Ooooh, how I enjoy walking past the Kindergarten classrooms each morning on my way to my own room at school; there is always so much to reflect on as I pass by in the hall.  Earlier in the week, a large crocodile’s head appeared on one bulletin board, and this morning, I noticed a collection of “Missing!” and “Escaped!” signs posted on the wall outside another kindergarten room.

It took me a while to figure out that it was a “turtle” that had escaped from this little artist’s imagination (I had to use picture and context clues to help me comprehend the text), but once understood the Kindergarten author’s intended message, I chuckled to myself all the way upstairs to my own classroom!!!

A dear friend of mine, a non-teacher, recently attacked my love of picturebooks, suggesting that these treasures were for babies and small children, and could not possibly be considered "text" in the sense that we think of text when we think of a novel or a well-crafted piece of poetry, etc.

I beg to differ!

While I would agree that there exists an abundance of poorly written garbage for children out there, and many "just for fun" books (the kids' equivalent of, let's say, pop novels for adults), a great many richly illustrated and cleverly wordsmithed picturebooks have been published in recent years.  And although these books are typically sold in the children's section of bookstores, the themes they address are often considerably beyond what most children discuss or think about eloquently without the support of an adult. 

Consider, for example, Eve Bunting's "Wednesday Surprise", encompassing illiteracy and intergenerational relationships, and highlighting the daily realities of a blue-collar family.  Well known for their nuanced treatment of social themes like homelessness, poverty and immigration, Bunting's books are also literary works in their own right, introducing school-aged readers to a number of literary devices which they will hopefully encounter in novels and other texts they attack later on in their school careers and personal lives.  Although Bunting's work consists mainly of "just picturebooks", students benefit from multiple readings and re-readings of her texts in order to really dig into the meat of what she offers.

I have often marvelled at the language in the work of Eve Bunting and other children's authors, as it offers a far more developed linguistic pallette than some of the more voraciously read adult works currently on the market. ("50 Shades of Crappy Writing", anyone?!) 

In our Grade 3 classes this year, my colleague and I are using a number of picture books each month to address school-wide themes like "Peace", "Building Supportive Communities" and others suggested by ETFO's "Social Justice Begins with Me" resource and adopted by our school.  Many of the texts we are using to introduce and foster an understanding of these themes come from the SJBWM kit, but others have been added to our list. (See word doc. below for a complete, by-month list). 

We use the books as tools for teaching, modeling and practising literacy strategies from our CAFE menu board, and as springboards for "Grand Conversations", in which the students engage in small groups after the second or third reading and class dissemination of any given picture book on the list. (Two Smart Notebook 11 files are posted below, which include examples of guiding questions for such conversations.)

Sometimes, a text we select to address one issue raises others.  For example, today we read "White Socks Only", which took nearly an hour, due to the fact that several of the students had recently read a kids' biography of MLK Jr, and made predictions about the link between the two texts, based on the cover and title of "White Socks Only". 

The White Socks story was a good one, and raised the intended issue for tomorrow's discussion that I had hoped it would, namely peaceful protest. However, the scene at the end of the story drew our attention to another concern, that is, stereotyping (the final page, where the Bully Man is implied to have turned into a  large, white chicken -- while providing poetic justice -- does little to counteract the stereotype that all black people are into voodoo, for example).

Between the intended and emergent fodder for social justice conversations and the material for illustrating and teaching descriptive writing, this book -- as many of the others on our list -- are chock full of good teaching stuff!!! Had we more time, I could milk this picturebook for at least another week!

So, if you are not a teacher, and you consider picturebooks for children only, I invite you to reconsider your stance.  Ask a teacher you know for her three favourite titles, and get her to tell you why.  You might be surprised at what you discover!

While observing in a classroom yesterday to learn about math and technology, I was exposed to an interesting little technique for pulling students together at the beginning of a new class, and drawing their attention to the concept to be learned. 

As a review from the previous lesson, and an intro to the focus for the day, the teacher I was watching created a “forced dialogue”; he had scripted a “here’s what happened last time, and now we are going to do this…”  dialogue, complete with student and teacher parts.  As he revealed the script one line at a time, the whole class was engaged, as they read their parts aloud together.

I decided to try it out in my own classroom this morning.

We had just finished working on growing patterns, and were going to attack a problem involving shrinking patterns today.  My first attempt at a script follows:

While singing the praises of my self-interpreted success afterwards, my colleague reminded me to consider whether the students – as they were reading said script – had been thinking about my intended lesson outcomes, or whether they were thinking, “hey, this is a neat activity”. (He’s been reading a book about how students learn what they think about, and we've been engaging in conversation about the dilemma of how so many of our students seem so unfocussed when we are doing anything at all teacher-directed with the whole class.)

I’m not sure how to assess that yet, so I can’t say one way or another, definitively.  What I can say is this:  Both the students and their teacher were engaged and having fun together this morning!

I had the opportunity to watch a colleague teach this morning.  It was a strange feeling, watching someone else deliver a lesson I had co-planned.  I felt nervous for him, for us!

Although the intended focus of my observation was math, I invariably picked up a few other tricks, as well.  With his permission, I share them here with you:

 
1.   Magic Word of the Day
Each day, a special word is selected (today's word, btw, was "parallel").  This word is used to help students with transitions.  For example, "When I say the magic word of the day, please turn to a partner and describe to them one of the polygons you see on the board.  Use the mathematical vocabulary we collected during yesterday's lesson. Questions? .... Parallel."

2.   5-4-3-2-1
For a number of years, I have used "Give me 5" in my classroom as a visual signal to get students' attention.  I raise my hand, and say, "give me 5".  Students have been trained since Sept that they need to do 5 things:
- stop
- eyes on me
- hands free
- ears open
- mouth closed

My colleague uses a slightly modified version of this: When his students are talking about something, and he wants them to finish up and return their attention to the lesson, he counts quietly and calmly backwards from 5... 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1.  By the time he gets to "1", the students are quiet, and listening for the next instruction.

