Beginning student led discussions

"I can" statements are part of our lesson planning. I craft these statements for each segment of our day, direct student attention to them before, sometimes during, and after a lesson.One of the mini lessons I planned this week was to introduce students to an FQR organizer (Facts-Questions-Response). Of course that included a link to the Common Core AND and "I can" statement.After the mini lesson, students were directed to work in partnerships to read a nonfiction text found in our Reading Street books (not a fan of basals, but a great way to find multiple copies of a text) and with the partner jot on the FQR. Mindful of the role that academic language plays, I planned for students to collaborate in partnerships to complete the FQR and then use Turn and Talk to encourage discussion with another partnership.I usually go into discussion-based activities expecting glitches and expecting that I may need to reteach and redirect students who enjoy social language a lot more than academic language :-)  This time, however, as I moved from group to group, I heard.... actual discussion of what facts were learned, wonderings, questions, and reactions to the text.Mindful attention to the "I can" helped me to think about what my students would need to become successful. We not only worked on the process for an FQR, we reviewed our norms for discussion. And that allowed me to be an observer on the sidelines.I can turn and talk about facts, questions and responses to a nonfiction text. YES!

Educating the Whole Child

When you ask kids about their favorite subject in school, one of the most popular answers (after lunch) are "recess" and "gym". Why is that?

Kids seem to inherently know they need some physical exercise. They know they feel better when they get to move around. Brain and body breaks aside, kids need to exercise.So why is it that in the current educational culture, recess and gym are given the short straw? This school year, my students were allotted 10 minutes (including travel time) recess time and 50 minutes of gym instruction.  I'm sure they run (!) right home and go outdoors to play after school - not.From my perspective, childhood obesity is not just some sad story on the evening news. It is real. And we need to start by allowing students more time to get out there and move.

Do You Loop?

This week my principal approached me with an intriguing question - would you be willing to loop to fourth grade with your students?I needed a little time to think about that, but not for the reasons you might assume. My hesitation had nothing to do with a repeat year with my students, some of whom have been quite a challenge this year.You see, I've been in my classroom space for the past 6 years; the thought of moving (again) was just depressing. Imagine the amount of treasure I've saved in those closets "just in case". Secondly, not all of our classrooms have been equipped with the projection and MOBI technology that we have been using this year. Would my "new" space - because I would be trading classrooms with a colleague from Grade 4 -- have this technology installed?In the end, of course I said yes. The fourth grade teacher with whom I will share this adventure is similarly excited and we've already begun to meet to toss around ideas for making transitioning easy for both of us.I look at my students differently already. I know I get an opportunity to start a school year with them at an advantage: they already know me (and my limits) and I know them too.So while I needed a moment to consider this idea, I am excited to start planning and preparing for another year with the same students. And I am looking for advice from teachers who have done this. Do you loop?

Music To The Rescue

In a past life I was a musician and a music teacher.  While I lacked the talent and drive to become a professional musician, music has always been something I've enjoyed.In our classroom, when students need to complete a transition from one activity to the other - for example, universal breakfast clean up to Morning Meeting - we play music. We began the year with Pachelbel and are working on Bach at the moment.My students love to talk - usually to me and all at once -  they talk a LOT. And while I understand and encourage this as part of their processing and language acquisition, it can get pretty loud. When we're in Writing Workshop, there are definitely times I want them talking out loud, but there are times when I'd like them "talking" with their pencils and pens.One day this week, as I was preparing to release my students to their writing tasks, I started explaining to them that I would like to begin experimenting with background music during Writing Workshop.  As I write - even now - we have classical music playing in the background so why not?  This was, as many things about teaching are, unplanned.It was not an instant success -- it took a couple of starts before I could convince my students that they didn't need to try to talk over the music. But over the course of the last three days, the background conversations - the ones that were not about writing - have been replaced so that Writing Workshop is most definitely a more focused work period.Yesterday, one of my friends approached me in amazement saying "we wrote quietly the whole time!" And so they did.  Music to the rescue.

