Author Archives: Renee

A Wonderful Hum of Activity: Choice Time!

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Since I last wrote about Bill’s kindergarten class, I’ve had the opportunity to visit two of his Choice Time periods.

Oh, what fun I had! Let me share some of the centers that I observed.

The Science Center –The children pretty much set up the center themselves. They took a big plastic bin filled with sand, pebbles, rock and shells off a nearby shelf and placed it on the table. They had all different types of sieves, cups and magnifying glasses. But one thing that’s REALLY special is the microscope that’s hooked up to a computer screen! I was so fascinated by the enlargement of materials and the children had some wonderful conversations. One of the girls at the center was practically jumping with excitement.” I never ever went to this center! Look how many pebbles I got (in the sieve). I never knew science was so much fun!” Bill put out paper, pencils and crayons for the children to record their observations. The paper had a drawing of a microscope as part of the border and I noticed that, after a while, the girls became involved with coloring in the picture, taking some of the focus away from their detailed drawings done from observation and I wondered if this would happen if there were colored pencils available but not crayons. It’s just a thought that I had. I’ll see what Bill thinks about this when we have time to talk.

The Block Center: This year, when Bill set up his room he devoted much more space to the block center and this has had a noticeable impact on the quality of building being done and on the collaborative work that the children engage in. They spend more days working on structures and each day revise and add to the work done by the previous builders. It will be interested to see how the building work starts to reflect the playground trips that they will take as part of their playground study. I think that it might be a good idea for Bill to set up a display of playground books in the center as “inspiration”.

Dramatic Play: Rather than have a traditional “kitchen” set up, Bill stacked hollow blocks against the wall by his meeting area. There’s also a small bookcase that has bins with various ‘props’. The day that I was there, the children first seemed to be building a house. Then one of the boys discovered a sailor hat in the bin and before you could say “presto”  the house turned into a boat, a sort-of houseboat! This changeable environment allows the children free reign in setting up scenarios. Having this center located on the rug also frees up more space in the room for other activities and it gives the children a large area for their dramatic play.

Star Name – Bill has been doing a name study based on the work of Patricia Cunningham. The Star Name Study Center gives children the opportunity to play around with names and letters. They have class lists with photos of each child, blank books, letters, pencils, marker, and paste. I remember observing this center in Bill’s class some years ago and he added alphabet grids for the children to use along with clipboards. I saw the children using these grids to ‘survey’ the class…How many names from our class go in the ‘A’ box?, etc. The children were not told what to do with the grids. They came up with this survey idea on their own. I wonder if he will add something like this to the center this year? When I was teaching kindergarten, I had mystery name puzzles in little clear plastic zip-up bags at the center. I’ll ask Bill if he thinks his children might find the puzzle idea interesting. Perhaps they could make up their own name puzzles on thin cardboard!

Duplos– I was particularly interested to observe this center. It’s an area where I often experienced difficulties. I found that children used the materials to make weapons and that they had a tendency get out of control. Many of the teachers who I work with face the same problem with Duplos and Legos.

On the day of my visit, it was all boys at this center (3). They seemed to be totally engrossed in their constructions. It was parallel play but they were conversing with each other. After a few minutes, one child realized that he wanted a ‘door’ that was part of the other’s construction and it looked like there might be an explosion! However, he stopped arguing and came up with the idea of building a door. This was so interesting to see. I think that as teachers, we sometimes tend to jump in to mediate before giving children time to work things out on their own.

I asked the boys if they would like some sticky notes to write signs for their building and this idea took off for a few minutes.

About midway through the center time, the boys lost interest in their constructions and began throwing the Duplos at each other and around the carpet. Bill had to stop in to calm down the situation. I don’t think it was unusual for this to happen with these particular materials at this time in the school year. I’ve found that if this construction is done on a table, rather than on the floor, the children stay more focused for longer periods of time.

Also, it’s helpful to give them a large cardboard to work on and encourage them to come up with an idea for working together. (i.e. a space station; a playground; a city, etc.) They can have other materials to supplement their construction such a sticky notes, crayons or markets for writing on the cardboard, little figurines and even some books as ‘reference’. Doing this will often encourage more collaborative and inventive play. If it’s on a cardboard, it can be brought to the share meeting after Choice Time, a sort-of mini- celebration.

 

Easel: When I was there last week, there were two children working at the easel. Only black and white paint were out. I wondered about limiting the colors at first, but it actually was quite fascinating to see what the children did with only these two colors. There was a lot of mixing, forming all different grades of grays. Bill had a sponge available at the easel for cleaning the brushes, but Sophie chose to use it for creating all kinds of textures on the paper! The limitation of having only the black and white seemed to open up more experimentation. I can’t wait to speak with Bill to find out if that was his purpose or if the experimentation was a surprise.

Art Center: This was quite interesting because I noticed a different quality of work each week. I’m not sure if it reflected the children who were there or the choice of materials. Let me explain a bit.

During my first Choice Time visit, one boy was intensely working on a “Pirate Map.” He told me that he always plays pirate games and he loves pirates. As he was drawing, he talked his way through the process (“Here’s where he starts. Then he has to go around the island. This is the first treasure. Let me get a yellow crayon for the treasure. Okay. Here’s the second treasure. That’s the big treasure.” He literally spent the entire period working on his map.

