Posted on by

To Hinder the Skill of Cramming

It’s the same every year. After the rush of December festivities there is that tiny six-day space to reflect upon the year passing and to anticipate the year ahead. In that small space there’s a certain stillness of mind, it’s brief, but wonderfully still and remarkably hopeful.

I’m sure you know the place, the place where we breathe life to resolution.

But here I am, well into January 2012 head spinning, wondering how I missed the respite of that space. Was it the ordinary bustle that craves my attention like the stomach flu? Was it four transitions looming—a daughter entering her final university undergraduate semester, a son preparing to graduate high school, another son preparing to enter high school, and my youngest son moving on to conquer middle school? Was it the back-to-school dash? Lesson Planning? Grocery shopping? Dust? Laundry?

Faster! Faster! Faster! Is this what life is to be?

So even though the six-day window has passed, here it is, for 2012, my resolution is distilled to a single word: Balance.

The potential of the dandelion is inherent to its essence. So it is with our children.

A quality elementary and secondary education provides abundant opportunities for each child to master skills—phonics, grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, math facts, grammar, historical and scientific facts, and so on­— that will allow for deeper exploration. But when foundational skills become the central objective of education, we sacrifice the promotion and development of curiosity.

Curiosity is the gateway to the labyrinth of learning.

Education that has no room for curiosity, is not only disheartening, it’s dangerous.

Curiosity and imagination are vital to the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual well being of the child. Stimulating the heart, mind, and soul is essential to a full academic experience.

I firmly believe that educating checklist style promotes the skill of cramming.

Let’s face it. The skill of cramming is central to most academic pursuit.

Continue reading To Hinder the Skill of Cramming

Posted on by

Globed Potential

Globed
What did we do for New Year’s Eve? Movie night. Sure, we belong to Netfiix, but we also have an expansive old-school DVD collection.

I am happy to report that last night old school won, Between the Folds.

If we are being honest most of us hold pretty low expectations for a sheet of paper. Scribble, scribe, crumple, and toss. But this film hyperbolically demonstrates the magnitude of paper’s underutilization. Truth is folding paper taps into paper’s latent potential. Work a single fold and the sheet of paper, and voila, the sheet of paper will never be the same.

This film takes us to the intersection of math and science and art and invites us to linger.

When I shared this film with my science workshop last spring, I wrote a ridiculously complex equation for a hyperbolic paraboloid on the board.

Next I handed out large pre-cut squares of paper and told the students to do the math. They were to fold a single hyperbolic parabola. Well into the folding with the room quiet except for paper crinkling mathematically I reminded them to consider their own endowed potential, “Think about it, even paper has hidden potential that is realized with a bit of concentrated effort. Is your potential worth the work?”

This afternoon, on the very first day of 2012, my oldest son handed me a gift.

As you can see, it looks suspiciously like a Christmas ornament, but it’s not.

Honestly, I am quite sure this is more than art. This is language, inspiration, translation, transposition.

Taylor took everything he gleaned from this film and globed it to haiku.

This is visual poetry at its best.

Watch the film and I think you will see what I mean.

Here’s to more critical creative thinking in 2012!

 

Posted on by

A Charlie Brown Christmas

A-charlie-brown-christmas

“Mom, how many times have you seen A Charlie Brown Christmas?”

I was flooded with memories. Childhood had markers back then, and the Charlie Brown specials were on the top of the list.

“Um… thing is, when I was a little girl Charlie Brown was a treat regulated by television networks. There were no DVD players in the olden days.”

The little exchange triggered my husband to read this article to our family.

It all began 46 years ago, and they say Charlie Brown is here to stay.

Tidings of joy!

Posted on by

Gathering Descriptive Words

Threefrogs

Taking notes is a foundational skill that will accompany your student throughout their entire educational journey, and beyond. Even though there is no “right” way of taking notes, it is important to learn how to extract relevant and pertinent information from a text in a neatly organized, concise manner. This takes practice. When students are encouraged to practice note taking, and engage in the work of capturing the most important facts from their reading, they will begin to recognize how all the parts of a story fit into a larger picture. Learning to take notes helps to lay the foundation for rich, clear, and organized writing.

When readers observe character development, trace a setting, and watch a plot thicken, they are learning more than just the skill of recording facts, they are actually beginning to realize the potential of storytelling. Teaching students to dig into a story, to do the “work” of reading for meaning, enables them to discover how language has the power to communicate significance.

Consider what is gained as students learn to infer abstract traits and values from literal details embedded in great stories.

curious, wise, boastful
shy, witty
arrogant, reliable,
courageous
devout, outlandish
stable, tricky, vain

List poem?

