Abraham Lincoln and I Used to be Best Friends.

As it turns out, 2nd graders have absolutely no concept of time, and it makes things pretty funny.

When I told them the other day that I was in kindergarten in 1990, some of them made comments like, "Wow! Did you live in a log cabin? Did you have to live out in the woods?" I assured them that by the time I was born, people had already invented magical things like television and computers.

They also thought I might have been alive at the same time as Abraham Lincoln. Of course, some of them also didn't realize that George Washington was no longer alive. One student declared with much authority that George Washington was elected as our first president in 1980.

They also had a lot of trouble believing me the first time I tried to explain to them that dinosaurs and humans never lived at the same time. They tried to convince me that cavemen were alive at the same time as dinosaurs. They finally gave in, however, and took my word for it.

I guess I wasn't much different when I was their age, though. After all, 1970 seemed like ancient history when I was in 2nd grade!

Help! I'm stuck in the bathroom!

So the first week of school has come to a close, and it's been pretty fun! The first day was a bit exhausting for me, though, because this is my first year teaching second grade, and it's also the youngest grade-level that I have taught. So while I knew these kids would be different from the third graders that I am used to, and that they would be more needy than the kids I was used to, there were definitely some surprises that kept life interesting for me on Tuesday!

Something I was not anticipating was that using the "big bathrooms" posed more of a challenge for these kids than I had expected. Before 2nd grade, the kids are used to having a bathroom in their classrooms, and so they don't need to use the big bathrooms so much. But once they reach second grade, we no longer have classroom bathrooms, so they have to get used to the big bathrooms. I already had planned to teach and model procedures for going into the bathrooms and washing hands afterwards (only use one squirt of soap; use no more than 2 paper towels; throw away your paper towels by placing them in the trash can), and we discussed behavior expectations during our bathroom breaks. The kids had agreed that the bathroom is not a playground, so instead of climbing on stalls, they knew they were to just go in and go about their business, wash their hands, and exit in a timely manner. They actually did a very nice job going in and out quickly, and not wasting any time. However, we were not without problems.

A few of the girls in my class find the locks on a couple of the stalls rather difficult to unlock, and it has caused for some rather humorous situations. On one occasion, all of my kids were out of the bathroom except for two girls, so I was monitoring my line in the hall. A fifth grade teacher, who was standing in closer proximity to the girls' restroom, informed me that he thought he heard a couple of my students calling my name. So I set off to investigate, thinking one of them was suffering from another stomach ache. When I went in the restroom, I found both of them stuck side-by-side in their respective stalls, unable to get the locks open! All I could really do at the time was just tell them to push on the lock harder, and after a little bit of effort, they were able to get their doors unlocked. These two girls have gotten stuck in their stalls on other occasions as well, but they are getting better at unlocking the stalls now. However, I did recommend to them that they avoid using the two stalls that they find difficult to unlock.

So, sometimes you never know just what skills the kids you teach are going to find the most difficult. Sometimes things that we take for granted as being a simple skill, such as unlocking a door, can actually be very difficult for children. However, I just remind myself that they are still essentially first graders right now, and I know it won't be too long before they have adjusted to being second graders. I am having a lot of fun with this class so far, though. My students are all excited about being in school, they get along well with one another, they are nice to each other, and they share well. I think this is going to be a great year!

Setting Up My Classroom, part 5: Ta Da!

Well, after 2 weeks of work, I think my class is more or less set up. Of course there will be things I add throughout the year, such as anchor charts (charts that help the kids remember what we are learning). But so far, everyone who has seen my classroom says it looks great, including my principal! I got to meet some of my 2nd graders and their families yesterday afternoon, and they all seemed to like it, too. Here are some pictures of the results:

Classroom library has been organized. Nurse Kathy helped sort the books by genre, and I labeled them so that the kids will know where to put them back. This also helped me see which genres I need more of. Books related to the curriculum of the moment will be placed on the rotating book rack on the far left. Right now, I have displayed books related to "back to school." My principal told me that as part of a grant we will be receiving, some money will be allotted to build teachers' classroom libraries, which is great for newer teachers like me who haven't had much of a chance to build a huge library yet. Until then, I will be supplementing my classroom library with books I check out from our school library.

I have my number line posted now, and my word wall is ready to go. This year, I am making my word wall more interactive by using magnetic strips on my chalk board. I am going to attach a piece of magnetic tape to each word that we put on the word wall so that the kids can take them down and put them back up more easily. I got this idea from Debbie Diller's Spaces and Places. The first words that will go on the word wall will be the students' names.

