific, but simple structure. (and how!)
This year, we have The Frog Carpet.



It's a space, right behind our classroom library, in fact, sort of in our classroom library, with a little frog carpet (ahh, we are clever titlers in our class) and a small pocket chart with sentence strips on it.



The sentence strips say:

Excuse me, ______, will you please come to the frog carpet?

When you _______, it ___________________.

I'm sorry, how can I help you feel better?

[high five, hug, special clap, short song, handshake]

These are the words that the class decided. I would have gone toward something a little more open-ended, but I mostly tried to keep my mouth shut as we talked about this, and pulled what I was hearing from the children.

I'm glad I did.

Since we put this into effect in February (much later than I should have), the incidence of: "Miz F, Marcella said/did/looked/ate/called me..." has gone down exponentially. Children use this space independently; they know that they can't use it during a lesson time (ie, at the beginning of Math), but that during a work period, it's fair game.

In classes past, I've needed a record keeping system because some children spent all of their time there, and this helped me regulate it for some of the frequent fliers. But in this class -- even with their need of this specific, almost rigid structure -- no one overuses it. In fact, I have kept an informal tally and each of my twenty-four lovelies has been there at least once. On a particularly rough day one of my students has gone four times (I counted), but my thoughts were: if he's having a rough day, and this is a tool that he has found helps him manage himself independently... well, why not?

It's kind of awesome.

NOTE: I do have a story from last week that really illustrates the power behind having a conflict space, but I also have about twenty minutes and report cards are calling my name (do you hear them?), so I shall type that up later. Peace out. ♥

illustrations...

Some other glorious teachers at my school and I participated in a short online webinar several weeks ago with Katie Wood Ray. One of the things she mentioned that she's been thinking about and examining in student work recently is children's illustrations and how they can drive their writing.

I'm really looking forward to what she writes about this, because I've long found that their illustrations can be a rich, rich piece of writing. In mid-May, our class was reviewing what we'd learned about George Washington Carver. One of our learning experiences was that each child got their own copy of a book about Carver that our First Grade team wrote a couple of years ago. The children's job was to illustrate the book in a way that would let someone else who didn't know anything about Carver really learn it.

I love how different, yet detailed each of these illustrations are...



Each of these pictures is separated into two parts, with Carver studying science in one, and plants in the other. I just love the illustration of science here, with the test tube and the bubbles coming out. ♥


This student consistently likes to add labels to her illustrations -- she tells me that she thinks it helps the reader learn even more.


This one? Well, I just think the little excitement lines drawn over Carver's head in the second part of the illustration are nothing short of brilliant. I mean, it *is* exciting to study science and plants! I'll bet if Carver were to see this picture he'd agree that it's quite an accurate representation about how exciting it is to learn such things.

muscles...

Yesterday, in the midst of talking about a book we'd just read, I was gesticulating wildly (as I am wont to do). Hannah watched me, then cocked her head and raised her hand, "Miz F, I saw your muscles. They're nice."

Good to know that while they're not as finely developed as those of my sister in law, or my friend (not)Angela Lansbury, or Ms. Swamp... they are still there. :)

elusive (as it were) standards...

This number begins to consume my life during the end of May. To those of you that aren't elementary school teachers, 16 is a reading level. More specifically, it's the end of first grade benchmark reading level. Yes. This number is a Big. Deal.

This brings up a myriad of insecurities and judgments as I move toward the closing of the DRA assessment window: how many children will meet or exceed the benchmark? who didn't pass? what if I had just two more weeks? why didn't they pass? did I honestly and truly do everything I could have for [insert any child's name here]?

The self-doubt is exhausting.

Case in point. Ammir. Oh, heavens, he is a glorious child. This boy has been moving along in reading this year. His effort is stellar, his connections many. Everything we've talked about this year is right up there in his brain: schema, visualizing, making connections, digraphs, consonant blends, long vowels, short vowels, quick & easy words... all of it.

