"Mama. I'm going to grow in my own sweet way."
These are the words from my 4 year old son, coming home from school. Song lyrics from Tom Chapin. His class listens to this song regularly. This is IMBEDDED in who is he, already at the age of 4. He understands that not all children learn the same thing at the same time in the same way. And he's 4.
When the younger brother doesn't understand a new work that I'm showing him during our school time at home, the 4 year old reminds me. "Mama. He will grow in his own sweet way."
It's so lovely.
But this is SOOOO difficult to achieve in our classes of 30+ kids with SO many diverse needs. With test scores looming over our heads. With ALL of the hats that teachers wear. Letting our kids grow in their own sweet way. But they will. They do.
In what ways to you observe your students growing in their own sweet way?
I am just sick about all of this. Our legislators are not listening. They just aren't. They do not see the state of CRISIS that our students are in. That our COUNTRY is in.
30+ kids in a classroom is just TOO MANY.
One counselor for 700 student is NOT enough.
Access to military weapons is unacceptable.
Stress over statewide testing is unnecessary.
More than learning to read, write, or do STEM work, these kids need teachers to lead them in the way of compassion and kindness. In teamwork and caring for others. Teachers are under SO much pressure to make sure students pass the tests and improve their scores, that there is just not enough time to meet the social and emotional needs of 30+ kids in a classroom, too. And that isn't even considering teachers who teach multiple classes of 30+ kids.
Enough is enough.
Please write to your elected officials and demand change. Change for you. Change for your students.
You can download a copy of the letter I sent here. Edit it to fit your needs!!
"Ok! Everyone find a partner!"
AHHHH!!!
Choosing an appropriate peer partner for cooperative learning can be so hard for kids!
There are so many social aspects that students consider when selecting a partner for an activity, no matter how short that activity is.
Kids are thinking things like:
- Is this person my actual friend? - Yahoo! I'm just hanging out with my friend now!
- Is this person unpopular? - No thanks. I don't want to be seen with THAT kid.
- Is this person a bully?
- Will this person do the work?
- Will this person be kind to me?
What kids do not consider:
- How does my partner choice make other kids feel?
- What am I actually supposed to be doing with this time? (Oh yeah, learning.)
I had the privilege of co-teaching with some fabulous teachers. Here's what we did to help kids navigate this tricky social scene:
We started with a classroom community discussion about choosing partners
- What would it feel like to have no partner?
- What can you do to make sure everyone is included?
- What would it feel like to have your hand up for a partner, and have someone walk right past you to choose someone else?
- How can we all be good friends to each other during this activity?
For different groups, we needed ground rules. For example:
- Choose each person only once.
- Choose the closest person to you with a hand raised.
- Designate a "lost partners" location, in case there's no one close by to choose (also, some kids just feel more comfortable starting here, so the adults can help navigate the social piece).
I just love cooperative learning. Quiz and Trade is a great tool to use to get started with cooperative learning strategies!
What other ground rules would you add to the list? What other questions would you ask in a community discussion? I'd love your input!!
Funny title, right? Time for Mama. What is that?!?! I'm trying to find out.
This week I had a parent's night at my child's Montessori preschool. The overall topic was Bridging the Home and School. We talked how to make life as consistent as possible in both places, while being as realistic as possible about life.
One topic that came up from the parents was MOM GUILT! There are only so many hours in a day, and I don't know about you guys, but I certainly feel the pressure to spend all the minutes WITH my kids doing something enriching! It's EXHAUSTING! And it's difficult to do with kids of 2 different ages, too! Imagine if there were MORE of them!!!
I need to find ways to be in the same ROOM with my kids, near my kids, but doing my own thing.
Our usual nights are something like this:
Scene: End of dinner. Kitchen is a mess. I need to clean it up.
Kids: Mama! Come play! Mama! He took my truck! Mama! He's chasing me! Mama! The dog won't stop licking me! Mama! Come! Mama! Come! MAMA!!
GAH!!!
At the parent night, we talked a lot about how to get kids to be independent - that's what they do in a Montessori school - foster independence. Why can't I pull this off at home?!?! They gave us some ideas to try. They reminded us that the kids want to know that they are noticed, safe, and loved, but don't actually NEED us to do the same thing as them at the same time all the time. Ok. I can work with that.
So tonight, I simply said to my kids, "Hey guys. I need to clean up the kitchen from dinner. What are you planning to do?"
They thought about it for a minute, and the older boy said, "I want to do the truck painting again! I'll sit in the kitchen with you!"
So we pulled out the washable paints, junky old plastic trucks, and poster board. I set them up at the kitchen table, and I got to work and so did they.
For 30 minutes (and counting... they are still going), these boys have painted and painted and painted. They have discussed mixing colors, shades of colors, and creating a rainbow. And they actually worked TOGETHER! I heard so many conversations about sharing! It was so lovely! Every once in a while they'd ask me to pour some more paint or ask me to look at their work, but mostly they just liked being in the same room as me, even if I wasn't painting with them.
I managed to clean the entire kitchen, then had time leftover to pull out my laptop to write about it. The kids had a blast. And now we have these beautiful paintings to display.... that will take approximately 1 year to dry.
Best quote of the experience: Mama! This paint is spicy!
WHAT?!?!
One part of Montessori philosophy that resonates with me, and really always has, even before I knew anything about Montessori education, is that kids are going to be more invested in their work if they CHOOSE it themselves! As an educator, I have seen this many times. Kids will do the work they are assigned, but there's no joy about it. Or sometimes they won't do it at all. But when we'd do a project where they could choose the topic or the presentation method, we would see JOY in their faces. They worked hard at it, too.
Tonight I told my kids what I would be doing and them asked them to choose what they wanted. Their need to be with me was met AND they got to do something they wanted at the same time. Since I was able to get my work done earlier than usual, I am going to have time to catch up on This is Us tonight!!!
Win. Win. BIG WIN!
I'd love to hear from you - how have you pulled off getting some things done for yourself - at home or in the classroom - while the kids did their own work?
Until next time!
Pam
My oldest son has always been interested in science things - why and how things work, designing, patterns, etc. We are frequently completing STEM projects and the like. We have that area of science covered.
One Kindergarten standard that we hadn't touched yet is to investigate weather patterns over time.
We got our yearly calendar from the IBEW 481 local with pictures of people from our community.
I bought weather stickers from United Arts and Education.
Then each day, we placed stickers on the calendar that reflected the weather for that day. Now, he's only 4 so we stuck with the basics - sun, cloud, rain, snow. This could easily be extended to include high and low temperatures, wind speed, etc. There were no cute stickers for those.
Then January ended. I reflected on the work we did. He liked the daily stickers, but he didn't seem to get much out of it in terms of the overall goal - to understand weather patterns over time. So, I wanted to do more with it than just see it on the calendar. Can't stop there! I'm a teacher. It's in my blood.
I typed up a bar graph template. So, today, he used those same stickers to fill in the bar graph to look for patterns for the month of January.
Right away he started noticing that there were more cloudy days than sunny, more snowy days than rainy. Yes! This is what I was looking for!
And because I want this experience to be fun for him, and not a chore, I let his focus and interest dictate how far we got on the bar group. 17 days. He did 17 days worth of data collection in one sitting. That felt good enough for today. We'll pick it back up tomorrow.... or not. It will be there for him to choose when he's ready again!
Until then, we'll keep tracking the data on our calendar. My hope is that we'll complete a whole year of bar graphs so that we can compare the weather month to month in Indiana.
You can find the data collection sheets here for FREE!!
I'd love to know what ideas you have to further our weather exploration!!
Pam