Since the students will sit at tables this year and not have their own space to store supplies in desks, I purchased four of these 5-drawer storage systems at Target. Each drawer is labeled with a different subject. Students will store their folders, notebooks, and workbooks in the drawers based on subject, and I will have team captains at each table who will be in charge of getting out and putting away the supplies as needed. I chose to designate the largest drawer for reading, since students will need a lot of space to store their books for independent reading. I got this idea from a professional development session I attended over the summer.

To store supplies such as markers, crayons, scissors, glue, and pencils, I purchased four of these caddies from Target (you can find them in the aisle with the cleaning supplies such as mops). I already had some plastic cups that I am using to hold the pencils and scissors to keep them more organized. The sharp pencils will be kept in the black cups, and the pencils that need to be sharpened will be kept in the blue cup.

Finally, I just wanted to answer a question from earlier on about where I am storing the "unsightly" things like paper towels, etc. now that I am not storing them in my large cabinets. I am using some big plastic storage containers to hold these items, and then storing containers under tables such as the computer table and the teacher desk. They stay out of the way and out of sight there, leaving more cabinet space for items I need to have on shelves, but don't want the kids to use, such as teacher resource books and teacher manuals.

So with the classroom pretty much finished now, that gives me the rest of the weekend to finish getting my lesson plans for the first week put together, as well as my beginning of school newsletter to parents. I have meetings all day on Monday, and the first day of school is on Tuesday. I am really looking forward to this year!!!

Setting Up My Classroom, part 4: The Dreaded Bulletin Boards

Countdown: 2.5 days until I need to have to room ready for Ready Fest/Meet and Greet.

Something you need to know when trying to set up a classroom is that it is important to recruit help and not try to do everything on your own. This way you can get a lot more done in much less time.

I already wrote about my recruitment of Architect Dan to help arrange the furniture last week, and since then I have received a lot of comments from coworkers about how nice my room arrangement looks.

Yesterday I recruited my mom, Nurse Kathy, to help organize my classroom library. That was a big job, and she spent the whole day on the task, which freed me up to work on organizing some other things around the classroom that day. There are still a couple more small things to do with the classroom library, so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on that yet.

Today I tackled the last of the really big jobs. First I finished organizing my files in my filing cabinets. That was one of the least exciting tasks, but at least I got everything sorted out so I should know where to find all the important papers that I will need throughout the year, as well as having a place to file papers that come in.

The other big job I conquered today was repapering the bulletin boards. If you refer back to the "before" pictures of my classroom (Setting Up My Classroom, part 1), you will note that the paper used to cover the bulletin boards by the previous teacher was mostly red and yellow. Personally, I've never been a big fan of the red/yellow color combination on anything--it reminds me too much of ketchup and mustard. Also, the walls in this classroom are already painted a pale yellow, so I felt that the addition of the yellow paper was just too much yellow. I felt a cooler color was needed to calm down the atmosphere of the room. Debbie Diller also talks about the effect of color in her book Spaces and Places. So here is what I came up with:

My color scheme was inspired by the star bulletin board seen in this picture. That is actually a weird sort of bulletin board that you can't actually staple things to, so a teacher several years ago had decorated the board with star-patterned contact paper. Sticking with that color scheme, I chose blue as the predominant color for my bulletin boards.

This bulletin board in the back of the room was quite large. Part of what I dislike about decorating bulletin boards is trying to cut all the paper to fit as well as possible, and then trying to staple the giant sheet on there. So for this bulletin board, I recruited the assistance of my Trusty Assistant. She helped hold up one side of the paper while I stapled, and then we switched.

Another thing I would like to point out about this bulletin board is that I stapled the number line low enough where the students can reach it. This is quite different from what I have done in the past, and what you generally see in classrooms--usually you see the number line running along the ceiling. The reason I hung it lower was so that the students will be able to interact with the number line, which is encouraged in Math Investigations. It also goes along with Debbie Diller's advice about hanging resources at a level where students can interact with them more easily.

On the board behind the classroom library, I used a slightly more brightly-colored border to add a little bit of excitement.

Next to the SMART Board, I have hung up my pocket hundreds chart, but I haven't put the numbers in it yet. Like the number line, I tried to hang this in an area where students will be able to interact with it.

I think this looks pretty good so far!

