Parent/Teacher Conversations and More

I started this post in mid-March but never got it out. It never seemed to reach the final piece of reflection that I like to achieve before hitting that “PUBLISH” button. I understand where I was coming from and see this as a work in progress – a continuing reflection.

The whirlwind of activity that leads up to end-of-term grades and parent teacher conferences can be all consuming. I feel really pressed to get through all the highly focused work and still have a handle on what each child really knows. We use a number of Fountas & Pinnell optional assessment tools as well as regularly scheduled Investigations  math assessments. That should provide plenty of information but in fact, when it comes to doing report cards, we have to use a long form of standards based items. Applying the first sets of assessments to the language of the report card items isn’t easy – it doesn’t always jive. None of the other tools are created for use with the SB report cards. The online version we use does not have the same look as the final product that is printed out.

We are two thirds of the way through the year. Our curriculum has been intense. The students are supposed to be reading and writing in kindergarten. We are all reading at a minimum of level B with 2 months left to get to the level C expected for the end of K. Most should get there.  They are also writing very well. We have reached this point by working hard, building the foundation of skills and strategies the students need.

This performance has come at some cost. The cost has been the social and play activities that were a part of a traditional program, one we saw just 5 and certainly 10 years ago. Many of the children in my class really need more time to play (currently 20 min. of Choice time per day plus recesses) but the curriculum is all data driven. During one of our weekly Communities of Practice meetings our team was tasked with analyzing what more we can do to make the grade 3 students show improvement on the state’s mandated MCAS testing.  Sheesh, as if kindergarten wasn’t enough of a challenge on it’s own, we now carry the burden of third grade performance!

I know a little boy who came to school without any preschool, not knowing any letters, unable to write his name, having minimal exposure to books and stories, with a tough family story, few good safe friends, and he was anxious about going to kindergarten. He needed that traditional type of kindergarten of the past. His teachers swaddled him as he worked his way through the day with lots of literacy support from them and specialists. How different would his experience be if he were allowed to enter a readiness focused kindergarten program, one that could address the complex issues of his preschool experience and slowly bring him into the academics when he was ready to focus.

I know how hard my students have been working so most of my parent conferences can show the excellent progress. I know too that the students are not complaining (that much.) But then, they don’t know any other way for school to roll. I do. And I want every child to tackle the challenges they are ready for, not pressured to meet some goals created by uninformed adults.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I needed this reflection to move myself and my program to the next level. Reflection in blogging is a marvelous practice.

A Dream Come True Experience

Have you ever had a dream encounter with someone you really admire? Well today I traveled to Deerfield, New Hampshire to explore the classroom of Marie Knee and the Kinderkids. I’ve been reading her posts for years and following their world-wide adventures, particularly their adventures with the 2M Gems in Brisbane Australia.

I only spent an hour or so there today but what I saw really struck a chord with me. Everywhere I turned, there were children engaged in creative activity. I can’t wait to see the wonderful class in action for the whole day tomorrow when I return.

This September, I will be moving into another classroom space. This one will be in the “kindergarten wing” of our school. The best thing about my new space is the abundant vinyl floor covering. The percentage of carpeting is considerably less than I currently have and the square footage is larger as well, meaning I will have much more messy play space. Seeing Maria’s classroom is helping me to reinvent my new space into something that engages the student’s minds for greater creativity.

I can’t wait to return to the Kinderkids classroom tomorrow!

NWP – Write On!

I am writing this post today as part of an initiative to send out 1000 posts in support of the NWP. It stands to lose Federal funding.

What continues to amaze me is how hard this organization “works to improve writing and learning in the nation’s schools” and with a minimal budget. They began as a volunteer force but have been able to deliver a real teaching and learning force in all areas of literacy education with a small amount of federal funding.

What’s NWP? It’s the National Writing Project. I first learned of the group when my peer and mentor Kevin Hodgson introduced me to Twitter, blogging, and Google Reader. Kevin is a big part of my first and continued exposure to NWP, and through them I continue to learn a tremendous amount.

I have learned to reflect on my practice by reading and writing posts for this blog as well as Mrs. Poulin’s Blog, where I write about my kindergarten work. This also helped me to build confidence and now I can share what I learn with other teachers, including an entire new generation of educators worldwide.

I have learned about an abundance of on-line tools for sharing student work. As a result of this, my students interact with a number of websites daily, will begin logging in to Kidblog.org next month for personal writing, and carry on meaningful dialog with  students around the country via Skype.

I have a great PLN of peers on Twitter and we can share ideas through a number of tools, including tweets, a daily newspaper generated just for me, and the Twitter kinderchat on Monday evenings at 9:00pm.