At the same table a girl was twisting and gluing paper to make an intricate pop-up picture. She proudly brought it over for me to see. I wondered if she could make a pop-up playground. She wasn’t sure if that would be possible but she thought that she could try it next time. I’m not sure if she followed up on that. I think it could be a brought up at meeting time as a challenging activity that children might want to try. Perhaps she could give a demonstration on how to make a pop-up picture and help out at the center if children seemed interested.

When I returned to obseve this center on my second class visit,  the children were tracing, using cardboard shapes and cutouts. The work at the table seemed, to me,  significantly less personal and creative. Children were limiting themselves to tracing the shapes and coloring them in. The creative and individual use of materials that I saw on my previous visit was not in evidence on this day.

 

Cooking: Bill, like many teachers today, is alone in the room with 24 children. This makes doing activities like cooking or woodworking a real challenge. On this particular day, a mother came in to make gingerbread cookies with the children. She made the dough ahead of time and brought it to school with flour, rollers, and cookie cutters and with all sorts of goodies for decorating the cookies. The children were quite excited and involved with this activity. They were making enough cookies to share with the class.

 

I spoke with Bill about how I believe that the process is even more important than the final product. I suggested that if he could get one parent a day to help out (he thought that he could do that), then he could make something that is worked on all week. For example, I remember making a carrot cake with my class. On the first day the children washed and scraped the carrots. On the second day the children at the center grated the carrots. On the third day the next group began making the dough. The dough was completed on the fourth day and baked. On Friday, children cut and served the cake during Choice Time, made individual booklets about carrot cake, washed all of the utensils, took a survey of who did and did not like carrot cake. It was a class effort. There are many different recipes that can be broken up this way.

When I shared my thoughts about the cooking center with Bill, he excitedly came up with the idea of spending a week making an apple pie. Bill took my suggestion and ran with it! It’s so wonderful that, even though he’s been in the classroom for quite a few years, he’s still open to suggestions and to growing professionally.

We haven’t spoken yet, so I don’t know if the apple pie  happened yet. I’ll update you on this after Bill and I meet.

The Light Box Center: This is an area where Bill and I have different opinions. In his class, the light box is used for tracing pictures, the kind of dinosaur or animal pictures that come from commercial coloring books. The child picks a picture, tapes it to the surface of the box, puts tracing paper over the image and traces along the lines. Then afterwards, many of the children color their traced picture just as they would color in a picutre in a coloring book.

I see the box as an opportunity for children to experiment with color, design, shadow, and translucency. When I visited a school in Reggio Emilia, I saw children using natural materials that seemed to come from the park near the school, moving them into designs on the box and watching how the designs changed as they leaves and pine cones were reconfigured. At a kindergarten class in a school in Brooklyn, I observed children cutting out shapes from different colored tissue paper, layering the paper on the light box and getting excited as they manipulated the papers to change the colors.

The two children at this center most definitely were very involved and focused on their tracing. I asked one of the children what she liked about this choice center. She said that she liked it because she didn’t have to think about anything. She just did it. When she said this, Max, who was working with her, shook his head in agreement.

I shared this child’s comment with Bill later on. I found the lack of thinking disturbing. Bill, however, had a very different take on this. He suggested to me that I consider how the mind is resting while the body is learning a new skill.

I’m curious to hear what other educators think of this. This could prove to be an interesting discussion.

What I totally love about working with Bill is that, even if we disagree on something, I know that everything he does in his class is well thought out and purposeful. He is always considering what is best for the children. Bill understands that children are making important scientific and mathematical connections as they pour, separate and observe the sand and pebbles in the science center. They’re learning about balance, shapes, and measurement as they construct with unit blocks. The children who are making Star Name books are working with letters and sounds. At all of these activities, they are practicing collaboration and sharing.

Bill has also created a marvelous feeling of harmony and community in the room. Clean up time, so often a teacher’s nightmare, was so interesting to observe because, without being told, children offered to help each other get their centers put away – no fuss, no tantrums, no mess!

As I stood to the side, watching the children at their centers, I pulled Bill aside and asked him to enjoy with me the wonderful hum of activity in this room!

DIVING INTO AN INVESTIGATION

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I would love to learn how to swim. I know a little bit about swimming. I’ve seen people swim at the pool and on television when I’ve watched the Olympics. I’ve paddled about in the water and so I know what it feels like to try to swim. I just don’t yet know the technicalities of swimming and I don’t have the confidence to try it on my own. But, if I decide to take lessons, I would hope that the teacher would first assess what I already know before ‘diving’ into the instruction.

In our classrooms, when we want to explore a topic with a group of children, we also want to start with what they know – with their prior knowledge. Of course, we want to be sure that everyone in the group already has some experience with the topic. If we are going to embark on a project exploring bridges, we might want to first give the children some experience looking at a bridge, either on a field trip or at least in reproductions. We might want children to first draw a bridge after visiting or seeing one. Then we want to start asking them what they know about bridges.

(Kindergarten/first grade student in a 12:1:1 Special Education class after the first visit to see a bridge)

When I work with teachers on developing classroom inquiry projects, I encourage them to use post-its (some times referred to as ‘stickies’) when they begin collecting bits of children’s prior knowledge. This often takes place after the first field trip. With young children, teachers might consider doing a sketch along with the words so that the children can ‘read’ the chart too.