I don't have pictures of my hallway bulletin boards yet, but I will mention that I did get the paper up on those as well. For those, I recruited the help of the daughter of my neighboring teacher. She is in 5th grade this year and has a lot of experience helping put up bulletin boards, so when she asked me if she could help with mine, I said "Yes!" Teachers that have children often have to bring them to school with them while they work on their classrooms, and you will find that the older ones (about 3rd grade and up) are usually looking for something to do while they are there, and tend to be very good helpers. In fact, I think they actually enjoy putting together the bulletin boards!

How do you feel about bulletin boards? Do you actually like putting them together, or do you get someone else to help you? How do you decide on colors to use when decorating?

Setting Up My Classroom, part 3: Architect Dan Moves Furniture

Today I finally was able to take a break from organizing materials to conquer a big job--moving furniture. As you may have noticed in my "before" pictures, the custodians had just shoved all the furniture back into the room wherever they wanted to put it, without much thought as to where the teacher might want it (as a side note, we are in the process of hiring a new site manager, and one guy who is up for the job and currently helping around the building said he was shocked to see that done--he says if he gets the job, he will have teachers map out where they would like their furniture to be before they leave for the summer, and after they are done waxing floors and whatnot, he and his team would put the furniture where the teacher requests it. So, here's hoping he gets the job!). This was not a task I could conquer on my own, so I recruited the services of Architect Dan since he would be able to give me some ideas of where he thought furniture might work best.

Here are some pictures of what we came up with. Please excuse the mess, as I'm still in the process of organizing and storing materials.

Architect Dan sits at the small group table. This is in the corner close to the teacher's desk.

Architect Dan sits at one of the student tables, near my "science inquiry table." I am using four tables in my classroom, each which will seat 6 students. The small desk with the red chair is a special desk for the Star Student of the week.

Architect Dan calls on an imaginary student in the whole-group instruction area/classroom library. We chose this space for whole group instruction since the SMART Board is mounted here. After this picture was taken, we did end up moving one of the grey bookshelves that are stacked in the corner so that it is more at student level. We also used some of the bookshelves as makeshift partitions to create a cozy space for the class and for students to work in independently. (The giant black and white boxes will be gone soon--those are science modules I need to deliver to other classrooms).

Architect Dan sits on the reflection desk (also known as time out). He thinks I should put a dunce cap there. I explained that people don't do that anymore. Here you can also see the fourth student table. There is also a small grey table in this picture, but we ended up moving that next to the computer table, where hopefully I will not run into it this year.

Obviously, I'm not finished and still have things to put away. I am getting rid of a lot of stuff, some of which I didn't even know I had, but just had inherited from previous teachers, and some of it was pretty dated. Our favorite find was a record (yes, a record!) that was still in its shrink wrap and supposedly contained music that will "get kids moving!" The back included a quote from and a photo of Scott Baio. Obviously, I won't be using that in my classroom!

Do you like what you see so far in the pictures? Is there anything you think I might do differently?

Setting Up My Classroom, part 2: Organizing My Teacher Resources

First I would like to explain that I really enjoy organizing things; I just don't always have time to get organized. That's probably why for the past 3 years, my classroom has been a disorganized mess, and impossible to find anything I need--first from a lack of time to get set up (as I mentioned before, my first year teaching, I only had a few hours to make my room look presentable) and then from a lack of experience (even the past couple of years, I still don't think I had figured out the best way to organize a classroom). This year, however, I am taking my time during these two weeks before school starts to really get my classroom organized and in order. To be honest, I find this task extremely fun to do. So today I am very excited to share with you how I have organized one of the big cabinets in my classroom.

In previous years, I had viewed the big cabinets as sort of a "catch-all" for anything I didn't know where else to store, and wanted out of my sight. They always ended up overflowing with paper towel rolls, boxes of Ziplock bags, extra school t-shirts...who knows what else? They tended to get to the point where when you opened the doors of the cabinet, things would start falling out. It kind of reminded me of The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room, when Mama Bear opens the cubs' closet door and an avalanche of toys knocks her to the ground. I didn't want that to happen again this year.

So I took a different approach this year. I was trying to figure out what to do with all of my teacher resource books because I do have a lot of them, and I didn't want to take away bookshelf space from the students' supplies and books. I decided to try storing them in one of the cabinets. Here are the results:

I'm a big fan of this so far. After all, the kids don't need or want to see what teacher resource books I have, so what would be the point of me having them visible?