It's not quite automatic for him, though. If he confronts a word he doesn't know, and someone says, "well, do you see a consonant blend? or another part that you know?" he will always find something, and nine times out of ten, he'll figure out that word. So, he has everything that he needs; he just doesn't have it automatically yet. It doesn't always occur to him to ask himself those questions.

He will, though. This will come. Things will start clicking into place and he'll make sense of things rapidly.

But, as of Friday, he was reading at a level fourteen. This, according to my school system, is not passing performance. You see, children in our school system are expected to pass or be reading on a level 16. The kicker, though? Our children are expected to pass or be reading on this level by last Friday. School doesn't end for three more weeks.

Just to throw another little piece of information into this example, Ammir turned seven a week ago. Another one of my darlings that passed the level sixteen turned seven in December. Ailanya has five more months of existing than Ammir. When one is in their thirties, five months might not seem like a big deal, but that's nearly one-seventeenth of his life. If Ammir had those extra five months, I am confident that he would be well beyond a level sixteen. And yet, even though he was born near the end of the school year, he is still expected to fit into the same little box with all of the other children.

So, that's a bit of a tangent, I know, but I think it helps illustrate my mindset. In some ways, this standard is helpful, but in other ways it's quite arbitrary. It certainly doesn't paint the rich picture of who Ammir is as a reader or as a person.

Now, I don't disagree with standards, and I don't disagree with having a measure with which teachers can consult to guide instruction. Quite the opposite. But I do think that the very act of having standards automatically brings exceptions and places where the standard isn't going to be the best measure.

This is clearly one of those cases.

If I had my druthers, I would much rather write a full page narrative about each child during each grading period and use that to communicate with families and other teachers. It would take a lot more time, yes. But it would allow me valuable reflection on every student in my classroom and their progress and development as the months have gone on.

And it would certainly give a much more developed picture of a child than a single number ever will.

job advantages...

I imagine that a disadvantage to having a job where you go to schools dressed up as children's book characters might be wearing that big, stuffy costume. There is also the limited vision and movement from the costume as you try to act out the book while someone else reads it.

Then again, when you're all done... you get to hug 100 children.

So, all in all, maybe not such a bad deal after all.


No, it wasn't me in the costume. But part of me wishes it were.

digging in the dirt...

This morning I finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This is the third time I've read it, but only the first time I've finished it. As with all writers that I love (and Kingsolver tops my list), I don't like finishing books because then... well, then they're over. To my mind, if I don't finish the book, then it's not actually done. Strange logic, I know, but it somehow works for me.

After breakfast, I went outside to attack our little sidewalk flower garden. After an April full of showers -- you should see the first grade April weather chart! -- and last week's insane amount of rain, the little garden was definitely worse for the wear, and in need of cleaning, pruning, and weeding. All of these I know very little about and could use a bit of a mentor in this area. It makes me long for my grandfather, who was an accomplished gardener. For now, though, I'm making it up as I go. We'll see how that works out.

As I dug out seed pods that had fallen from the tree above, pulled weeds, and tried to prune off bits of the dianthus plants that seemed spent or too long or just in need of a trim, I encountered bugs and spiders and earthworms (two!). Each of them made me smile, and I admit that I laughed in glee at the first earthworm. As I blundered through the garden I kept thinking: My students need to see this.

I think there is nothing more important in learning about life and life cycles and interdependence than to participate in it.

Now, planting pea seeds in clear cups so we can watch the plant and the roots is a good start. Believe me when I say that there is nothing more resonant than first graders discovering that their plants have popped up above the soil and the roots are growing down!

But, pea seeds in a clear cup inside the classroom don't ever get to interact with worms, and neither do six year olds. I want to build and cultivate a garden with my students. I want them to dig around in the dirt, to turn it, to weed it, to watch things growing above it. I want them to harvest greens and tomatoes and herbs and then make food that we've grown together. This makes me want a modified calendar school so we can be in school during part of the August harvest, or to at least have a garden already going that incoming students can help harvest, knowing that their first grade predecessors made the delicious foods available for them.

How, though?

