Learning is Social

I started with the big idea: Learning is Social. With that in mind, I knew I would want my students to work in all different kinds of groupings. In the past, saying, "Get together in groups" took valuable time away from the instruction or task, and instead of making all feel included, often resulted in kids being left out until grudgingly accepted into a group, usually with me facilitating.

This year I decided to be more explicit about what I wanted from groups. As I introduced the various groupings in the first days of school, I gave team-building or curriculum-based tasks to the groups to complete. So they practiced making the groups AND working in them.

The biggest group is the whole class. Our family. You don't get to choose your family; you're born into it and you have to make the best of it, even when some family members get on your nerves. I'm the "mom" of our family -- a single mom with a LOT of kids! (It was fun to share my poem "I'm Your Mom" at this point.) We will defend our family members fiercely. We've got each others' backs.

The next group is your "tribe" -- the people with whom you feel most comfortable. I want my kids to know that it's natural, and in my room, acceptable, to want to work with your friends sometimes. Don't we all?

Another grouping is "focus groups." In market research, focus groups are made up of a wide range of consumers so that the researchers can get the most valid results. Our "focus groups" are a mixture of boys and girls, tribe members and non-tribe members.

The smallest unit is partners. Sometimes your partner is a tribe member, and sometimes I ask for mixed gender partnerships. Partners sit knee-to-knee to talk, and side-by-side to look together at a book or the work they are doing.

When we practiced making groups, the one rule was that the groups weren't formed until everyone had been included. We practiced asking to join a group, and we practiced inviting someone to join in.

Yesterday, when it was time to form focus groups for a geography challenge, I was amazed (pleased, relieved) to see how quickly the groups were formed and how no one had to invite themselves into a group -- groups invited singles cheerfully, not grudgingly. Mixed gender groups didn't feel weird or awkward because they are Focus Groups with many perspectives. Just about as quick as I could snap my fingers, the groups were made, and the geography challenge was on.

Life is good.

Questions for a Joyful, Kind and Reflective Classroom

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Over the summer I read a post by a teacher who asked her students in the morning class meeting what he/she was most looking forward to that day. I loved that question and the stage it set for each day in a classroom. I decided we'd use that in our morning meetings this school year.  As I continued to plan over the summer, I started to think about how all of our workshops have share times that could connect in some way. I wondered if we could connect learning across content with reflective questions that set the stage for joyful learning as well as reflection. With the help of Gretchen, our new literacy coach, I came up with a list of 10 questions to focus our conversations.  

I I wasn't sure how it would go but I created a sign for each question and posted the 10 questions in our meeting area. Before I even mentioned the question, kids were talking around them. They had noticed the questions and started thinking about them. So it has been easy to use these for general conversations and the kids have been amazing in the ways they are thinking about themselves in our classroom.  We use them throughout the day when we are gathered together for conversations.

I I have the questions posted and I plan to give them a copy of the questions on a single sheet for their notebooks.  These questions were a great way to kick off our school year and to help kids begin to think about what our year will be like. 

    What are you most looking forward to today as a   learner?

·         What do you have to celebrate today?

·         What did you learn about yourself as a learner today?

·         How were you kind today?

·        How did you get through something challenging today?

·        What do you understand today that you didn’t   understand before today?

·        What are you excited to share with someone today?

·        What did someone do to help you today?

·        How were you brave as a learner today?

·        How did your thinking change today?

Math Monday!

It's Math Monday!  Join Mandy at Enjoy and Embrace Learning for the Math Monday link up!

The first few days of math are always so interesting as I listen into conversations.  On the third day of school, we used our math time to do a "Numbers About Me" project.  I've seen this often on Pinterest and blogs and wanted to make sure we started the year thinking about math in our world.  It was an interesting conversation as their eyes lit up each time they realized the things in their lives that involved numbers.  They were simple things but making the connection to math made for a good conversation. We combined this with self-portrait work and the kids had a great time creating themselves with their Numbers About Me information.

*Please note that the 3rd boy in the top row made himself wearing an "I Love Mrs. Sibberson" shirt. Hysterical.  Gotta love 3rd grade :-)

Poetry Friday: So. Much. Joy.

by Hugh MacLeod at GapingVoid.com

’T IS so much joy! ’T is so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the victory!

Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!

And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o’erwhelm me so!

by Emily Dickinson

From Bartleby.com (bibliographic record for the poem here)
You can see the poem in Emily's own handwriting here.


Lots of great conversations these first couple of days of school about the importance of struggle, of perseverance, patience, and practice. Growth mindset. We watched Kid President talk about inventing, and we read The Most Magnificent Thing. I think we're ready to dive into the hard work of fifth grade.