Here is a close-up of one of the top shelves. This shelf holds general resource books on the left in alphabetical order, and the right side holds books related to management and CARE for Kids (Jefferson County's school community initiative).

This picture shows the next two shelves. The one on the top is my literacy shelf. The left side holds books related to reading skills in ABC order. In the middle, I have the bin that holds the books for the Making Meaning literacy program. On the right side, I have my writing resource books in ABC order, followed by my Rigby teacher's manual.

The bottom shelf in this picture is a science/math shelf. I organized these materials a little differently. First I have my science module teacher manuals, with their corresponding student books next to them. In the middle, I have some random science resource books in ABC order. On the right, I have my Math Investigations II teacher guides.

Finally, the shelf on the very bottom holds the remainder of my math teacher resources. The old Math Investigations program is in the box on the left, followed by an assortment of math teacher resources in ABC order. The bin on the right holds some blackline masters for various Math Investigations activities. Stacked on top of the bin are some educational games.

So I'm pretty happy so far with this new system, and I'm excited to see how it works for me throughout the year. I hope some of you found this to be somewhat useful, especially if you're trying to figure out how you want to organize your own classroom materials, and otherwise, I hope it wasn't too boring for you!

Setting Up My Classroom, part 1: The "Before" Pictures

Today was my first day back at school I had left for the summer. I am moving classrooms this year (again) and I have 2 weeks to get everything set up the way I want it. That's pretty good, considering that when I first got hired, I only had a few hours to set up my classroom! So I'm really wanting to put some effort into it this year and create a space that the kids and I can keep organized. More importantly (or I guess, just as importantly) I want it to be a place that is inviting and comfortable, and gives students the ability to work in cooperative groups more easily, as well as inquiry-based instruction. So I have been studying Debbie Diller's bookSpaces and Places all summer to get some ideas of where to start.

When I entered my classroom, this is what it looked like:

As you see, it's pretty much a blank slate right now. I have no idea why the custodians decided it was a good idea to leave the tables set up on their ends like that.

I didn't really move any furniture today. I did make an attempt at a floor plan (in crayon):

The blueish-green writing represents things that are in the classroom that will not (and cannot) be moved. In the middle, I listed all other large furniture items that can be moved somewhere. The red writing represents my thoughts on where I might like to have certain areas of my classroom located.

But, as you can see, I am not too good at making floor plans, which is why I am "hiring" Dan to assist me. With his architecture background, he should be able to help me come up with some nifty ideas on how to arrange the furniture.

So instead of moving any furniture today, I worked on organizing and storing some teacher resources. I'll write more about that later.

Does anyone have any useful suggestions for my classroom? Or, more importantly, is there anyone who would like to come help me move things around sometime this week or next week:-)?

Sticking with a Theme

In class today, we talked about using thematic units in the classroom, and how they benefit English Language Learners (ELLs). For the most part (especially in elementary school--not as much in high school) this means designing lessons in as many content areas as possible to fit within a certain theme. For example, I was working with a group to outline a potential thematic unit based on a book called The Day of Ahmed's Secret, which is about a boy living in Cairo, going about his day selling cans of gas for people's stoves, but the whole time he has this big secret that he can't wait to tell his family! I won't give away the ending, but it's definitely worth a read. Anyway, in putting together our thematic unit, we saw several directions in which this book could guide our instruction. In social studies, we could use the book to teach about jobs, geography, life in the city, and people from different cultures. For math, we noticed there was a lot of geometry in the illustrations, including the pyramids and some of the architecture of the buildings in the city. I won't go into every content area, but will just say that we found many ways to tie this book into a variety of subjects.

While it is typical for teachers to put together units in one subject area (for example, a math unit on geometry or a social studies unit on economics), it seems that most teachers do not create very many interdisciplinary thematic units such as this one. There are many reasons for that. For one, it can take a lot of work to put together thematic units. Also, as my group discussed in class, many schools or districts have specific programs that they are required to teach. For example, my school district teaches Math Investigations II, and for the most part we are supposed to teach every lesson in the program. It can be difficult to find time to teach math lessons that are not a part of that program, even if these lessons do address the curriculum standards. While I can see the benefits to using programs such as Math Investigations (cuts down on the time teachers need to spend planning lessons, creates more continuity from school to school) there are definitely drawbacks as well.