I first would have to have more knowledge of gardening myself. A good friend of mine introduced me to square foot gardening, which sounds like it would work pretty well. We'd still need to build the frame, acquire soil & compost & seeds, and figure out how to keep it tended during the summer time when we're not in school.

None of these obstacles are insurmountable. In fact, I know it's very possible. I just need to find enough people willing to put in the time with me, to build it into the structure of our school so that it becomes sustainable and not simply a one person job.

Does anyone have experience with gardening at school? How did you/your school make it happen and how did you make it sustainable?

Or... does anyone want to come here and do it with me?

poetry work stations...

Jenny wondered about some of the literacy work stations in our class that connect to the poem we learn that week. I've uploaded two pictures to show examples.

This one is our Pocket Chart Work Station. It's pretty simple: pocket chart, basket, pointer, envelopes. On a 9x12 mailing envelope, I glue a copy of the poem and then laminate the folder. I write the poem on sentence strips, then cut apart the words and put them into the envelope. At the work station, children have the choice of reading poems directly from the charts or putting together the poem and then reading it. This is a new(ish) station, as I haven't done it in many years. What I hope to do better next year is enlist the help of the children for other I can... ideas for this station. (example: include some Word Study as well...)

This station is very preparation heavy, but all on the early end. Once each poem has been made, it doesn't need to be made again, though words get lost every once in a while and need to be replaced. Here's how I make the tools for this station: First I print a copy of the poem (generally in 18 or 20 point font, Comic Sans or Century Gothic). I cut apart every word in the poem and glue them on brightly colored card stock. I also make a smaller copy of the entire poem for reference and glue that on the card stock as well. I laminate it (or cover it all with clear packing tape), then pour myself a glass of wine, for the next part is seriously tedious. I cut out tiny pieces of adhesive velcro (the scratchy hook side) and affix them to the back of each individual, laminated word, then cut each word out. See? Tedious. All the velcro words go into a ziploc bag along with the smaller copy of the poem that's been mounted and laminated.

I've made a couple of velcro boards on scrap pieces of cardboard by affixing adhesive velcro (the soft side this time) across it in strips. Though, really a piece of felt or a carpet square could serve just as well. In fact, we always use a carpet rectangle (ours are not squares) as the base for this station because it lets the kids spread the words out and keeps the words from sliding off the table. This is our Poetry Work Station.

The kids also get their own copy of the poem on paper that they illustrate and put into a binder. We call that work station Poetry Binders. There are many other options: putting a selection of poems on acetate for an Overhead Projector station, recording a selection of six or seven recent poems (or having the kids do so!) for use at the Listening Work Station, even creating mini stick puppets to go along with a poem and putting them into a Drama Work Station. All of these I've done before, but don't happen to be doing this year for various reasons.

Question to readers: what other literacy work stations do you use that you find the children enjoy and get a lot out of?

an organizational retro-fit...

In our class, we learn a new poem every week. Some of them are songs, some of them are related to curriculum, and some of them are just for fun! We use these poems for a lot of learning experiences during the week, and the poems show up in different literacy work stations.

Organization of these poems has been a difficult, but over the past few years, I finally got smarter and hung the poems on hangers. That way, they're more accessible to the children and they're easier to store.

The problem? Once we get more than eight hangers on the chart stand, it's easy for them to slip off the edges as the children flip through.


So, here was my solution: masking tape a small block to the top of the chart stand so the hangers hit the block and don't slide off. Useful? Yes. Elegant? No.

Has anyone else faced a similar problem? How have you solved it? (Or, for those of you reading that may not have experience with this -- do you have any suggestions?)

little notes...

There are some times where I'm working with a group of students and there is a Stop Sign hanging behind me. That means: Do not disturb unless there is emergency blood or vomit. (the very important corollary was added by the students). Now, there is also a very real six year old need to share Very Important Information like: "Miz F, my eye hurts!" or "Miz F, I can't find my pencil." at the exact moment that they become aware of this information. Quite regularly, my lovely students would have these important things to share with me right when I was in the middle of working with other children.

So we made a little plan.

Now we have a little basket of papers on my desk that say: "Note to Miz F" with a cute little frog on it. The purpose of these papers change as the year goes on because children use them for a new reason and then that one catches on, too.