By using post-its for recording children’s ideas, rather than writing directly on to chart paper, students can then take an active role in organizing the post its into categories. This is certainly not an easy activity. There’s often disagreement about which ‘facts’ belong together, but this type of discussion really gets children thinking about their ideas and the ideas of their classmates. After observing teachers doing this activity (categorizing the post its) as a whole class lesson and also with a small group, I’m leaning towards working with a small group to get the chart ‘going’ and then sharing the results with the class. Then it can be completed with the entire group participating. Teachers agree that this approach seems to be working best.

After the categories are formed, children can then think of labels for each different grouping. A more sophisticated approach, but possibly too abstract for many young children, could be to think of a question that all of the information in one category answers. For example, “Who uses bridges?” or “what are bridges made of?”

As you can see from the chart “Bridge Ideas”, not all of the children have a true understanding of how bridges are constructed. (“Bridges have strings”). However, it’s important to include this in the initial chart because that gives the teacher an understanding of what needs to be explored to clarify this concept. It seems that this child doesn’t know about cables and the materials that are used to construct bridges and this is something to be explored on field trips and in readings.

This chart will become a living document throughout the study. New understandings will be added, misunderstandings crossed out. It’s ‘messy’ like the study is messy, turning and twisting along the exploration road. It’s not a document to be laminated because that would say, “we are finished with our investigation.’

Because of the ongoing changes that are made to this document, I shy away from the more traditional KWL chart which puts all information into a neatly tied up package. Basically, using a separate chart follows the same idea of gathering prior knowledge and using what children know as a foundation for an investigation. However it sends a stronger message that this is an exploration, which is forever growing.

SING OUT!

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Well if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are
Cat Stevens

“Look Renée, it stopped raining!” Akhira pointed to the window and 24 pairs of eyes followed her finger. Sure enough, the incessant rain had stopped. That meant that we could have outdoor play at last. But for my class, it also meant that at meeting time that morning we would all happily sing “Blue Skies”.

Singing infused my classroom with good feelings. When Vicky had a hard time separating from her dad one morning, we all solemnly sang The Comfort Song – “what should I do if my best friend is crying? What should I do? I don’t know what to say. I take my friend in my arms and I hold her.” Of course we then had to go on and sing verses for our daddy, our sister, our puppy.

Singing has always been a strong tool for building community. During the civil rights movement, in the 50’s and ‘60’s, group singing helped freedom fighters hold onto their courage in the most difficult circumstances. ‘‘The freedom songs are playing a strong and vital role in our struggle,’’ said Martin Luther King, Jr ‘‘they give the people new courage and a sense of unity. I think they keep alive a faith, a radiant hope, in the future, particularly in our most trying hours”.

Community building in the classroom is our first goal as teachers. When we have a cohesive, caring community, class rules seem to easily fall into place. Children help and support each other, bullying becomes practically a non-issue and maintaining discipline is not the teacher’s priority.

Now before I continue, I want to address the issue of voice. Many teachers have told me that they really can’t sing in class because they don’t have good singing voices. Well, my voice is somewhat flat and I have difficulty carrying a tune. That fact never, however, seemed to bother the children in any of my classes. We sang every day and for many different purposes. When we were doing a bridge study we sang, “Love Can Build a Bridge.” During our waterways study we sang “Sailing Down My Golden River.” During the years that Connie Norgren and I had our quasi-team teaching experience (her first grade and my kindergarten shared a double room, did studies together and always met to sing on her rug….but that is another story) Connie taught me many ecology songs (“Think About the Earth”; “The Garden Song”), freedom songs (“Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”; “Rosa Parks”; “This Little Light”) and songs from many different cultures (“De Colores”, “Que Bonita Bandera”; “Santa Lucia”).

Many literacy skills are well supported when children are engaged in singing on a regular basis. Let’s check out some of them.

Phonemic Awareness: When children sing and clap out songs, they play around with the sounds, segmenting and putting them together, tapping and clapping out rhythms. (Ba-by Be-lu-ga in the deep blue sea; Miss Mar-ry Mack, Mack, Mack…)

Rhyme: There are so many rhyming songs; it’s difficult to know which to list. For starters there’s Down By the Bay, Jenny Jenkins, This Old Man (also a counting song) Singing songs that mix up initial consonants, like Willoughby, Wallaby, bring out lots of giggles but also have children thinking about the sounds of the letters along with the rhymes.

Alphabetic Awareness: Besides the old standby of the ABC song, don’t forget about A You’re Adorable. My class sat in a circle and ‘wrote’ the letters on each other’s backs as they sang. Then we ‘erased’ the letters, turned around and re-sang the song in upper case!

Phonetic Awareness and Spelling Patterns: “I Can’t Spell Hippopotamus” is a song that I have used and it is one of the most engaging activities for practicing spelling patterns. I’ve had children work in partnerships to come up with spelling patterns (pot, hot, not; can, man, fan; play, tray, stay, etc.) that we then incorporate into the song. It’s a game, it’s a song, it’s a spelling lesson, and it’s fun!