Some Safety Suggestions from the Peanut Gallery

Lots of schools districts - including the one in which I work - have been revisiting safety procedures since Newtown's tragedy.  That's a good thing. But as with many suggestions for educators, there are some incredibly myopic ideas out there.Recently I heard the suggestions that educators plan room arrangements so that bookcases can be installed close to the classroom door. The thinking behind this is that, in cases of emergency, a teacher could push the bookcase in front of the door thereby providing a barrier to an armed intruder.Well, I consider myself fairly strong after over year of strength and conditioning, but I can tell you it would take a lot more than my muscles to move a bookcase in front of an entry way in an emergency situation.  Not to mention classroom entry door open out into the hallway thereby allowing an intruder to simply open the door to gain entry.If you truly want to know what may or may not work in safety situation, invite the people who might actually be in the situation in to the discussion. Any teacher or building administrator could have reminded a consultant of these two factors.What might work? Well, that would probably cost more money than a school district is prepared to spend to retro-fit classrooms.  Currently, in order to lock the classroom door, I need to open the door and lock from the outside of the door.  Keeping the door locked and shut during the day means every time one of my students needs to use the bathroom during the day, a student would need to knock to regain entry to the classroom, thereby interrupting teaching and learning.Two thoughts. One, change the door material from wood to steel. Two, install a dead bolt throw high up on the door (so that small inquisitive fingers don't accidentally throw the bolt) that could lock the door within seconds while students are moving to safe spots in the classroom.It's a different environment we're teaching in. Answers to school safety concerns will not be easy. What are your ideas?

Deciphering technology

Just before the holiday break, our new technology - Mobi 360 - arrived. Hopefully the wireless projector that is part of this system will have been installed before Wednesday when we return to school.  Hopefully I will be able to make it all work the way it was intended.We tried out the system the Thursday before going home.  The Pulse units operate like clickers and each student is assigned one to use for class.  I put our weekly vocabulary test into a Powerpoint slideshow and the kids took the test using their new technology.  Outside of two children who had pressed some combination of buttons and disassociated from the Mobi receiver, it was fun and quick AND yielded immediate data without hand correcting.I love it when technology provides an improvement in delivering instruction or in  gathering assessment data. I love when technology provides some motivation for students.Never a fan of single-minded programs, I've always thought of technology applications in education as part of a tool-kit.  After all, I use technology with a purpose, not just because it's there.Mobi is, of course, going to take some adjustment and preparation on my part. But so far, it looks like a powerful addition to this teacher's toolkit.

Are we the Borg?

I have to touch the third rail: is education today more assimilation into a one-size-fits-all or is it about reaching a baseline of standards for learning? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8]I ask this because lately it seems that there is an underlying expectation that we plan or are given one lesson and asked to apply it to every student in a grade level or a district or state. Sometimes even the teacher's dialogue with the students is scripted.But my teacher self - the skeptic that I sometimes am - says this makes no sense. How can a lesson applicable to one set of students work flawlessly with another? The students who make up my classroom change from year-to-year. so shouldn't the instructional delivery also change? The ability to assess where students enter a lesson and how I deliver the instructional supports those students need - shouldn't that be as student-driven and tailored as possible? Wouldn't the teacher in front of those students be the best at reading the room and knowing what to do -- isn't that what you pay me to do?Levels or distrust, disrespect, demonization. Those trends in our popular culture seem to drive the rush to a scripted, and lock-step curriculum. Silly me, I thought a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction and a 25-year career might provide me with the tools to at least figure out how to move students from point A to point B.Students deserve more than a scripted curriculum, one that is often developed by profiteers lurking on the edges of education ready to swoop in and make a profit by manufacturing a crisis in education that often is not real.Resistance may be futile - for now. But as long as I'm allowed to teach, I will covertly or overtly continue to resist those one-size, scripted curricula.

Start Up

The first days of a school year always challenge me. Often, I feel like I'm not, you know, getting anywhere. Last week (northeastern Massachusetts schools often begin before Labor Day unlike many districts inside of Route 123), was no different. As my students came into the classroom I came to the panicked realization that they weren't even aware of the expectations for arrival routines!What to teach that first day when there are so many critical and essential things to be taught when there are so many essentials? As an enthusiastic Daily Five fan, applying the 10 Steps to Independence to basics seems natural -- we've applied it to walking in the hallway, to getting started on the day and closing off  a good day's work, even to fire drill practice.We've got a long way to go before the day moves seamlessly. But we are well on the way to student independence, to building an environment in which I can trust students to make good choices about their learning - an in which my  students can trust me to guide them when needed.