Creating a thematic unit can benefit every student, especially ELLs. Teachers should choose topics for thematic units based on the interests and experiences of students, even allowing for some student choice in the topic of the unit. This allows the students to take ownership of the unit, which will make them excited to learn more about it. It also makes their learning relevant to their own lives, which is so important for ELLs. Too many times they are expected to learn something that doesn't matter to them. Nobody enjoys learning about something they don't care about! Another benefit of using thematic units is that there is more continuity across subject areas. Usually, when moving from one subject to another, I often feel like there is an abrupt halt to the day where I'm saying something like, "Ok, we were just learning about how a seed germinates--now we're getting ready to work on writing personal narratives!" As a result, the students are basically struggling to get their brains switched over from science mode to writing mode, which I'm sure effects my amount of quality instructional time. With ELLs, this switch-over process probably takes even longer since they might still be struggling to figure out what different words mean, and so by this point, they are completely lost. My instructor pointed out that in a thematic unit, even the lowest ELLs--the ones that come into the school speaking no English at all--are able to tell you what the theme is because every lesson you do is connected with that theme.

I feel like there is so much more I could say about the benefits of thematic units. Even though it isn't practical for me to design units connected to every subject (due to the required curriculum resources) I do want to try to use themes more often in my classroom. I think it would help tie together the learning more smoothly. Do you use thematic units in your school? If so, are there any places you go to find resources for those units (specific websites, for example)?

Going to Museums with Kids

With it being summer break, I've been enjoying some time not thinking about school so much, and just took a short but enjoyable vacation to New York City. Being a teacher, however, I couldn't help but make some certain observations while visiting some of the museums.

I went to a few museums while in NY, and at two of them (Ellis Island, and the MoMA) I was there during peak visiting hours, when a lot of parents were visiting with their children. I noticed two trends among these children: those that were interested and engaged in the exhibits, and those who showed no desire to be there, and were running around screaming.

With the latter of the two trends, I do not blame the kids for their behavior. I also hesitate to blame the parents. But what I do believe is happening in this situation is the parents mean well by trying to expose their children to art/culture/history, but what they have failed to do is adequately prepare their children for the visit. In addition they seem to be clueless as to how to keep their kids engaged in the exhibits at the museum.

Merely forcing your kids to go to a museum with you is not enough to keep them interested, and you would have been better off trying to find a sitter or daycare to take them to while you explore the museum on your own. Otherwise, not only will your kids not enjoy the visit, but you won't either--you'll be too busy trying to control them! But taking kids to a museum does not have to be a recipe for disaster. In fact, it can be done very successfully. You just have to go about it the right way.

Every time I take my students on a field trip, we spend several days (and sometimes weeks) ahead of time preparing for it. Any good field trip will, of course, supplement the curriculum. So by preparing your students for a field trip, you are not taking away from any instructional time at all--you are actually enhancing it. For example, before I took my class to the art museum, we spent some time looking at the art museum's website and discussing some of the art we would be seeing. When we took our field trip, the tour guide was very impressed with the fact that many of my students were able to recognize some of the art we looked at, and explain what was important about it. The students were far more interested and engaged in looking at the art because they became excited when they got to make connections to what we had done in class. They like to show off!

Another example is our field trip to see The Nutcracker. Before we go to The Nutcracker, I always read my students the story. We listen to some of the music and try to predict what part of the story relates to different pieces of music. We talk about how the story will be told without words, and how movement, music, and the costumes can be used to tell a story. I always tell the students, too, that after the field trip we will be comparing the book that we read with the ballet version, which ensures that they will pay attention during the show! We talk about proper manners in the theater, and we let the students get dressed up in their nicest clothes. We have always received compliments about the behavior of our students every year we go. By the way, the students at my school are low-income to lower-middle-class, and include a large ESL population, so this works for any child, not just the ones from "rich" or "privileged" families.

Parents can do the same with their children in taking them to museums. I noticed one mother at Ellis Island had picked up some activity pages for her children. It was like they were on a scavenger hunt and had to find the answers to different questions. She didn't just send her kids off to do it on their own, though. She worked with them on it and talked to them about the exhibits, helping them find the answers. Her kids were very well behaved and seemed interested in what they were looking at.

At the MoMA, I saw a father taking his son around, and talking to him about each painting. For example, when they were in the Jackson Pollock room, the father explained to the little boy how Jackson Pollock created his artwork. The boy was really excited about this, and really enthusiastic about all of the paintings. He was also really well behaved, and he was probably about 5 years old.