One to one word recognition: After children know a song really well (‘by heart’), I put it on a chart and the children can start making connections between the words that they are singing and the words on the paper. Children take turns ‘being the teacher’ and, with a wooden stick, point to the words as the class reads and sings along.
In June, I often celebrated our year of singing by taping the children singing together, making copies of the tape (today it would be a CD!) for each child and adding a sing-along songbook. I recently met a former student, now a college graduate, who told me that for years after kindergarten she listened to the tape and that the family played it and all sang along when they went on long car trips!

So, remember the words from the African spiritual and don’t forget to ‘’sing when the spirit says sing” to bring lots of spirit and joy into the school day!

CHECKING IN ON MR. BILL

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Here we are in the middle of the third full week of school — a good time to check in on Mr. Bill’s kindergarten class!

I know how exhausting the first few weeks are for teachers (and children!). I wanted to be unobtrusive and give Bill some ‘space’ to get his classroom routines going so I decided not to visit for another week or two. In the meanwhile, I spoke with Bill and asked him if he has been able to get the inquiry study off the ground.

The children, as we predicted, came in to class on the first day excited about the playground study and eager to share their summer playground stories. They brought in pictures that they drew at home and made some in class. Bill invited the children to paste their pictures together to create a mural, and used this group playground montage as a jumping off point for starting the playground inquiry project.

Bill realized that, at this point in the year, it’s not easy to involve 24 four and five year olds in a complex class discussion. He decided to see what would happen if children were given pattern blocks and encouraged to create pattern-block playgrounds. At first the children worked individually. The class enjoyed this and began giving names to their structures. Bill said that some of their names were “the swing park”, “the hiding place” or “the sandbox”. When they were midway through their activity he stopped them and began a discussion about fences, entryways and connecting pathways. This class talk encouraged the children to bring their individual playgrounds together to create larger structures, leading the way towards collaborative work, imaginative pretend play and conversation! Another ‘perk’ is that the children were also becoming familiar with one of their new math manipulatives.

Tomorrow, Bill and I will meet to look over the children’s work samples, assess what they understand and misunderstand about playgrounds, and wonder about where their interests might lead. I’m going to suggest that we work out an anticipatory planning web. We can brainstorm all of the possibilities for this playground study, thinking of concepts, activities, trips, visiting experts, types of assessments that would be most informative, etc. This web gives the teacher a sense of what direction the study might go in and is very helpful in planning for the inquiry explorations. I’ve seen these webs done in a variety of ways. One example that I found at the Sauchildrenscampus site shows a web for a Tree Study made by a teacher and her assistant teacher. The web, in this case, is broken up into six categories: Parts of a Tree; Vocabulary Words; Animals that Live in Trees and Use Trees; When Trees Change; Items that Come from Trees; Types of Trees.

Because the web is preparation for an inquiry study, I personally prefer starting out the web with questions, anticipating what questions children might pose. On the Illinois Projects in Practice site, there is a sample Tree Study web that begins with possible questions. They are: In what ways do trees change?; What are the parts of trees?; What do trees need?; Where can we see trees change?; Who/What needs trees?; What tools do they use?; Who works with trees?; Do people cause changes in trees?; What writing is there about trees?

After tomorrow’s meeting with Bill, I’ll update you on what is happening in the kindergarten playground study!

INTRODUCING MR. BILL!

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Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. ~Jacques Barzun

This past summer I spent a lovely afternoon having lunch with my friend and former colleague Bill. As always happens when two kindergarten teachers get together our conversation drifted to the classroom. Bill talked about how current trends in education nationwide have made school more stressful for children and for teachers. Even in Bill’s school, where the administration understands the social and intellectual importance of explorative play, there is often not enough time for children to become involved with interesting projects that they can direct at their own pace. Bill spoke, with a wistful voice, of the last few weeks of school when the children were happily engaged in an investigation of bridges. He devoted long stretches of time each day to this interesting project and noticed that the children were working with more self-directed independence and that many yearlong social tensions seemed to dissipate.

Out of this discussion came Bill’s decision to begin the year with, what he hopes will be, an exciting, child-directed study of playgrounds. We both believed that this inquiry topic would ‘speak’ to all of the children in the class.

Bill (or Mr. Bill as the children call him) wrote to all of the families on his class list informing them of this project and encouraging the children to think about playgrounds during their summer vacation. So far, the email responses from parents indicate that they are mostly concerned that their children have fun, enjoy school and grow as a person. It certainly seems as though they will be eager to support and become involved with their children’s investigation into playgrounds.

I became quite excited about this project and asked Bill if I could ‘follow’ his children and him along this journey of exploration. Bill was intrigued with this idea and so, on my blog, we will be visiting Bill’s classroom and meeting with Bill to plan and reflect throughout the year.

During the week before school was to begin, Bill started getting the classroom set up. To support play and explorations, it was important to leave ample room for extensive block building and also for dramatic play, science and art. This became quite a challenge. I remembered so well wanting to stretch out the walls of my classroom, giving enough room for all my centers and maintaining a sense of space and openness.