I splurged yesterday and bought a little purple Moleskine journal to keep track of my "trout of the day." We're two days in and I'm having a hard time picking one "trout." I'm thinking that bodes well for the year.


We've had a change in the Poetry Friday roundup this week. Irene is taking over for Robyn. Head over to Live Your Poem to leave your link.

Teaching With Heart

Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach
edited by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner
Jossey-Bass, 2014
review copy is my own, and will live on my shelf at school, ready to offer words of wisdom when I am in need

I have loved the first volume this duo edited, Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teachfor 10 years. The poems and accompanying essays have buoyed me up and carried me forward.

This new volume already has five poems sticky-noted for sharing, and dozens of others that made me nod and smile. In times when we have to keep stuff like this in mind, it is good to have a place to go where our profession is valued, understood, and truly celebrated. This is a book I will turn to and thumb through many times throughout the school year, in good times and when I'm worn down and worn out.

Plus, how much fun is it to find my Poetry Month pal, Kevin Hodgson (Kevin's Meandering Mind, @dogtrax), right there on pages 18-20 in the section "Relentless Optimism" sharing "What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali (who wrote the introduction to the book)?!?!

In his introduction, Mali writes about still getting a feeling of "imminence" every fall, even though it's been since 2000 that teaching was his day job. He continues,

"For years I couldn't figure out why as a poet I still felt this way. But it makes perfect sense. Because on a very basic level, being a poet and being a teacher are inextricably linked. Whether teaching or writing, what I really am doing is shepherding revelation. I am the midwife to epiphany."

Today is our first day day with students. Nothing could be better than approaching this day as "the midwife to epiphany."

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Head over to Teach Mentor Texts for the It's Monday! What Are You Reading? round up.

Scholastic has a boatload of great new picture books coming out later this month and in September! (ARCs provided by the publisher)

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly!

by Lucille Colondro

illustrated by Jared Lee

Scholastic, August 2014

I have a whole collection of "Lady Who Swallowed a..." books, beginning with my very first one from a Scholastic book fair when I was in elementary school. Lucille Colandro has written almost a dozen different versions. This one is okay, but if we're going to go with swallowing a fly, I like the traditional ending!

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Dreidel

by Caryn Yacowitz

illustrated by David Slonim

Scholastic, August 2014

This version is hysterical! Not only does the old lady swallow everything you need to celebrate Chanukah, each item gets larger and impossibly larger, dreidel rhymes with fatal, AND...AND the illustrations are parodies of famous/sculptures in art history (details in the back matter)! So. Much. Fun.

The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma

by Diane and Christyan Fox

Scholastic, August 2014

Shelve this book with INTERRUPTING CHICKEN. Cat can't get very far with her reading of Little Red Riding Hood before Dog interrupts with some assumptions and questions. First of all, he hears "cape" and goes immediately to super powers. Then, he wonders (reasonably) why the wolf doesn't just eat Little Red right there in the woods. And so on.

Fun stuff from the beginning endpapers to the end endpapers.

Hope for Winter: The True Story of A Remarkable Dolphin Friendship
told by David Yates, Craig Hatkoff, Juliana Hatkoff, and Isabella Hatkoff
Scholastic, August 2014

Another great addition to this series (Owen & Mzee, Knut, Looking for Miza, Leo the Snow Leopard, Winter's Tail) about a rescued orphan dolphin who becomes a friend for Winter, the dolphin with a prosthetic tail.

And due out in late September, one I REALLY can't wait to add to my class library:

Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth

by Molly Bang & Penny Chisholm

illustrated by Molly Bang,

Scholastic, September 2014

Next up in the Sunlight Series, we learn how fossil fuels were made and exactly how the burning of fossil fuels is releasing carbon chains that have been stored for millions of year into our atmosphere and changing the climate of our planet. Narrated by the sun, this book (the whole series, actually) is a must-read for any student (or adult) who needs to understand energy and the role of our Sun in...well, everything!

Poetry Friday: To My Students

To My Students

I am the riverbank

and you are the water.

You flow past me

year after year

fresh 

eager

a little wild.

I do my best 

to ensure you

a safe passage

and teach you 

endurance

stability

and the ways of the world.

But you rush on.

Time passes.

You return

to the familiar banks,

the remembered curves and shallows.

I will not know you,

and yet I will have

a deep memory of your passing.

Your passing

wore me down

changed my direction

made me new.

