Teaching With Intention Chapters 3 & 4

Ok, so I'm already behind.  Its been a crazy couple of weeks with our new math adoption training and then TNCORE Training.  Here goes:

I really loved this chapter.  I am all about rearranging, reorganizing, and redoing my classroom this summer.  Once school was out for the summer I stayed away intentionally for a couple of weeks.  I knew I needed that time to reflect.  

Here were a few of my thoughts:  I need a much better traffic flow around the room, what am I thinking not having a large group area, why didn't I get rid of those 8 foot long cubbies last year, what do I want morning message/calendar to look like, what areas do I want to ensure student work is displayed in (we have to be real careful because of the fire marshal)?

I needed this chapter at this point.  

I went in last week for a day, mostly because my son was participating in the art and tennis camp offered through our summer school program.  On this day (after I fed my need for adult socialization) I recycled.  And I recycled.  And I trashed.  And I recycled some more.  I'm nowhere near done, I just ran out of time.  I'm now waiting on my floors to be waxed so I can get in and get busy.  Here are some of my thoughts on what will be happening in my little ol' space that I've taken from the reading and my reflection:

1.  My classroom will be an inviting, welcoming place.  I've got a purple rug coming from a funded Donor's Choose project and I am going to paint a shelf I have.  I plan to make sure the room arrangement is comfortable and flowing.  

2.  I WILL have a large meeting area.  I think this is the area I'm most excited about.  My room is not very big.  In place of the unsightly 8 foot long shelf I will place my rug, and just this week the custodians hung my new 6x4 corkboard that someone gave me for FREE!!!!  That's where my calendar will be hung.  I didn't even have a wall in my room where I could hang the calendar (the aforementioned shelf was also almost 5 feet tall)!  In the meeting area I will make sure to have all the materials needed for our large group work.

3. Small group areas will be revamped to make sure that the materials we need can be kept easily accessible.  I didn't really have a good system for this last year.  I have 2 kidney shaped tables.  Basically those tables are where my assistant and I work if we are at tables with small groups.  I want to make sure the materials all have homes and aren't just scattered.

I loved the quote at the end of the chapter that says " Classroom environments are organic-they grow as we do."  I truly feel like my environment has grown with me as I've grown as a teacher and I plan for it to continue to grow with me over my years of teaching.

Onward to Chapter 4.  It's ironic that this is the chapter that hit for this week, while I've been in TNCORE Training with the state.  One of our modules covered thinking aloud in depth and a lot of what we went over was covered in the book.

Let me start by saying that I truly believe, and have believed for a long time, that modeling thinking aloud is very important in teaching our students to be independent, critical, and creative thinkers.  But I'm not very good at it.  I love how Ms. Miller gave us some think alouds to get us started.  Between reading this chapter this week and practicing in training, I'm feeling a bit more confident in this area.

I also asked myself "Why don't you make more comments on your students work?"  I don't have a good answer for this.  Laziness maybe.  Lack of time possibly.  Maybe I thought that the first graders wouldn't really read the comments or questions I posed.  Not anymore.  I think that I could really spark some great conversations this way, as well as encourage and promote the students in their own thinking and work.

There is so much more I could say about this chapter, but since I'm combining two weeks into one post, I will stop there.  I can't wait to write about and show off my classroom at the end of the summer.  

Teaching With Intention: Chapter 2

I'm linking up again, and I'm loving this book!

Real life isn't scripted, neither is real teaching.

I haven't been able to get that quote out of my mind all week.  It seems as if so much of the curriculum we as teachers (at least at the elementary level) are given these days is scripted.  I remember when I taught for a neighboring county and our school bought into Project Grad because a very tiny portion of our school fed into a Project Grad high school.  I distinctly remember getting the math resources and seeing the script I was to read each day.  I was furious.  I couldn't believe that there were people out there telling me what to say to students that neither they nor I had met. Students who were as diverse as they come.  I still get mad thinking about it.  I had only been teaching 3 years at the time and teaching was nothing like what I had learned in my college courses.  

Now, almost 15 years later, we continue to get resources that are scripted.  Why?  A script can't take into account what prior knowledge a child may or may not have.  It cannot meet the needs of individual children!  I found that the scripted reading curriculum I was told to use stifled my creativity as a teacher as well as the students creativity in learning.  

Keeping it real now....  I NEED to read this book!  I think, no, I know-I've gotten so bogged down in all of the changes taking place in education at the moment that I have forgotten why I became a teacher in the first place, especially why I chose the Early Childhood licensure.  I have settled into a routine and it's not a good one.  Sure my kiddos leave first grade having learned the standards for the year, but do they truly understand what they have learned?  Will they remember what they have learned in the future?  Will they be able to say "I had a great time in 1st grade!  We had so much fun and we learned a lot of cool stuff!" Can I honestly say I have held true to my core beliefs as a teacher?  I can't say I like what I'm seeing.  However, I can say that I'm going to work on changing things.  