Bill decided that, instead of designating a separate classroom area for dramatic play (pretend play), he would use hollow blocks and prop baskets, keeping them stored in a corner of the classroom meeting area/library. That would give the children a lot of space for their play and also the ability to reinvent their ‘script’ each day. Doing this also created more area for a spacious block-building center. When I visited Bill, the day before school was to open, he was in the midst of getting ready for the children…. putting names around the room, setting up a cozy reading corner, hanging curtains, setting up his art center, and completing the myriad of details that will let the children know that this welcoming space is ready for them!

Time to begin unpacking!hmm...now what should I do next?Time out for a song!A place to meet, to talk, to listen, to read, to play...

hmm...now what should I do next?

Time out for a song!

A place to meet, to sing, to talk, to play....

More on “Ready for Kindergarten”

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This letter, in today’s New York Times, was so “on the mark” and I would love to share it with you and encourage you to share your thoughts and suggestions on my blog.

To the Editor:
Re “Too Young for Kindergarten? Tide Turning Against 4-Year-Olds” (front page, May 28):

Here’s a simple solution to the problem of too-young children in kindergarten: Restore kindergarten to what it was before we went off the rails in this country, sucking the joy and life out of learning and school by viewing education solely through the narrow lens of tests, tests and more tests.

The fact that parents of means are choosing to hold their children back until they are as old as 6 proves that kindergarten has morphed into first grade. Four-and-a-half and 5-year-olds are simply developmentally unable to perform the tasks that are being asked of them.

Kindergartners’ days should be filled with learning and fun that is accomplished through music, dance and movement, art-making, storytelling, read-alouds, pretend, dress up, blocks, play of all varieties, a multitude of science explorations, and, yes, a nap.

Such kindergartners will emerge well prepared for first grade, and guess what? They will do better on standardized tests down the road.

JANE COWAN
Brooklyn, May 29, 2011

The writer is a K-12 art teacher.

Changes!

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In response to the unfortunate atmosphere of teacher bashing that we are living through, I would like to focus on some wonderful work being done by a group of hard-working teachers in a public school in New York City.

Here’s a bit of background information about this barrier-free, pre-k – 5 school, located on the Lower East Side, which is situated in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. The ethnic breakdown is approximately 75 % Latino, 20 % African-American, 3.5 % Asian and 1.5 % ‘other’. Many of the children live in shelters or foster homes. There’s a large special needs population, often transferring into the school mid-year. Because of the No Child Left Behind legislation, families from other areas of the city transfer their children into this hard-working, caring school and, because children are traveling long distances, there’s a major problem with lateness and absences. This year, the heavy-duty budget cuts came down hard on this community. Without any significant PTA fundraising, staff is often forced to reach into their own pockets if they want to provide any extra materials for their classrooms.

Four years ago, I was approached by their network leader, Dan Feigelson, and asked if I could do some consulting work here with the kindergarten and first grade teachers. He was familiar with the inquiry and Choice Time work that I had done in my own classroom (we had been colleagues at P.S. 321 in Brooklyn) and thought that the children would benefit from more exploration and playtime. The principal, a former pre-k teacher herself, was in agreement.

The school already had a long-term relationship with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. The children were making progress in learning the technicalities of reading and writing. However, they were challenged when the content became more complex. Because of personal stress in their lives, children had difficulty working collaboratively and in resolving conflicts without resorting to violence. The administration believed that the children needed more opportunities to learn and practice positive social skills and to engage in abstract thinking. They decided that the place to begin working on these problems was in the early childhood grades and that is when they decided to approach me.

Here were some of my impressions when I first visited the school: very hard-working and committed staff; positive tone in the classrooms; I did not hear teachers yelling or using harsh words when disciplining children; kindergartens had an unplanned form of Choice Time (really more like free-play) for 20 – 30 minutes at the end of a day filled with all academics; classrooms had very little organization of centers and practically no sense that children were expected to use materials independently (in the block ‘center’ were math manipulatives, dramatic play, teacher-materials stored, etc., there was no visible art center); first grade classrooms did not have Choice Time at all (occasional ‘free play’ as a reward for good behaviors); there were no blocks in the first grade rooms and a very small collection of blocks in the kindergartens.

Drawing on the Reggio Emilia philosophy of considering that the classroom is the second teacher, we first worked on room environment. I wasn’t sure if I was putting the cart before the horse, but it seemed like a concrete way of beginning. Major changes were made in the ‘look’ of the classrooms. The principal also ordered unit blocks for all kindergarten and first grade rooms. To my delight, the teachers began noticing immediate changes in the way that the children were using materials and in the general classroom ambiance.

We then planned out some studies that the teachers thought would interest the children, support their curriculum and also interest the teachers. The first grade teachers wanted their inquiry project to have a social element to it. They thought about the day-to-day lives of the children, and what would be important to all of them. Most of the school population, rather than using private physicians, either went to the emergency room of the local hospital or to a nearby clinic. This is where the teachers wanted to begin…with a study of the EMS. This also morphed into an ambulance study because of the children’s interests and questions.