Planbook Technology

We are a geek family. There I said it.  My husband is a former software engineer now a working photographer.  My son is a software engineer. I was an Instructional Technology Specialist (computer teacher) for 5 years.So embracing new technology is kind of fun for me. I like to see if I can break software by asking it to do something on the edge of functionality. And yes, I know how geeky that sounds.This year, after using Word and Excel to create planbooks for myself, I am embracing the cloud. Evernote, dropbox, google docs.... whatever can make something created in one place visible and functional in another.I stumbled across two planbook packages that looked promising, but have decided to work with planbookedu.  Here's what I like:  I can pull out both Common Core and Massachusetts state (2004) standards and attach them to records, I can create a template, I can work on any of the platforms that I have access to (iPad, Mac, PC). I can easily share my planbook, something that I have had to do in the past when I worked as a Special Ed. inclusion partner classroom.What is still unknown - because our school is being rewired - is whether or not the planbookedu website will be blocked by our school filter.  Dont' laugh,  I assume nothing in all things involving the web and education.What I hope to accomplish through using planbookedu is a greener approach to lesson planning.  Last year, each week's plans required 10 pages of paper (and laserjet toner). This year I should need zero paper.  Even if the web address gets blocked by the school system's filter, I can download my plans to reside locally on my iPad.  And when a substitute is needed, I can attach those same plans to the request made through the program our district uses for teacher attendance.This all seems like a workable solution to the huge notebook full of paper that I've had to keep in my classroom to prove I actually do make plans. Free versions of the software are available (no sharing functionality) and a full-function 14-day trial also available. 

Of Power Companies and Education

We recently returned from a quick trip to DC. The DC-Maryland-Virginia area has been hit hard by a weather system which resulted in many downed tress and, even during our visit, many in the DC area were without power days after the storm itself had passed.  Pepco, Old Dominion, BGE - the area utility companies had many reasons for the delays in getting power restored to customers, many of whom were sweltering in temperatures topping out at 106.

With many downed trees and utility poles, the work to restore power was slow and painstaking. For those of us who live in he Northeast, the memory of the snowstorm last October was similar. Electricity is a basic necessity in modern times and going without causes lots of hardships.

Now how does this vignette connect to education?

In Juliette Kayem's op-ed piece in the Boston Globe, Pulling Plug on Nation's Security,she states that the ultimate fix to vulnerable power lines is to bury them. There is resistance to this idea as it is "expensive"; I believe the number quoted in Ms. Kayem's piece was $6 billion in the DC area for fully burying all lines. It is the ultimate fix, but it is an investment that requires quite a large outlay of capital.

Isn't that a lot like what public education is today? Lots of piecemeal programs enacted to make the big "problem" disappear... for a while. Investing in education is expensive. Educating a generation so that they become productive members of society 15-20 years later is expensive.

The ultimate "fix" for education is not going to be found in band-aid programs that provide a small amount of help for a small amount of time. Like burying utility lines, it will need a sustained investment which, to date, our government does not seem to want to make.

How Do You Model Expectations?

Responsive Classroom provided some review PD for our school this past week. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like about the RC approach, and surely I picked up some great clarifications and refreshers. In fact much of the presentation affirmed what I know in my heart to be true about education and students and learning.

However, there are some practices in Responsive Classroom that my experienced-teacher-self question.  One thing is the process taken in modeling a routine for students.  I understand the gradual release models which I first learned from Regie Routman. Teacher models, teacher models with students, gradually releasing the process totally to students.

This year, as a result of my reading and training with the Daily Five's 10 Steps to Independence, I've made sure to add on an "unmodel", a chance for students to show what a routine,exercising students' brain muscle memory as borne out by Michael Grinder's work. An "unmodel" with an immediate opportunity to provide a correct example, is an essential step and even my more shy and reticent students love to provide the ultimate unmodeled behavior examples. I've discovered that this is a very powerful way to get kids to internalize  expectations for any procedure I've taught, Allowing my more behaviorally challenged kids an opportunity to be the "unmodel" and then reinforcing appropriate behaviors with the same student become a "model" has given us comic relief along with a dose of visual modeling.

I  also don't buy in to the RC suggestion that the teacher wear a hat or some other article when he/she is unavailable to students. Doing so seems artificial to me. With the amount of conferencing and small strategy group instruction taking place during our Literacy time, I want to have taught the expectations and routines so well that students don't feel the need to break their stamina, or mine, because they know what to do. I trust them to make good choices. That was a HUGE leap for me last Fall; but with very few exceptions, my students were self-managing their learning from about 6 weeks in until the end of the year.  No special costume needed.