The great thing, too, is that I already had the template for these notes on my computer. I've used them in my classroom for many years, but I generally don't bring them out until our class discovers a need for them. They don't even know they exist! But because their writing skills (and the desire to write) develop so rapidly over the year, first graders almost inevitably suggest having a place to write me notes.

This one showed up in my box this week.

Ms. F, The "I" in April in the Poetry Work Station is missing. Love, J...

EDIT: I find it!

I just adore it, particularly because she went back and edited it when she found what she thought was missing. Ahhh, first graders. I do so enjoy them. ♥

work vs. fun...

Apparently this sitting outside and reading thing has become, well... a thing.

One night last week I was sitting outside after dinner, reading again, when my husband poked his head out of the window to see how I was doing. I held up my book and told him that it was still completely awesome, and that he should grab a book and come out and join me, but he said:

"I can't; I have to go upstairs and do a bit more for work."

"No!" I said. "No work! You're not allowed to do anything for work... um, I mean... only if it's fun!"

He laughed at me and I glared at him in mock-indignancy, "What??"

"I saw what you did there."

"What did I do?"

"You realized that you, too, were doing work, so you couldn't very well tell me not to..."

"I did nothing of the sort."

...



Yeah. Except I totally did.

In my defense, though, it was a really good teaching book that I was reading...

more structure...

One of my first educational mentors once told me that he thought a very important aspect of teaching was becoming a "professional child watcher." Now, his language was most likely far more eloquent than mine (it usually was), but it still rings true on a very regular basis.

I've mentioned before how deeply my class this year has challenged me, how the children have taught me so many things and reminded me of others.

Their behavior over the past couple of weeks has made me sit back and reevaluate some of the things I've usually thought. When my students and I build our classroom community together throughout the year, I always think backwards. I envision where I want them to be, what I want the different learning and social times of the day to look like, what I want it to sound like -- I enlist this insight from the children as well.

Then I move from the goal back toward the beginning. I think: what structure do I need to put into place now that will enable us to get to our goal? I think about the structure that needs to be there to guide us all, structure that can be taken away as children take on more responsibility, more independence.

What I don't think I've envisioned so well is that the same thing is just as important for the end of the year. As we head into the last six weeks of school, it brings up emotions and insecurities and excitement for all of us. My principal describes the end of the year fidgetiness and snippiness as: "a family that's been on vacation together for too long."

Maybe what I've been missing in my evaluation and planning is the sense that structure within the classroom needs to be fluid, it needs to be able to ebb and flow as needed. Right now my class is showing me that they need more structure -- not in every area, certainly, but that they need just a bit more from me.

And if they're doing me the privilege of showing it to me... well, who am I not to oblige?


[NOTE: I would be remiss if I didn't point out this great post by Chip Wood where he mentions the very same thing, though with many more concrete suggestions. I do so adore learning from other educators. ]

organized chaos...

When I was in high school my family owned and operated a restaurant. I worked various jobs at the restaurant over my years in high school and college, the most common being the front desk as a hostess (I can be quite charming at times).

On nights when the restaurant was busy, I often found myself highly stressed and not enjoying work all that much. It was too chaotic, too unpredictable.

My father, though? He loved it.

I distinctly remember making arrangements for several parties of two and four, sending another party to the lounge to wait for a table, escorting a party to their table and sending my father to seat another group. Back at the front desk, I took a moment to breathe, to look at the seating chart and do a bit of mental rearranging. I remember wishing I could fast forward through the next few hours so I wouldn't feel so stressed with seating and tables and numbers and checks and menus and organizing.

I remember looking up to see my father walking back from seating a party with his eyes shining and an enormous grin on his face.

"I love this shit!" he said to me in a voice full of pure happiness.

It was his place. And while I just tried to get through it, my father thrived on the chaos and unpredictability of nights like that.

In first grade today our Writing Workshop buzzed and hummed and twirled. We're finishing up non-fiction books about animals and my students have been getting ready to publish their stories on the computer. I'd signed out the laptop cart and set up eight laptops on tables, logged in and dropped the book templates into each student's folder so they could access it and start typing.