They visited the local clinic, had a doctor and a nurse visit the classroom, and examined up close an ambulance that visited the school specifically so that the children could explore the inside and outside of the vehicle and interview the EMS workers. Some children became fascinated with bones and what was happening inside their bodies. In the classrooms, ‘hospitals’ were created along with x-ray rooms (overhead projectors, old x-rays). In one first grade room during their choice time, I observed a boy, doll in arms, racing to the “x-ray” room. “My baby hurt his arm. He’s crying! Help me”. The doll was quickly put on the overhead projector and the “x-ray technician looked at the shadow on the wall. He held up an x-ray, looked at it and said, “Your baby has a broken arm. Take him to the hospital!”. He wrote a little note on a pad, gave it to the ‘father’, who took it and rushed back to the classroom hospital, where the baby’s arm was carefully wrapped up with an old ace bandage. That same day, at Choice Time in another classroom I noticed two girls tracing the body of a boy on butcher paper and then, using a book as reference, drawing in the bones for the body. At the same time two other children were using the overhead projector to trace an image of an ambulance. They kept turning it on and off to check their work. This drawing was going to be the ‘plan’ for an ambulance model that they would later create out of cartons and other materials.

The Kindergartens began with a study of the local firehouse, making many field trips there, exploring the firetruck, interviewing the firefighters, checking out their own homes for fire exits and smoke alarms and creating their own home-safety plans.

This year is my fourth year working at this school. Some of the studies that have taken place are a kindergarten exploration of “Beautiful Stuff” ( children brought in ‘found’ objects from home like buttons, toilet paper tubes, broken pieces of jewelry, wood scraps, etc., sorted and labeled all of the ‘booty’ and brainstormed for ideas on how to use these materials in different projects) , a study of the local bakeries, a neighborhood garden study ( I watched children in the block center creating different areas for a classroom garden, using sketches that they worked on together. There were children in the science center planting seeds in small pots that they decorated. When they were finished planting, they brought the pots to the block center where they were put in the ‘community garden’.), a first-grade study of bridges, particularly the Williamsburg Bridge and a study of the NYC subway system. Each first grade class designed and built bridge towers outside their classroom doors and then connected them across the corridor to make one large suspension bridge!

When I asked the teachers if they noticed any positive changes since we began our work, here are some of the things they shared with me:
They noticed that
o Children were becoming more verbal
o The children who are their ‘struggling learners’ are participating more in class work and discussions
o During Choice Time and Inquiry-study time, children with behavioral issues are becoming calmer and more cooperative
o English Language Learners are talking more and sharing stories, possibly because there is no fear of coming up with a right or wrong response
o There is a noticeable carry-over to the writing being done during writing workshop since the children have more shared experiences to draw from
o Field trips have become more purposeful and the children can understand the purpose of each trip
o Parents have told the teachers the their talk about things that they are exploring in class and use a lot of new vocabulary.
o The teachers are more supportive of each other
o There is more professional collaboration
o There’s more of a feeling of a grade-community
o Teachers, along with children, feel a pride in their work
o The cluster teachers have come on board and are planning lessons to support the classroom studies

In a recent email to me, one of the kindergarten teachers wrote about some of the changes that she and her co-teacher made in their classrooms, “ Our block area has been enlarged. Therefore the children have more room to build. We have “blueprint paper” for them to draw their ideas first before building and pencils as well as post- it’s for labeling their building. The art area is more accessible as well as all the different mediums that they need. The dramatic play area is changed with each study and discussed with the children beforehand. There are papers in each work area for the teacher to make notes about what the children are doing, what we think and how to proceed, as well as writing (down) what the children are saying. The room was not as organized and now the children have access to the materials and their projects.”

The children created a market in the pretend center when they studied The Essex Street Market

Building The Essex Street Market in the block center

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am noticing that the flow of the day is much more ‘child-friendly’. Kindergartens have Choice Time for an hour every morning. They go on more neighborhood trips. The first grade has Choice Time at least twice, sometimes more, each week and they too go on curriculum-related trips more often.

When we discussed future professional goals, the teachers asked if we could focus more in depth on using documentation and assessment to help in planning whole class and small group projects and investigations.

These teachers have worked so hard and been so admirable in their professional growth. Their classrooms breathe with imagination, inquiry and a real life force!

On June 10th, two of the teachers and I will be presenting a workshop at Lehman College in the Bronx, NY. The conference is An Early childhood Education Conference: The Reggio Emilia Approach in 21st Century Urban Settings. Our breakout group is titled CHANGE! – DEVELOPING INQUIRY-BASED SOCIAL STUDIES PROJECTS AND CHOICE TIME CENTERS IN KINDERGARTEN AND FIRST GRADE CLASSES AT P.S. 142M. If you’re in the area and would like to attend, you can email Carol Gross at cmg38j@gmail.com

Come and Read!

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“…reading continues to provide an escape from a crowded house into an imaginary room of one’s own.”
Anna Quindlen
How Reading Changed My Life

Sometimes I just love rainy weekends. When it’s sunny and warm outdoors, I feel a compulsion to get outside and ‘do something’…walk, shop, or visit a museum with my husband. But on rainy, nasty-weather days I don’t feel any sense of guilt about staying indoors, finding a cozy spot, usually on my soft living-room couch, and hunkering down with a good book.