My most valuable tool has to be my Google Reader account. I have amassed a collection of blogs with new posts coming in on different days. Today I see there are 20 new items to read if I have time. There are always a few that are must-reads, including Kevin’s Meandering Mind, as well as all of my kindergarten peers around the world.

What NWP has brought to our conversations is a connection of Teachers Teaching Teachers (another great blog) and everyone learns through the experience. I urge our legislators to support the continued funding of the National Writing Project. Through their work, they are reaching educators worldwide, building across-the-board literacy, everywhere.

Thanks NWP for being an important part of my own teaching/learning experience.

100 Day Fun!

Early childhood teachers know the excitement that surrounds the 100th day of school and our class had plenty of fun and excitement. We started the day on the Mac laptops, just as we do every Thursday. We explored Getty Games, ABCYa!, and finished up with Build Your Wild Self. All of these are fun for the kids and they have so many choices to make for creating their own experiences. I enjoy watching them work and play while providing tech support. Our parent volunteer and our para are extra hands as well.

We did at least 100 exercises. Along with the usual push-ups and crunches we did loads of jumping jacks. All children should do jumping jacks at the start of their day. The exercise really oxygenates the brain and is fantastic for getting ready to learn. Any exercises that call for coordination and crossing the midlines of the body will help the brain be more available for learning new things.

Then we moved on to their collections of 100 objects brought from home. They worked on displaying their items so they could prove they had 100. We had some cool results. Several kids made 10 rows of 10 – pennies or marbles. Others made 10 groups or piles of 10 – legos or bow tie pasta. Being accurate in representing data is important and trying to display 100 green army guys was quite a challenge for one student so he opted for the pile method. Another child had trouble displaying his collection of small books as he needed too much of the floor space. So we talked about how many 10′s are in 20 and then made overlapping rows with 20 in each.  We checked by counting each row as two of the 10 counts.

Next, we moved on to creating our 100 Day crowns. These came out just  beautifully. (As I write this, I realize how few pictures I am taking these days. The children have so much to say and do and share with me that I never get to record cool projects like this.) This project continued after lunch as the children were wonderfully creative in their design ideas.

As if they didn’t have enough fun, they spent their Specials time in Art, always a big hit. A quick snack and 20 minutes out in the cold and snow for recess took the edge off their energy and prepared them for a great Choice time.

My friend and mentor teacher Kevin recently completed some puppet shows with all four of his grade 6 classes. When they were finished, we got the puppets!! I set up a drape to act as a curtain and children lined up on both sides of it to create spur of the moment puppet shows. It was great! They expressed themselves in totally new ways. I like to see the growth in the children through the year. We have reached the place where they feel really comfortable with each other and want to take the reins. And their love for school is so heartfelt. One boy told me that he and another boy talked with each other and they never want to go to first grade because they love our class so much. Mrs. Piper and I feel the same way about them.

As for the puppet shows, well, tomorrow is Fun Friday so time with the puppets is in order as well as the Valentine Arts & Crafts projects.  I’ll really try to take some long overdue pictures. You’ll be able to find them over at Mrs. Poulin’s Blog.

Putting It Into 4 Wheel Drive!

This is one of those weeks. You know, the kind where you think you are working your plan and suddenly you realize you are way behind. It’s only Wednesday but the rest of the week will be a push!

It started when my peers in kindergarten told me that the 100th day of school was not on Monday of next week as I had thought, but Thursday of this week. 100th Day is a big deal in kindergarten where children are just learning the significance of big numbers. We usually have a day dedicated to exploring counting and grouping to make 100. We also do art projects and have party snacks.

When I thought I had the cushion of days, I was happy. Not only would we be able to combine Valentines party activities on Monday with 100th Day activities, but we would not need to take the kids out of our precious routines twice.

Fine, it’s still doable. Then on Tuesday morning, there was a 2 hour delay. That meant more changes and the students were really put through their paces as we pressed on to finish our Work Board jobs as well as start 100th Day prep. We are taking a couple of days to cover 100th Day as it can be overwhelming in just one day.

I sent an email off to parents telling them a bit about 100th Day and asking them to help the children collect 100 things to bring in for our counting practice on that day. And I am eliminating the party piece of the day. The kids will never know what they are missing and the day can still be festive.

I feel uncomfortable pushing parents into more scrambling themselves as they all work and take care of their families. Having nearly last minute “homework” like this can be a chore for busy parents. If it’s too hard for them, they can opt out. Several kids routinely don’t have their collection of 100 things and who really wants to count to 100 sixteen more times?