Eleven students worked on computers with various questions, excitement, and frustrations. Six children worked on the rug, trying to finish their own work for publication, while others were at tables around the room, doing the very same thing.

Computers froze, left arrow keys stopped working, papers were misplaced and exciting words were written. I probably walked a quarter mile during Writing Workshop today, moving from student to student, solving issues and having mini-conferences.

My hair fell out of it's clip and tickled my nose as I talked with one of my students who'd just finished typing her story. I looked around at the blissful chaos of my classroom and thought:

"I love this shit."


[Please pardon the profanity. I blame my father for the sentiment in the first place. I'm sure he'll take full responsibility. :) ]

thinking

On Saturday I got to sit outside.

I was fighting allergies or sickness or some state of general non-well-being, so I stayed home while my husband went to visit with some friends and relatives. I took a shower, made some tea, and went to sit in our backyard and read.

It was the first sense of sheer contentment I'd felt in a long time. It wasn't too hot or too noisy. I wasn't forgetting a meeting or forgetting the tools for a teaching lesson. I was just reading.

On Sunday I'd finished my other book so I grabbed Study Driven by Katie Wood Ray and went outside to read again. Same feeling. The wind blew gently around me, rustling the leaves; birds flew around, hopping into the drip tray under our grill (what in the world are they finding there?), and I read.

I thought about writing. I thought about myself as a writer, I thought of Antonio's recent blossoming into a poet and then a non-fiction animal enthusiast, I thought of Leslie's recent foray into finding a clear and very funny voice as a writer. I thought of our first grade writing workshop. I thought.

The more I read, the clearer a picture I had in my head about where our class could go next in writing, and how we could help each other get there.

Today was Monday. What did I think about during my free moments today? I thought about exactly when I could get home so I could sit outside in my backyard and read. I still had ten more chapters to go in Study Driven. There was so much more thinking to be done!

When I got home today, after doing dishes and straightening up a few things, I did get outside to read more, to think more. I read another three chapters and felt refreshed. I felt inspired.

I've realized this: sometimes I am rushing around too much, getting this done, or that done; photocopying, cutting, sorting... And what I'm not doing -- what I'm not doing nearly enough -- is sitting. And reading. And thinking.

In the current educational climate, I know it's not an easy choice, but it's a choice I have to make more often. Thinking.

What a novelty.

observations...

Visiting your writing workshop was the highlight of my day. The routines and procedures you have set into place clearly sets your class up for independence and success... [SNIP] ...While I listened to your students talk during writing worship, they were all talking about their writing and answering and asking questions of their peers. Today's experience reminds me of the importance of talk during writing. It was clear you practiced the level of noise since the students used appropriate levels during the session. I look forward to having our students share their writing with me.

Before spring break, my principal paid a visit to our classroom for an observation. This year I'm on the evaluation cycle, so she'll visit a few times throughout the year. The above was part of the feedback I received in my mailbox this morning.

As I read, I thought about our Writing Workshop. It is a busy, active time. We've worked hard to make it productive and fun, where the kids have a lot of their own direction and work really hard. Another person might sit in on our workshop and wonder why there is a lot of talking, why some children stand up a lot, why one boy only draws on Mondays, and etc...

I realized (again) how important it is to have administrators that understand child development and that regularly look for the positive in children, teachers, and classrooms.

It's a good thing.

writing positions...

I just love the positions that children get into to write...










Don't you? ♥

my work boyfriend...

Okay, so I have this teacher friend, not!Angela Lansbury. We'll just call her Angela.

We have a lot in common, and get along really well. I generally try to avoid going to chat with her in her classroom unless I have five hundred and sixteen minutes, because once we start talking, time seems to sink into this school-portal time warp that makes time go by extra-wicked quickly to the point where one of us says, "holy crap, is it really forty-seven o'clock??" and the other one says, "I didn't think the clock could GO that high..."