As with any program or package, there are always parts that are agreeable and parts that are just not good fits. We all want the best for our students; and as long as we, the professionals, can be trusted to use our good judgement with the children in front of us, there is much that can be accomplished.

Reflections on a Classroom Library

About 3 years ago now I spent a winter-spring weeding and reorganizing the library in my classroom.  Lots of people have lots of ways to do this -- and lots of reasons for what they do.The first thing I did was to throw/recycle or donate books - relentlessly and without much sentiment. I teach in a school where many children do not have access to their own books so, whenever I could, I gave away books. What I was left with was a collection of material that I would enjoy choosing from, and that is key. If you personally wouldn't touch the book, your students probably won't want to touch them either.Responding to what I felt was a need to level books so that children read within a range of levels and a need to expose students to varieties of genres, I did lots of research and found the system Beth Newingham employed in her own third grade classroom was the best fit for what I intended. I color code baskets so that, even on the most basic levels, students can select and return books without any intervention from me (well, most of the time).  I have red bins designated for any fiction genres and green bins for any non-fiction genres.  I keep a larger browsing crate of poetry.  Within each of the two major categories, fiction and non-fiction, there are sub-genres: for example realistic fiction, historical fiction, informational text.  Sometimes I've subdivided those categories further: Science and Nature, Lands and People for example.Again, the reason for this is to be sure children are exposed to many different genres. Also, it helps me ensure that I have a balance of book genres; my natural tendency is to load up on realistic fiction. It's been enlightening to see what gaps there are in our library.The labels for each book are afixed to the book front as is the colored dot designating the book level range.  I tape the label onto the cover with clear mailing tape and have not have any problem with a student picking off the label.Because the levels in each color range are somewhat broad, I haven't found any problem with students trying to read books at their frustration level, known by my colleagues as "fake reading". We "color conference" frequently using Modified Miscues or Fountas Pinnell Benchmarks and students are coached in conferences.  I have found that when the children know there's an opportunity and an expectation for movement from one color to the next, competition is less of a problem. When I had baskets of books in just one level, that was not always the case.Children are fairly accurate in replacing the books in the bin. This is a task and responsibility that I expect from each child. Not every book in the room is leveled or labeled; there are opportunities for children to self-select and decide for themselves whether or not a book is a good fit.Additionally I created a spreadsheet/database for tracking which books are in the library. I keep an alphabetized list (by title) in an index notebook that the children can access in case they are looking for books with more than one copy for a buddy reading or in case they are looking for a particular book title.  My children consult this book often when they are swapping books in and out of book boxes. The list also is useful as every so often we get asked to provide an inventory of the books in classrooms. I can sort the list in several ways: color code, Guided Reading Level, author, genre. This is helpful when replacing or adding to a library.For more on how my personal journey in organizing a classroom library progressed, check this link. As Beth Newingham states "Every teacher organizes a library in her own way". This is one that works for me.

"Nobody Got Up Early in The Morning and Could Draw Perfectly..."

Christopher Myers is an author that I've grown to admire. One of his stories, "Wings", is included in the basal readers we're provided with. For me, this is one of the best pieces of children's literature ever: the illustrations, the premise, the themes.... sometimes I think this text belongs in the hands of the adults more than the children!One of my passions in teaching is to teach my students that they are smart, that they can learn. Convincing kids that they are capable learners is hard work, but with all due respect to those test writers lurking out there, it is the most important thing that I teach.Sometimes I am not quite sure my students believe me - and why should they? After all I grew up in a white middle class family and socio-economic situations were so much different than most of my students.  Still, we keep trying to meet on that common ground.Christopher eloquently speaks about the portrayals our students see of success; how our students don't always see or know what it takes to be successful.

Nobody got up early in the morning and could draw perfectly.

Check out this video  on Reading Rockets to hear, in Christopher's own words, the valuable lessons our kids need. Advance to the clip labeled Hard Work to hear Christopher speak about effort in whatever you do.

From the Peanut Gallery

All I really ever wanted to do was teach.  It gets harder and harder to love this career every year. We are awash in edicts - do this, don't EVER do that. Decisions made from afar by people who seem to have no idea what students are like, what they need. 