In his book, The Reading Environment, Aidan Chambers wrote, “All reading has to happen somewhere. And every reader knows that where we read affects how we read: with what pleasure and willingness and concentration. Reading in bed, feeling warm and comfortable and relaxed, is different from reading on a cold railway station waiting for a train, or in the sun on a crowded beach, or in a library full of other readers, or alone in a favorite chair at ten o’clock in the morning.” He suggests, “ If we want to be skillful in helping other people, especially children, become willing avid, and –most important of all-thoughtful readers, we need to know how to create a reading environment that enables them.”

Early childhood classes, in these assessment-driven times, are inundated with programs to rush students into early literacy and ensure that instruction is in tune with standards. Children’s days are filled with word-study programs, leveled books, and tearless handwriting. It often seems to me that, within this rush towards academics, we’re losing sight of the true goal. The joy of reading and engaging in intimate discussions is somehow being left behind in the dust.

By providing a cozy reading spot in their classrooms, teachers can
encourage children to join the world of book lovers and conversationalists. This comfy, space invites children to curl up with a good book or to have a quiet, private conversation with a friend. This doesn’t have to take up much space. In fact the idea is to make it small and private. It just takes a little bit of ingenuity and reimagining of the classroom environment.

My best role model for carving out classroom reading nooks is my friend and colleague Connie Norgren. She’s a master at designing private, inviting reading corners in rooms where space is limited. She created in her classroom the same inviting spaces for reading that she has in her own warm and comfortable home.

It’s really a matter of priority. If we are attempting to foster literacy in our classes, then it’s a no-brainer that we should value the child’s need and right to find a wonderfully conducive spot to relax with a book, sit alone to daydream a bit or have a private conversation with a friend. Here’s an example of how Connie helped a kindergarten teacher set up such a space in her classroom:

If you don’t have small couches and easy chairs available, big pillows on the floor can provide soft seating. Look carefully at the photo. You will notice that the space is not packed with books. There are just enough books for easy browsing. This is also a reading corner decorated by the children. A child-created sign invites students to “Come and Read”. Above the sign is a reading frieze, made by a group of children during choice time. This wonderful piece of art is filled with magazine images and children’s drawings of people reading. The students have collaborated with the teacher in making this THEIR reading room!

I created a private reading room in my kindergarten class by using a large refrigerator carton. (I actually do think that I first got this idea from Connie!). I cut out an arched entrance, put in two high windows (purposefully high so that the children inside would not be distracted by other classroom activities), cut out a circle to serve as a skylight in the roof and covered the floor with a big pillow. One year I covered it with a carpet square. A carpenter who lived near the school volunteered to construct a wooden frame for the box, making it sturdy enough to last a few years. My rule for using this new ‘room’ was that it was limited to two children at a time and it was a sitting space, not a standing space.

Children love cuddling up with a stuffed animal or two. I remember peeking in and seeing Erika, a quiet, shy child, very seriously reading a book to a stuffed bunny rabbit, carefully being sure to show him the illustration before turning each page.

I sometimes added little flashlights so that children could zero in on words and the pictures. This was an especially popular activity around Halloween time when we were reading In A Dark Dark Wood. During shared reading, I would turn down the lights and use the flashlight as a ‘pointer’. At Choice Time, children would then have fun bringing the big book into the “reading room” along with the flashlight. It wasn’t unusual to hear spooky sound effects emanating from the box, as two giggly readers jazzed up their reading of the story!

Each year, the box changed a bit. One year, after visiting Reggio Emilia and seeing the interesting ways that mirrors were incorporated into their classroom environments, I “wallpapered’ the inside walls with Mylar to create a mirror effect. Other years I hung art posters or postcards. Sometimes the outside was decorated with drawings of scenes from favorite books. Children did these drawings during choice time as part of the “cozy reading room” choice. Other times they made new book jackets. For these, they first looked through books in the classroom library, picked one that they particularly liked, ‘reread’ the book to find a part of the story that would make a nice cover picture. I folded up paper for them so that it would make a book jacket. They then made the cover and added words to the jacket flap. The back flap had biographical information about the new jacket illustrator often including a photograph or self-portrait drawing! These new jackets were on put on display by the ‘reading room’.

When I worked with kindergarten teachers at The Children’s School in Brooklyn, they put their own personal spin on the refrigerator box idea. Since they were in the midst of a folk tale study, they invited children, during choice time, to decorate the outside of the box with images from favorite folk tales.

My last few years of classroom teaching, I ‘looped up’ to first grade with my kindergarten classes. The first time that I did this, I asked the children, at the end of kindergarten, to think about how we would change the arrangement of the classroom to turn it into a first grade room. We listed what would stay and what would be packed away for my next kindergarten group. I knew that I had instilled in them the specialness of curling up with a book when I finished hearing their responses. There was one loud and clear, unanimous decision. We MUST bring our cozy quiet reading room in first grade!

THROW AWAY THE WORKSHEETS AND NURTURE YOUNG SCIENTISTS

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Science education in our public schools, or rather the dearth of science education in the schools, has recently been popping up in the news. This January, the NY Times featured an article that highlighted the decreasing number of science fairs in schools around the country

Twenty-five years ago, in a speech to the children of America after the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, President Reagan said, “they  [the astronauts] had that special grace, that special spirit that says, “Give me a challenge and I’ll meet it with joy” They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths.” In his speech, he referred to “the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons.”