A big part of it is that Angela just "gets" me professionally. We have similar views on children, on teaching, and talking to her always helps give me greater perspective. We also do some extra curricular activities together: running a Dance club for some of the older kids, taking dance classes together, and going for lunch & giggles on teacher work days.

She's my work boyfriend.

I say this because one evening, a week or so ago, when the clock was doing it's school-portal time warp trick, Angela and I were sitting in her classroom, solving the problems of the educational world when the Speech & Language clinician poked her head in,

"Angela!" she called, "where's your other half?" (meaning the other teacher that works in Angela's room)

My immediate (internal) reaction was, "I'm right here!" with a strange sense of near indignation. Could she not SEE me? Sitting RIGHT NEXT to Angela??

Clearly having a close teaching buddy has some interesting implications.

I wonder if this counts as cheating on my husband...

love notes...

This was a rather new brainstorm, though I don't know why it took me so long...


I now keep this little container on my desk. I pull out a note when one of my students has done something insightful, something kind, or just something that I want to note. I write a few lines about what I wanted to say, read it to the child, then have them put it in their backpack to bring home to their family that night. I've copied them all on brightly colored paper and so far I've been writing a few of them every day.


Hopefully I'll keep up the habit; it takes a very short time to write one, but I love knowing that the student for whom I wrote a love note is going to be able to share something great about themselves with a family member later on... plus, pretty colors and a great font -- how can I go wrong?

I do think that six year olds in pajamas walking down the hallway with gigantic, anticipatory grins for Read Across America Day might be the eighth wonder of the world. ♥

extra-wet eyes...

Earlier this week in my tap class, we were warming up to some beautiful stringed-techno music by a group called bond. I immediately thought of my students, who respond to music with such affection and appreciation, so I found the album on iTunes and bought it.

This afternoon as we were working, I put the CD on to inspire us. One of the pieces that the band plays is their own variation on Pachelbel's Canon -- it's beautiful. Well, during that piece I happened to wander over to hang out with my students at the blue table and they were all really quiet and looking at each other.

Benicio said, "That music. I know it. I love it."

They all nodded with him. Then he continued, "It makes me cry a little sometimes."

"Me, too," I admitted. And the other kids nodded. So, we all sat there for a moment or two, listening and looking at each other with extra-wet eyes.

I think sometimes we all need moments like that. I know I did. ♥

On Poetry -- days of happiness, day 7

No pictures today, but tomorrow I'll make sure to take some photographs of my students' writing.

During the month of February, we've been studying Poetry. Now, I've been teaching for many years and I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never really explored poetry with my students. Sure, I've taught with poetry, and exposed children to some, but we've never really studied it, nor written it with any real dedication.

This has been an amazing experience for me. I've been using one resource in particular to help me, the poetry unit from Lucy Calkins' Units of Study for Primary Writing.

This resource is valuable in so many ways. First of all, there are more than fifteen lessons, planned and written, with in class examples of how a conversation might occur, as well as examples of conferring with students.

I find this so helpful, because it's really helped guide my own planning and instruction, and I've only used a handful of the lessons. Really, my class just needed to slow down, experience, and think about a few elements of poetry.

What I find the most helpful, though, is not the planned lessons, but rather the wise bits of advice sprinkled throughout the lesson... as little notes to the teacher. That has helped me immeasurably. She gives examples of conversations with children, but also takes a realistic view that while there are going to be amazing things that come from the children automatically, a lot of the other diamonds are uncovered through conferring, through conversation, through gentle guidance (through teaching!!). She cautions teachers not to get discouraged, but to find the small bits of brilliance in the children's work and help them expand on it, then teach others, so they're learning both from adult and young poets.

It's been a magical ride.

Well, and also a mundane one. An entire class of children does not sit down in Writing Workshop every day and create Priceless Pretty Poems. In fact, there's a lot of "pretty flowers" and "I loves" and "my shoe is green" -- but I've tried to see this as typical... to be their guide, as best I can, and help them find the small bit of a poem in what they've written and craft something from that. I can honestly say that each child has written something beautiful. The great thing, too, is they're starting to both emulate others and find their own style.