Also at the MoMA, I saw two girls who were a little older (about 10 years old) looking at different photographs together. They didn't have an adult right next to them, but they were well behaved. Their parents had given them one of the audio tour sets, and they were enjoying looking for pictures that had a number next to it, so they could put the number in the audio tour and listen about it.

I like to think that these parents also talked to their kids about the museum visits before the trip, as well as after the trip. If you're not sure how to do that, it's easy these days to find websites for the museums, and most of them have a page just for kids. You can also go to the library and find picture books that are related to what you will be seeing. Any time you can spend both before and after your visit talking about what you saw will not only help your child have a better experience, but you will also enjoy your experience more. You will find that you can do more than just visit amusement parks when you go on vacation, and your kids will walk away from the experience with so much more!

Things Banned from Schools

I thought this video was funny. It talks about different things that have been banned from schools throughout the years.

I remember when I was in elementary school, some things that were banned were slap bracelets and the game "mercy." Both of those have a legitimate reason for being banned: they can hurt someone and slap bracelets were just distracting to begin with. I think Red Rover may have been banned as well because too many people got hurt.

It seems like most of the things banned from the school where I teach are dress code-related. Mohawk haircuts, for example, are against dress code. I still haven't figured out how we are supposed to enforce that, though, and since I don't find mohawks that distracting to other kids in the class anyway, I don't really bother enforcing that rule. Also, do you remember those shoes that light up whenever you hit them? Well, now they have shoes that are similar, except instead of lighting up, they play Hannah Montana music. Now those really are distracting! Sometimes there isn't much I can do about that, either, if the office doesn't have an extra pair of shoes that fit the kid.

Can you think of anything strange that was banned from your school when you were a kid? Is there anything strange banned from the schools where you teach?

"Can we have class outside?"

Once again, thanks to my online child development class for giving me the inspiration for this blog.

My instructor posted this video on a discussion forum and asked us to watch it and then discuss how it relates to child development. Please watch it before reading any further.


First, how does relate to child development? Well, to be brief, many child development theorists (Rousseau, Montessori, Schachtel, etc.) felt that children need to learn from their own experiences. In other words, they aren't going to understand something as well when they read about it out of a science book as when they actually experience it. Also, these theorists believed that children need to be allowed to explore and run around. Sitting at a desk is not natural for a child. Running around outside is. Therefore, teaching kids outdoors is more developmentally appropriate than forcing them to sit and learn something out of a text book.

This leads me to my next point. As someone who spent many summers at Girl Scout camp, both as a camper and as staff, I immediately thought of my camp experiences when watching the video. Then I started thinking of behavior of children at camp versus behavior of children at school, and I felt like we had fewer behavior issues to deal with at camp then we ever have at school. While many factors affect this (adult/child ratio, demographics of the children, etc.) I think a major contributor is the environment. When kids are at camp, they are allowed to run around, talk loudly, explore a little bit, and enjoy themselves. At school, children are inside and have less space to move around, have to keep their voices quiet, and some teachers don't let them move around at all! The same kid that acts up at school (you know, the class clown) would probably be a favorite of the camp staff just because a camp environment is more developmentally appropriate for that child. Even in classes like mine where I try to keep my kids as active as possible and do as many hands-on activities as I can, there are still kids who would just benefit from being in a space where it is ok to move around more and just be a kid! I do think it is important for schools to get kids outside more, instead of confining their classes to the tiny space inside four walls. I just wish there was more support from administrators and "the powers that be" on this.

Hey, even graduate students sometimes benefit from having class outside!

What Rigor REALLY Means...

Today I went to a 6 hour professional development session. The topic? Rigor.

Now you may think, "How can anyone talk about rigor for 6 hours, and how exciting can that be?"

To be honest, those were my thoughts going into the training. Part of my skepticism probably came from the fact that I wasn't too thrilled about getting up early once again this morning. Seriously, it's my second full week out of school, and I've only been able to sleep in twice? However, I ended up enjoying the training and actually ended up getting a lot more than I thought out of it (and I don't just mean the delicious lunch, which was 3-courses and included chocolate cake).

The presentation was by Dr. Barbara Blackburn, who has written several books including Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, I definitely recommend it. She is not just some researcher that is out of touch with anything that goes on in schools: she has actually been there, and taught at all grade levels. So the advice she gave us wasn't just some ridiculous concept thought up by some person that has never stood in front of a classroom of children before--it actually works!