What a vast disconnect exists between presidential aspirations for children and experiences to encourage discovery and exploration that are often omitted from our early childhood programs. It is so easy to tap into the natural curiosity of young children and to turn 5 and 6 year olds on to the excitement of scientific discoveries. Unfortunately, it is also possible to give them a negative association with science.

My kindergarten children were scheduled for a weekly Science class. Each Wednesday, they emitted a collective groan when I told them that it was time to walk across the corridor to the science room. This confused me since they loved spending time in the many science-based centers during our choice time. They were eager to investigate what happened after they mixed up a bubble-solution and poured it into the water-play tub. They figured out how to create their own magnets and then constructed trails of paper clip magnet chains to pull around the classroom. They were natural scientists and yet, here they were, complaining about a class that should have been a highlight of their week.

I decided to begin a discussion about their responses to this class when we had our morning meeting one Wednesday. I asked them what they were learning about in science. “The body (almost moaned rather than spoken) ” “That’s such an interesting topic!”, I responded enthusiastically. No! It’s soooo boring!”  Well, as we continued this discussion, I was told that they were “learning about the body and bones” mainly through teacher lectures and, that their ‘hands on’ activity’ consisted of cutting out and then pasting together onto another paper, a worksheet reproduction of a human skeleton. I absolutely did not want them to be left thinking that this was what it meant to learn about science so I shared with them a personal memory of the time, just a few years ago, when I fractured my ankle and had a cast put on my leg. This opened up the floodgate for stories about sisters, cousins, aunts and friends who had casts and broken bones, so I asked them if they would be interested in seeing the x-rays that I saved and, of course, there was great interest.

The next day I brought in my x-rays and projected them onto the wall. The children were so excited and interested that we moved the overhead projector to an “x-ray center” at Choice Time so that they could look at them more closely and trace them. I then began collecting books on anatomy, bones, our body and we began a ‘research’ reading center.

This small exploration grew into a full-blown class inquiry study.

We collected a variety of (cleaned) animal bones, looked inside a bone, read about healthy foods to make bones strong, visited a local pediatrician’s office, and interviewed the doctor. Creating and opening a doctor’s office in the dramatic play center followed this up. I sent out a request to everyone I knew who worked in a medical office or a hospital and we received lots of contributions from stethoscopes and doctors robes to eye charts and ace bandages.

We went to the fish store across from the school and brought back fish bones to observe and draw. These delicate bones were compared to the big beef bones and chicken bones that we had collected. The computer teacher heard about this interest in animal bones and surprised us by visiting the class and bringing with her the skeleton of a snapping turtle!

As the children became more ‘expert’ on the topic, we turned the art center into a skeleton-making center. One group of children used papier maché to make a skull. Then, over the course of almost two weeks, our life-sized skeleton was constructed. A variety of recycled materials and plasticine was used. One day, I stopped by to see how the skeleton was progressing. I noticed that wooden craft sticks were used to make the fingers. I looked at the hands and then looked at my hands, bending my fingers. I really didn’t need to do or say anything else. Four ‘skeleton-makers’ began bending their own fingers and an intense discussion began about how they could make their skeleton’s fingers bend. I suggested that they return to one of their ‘research’ books and look at the diagram of a hand. Revision! My help was enlisted to break the sticks into three parts and they were once again pasted onto the mural paper.

After the skeleton was completed, the parts of the body were labeled. A group of children surveyed the class to come up with a name, which was written next to the model. Our Mr. Tall Bones was then displayed in the hallway outside the classroom along with their sketches and descriptions.  We celebrated by making Bone Soup.

This became one of those serendipitous studies, unexpected but meeting the immediate needs and interests of the children. In the course of this mini study, children had many reasons and opportunities to write, count, use nonfiction books as ‘research’ sources, listen to read aloud texts, sing (…the neck bone’s connected to the shoulder bone…), play in the dramatic play center, and use ‘primary’ materials such as x-rays, bones and doctor’s tools. They even spontaneously created a huge, flat skeleton using the wooden unit blocks.

What pleased me most about this study and the centers that accompanied it is that the children were developing an excited and positive attitude about themselves as young scientists. They were, as Ronald Reagan recalled, taking part in “the process of exploration and discovery” as they expanded their own horizons.

PLAY’S THE THING…

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The NY Times has a wonderful article about the importance of play in today’s paper, Play’s the Thing… http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/garden/06play.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

I think that it’s really worth reading every line of the article and discussing it with colleagues and parents. Unfortunately, the writer, Hilary Stout, really doesn’t take it the next step: How do we support play in school and keep to the new learning standards?
What is the role of the teacher in children’s classroom play? How can the teacher scaffold children’s play without presenting ‘tasks’ and directives? What should classroom play look like in kindergarten? In first grade? In second grade?
The article describes how one parent’s interest was “piqued when she toured her local elementary school…before Benjamin (her son) was to enroll in kindergarten. She still remembered her own kindergarten classroom from 1985: it had a sandbox, blocks and toys. But this one had a wall of computers and little desks.” “There’s no imaginative play anymore, no pretend,” Ms. Wilson said with a sigh.
It is SO important for early childhood educators to think about and discuss this dilemma. What do we think about this?
I REALLY hope that you will send in your thoughts, concerns, suggestions, etc. after reading the article!