I study more, read more, research more about pedagogy this year than I ever did when I was a beginner. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But in this time in education it seems as if we are ants scurrying from one thing to the next trying to find the perfect solution to all our students' shortcomings. We work under a microscope - the public, the press, the politicians all want teachers to turn out perfectly educated humans as if they were widgets on an assembly line.

I'm afraid I can't do that no matter how hard I am trying - and whether one wants to recognize it or not, No one program, no one method is going to be successful with all students.

I am working hard. Last week, one of my students had been physically assaulted by a parent with a hanger - DCF sent him home after investigating.  Think his mind was on 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication?  Guess how well he did on the District math test - a test that indicates whether I have done my job - when his mind was on how he was going to make it though the weekend without getting smacked around for causing DCF to confront his attacker - his father.  And he's only one tale from this classroom. There are many more with similar traumas and distractions everywhere you look, I don't care how affluent your school community is.

The climate for education - for the kids and for their teachers - is so punitive. We collect data to cover our asses under the guise of informing instruction.

Is this what education has come to? I hope with every breath of my being that the answer is no.

Why The Math D5 Fits

Lots of teacher types seem interested in applying the Daily Five principles to mathematics. What does that mean? For me, it means that teachers are struggling to find ways to deliver comprehensive instruction to our students and to differentiate so that rigor is applied to all students no matter what their level of accomplishment.The Math Daily Five as developed by Gail and Joan consists of four categories really - Math by Myself, Math Writing, Partner Work (Math with Someone), and Math with Technology.  I like the categories, really I do, but I also know I need to be accountable to expectations for teaching math that are required in my school district.My current thinking - notice I am saying current because I expect this will morph as we figure out more of what the kids need in transitioning to Common Core - is that I need five, not four major categories. The categories I currently use in my classroom are: Math Exploration, Fact Practice, Problem Solving, Technology, and Math Games.  Here is why:

• Our district has adopted a Launch-Explore-Summary model for delivery of instruction.  The "explore" activity on the Math D5 board is connected to the lesson that has been launched during math.
• We also use Investigations in Number, Data and Space as our basal mathematics resource.  This structure supports the materials we have the most consistent access to.
• Fact practice is necessary as students are often deficient in knowing their facts - I still have students who try to count on their fingers to add and subtract and they need to master those pronto. Common Core requires students in Grade 3 to master multiplication and division to the 10s family. The fact practice games and flash cards (we use the triangular ones) fit well in here.
• Our Unified School Improvement Plan specifies that students get direct instruction in problem solving - not to mention the Massachusetts Common Core docs also call out problem solving structures. I give students at least one problem to solve each week in their Problem Solvers' notebook to track their progress.
• The games I choose for the Math Game choice function as review of prior skills and often as intervention practice for struggling students. Many of these activities are based on Number Sense and Operations/Algebra as that is where my students are weakest.

With all the nuts and bolts of why I use the Daily Five out there, one of the most beneficial aspects is actually more general.  The Sisters advocate for teaching students to be independent - accountable for their own learning actions and trusted to stay on task without constant teacher intervention.  For me, this is the ultimate reason for teaching students the Daily Five structure. I need to pinpoint which students are struggling and provide targeted help (an initiative also mandated by our District).  If I am constantly redirecting students I simply can not do that. I need to know that the students who are not directly interacting with me at any particular point in time are engaged in meaningful mathematics activity for the entire 90 minute mathematics period.Another reason why I've embraced the Daily Five structure for mathematics is that it allows for segmenting the time frame.  Does anyone really have those long imaginary blocks of time with class interruptions at the end of the day? I don't think so. My schedule is much more coherent this year than it has been for the last 3 years; however, I still need to interrupt my mathematics block for lunch and recess. So the general structure of the block goes like this:10 - 15 minute Launch with whole group20 - 30 minutes (students start with Explore and move to a choice)10 minute mid-point check in (either we solve/discuss the daily activity or we check in with something I've notice as I observe students working).15 minutes additional independent choice time (at this point I pull one or two students who are struggling with the daily concept for some clarification OR if everyone "gets it" (right), I work with a group of students to extend thinking.LUNCH & RECESS20 minutes additional independent activity (intervene with students who struggle with number sense)10 minute Summary of what we've done or learned for the day.So far, this structure is working for me and my students. Perfect? I don't think so, but the more I learn about what my students need and the more read and study about the thinking behind the Daily Five, the more I think I am on the right track for helping my students.