No! This list is a portion of the lexicon that develops over time as readers dig into the work of thinking deeply about fictional characters.

As students reach for just the right descriptive adjective to assign to a character's unique personality they simultaneously expand their vocabulary, recognize the profound specificity of language, engage with the story at hand on a deeper level, and  gain deep understanding of abstract real-life concepts from a make-believe situations.

Line

The sample page above is student work in response to Leo Lionni's It's Mine, a simple fable about the blessings of sharing. Our Earlybird literature guides provide your youngest students with the opportunity to share classic read-alouds with you, while exploring simple literary concepts like characterization and plot. Find all of our Earlybird guides here!

Posted on by

At the Intersection of Math and Writing

Writing1

Writing2

I began the writing workshop with Cuisinare rods and colored pencils. My writers looked puzzled.

“Today you’re going to make a Cuisinaire construction and then describe how you made the construction with words on paper so that a reader will be able to navigate through the paragraph to create an identical construction.”

This is my idea of a hands-on How To paragraph.

“Just like math, when writing instructions you have to show all your steps.”

Young writers need to practice working through the process of crafting words. It’s challenging teaching young writers that words need to be wisely chosen and crafted carefully to accurately communicate a specific idea to an audience of readers. This is challenging because the task is a process that involves tremendous effort on the part of the writer and young writers want to skip steps. Participating in this work over time sets a foundation for the rhythm of the writer’s routine to be established.

Before beginning, I  challenged my writers to keep in mind the cardinal rule of our writing workshop:
“Words are scribbled on paper for a reader to read… your words are a gift.”

The young writers eagerly spent an hour an a half contentedly drafting rough drafts paragraph that they took home to self-conference and craft to final draft.

“Next week we will exchange final drafts and see if readers can make the construction.”

Begin all writing experiences by breaking the task at hand into steps. Remind writers that writing is a process. Getting young writers to engage in process is a tricky business that takes time to root, but truth be told, process alone takes the daunting out of writing.

We broke this specific project down as follows:

What’s your big idea?
Make a construction with Cuisinaire rods. Map the construction on graph paper with colored pencils.

Write it down…!
Begin by use a topic wheel to outline each step involved in the construction. Craft a paragraph following the topic wheel outline. Be sure to introduce the topic with a sentence that hooks the reader into the big idea. The supporting sentences should include specific details that will allow the reader to navigate through the Cuisinaire construction without a hitch. Craft a single sentence at the end of the paragraph that will conclude the exercise and add an interesting clincher that makes idea of the paragraph echo in the mind of the reader.

Conference with yourself and someone else…
Now, re-read what you wrote and decide, as a reader, if you are accurately communicating your big idea. Use a red pen to make changes. Ask someone else to read your work and to add red marks when they find confusing areas, holes, or dead ends in your “How To” paragraph.

Revise
Make a final sweep with the red pen for common errors—spelling, punctuation, capitalization, tense, and so on.

Final Draft
Use your best handwriting or type up a final draft!

Posted on by

Mystery Solved

In all my years of teaching literature, I’ve never met a reader, regardless of reluctancy, who has not been drawn delightedly into the The Westing Game’s intrigue. The plot is complex and captivating. Upper elementary and middle school readers enjoy every twist and turn. Beyond the fact that I am thrilled to have a mystery that is age appropriate for this audience, the theme of embracing true identity and resisting the urge to be what others want us to be, is an added bonus. In the story, characters often behave a certain way based on perceived expectations from other characters and situations, in the real world we call this peer pressure! And we all know, when peer pressure is present, appearances are deceiving. The Westing Game is a terrific reminder.

So the plot goes, one of 16 people will win Westing’s $200 million fortune if they solve a mystery involving word clues. For the past three weeks, Søren and his literature buddies have been collecting clues as they read. Compounding the tension for this specific group is that all of the participants have older siblings who have read the book. Can you say, “Spoiler alert?”

Last night, just as the house was beginning to settle, I heard the roar of a surprise party, Liam and Søren were at it again! I marched to the scene where my two youngest boys were laughing hysterically. “What happened?” I asked.

The thing is, I can’t tell you their response because it would spoil the mystery! What I can say is that I was completely taken aback. My boys had settled down for the evening, were reading quietly until Søren reached the end of the book where the mystery is solved. Both he and Liam delighted together at last.

In the end, like every great mystery, nothing is as it seems but all the pieces are in place!

 

~Kimberly

Posted on by

Boys and Books

Q: What do readers like best about Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder?
A: The FOOD!