I'll try to give some examples of their work tomorrow, but for tonight I've just been musing, because we're winding down our study. In fact, the curriculum is bearing down on us, whispering "time to move on..." and "so much more to learn..." so we're working toward creating a class poetry anthology to immortalize some of their favorite work and then we'll move into another bit of study.

What I realize, though, is that next year, I need to immerse them in Poetry a lot more than I do, as well as spend as much time reading poetry as we do writing poetry. I want the kids to explore poets, read to and with each other, notice little nuances, and just live and breathe it. This time we swam in the writing, just not as much in the reading.

A good lesson for me for next year. :)

days of happiness, day 6

I've mentioned before that I struggle with organization. Apparently I hide this well. I've had many people comment on how organized something looks or ask me how I make x or y or z look so organized, and I'm always surprised.

I'm convinced that I'm an organized person living inside a disorganized person's body.

So, any time that I try a new organizational method that works I'm always so pleased. From an amazing 3rd grade teacher at my school, I learned a simple, but easy method that has worked really well for me. She has several tubs on one of her shelves, each labelled with a different subject area. She puts books, notes, copies, lesson plans, anything that fits that subject area that she's currently teaching, it goes in that tub.

For me? Perfect. I hauled out four brightly colored (this is important) containers, labeled them with pretty fonts (again, very important) and stuck them on my windowsill. It's been... well, almost magical, to be honest.

You see, I suffer from the "oh, mother of crap, I just had it in my hand, where in the *^#@%$ h#@%$ did I put it?" disease. But this -- this is helping! Now, everything just goes into those buckets and I can always find it.


the buckets!!

(note: the coffee pot. Also very important.) This is right behind our math shelf, so it blends with kid tools as well.



This is where I keep my plan book and the stack of file trays that only live there because I haven't figured out a better method of organizing those papers yet.


I imagine I'll need to sit down and cull the contents of the buckets every few weeks or so, but that actually doesn't sound like too much work.

days of happiness, day 5

I love drinking tea in the afternoon or early evening. It's relaxing and a welcome ritual. I love it so much that sometimes I serve (herbal) tea to my students. Today I was musing on the most recent time. In December, our class finished writing individual How To books and we had a writing celebration at the end. We all sat in a circle and everyone read aloud a small excerpt that was their favorite part, then we raised our cups of tea and gave a toast, "To writing!" then we had a reception. During the reception, children walked around sharing their books with each other and asking each other questions and drinking tea. Many of them found that the tea was not to their liking (I told them that was okay, not everything will be), but everyone tried it. It was truly amazing to watch how seriously they took our reception -- not serious as in stoic, but serious in terms of talking to each other, trying the tea, and being genuinely excited about our writing.

Our Poetry writing focus is winding down -- I can't wait to have our writing celebration for that!




This is (nearly) every class picture from my years of teaching. Earlier this year I thought that I might have misplaced some of them, but today I discovered that I have every one. It's exciting to have so many, and to remember such vivid things about each class when I look them over.

I would love to hang them all up, but I'm not sure the best way to do so. Any suggestions?

days of happiness, day 4

See, the county where I work a lot more money than I'm used to. And schools have things in their teacher workrooms that never fail to amaze me (a laminator?? that we can use when we need to instead of on Tuesday afternoons? More than one copy machine?? Multiple paper cutters??). Believe me when I say that I've still not lost my appreciation for these things. Anyway, our school has an Ellison die cut press and many die cuts (alphabet and various shapes), but just this week we got a set of die cuts that cut out PATTERN BLOCKS!!! This is more than exciting because before I'd always spend time photocopying and then many hours cutting out pattern blocks so that we'd have enough for the kids to use to save work they'd done. Now!! Now, we can just use the Ellison press. Ahh, glee. I do so love how you feel.







These? Much prettier and about a thousand times cooler, but mostly self explanatory. We're working on consonant blends. In the past, I've just put up these key word cards, but we decided to make posters with the kid art illustrating the pictures and they're just GORGEOUS. *looks more* (did you see the "weeeeee!" ???)