Ok, so I feel like I rambled for most of this post, but I know my fellow teacher friends will get it.  I can't wait to dive into this book more and to re-evaluate my own beliefs and practices.  It's long overdue!

After looking at the linky posts, I've come back to edit and add the following:

What are your beliefs about teaching and learning?

Well, over the years my beliefs have evolved a little, but honestly they are still pretty much the same.  I believe all children can learn, but they learn differently.  I believe that learning should be done across several modalities (I know I don't learn by only listening or by only doing, but a combination of many different ways.  I believe that learning should be fun and is often best done in a play setting during the early years.  

How do you build a sense of community in your classroom?

I start the year by having students come up with the rules with me.  We discuss how we are all a classroom family for the year, that we may not always agree, but we will treat each other with respect.  I have let students also help me come up with consequences, depending on the students I have.  Another way I build community is by having students work in groups often, and those groups change, depending on the task.  I expect that we all learn to work together and I model that a lot at the beginning of the year.

How do you go about teaching kids something new?

Well, that depends on what it is that I'm teaching.  Sometimes I will use small groups, sometimes whole group.  I try to involve students as much as possible, though.  I want them to own their learning.

Teaching With Intention: Chapter 1

So, this little blog has been neglected!  I have plans for the summer for blogging, and I figure, why not start with the Teaching With Intention by Debbie Miller book study hosted by Mr. Greg at The Kindergarten Smorgasboard.  I'll be linking up with Enchanted Kindergarten for chapter one.  Here goes!

First, I took this video of my classroom at the end of the school year, to post about, before I knew of the book study.  I wanted a kind of before and after.  Because I knew I wasn't happy with my room this year, I kind of let it go to pieces at the end and so I videoed (is that a word!) the down and dirty of it. School is out and I'm in the process of throwing out a TON of stuff.  I've got a new carpet and carpet squares on the way from a Donor's Choose project and a new cork board for the wall for morning message.  I'm definitely getting rid of the 8 foot cubby shelf, too!  I'll be posting another video reveal later in the summer when I'm done.

I had to divide it into 2 parts.

Warm, cheery, and inviting!  

I struggle with this one in my current classroom.  There are a ton of cubby type shelves that are not very useful.  All the shelves and the cubbies that have to stay take up almost all of the wall space.  Any anchor charts we make during the year go away rather quickly because we have no where to hang them where the kids can use them.  I can't paint the walls or hang anything from the ceiling.  I can only cover 20% of the walls.   The room is small!  I will probably have 20 students next year.  Therefore, 20 desks.  I want a book corner, so I'm trying to use the rug I have coming to also arrange the classroom library around.  I want people who walk in to think "Wow, I would love to be in this class!" and I know that is not the case right now.  

My ideal classroom wold be abuzz with chatter about meaningful things that we are learning about.  I often play music in the background and usually the kids love that.  I love a colorful classroom and plan to add splashes of color next school year.  I have a couple of shelves to paint and I'm going to make the cork board pop.

I loved in the book when she states that she didn't even know if the teacher was in the room.  To me, that is amazing.  I can see the classroom full of student learning with the teacher facilitating where needed.  I can see students being in control of their learning and being excited to learn.  I want that!

I want to move to more small group and one on one instruction next year.  Ideally, I think I would be better able to assess students and what they have learned and be able to guide instruction better.  In the past few years our team has moved to more whole group reading instruction and then utilize small groups.  I'm thinking of utilizing mostly small groups next school year and I'm researching what that would look like.  I know my assistant and I would be stationed at either of our kidney shaped tables.  I would often work at the stations with students as well.  Student work would be largely completed at the small groups and stations.  I'm sure some individual work would be completed at their desks as well.  Like I said, I'm researching how I want to accomplish this.

Converting to stations and small groups.  

I've gotten so accustomed to large group instruction with pull out of individuals and small groups when needed that this will be a big transition for me.  I've already started running schedules through my head on how to accomplish this.  

I also need to make sure I'm organized.  I start the year with the best of intentions and with great plans of organization, and then BAM! the year starts!  Once the year starts I do good to make piles out of the way and keep my head above water.  I'm trying to combat that by having a strong year long plan and things already organized to begin with.

Hmmmmmm, based on where I'm trying to go next school year, not much is already in place.  We will see where things go in the next school year, though!

I am so excited about the rest of this book.  Last week during a PD activity we had to create and take a standardized test like our students will have to take next school year.  I created a test based on third grade standards and I had a revelation.  I need to read more adult text.  I really had trouble comparing and contrasting and remember what I read!  OMWord!  Maybe it was just a bad day for me.  Maybe not!  I know though, that this summer will be full of reading not only for PD, but for pleasure!