What she wanted us to understand from this session was that rigor does not mean giving kids more work, or grading harder, but getting them to think more deeply about subjects, and giving them the support they need so that all students are actively participating in lessons. Her definition that she gives in her book is this:

"Rigor: creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels; each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels" (Blackburn, 2008).

Basically, the focus is on quality, not quantity. Strategies that she suggested for increasing rigor are things many teachers probably already do, but just don't realize that it does increase the rigor of their instruction. For example, having students give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to answer a question, so that everyone is engaged. Have the students create review questions for Jeopardy games instead of the teacher creating all of the questions. If you give true/false tests, don't just let the students answer with true or false: have the students correct the false statements to make them true. Do a "Think-Pair-Share" and have students share out to the class what their partner said. Simple gestures like this increase rigor by making students be involved in learning and by getting to think more deeply about their learning.

Something she said that got me to thinking is that in order to increase rigor, we must raise our expectations for all students. As teachers, of course we will say that we have high expectations for all students, but do we always demonstrate it? As they say, actions speak louder than words. Blackburn said that in order to show students that we have high expectations, we need to make sure we are asking high-level questions, only accepting high-level responses, and using supportive rather than dismissive language. I think something I would like to pay attention to in my class next year is what sort of responses I allow from my students. Am I allowing them to answer with just one word? If so, I need to work on encouraging them to think deeper and help them expand their responses. I want to raise the bar for my students next year and get them to the point where they can give meaningful answers to my questions. I also want to work on using more techniques to make sure all of my students are involved and engaged in each lesson, and that I'm not just calling on the same people all the time.

If you want to know more about what Dr. Blackburn says about rigor and some of the techniques she suggests to increase rigor, then go to her website (www.barbarablackburnonline.com) or read one of her books. Better yet, go hear her speak!

What do you do to increase rigor in your classroom?

Montessori on Language Development

Since I'm taking a class on child development right now, I have been doing a lot of thought on how different child development theories relate to the kids I teach. I have found some theorists' ideas more interesting than others, and I would like to share some of my thoughts about the ones I found interesting. Today I would like to share some thoughts about Maria Montessori.

In particular, Montessori found that children learn how to read and write the best at about 4 years old, and that if the child does not begin learning to read and write until 6 or 7 years old, he or she will have a more difficult time with it. I think this explains a lot about why some children in our classrooms have no difficulty reading, while others find it to be a big struggle, even if they are not identified with learning disabilities. When I think about the children in my class last year who have the most difficulty reading and writing, these are also some of the same children who have less support at home in terms of education and probably did not begin learning to read or write until they entered kindergarten (which, according to Montessori, would be past the optimal age for learning how to read and write). It also makes me think of my ESL students who don't even begin learning English until they are already about 6 or 7 years old. It's no wonder it is so difficult for them, since the sensitive period for learning language has passed!

So I would like to make a plea to anyone with young children--please introduce literacy to your children before you send them to kindergarten. This will make reading and writing so much easier and more enjoyable for them than if you wait and let the kindergarten teacher teach them to read from scratch. I don't have any children of my own right now, but when I think back to my own personal experience, I know my parents read to me every day, and that I had all kinds of books available to me throughout my childhood that I would pick up and read. I also went to preschool, so I am sure that helped a bit as well in my language and literacy development. I read my first chapter book when I was in 1st grade. It saddens me to think that some students I have had as 3rd or even 4th graders still aren't ready to read chapter books. I have to wonder, if their parents had read with them at an early age would they be better readers?

Has anyone had any experiences with Montessori education? What do you think on her ideas on language development? How can teachers of older children ease the process of learning to read for students who are past the sensitive period of language development already?

Welcome!

This is my first blog ever, and so bear with me until I get the hang of this.

I'm an elementary teacher, and I just finished my third year of teaching. I taught mostly third grade so far, and next year I will be teaching second grade for the first time! I am very excited about it, and despite the fact that I just finished my first full week of summer vacation, I am enthusiastically planning a bunch of stuff for next year already!

Anyway, I got the idea of starting my blog from on online graduate class I am taking. In that class, we are supposed to write a blog about our learning two times a week. I decided that I really liked sharing my thoughts and ideas about teaching with others, and that it would be fun to try starting a real blog where I could continue to share my thoughts.

I'm hoping that in this process someone might actually find my thoughts helpful to their own teaching, or may also be able to share ideas with me through comments.

So, here we go...