The Places We Write

When we returned to school this week, I knew I would need to revisit some of our routines. The first week in January always seems like a good time to do such things. One thing I knew I wanted to clarify was where to put writing.In my third grade classroom, there seem to be 4 categories of writing activities - Reading Responses, Writers' Notebook captures, Genre/project based writing, and Free Writing.  So this week I set out to redefine these 4 with my students through the creation of anchor charts and practice. As we work to refine the kinds of writing we do in  the four places, we created an anchor chart for each.Our Writers' Notebooks in particular had become a mash of full-blown stories - not simply observations, ideas, snippets of conversation that might later turn in to something more substantial. We've started with a new notebook this week, a notebook that students are expected to keep on their desks during the day just in case a new writing idea comes to mind. While that spontaneity has not yet been achieved, I hope my message is clear: writers need to be ready to jot down ideas at any time.Organization, as any teacher can tell you, is where we succeed or stumble. If the structure for keeping track of materials and tasks doesn't make sense to me personally, it probably won't be helpful for the students. For me, and hopefully for my students, this past week's activities has helped us to clarify and to organize tasks more logically.

Adventures in Technology

It was a chance discussion that brought it on. My sister, a newly minted teacher from Oregon, pointed me to a blog written by one of her instructional technology professors, Barry Jahn. It was the post on an $80 SmartBoard that caught my interest.Working in cash-strapped urban school districts generally means technology is way down on the list of priorities.  I have two iMacs in my classroom - 1 is nearly 10 years old and no longer can be updated; the other newer model (3 years old) is shared by my students and me and now has been given over entirely to the students. Getting a picture here?So I am always on the look-out for some technology applications that I can a) afford and b) use meaningfully. As a former instructional technology specialist I firmly stand on the side of tech teachers who think technology should be one of the tools students use -- not some stand-alone flash-in-the-pan.So when the idea of making a SmartBoard out of a Wii-mote appeared, I was intrigued. I already had the Wii-mote -- gathering dust as those things are apt to do. I had my old Dell XPS laptop that I was in the process of designating for use in school as "my" computer.  I had a projector already in the classroom. So all I needed was a bluetooth dongle, the software, and an infrared pen.  Sounds easy - right.Well not so fast. There is Murphy's Law to consider here - if anything can possibly go wrong it does (and did).  First I needed to get past the hurdle of getting my Dell to connect to the school's network. Can I tell you that Fort Knox does not have such stringent security?Then the bluetooth was not plug-and-play technology; that took about a week to figure out the ONE WAY it would recognize my Dell and the Wii-mote. The projector and Dell had a little tussle with each other and wouldn't "talk". And finally, it turns out WHERE you place the Wii-mote has a lot to do with whether or not the pen gets seen by the system and can be calibrated.Oh and the software, no longer free - but a free-trial, didn't much care for working either. It felt like every hurdle that was overcome had another one waiting to take its place in the line of "technology prevention". It probably didn't help that I truly was trying to do this on the cheap by using my 8-year-old laptop.However, persistence paid off and 2 months later I have a SmartBoard. I rolled it out with my students this week when we introduced the concept of similes with the students, using an already made SmartBoard file from Smart Exchange. Even though the calibration on the pen still needs a tweak, the silly thing worked. And honestly, I don't think I've ever had an easier time getting kids to understand the concept of figurative language.A perfect reason to use technology in the classroom! Can't wait to find some others.

I Am Not A Nudge..... Really

When you have pretty strong convictions about something, they are not always understood or shared by others.For me, one of my thoughts is that creating an environment of order and welcome is of high importance to my students' frames of mind. With many of my students coming from existences that are not always orderly, I have felt that the ambiance created in the classroom can go a long way toward settling students, toward allowing students to focus and learn.My colleagues and I are reading Charles Appelstein's No Such Thing As a Bad Kid, as part of a teachers' book club this fall.  I was struck by the importance of cleanliness, warmth, and color in a classroom toward creating a safe environment for my students. Appelstein specifically calls out attending to classroom design - as do the Sisters. It is something I have been dabbling in for the last 4 months and now, armed with both Appelstein's and Gail and Joan's thinking, I may be ready to do something drastic.I hate clutter. There seems to be no end of it in an inclusion classroom, so the first thing I need to address is the collection of materials that do not appear to have a use. Countertops get covered with materials - surely there has got to be a neater way to store what materials are needed for a day or week. This is tricky when you are sharing your space with other adults - I don't want to be bossy about it, but some of the materials I see tucked away has no real purpose in the everyday learning of my students.The next step will be to somehow find a way to create a more welcoming space - adding curtains/valances (whatever the fire code allows), changing that God-awful turquoise to something more calming, putting away or weeding out materials that aren't in use, creating spaces that are welcoming for children to read, write and think.So really, I am not a nudge, but I am convinced that the changes I can make -- and the clearing of clutter -- will impact the learning environment in this classroom. And they must be done.