©Mary Lee Hahn, date unknown

Yes, I used that photo for my SOL post on Tuesday. Then later on Tuesday, I filled a giant recycling can with most of the contents of a filing cabinet that then left my classroom, providing a space for a shelf (emptied of professional books which migrated to the back cabinet, which was emptied of...) yadda yadda blah blah classroom setup. That's not the point of this story (but maybe I'll share some before and after pictures next week).

The point being, as I browsed through folders before flipping them into the recycling can, I found a folder of my writing from years back, including this poem. It builds nicely on the fishing theme from my SOL post.

Heidi has the roundup this week at My Juicy Little Universe.

Whatever You Are, Be a Good One

Whatever You Are, Be a Good One: 100 Inspirational Quotations Hand-Lettered by Lisa Congdon
Chronicle Books, 2014


Why am I just learning about this artist? Why have I not been following a blog entitled, "Today is going to be awesome"?

I love this little book because I love quotes and I love calligraphy and I love giving myself crazy challenges (like writing a poem a day, or taking 30 pictures every month and then making a mosaic).

That's pretty much how this book was born (minus the poetry and photos). Lisa Congdon noticed that she gravitated toward art that included lettering, decided she wanted to get better at calligraphy, and then started a project where she published something hand lettered on her blog every day for a year in 2012: 365 Days of Hand Lettering. I could get lost in her archives. It's pretty amazing that she started by just doing single letters that look clunky and forced, but within a month, her own unique style began to emerge. And then she started doing quotes. They are beautiful...unique...a perfect marriage of text and art.

Last year, instead of posting any class rules, I challenged each student to choose their very own "Words to Live By." Instead of one set of generic rules for 20+ individual students, we had 20+ individual rules to represent the fact that each person is the boss of his/her own self.

This year I want to help my students think about the graphic design of their Words to Live By posters that will hang around the classroom all year long. This will be our mentor text.

Slice of Life: What We Don't Know

If I had known when we set out for our fly fishing trip to Vermont that I wouldn't catch a single fish, I probably wouldn't even have bothered to try.

Don't get me wrong, the trip was not a failure. There was the otter, the kingfisher, the B&Bs, the Orvis Outlet Store, Niagara Falls. There are a myriad of moment-uous memories. Just none that involve trout at the end of my line.

That got me thinking about high stakes testing. I "fish" my heart out for the entire school year, and invariably, I don't "catch" much. And then I beat myself up.

Well, this year's going to be different. I'm not going to worry about the year as a whole. Instead of taking one big trip that depends on a single outcome, I'm going to slice this year up into 180 daily jaunts. Whatever good comes with each day (whether I aim for it, or it happens in spite of my intentions) will be the "trout" of the day.

I know this isn't a new way of thinking, but it finally makes sense to me. And I'm going to go with it.

Let's check back in a couple of months and see how it's working out for me.

Until then, I'll wish you tight lines, and be sure you watch your back cast.

Math Monday: Resources for Opening Routines

So excited that Mandy began a weekly time for us, as bloggers, to share our thinking about math teaching and learning.  Today is the first Math Monday!  You can find the round up on Mandy's Blog, Enjoy and Embrace Learning.

Last year, our Math Workshop went pretty well.  But not as well as I had hoped. One area I knew I had to work on was Opening Routines.  I had read Number Talks the year before and used the Number Talk routine daily. But I found that it became very rote when it was the only routine I relied on. So I have really focused on new routines and have found some great resources to kick off quick routines and also to build on those routines through the year.

I started in the spring exploring the Howard County website. There is a whole section on routines for 3rd grade so I read about some new routines that would support math learning.

Then I revisited Number Sense Routines: Building Numerical Literacy Every Day in Grades K-3 . This is a book from Stenhouse that I was familiar with but revisited this summer with 3rd graders in mind.  As more of an intermediate teacher, it was helpful to remember all of the math tools that support kids when making sense of number.  3rd is on the upper end of primary but I find so many kids need more support than I think they do at this age. Lots of great ways to support number sense.

Finally, I discovered my favorite new resource for math routines.  It is Minilessons for Math Practice, Grades 3-5 (there is a K-2 version, also) . I bought this book because Mandy had recommended it and I thought it would be filled with mini lesson ideas. But as I browsed through, they seemed more like opening routines to me.  I noticed that the blurb on the back of the book said, "Designed to use during transition times, mini lessons require little or no preparation and take only 5-15 minutes to teach. These activities can be repeated throughout the school year...".  These were the routines I was looking for.

The book focuses on Grades 3-5 and shares 27 routines. Each short chapter focuses on one routine.  Ways to introduce the activity, student examples and ideas for extending the activity are part of each chapter.  This is a great resource! So excited I discovered it!