Last week I celebrated the end of an era, read the last pages of Farmer Boy with my youngest son, Søren and his literature circle buddies. This was the second time that I read the book with an all boy group, the second time I was surprised by the level of boy-enthusiasm for the reading. These boys were fascinated by the history, intrigued by the real responsibilities that Almanzo tackled each day, but mostly, they were amazed by how much Almanzo could eat!

Screenshot

The group enjoyed sharing their projects inspired by the book during a culminating feast of Almanzo’s favorites—apples and onions, cornbread, ham, and, of course, stacked pancakes!

“Ten pancakes cooked on the smoking griddle, and as fast as they were done Mother added another cake to each stack and buttered it lavishly and covered it with maple sugar. Butter and sugar melted together and soaked the fluffly pancakes and dripped all down their crisp edges. That was stacked pancakes. Almanzo liked them better than any other kind of pancakes.”

Posted on by

A Little Inspiration

Hopesprout
There is always hope, or so they say.

I went out to check on my garden after being gone on vacation. I had asked my teens to water while I was away and for the most part they got it right. But alas, they missed the beautiful pot of mint that I had finally gotten to grow back after a long rainy winter.

It looked really dead but I watered it anyway thinking that maybe, just maybe, there might be life below the surface. There was! A week later a sprout appeared and I marveled. I just stood there thinking (always dangerous) about it and this led to my feeling hopeful about a lot of things.

Life isn’t always as it seems. It can look very bleak and discouraging, but there is often a turn ahead.

How many times have our children gone through a difficult stage where we think, how in the world is this going to work itself out?

The good news is that there are seeds of growth deep inside our children and they are moments away from erupting into change, into new life. There may be steps backwards, sure, but truly momentum is going forward.

Love and patience are like water, they can bring a miracle.

Hope.

– Sara

Posted on by

Thanksgiving Making

Fall is cozy….and has to be the best season for making! We had so much fun this year getting creative ideas from many of you around the wonderful-wide-web! It's a blessing to be able to find inspiration at your fingertips and we're really grateful for the sharing that happens from blog to blog. Here are some of the projects we made…enjoy, and Thanksgiving blessings to you!

Leaf1
Leaf2Fall Leaf Cutting Practice inspired by mmmCrafts

LightsLeaf Lanterns inspired by …imagine childhood

BoatHandprint Mayflower inspired by Fryman Four

BeadstoryThanksgiving Story Bracelets inspired by My Montessori Journey

Feather1
Feather2Paper Leaf/Feather Garland inspired by Chasing Fireflies

Cones"Coneucopias" filled with gummy fish, caramel corn, candy-coated sunflower seeds, berry chews and Reeses Pieces inspired by Busy Bee

HandsTurkey Handprint Cards (in process)

CookiesPumkin Cookies

FeastOur "First Thanksgiving" Feast shared and ejoyed by our little ones. We served beef jerkey, baby carrots, fishie crackers, nuts, dried green beans, dried blueberries, grapes, apples and cranberry juice.

Posted on by

Crafting a Poem of Thanksgiving

I shrink in the company of Sarcasm. I’m admittedly deficient, two steps behind when it comes to her volley of shrill phrases. When she enters the building, I chuckle a bit but rarely participate. I acknowledge that, on edge of her spectrum, chatter is light-hearted, friendly. Still, try as I might, I can’t quite squeak a giggle in the midst of her raucous presence.

Recently two students in my guild moved on to explore new education paths. Both students had been part of the guild for many years. My idea was to provide an opportunity for closure by challenging writers to craft a farewell phrase. I decided to incorporate this exercise into our regular writing workshop. What better way to put my “writing is a gift” motto into action?

So we began, “Let’s craft kind words to encourage our friends as they set out on a new adventure.” Sounds simple, right?

As I watched the card I provided move from writer to writer, I anticipated reading the messages before posting them the old fashioned way. But later that day, when I sat down with a cup of tea excited to read the phrases inscribed on the card, my heart sank. There she was, Sarcasm, smirking in all her glory, “Have fun wandering the halls,” and “Happy Easter (jk),” and “Yeah, whatever, thanks for leaving me behind,” and “Life is good (not),” …not a single kind word. There were careless spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors.

Decibels peaking, Sarcasm crossing over to the caustic zone, I wanted to shrink. At one point in the reading, I wanted to cry. Our guild is not a typical classroom where children come and go annually, most of these children have been learning together for many years. These children are respectful of and grateful for friendship. Still, not a single phrase in the card was crafted vulnerably. What in the world? I knew that this group would really miss their friends who had moved on. I knew this must be something else. Maybe they did not know how to craft vulnerable words.

Continue reading Crafting a Poem of Thanksgiving