Oh, did I mention that Thursday is always a busy day already as we use the laptops from 8:40-10, move on to recess, and then complete Work Board assignments all while getting into and out of our snow clothes?!

I will accelerate some of the Work Board jobs today so that we can free up some time tomorrow. That means, I will meet with 2 of the 4 groups for Writers Workshop and have 2 groups listen to the story on tape at the same time, with the report after. Getting a poem in their journals is not as important and can be put off indefinitely and the math activities we are doing are pretty straight forward.

Just writing about this has helped create a cohesive plan in my mind for the rest of the week.  Blogging is fantastic for ruminating on things and coming to a better understanding. Thanks for “listening.”

What do you do when you get behind in class work? Are you inclined to carry work over to the next week? Omit the missing days entirely? Let the crumbs fall where they may and just start fresh the following week?

Where’s the nap time, arts & crafts, milk, and cookies that some folks think is kindergarten? And did someone just say that more snow is on it’s way?!!!

Snow Day Curriculum

I wonder if anyone might like to collaborate with me in designing a weeks worth of kindergarten curriculum to be used by students on Snow Days. The very nature of snow days means we should include winter and snow related activities that need little or no materials for caregivers to gather. We should have work that will give instruction and or practice in math, literacy, science, social studies, and community building. And the tone of the lessons should celebrate the day away from school while keeping those little brains thinking critically.

So why would we want to do this? Imagine…

• that we might still be able count this as time on learning so the day could count toward the yearly total (For Mass. it’s 180 days.)
• that students would find it rather cool
• that the work could be meaningful and rewarding
• that this takes the learning out of the classroom and into the home or caregivers program for a new perspective

Okay, a weeks worth might be stretching it, but since we can and often do have 5 snow days (or whatever weather distractions), it isn’t outrageous to think that we could use a weeks worth of activities.

Let’s consider some of the necessities.

• We need a teacher online to give guidance and support for students.
• We need to be sure that students have access to computers in their homes or have hard copies of the assignments in advance.
• We need to lay the ground rules before school gets too far along so parents will understand the alternate curriculum is there and will have the needed supplies readily available.
• The curriculum should go in a fresh direction while using some tried and true practices so the work needs little explaining.
• There should be agreement on committing “X” amount of time in the effort to do the work

Can we expect that parents will sign on to this? Will there be a rebellion, and if even one person refuses, does that make the process worthless? I am drawing on some real world examples here. There are places in our world where students can’t reach school. Some communicate on-line, others use ham radios to meet with their teachers. Still others never set foot in a school except for athletics practice with community teams because they are home-schooled.

Maybe this is just another Snow Day-Dream but I would still like to think that I can teach my students online as well as face to face. What do you think? Does this sound like an idea whose time has come? Care to explore the possibilities?

Snow Day!

This past weekend, my husband and I had a great time in Waterbury-Stowe Vermont. He did some xc skiing, we visited a friend of his for the playoff game, and I enjoyed the fitness center and pool as well as used the computer and watched OMG! non-stop NCIS episodes! We were away from it all and left the work and world behind us.

So I was unprepared for the call this morning declaring a snow day.  I am not much for the television (except for NCIS reruns) so I never planned out this free day. If I had more information  I would have been more prepared and gone out to buy coffee and birdseed. I can’t stand seeing the empty feeder on a snowy day as I know my little friends have grown to depend on us to feed them. The coffee I took care of with the hotel sample packs that I brought home.

I had been quite relaxed and looking forward to a 4 day work week after our MLK weekend. Now, tomorrow will be a scramble. We need to reschedule our visit to Kevin’s class for the puppet shows and the Work Board will have to be changed to finish the week smoothly. When our week is shortened I have to remove the Fun Friday Arts and Crafts in favor of the big literacy work that must stay on track. The kids don’t seem to mind as they enjoy the Work Board activities but I mind. I think kindergarten has already gone too far down the roads of reading and writing. The explorations, discovery, language, and social skill building has taken a back seat to academics, as if the former were not a valid use of a student’s time.

So while I sit here blogging, listening to podcasts and live streamed broadcasts on ed topics, and find new folks to follow on Twitter, I reflect a bit more on my practice, on what is important to me, what I want to do more of, and how I can improve student learning. I engage others on Twitter and read lots of posts through my aggregators.

Enough of that! I simply must get up and do my daily workout. That’s one area that really benefits by a snow day. (Oh but I forgot to check out Fit 42 today! I simply must log my workouts this past weekend!)

What do you do on a snow day?