Impressive!

I could not believe how many of my students go to bed well after they should be in bed!

At the recent student-teacher-parent conferences, I raised this concern with a number of the families in my class, and was amazed to find how rampant this condition is.  You see, a lot of my students appear to suffer from an inability to focus and concentrate, and with all the varied teaching I do to address different intelligences and learning styles, I simply could not believe that these students all have ADD, so I began to ask parents what time their children go to bed, wondering if perhaps long-term sleep deprivation might be playing a role in some of my students' difficulties at school.

I was absolutely stunned by my findings:  The vast majority of my grade three students are not in bed before 10 p.m., a full TWO HOURS after my own children go to sleep, and several of my students stay up even later than that, including one girl who -- not surprisingly -- misses all kinds of school due to lateness or absence and stays up until midnight or 1 a.m. most night (mornings)!!!

My colleagues found similar phenomenons in their classrooms.  It would appear that our students are severely sleep-deprived, with frightening results.  They can not listen, need frequent reminders to follow instructions, have difficulty focussing on task, and fall further and further behind as the school year progresses and they are unable to keep up with the work, even when it is modified to meed their learning style.  They experience difficulty in resolving conflicts with peers, and are unable to articulate their needs to one another or to teachers, as they are searching for words which their tired brains simply cannot access.  This is an especially alarming problem because so many of my students' brains are already taxed at school due to the fact that they are learning in a language that is not their first.

Interestingly, five of the more focussed, well-behaved and academically successful students in my class confirmed that they are in bed by 8 p.m. every night.

In an effort to educate and combat this epidemic, a colleague of mine created the letter/homework sheet below.  It is suitable fro Grades 2 and up.  Feel free to modify it for use in your own classroom!

After last week's field trip to Black Creek Pioneer Village, I wanted to have my students do some writing. Coelho, Cummins and their contemporaries have long sung the praises of visual and oral scaffolding for English Language Learners (ELLs) before they write, and one of my favourite and most versatile instructional strategies for these students is Picture Word Induction Model (PWM).  What better way, then, to review the relevant vocabulary from our trip and write about it, than to collect some words next to a few photos from the trip first, followed by a few sentences about our adventures?

And here is a sampling of what we got...

"Something that surprised me was that at the school house, if they being bad in the school they will make you wear the dunce cap."

"It was interesting that the printer use ink to make a picter, and also it was cool when the doctor have different tools.  I learned that pioneer were different cotht."

"Something that surprised me was how even the animals had a job to do.  I leaned that Early Settlers had to be always working."

"Something I learned was that they don't have elekchrasite."

"I learned that the piners can't get up at 9 in the night to go to the outhouse, so they use a, pot. When it's morning the youngest has to throw it away.  I also learnd thet there towlet is only a whole in the grownd with a buoket on top. (Because they had no letirisety)"

"I was surprised that the farm are stinky"

This post has been moved to my Babies in Belly blog, here.

For the original Gymboree series, from the toddler years, see here.

I would like to advocate here, if you are a cyclist, for pumping up your tires.

Keeping ones tires pumped has several advantages, two of which I was reminded of today:  Firstly, you reduce the risk of becoming completely flat, resulting in getting stranded and having to then call your girlfriend to come rescue you with a bicycle pump (how embarassing is that?!)  Secondly, being pumped up allows you to bike faster, so that you can get home and warm up quickly, rather than FREEZING outside while your slow-ass bike drags you slowly through the frigid fall air, causing all exposed parts to turn blue!!!

Had I taken a few minutes to pump up before leaving the house this afternoon to go fix my glasses which have been held together by electrical tape for the past month, and which I finally had a chance to take to the optometrist this evening, I would have been home an hour ago, and been writing about all the glories of bike riding, rather than complaining about being SLOW and COLD while my girlfriend makes chastizing remarks about my lousy long-range planning abilites!

As the holidays approach, it is not unusual for people to seek out a cause to donate to.  Hundreds of organizations exist which are eager to relieve you of your money; I would like to propose one additional opportunity to do so, but one which is very grass roots.  You will not receive a tax rec't for any donation you make here, but you will get a story to share that is authentic, and the knowledge that you have made a very real and positive impact on the lives of some remarkable children.

Vida is a woman of African descent whom I met while she was stuffed into a small apartment in Etobicoke's north end with her then 4-year-old twin boys.  Despite their limited resources, she and her partner had decided to have one more child, perhaps hoping for a girl.  For a couple comitted to raising a family, even with limited resources, three children in total would have been manageable.

When I met Vida, she was 8 months pregnant -- with TRIPLETS!!!  Her brood would soon consist of five boys, all under the age of five!

Miraculously, the children are all relatively well-behaved and polite.  I love having the older boys over for dinner; they play nicely with my boys, and are calm and well-mannered, despite the chaos of being raised in close quarters with four noisy siblings!  This is a testament to the parents, an achievement, despite their many hardships.

Over the years, we have kept in touch (see here for some interesting projects and photos), and a few of us from TPOMBA have tried to help this family as best we can.  Ideally, they need time.  Several people with an hour or two a week who could come and work with individual children.  (The twins are 11 now, and the triplets are 7, and all have special educational needs.  Literacy is a major concern, both for the mother and the children.)

Each year at Christmas, a few of us beg, borrow and steal whatever we can to ensure the parents and five kids have something NEW and FUN to open on Christmas morning.

Will you consider joining me in the cause this holiday season?  If you have money, time or new and relevant gifts to donate, please contact me!