Using Daily Five Math to Support Common Core

This summer was partially spent in aligning Common Core Mathematics curriculum (Massachusetts-style) with the district's universally available materials and laying out a scope and sequence that makes sense vertically and horizontally. As anyone who has looked at the Common Core in depth can attest, it's an on-going process full of starts and stops.A particular challenge to 3rd and 4th grade teachers in this transition year - this year our students will be MCAS-tested on 2004 Curriculum Frameworks - is, while we work to transition there is a great  need to keep a close watch on those standards that have been moved from our grade level. Particularly the standards for which our students will be accountable but were not previously taught to mastery.To my thinking, this is where using the Daily Five in Mathematics makes perfect sense. I can still launch my core lesson - the Common Core-based lesson, have my students work for a period of time on the activity (notice I'm not saying worksheet!), reconvene for a summary discussion and refocus students on continued work using one of four categories: Strategy Games, Facts-Clocks-Money, Problem Solving, or Math Tools.Yes, I know that the Sisters don't use this terminology.  These are the terms that I use because of the mind-blowing task of straddling two curricula while transitioning to full Common Core implementation.As a third grade teacher, I know the bulk of my mathematics intervention - the dance to catch kids up on things that are now receiving more emphasis - will be on number sense and operations (CCM: NBT, OA) . Prior to this year, there was no explicitly spelled out requirement that students master addition and subtraction to 18s in second grade.  We've got some wood-shedding to do here.To keep things sane, and to allow me to meet several small groups, I have a few strategy games that I call "landmarks". In our current multiplication unit, those games include array cards, Marilyn Burn's Circle and Star game, as well as Close to 100 (or 1000) and Collection Card games (Investigations in Number Data and Space) we used to introduce 3-digit addition/subtraction. The teaching challenge is to pick out universal games where "rules" stay the same, but the ante is pushed to make it challenging for all students no matter what their level of mastery.As most students use the four choices to continue to build mathematical concepts and skills, I can meet with small groups of students needing intervention support  in place value, or understanding of addition/subtraction or some other yet undiscovered area of need.How can I do that? Because my students are Independent Learners, I know that when I attend to the small group, the rest of the class is engaged in some meaningful practice and learning. The same Daily Five expectations for Literacy - get started right away, do math the whole time, work quietly, work on stamina - are applied to independent explorations in mathematics.For me, the Daily Five principles applied to the mathematics class make this differentiation possible. My implementation certainly is not perfect, but knowing my students are getting what they need without the teacher being pulled away by monitoring what is going on in other areas of the classroom makes the work ahead possible. And definitely more enjoyable.

Let's Toss All the Balls in the Air

Last week, we created our last I-Chart; the one for Listen to Reading. So now we have all the components of the Daily Five in place. It's an exciting yet frightening time .It has not always been smooth sailing. I find I have to keep pinching myself as a reminder that one of the most important parts of the Daily Five is that the responsibility for our classroom environment, for developing independent learners, is for me to give up control. Kind of a challenge for an obsessive, compulsive control-freak.This week I'm identifying some of my barometer kids - I have 3 - those kids who have difficulty maintaining stamina and who need to build their independence with smaller steps. Each of these children have difficulty throughout the day with attending/listening; their hands are always in motion (I've never seen a third grader disassemble a pencil sharpener before!). This is going to be a challenge.Now with all the components in place, it is a matter of logistics -though  my students concept of time is somewhat off reality. What some students feel is about 20 minutes - the time I would ideally like them to spend Reading to Self each day - falls somewhat short; the students like to move through all five choices. We are working through the intermediate Daily Five structure and some days there isn't enough time to complete 5 activities.What is gratifying is to have students choose to read, choose to write. There is a subtle change in attitude that makes all the hard work we have been doing to build independence worthwhile.  There is a lot of work we have to do yet, but the Daily Five is making a positive difference in transferring the responsibility for learning to my students.