What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?: Our First Reading

Hi Cole Teachers!  I'm making some changes to my literacy lesson plans this week - specifically to the essential questions for the read aloud - so I wanted to share my plans and handouts with you.  If you have any questions about the changes and why I've made them, come see me in my room between 1:00 and 1:45 on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.

I made a few changes to the guiding questions for this week because it was hard for me to understand the alignment between some of them and how they built up to the culminating question.  I think this is an important lesson in teaching: Sometimes other people put together really great plans that just don't speak to you or don't quite make sense to you.  And if they don't make sense to you, you won't be able to teach them in a way that makes sense to your kids.  So you'll have to get to work and tweak them!  And you don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water; small changes in language and phrasing can make a big difference in clarity.

STUDENT OUTCOMES: What should students know, understand, and be able to do through this text?
Culminating Question:	Sample Student Response:
How do we value diversity? Specific Book Question: How do the animals in this text differ?	The animals use their noses for different functions like digging in the mud, smelling, smelling, breathing, or even to take a bath. They all use their noses differently, which is amazing.
Correlating Objectives:
Day 1: SWBAT explain how animals use their noses and ears differently. Day 2: SWBAT explain how animals use their tails, eyes, and mouths differently. SWBAT explain that like animals we are all different, but we value diversity in humans and in animals.

The Original Questions and Exemplar Response

1.  I wanted our first reading to be focused on understanding the text and working at a lower level of Bloom's Taxonomy to identify and describe the animals bodies as we familiarized ourselves with the information presented by this non-fiction text.  I expanded the question to include all of the adaptations mentioned in the text because I worried that focusing on noses and ears exclusively might limit our discussion too much and that such a narrow discussion would make it hard for me to effectively analyze students' independent work and understanding.

2.  I wanted our second reading of the text to push students to analyze the information they'd learned over the course of the week.  I changed the focus from describing what the adaptations are to stating their purpose and inferring why each animal needs to use their body differently.  I thought that my students would be ready for this higher level analysis and that such analysis would better prepare them to answer the culminating question for the week.

	Day 1 – Monday	Day 2 – Tuesday	Day 3 – Wednesday	Day 4 – Thursday
Daily Focus Question	How are birds and bats different? Cite evidence from the text.	How do animals use their bodies in different ways? Cite evidence from the text.	How are birds and bats different? Cite evidence from the text.	Why do animals use their bodies in different ways? Cite evidence from the text.
Culminating Question	Why are differences important in our world? Optional Extension Question: How can we respect differences in our classroom and our school?

My Final Questions for the Week

You should plan to talk through your questions for this week with your IC, your same letter teaching partners, and other members of your collabs to ensure that all of your daily questions are aligned in a way that makes sense to you and that you all think will make sense to your kids.  My roommate and I spent close to 45 minutes talking through the pros and cons of various questions with my specific students in mind, but now I feel a lot better about the plan that I have for the week.

You can find my full lesson plans for this text here and a copy of my students' independent practice here.

Family Communication

One of our school wide priorities this week is increasing both the quality and the quantity of our family communication and engagement, so I thought I'd share a few resources that you and your teammates can tweak and use in your own rooms as needed.

Welcome Letters

Earlier this summer I sent home a welcome letter with a bit of information about me and our classroom.  I like to send my welcome packets home at the end of the first week of school or the beginning of the second week of school for two reasons.  First, families get bombarded with paperwork and notices at the start of the school year, so I like to hold off until they have a little more time to read and absorb the information.  Second, I like to make sure that I've had a chance to talk with the kids about our rules and procedures and get our classroom culture established before I "finalize" my management plan by sending it home in writing.  

Click the picture to download a copy.

During the school year, I send home a welcome packet with a letter, FAQ sheet, and a family survey.  For the summer, I tweaked the letter bit and cut the FAQ sheet.  I also added a Spanish version of the letter since a number of my kids' families prefer to communicate in Spanish.  I based the translated version on Karen's kindergarten welcome letter (here's the English version and here's the Spanish version) and added to it with the help of Google Translate.

Weekly Progress Reports

While it's certainly important to introduce yourself and open the lines of communication, I think that families most appreciate ongoing information that they can count on.  I rely on daily behavior calendars and weekly progress reports to share routine updates with my students' families.  I supplement that written communication with phone calls and in person chats as family members drop off and pick up students throughout the week.

For the summer, I tweaked my weekly progress report template a bit and you can download an editable copy to personalize for your classroom.  During the school year, I like to write the learning goal section of the progress report as I finalize my unit plans.  I'm usually planned a month in advance - more on that later - and as soon as my unit is calendared, I put the objectives into my progress report template and run copies for the month.  Then on Thursday afternoons, I just staple the kids' work to a blank sheet and use my tracker to mark their scores.

A Quick Note on Translations

During previous school years, I worked with a school district translator to have master templates made for the forms and documents I used most often - behavior calendars, weekly progress reports, field trip reminders, etc. - and then updated them as necessary with the help of friends and online translation services.  If you teach students whose families speak another language at home, please reach out to our fantastic translators for support before the start of the year.

Because we don't have access to translation services this summer, I relied on Google Translate to create both of the templates that I've shared here, so I know the translation isn't perfect.

But, in my experience, perfect grammar and word choice is far less important than putting in the effort to communicate with families in the way that is most meaningful and comfortable for them.

Giving Them The Words

After last night's discussion about helping kids learn to express their emotions in a healthy, constructive way, I thought that I'd share a few of my top strategies and tools for responding to outbursts or aggressive behavior and teaching students to solve problems.  Not surprisingly, they can mostly be found in the pages of Conscious Discipline. :)

There definitely isn't a step-by-step guide for how to deal with challenging behavior and every kid has different needs and preferences, but I'm going to try to outline my general thought process when I need to diffuse a situation and seize a teachable moment.

First, ensure that everyone is physically safe.

My number one priority when there's a disruptive event is to ensure that everyone is physically safe.  If someone is "in the trunk" and wants to kick, hit, or yell, I want to bring them to a place where they'll be safe and everyone around them will be safe.  Usually, I'll say something like "It seems like you're upset right now and you need some space to calm down.  You can take a walk by the word wall or sit in the purple chair (our "safe place").  Which do you choose?"  In the event that the kid is so upset that they can't move to a safe place, I'll have the rest of the class move if necessary (to their tables, to the carpet, or, in an extreme situation, to the classroom next door).  As the kid moves to the safe spot to calm down, I either tell them to come get me when they are ready to talk or that I'll be there in a few minutes to see if they're ready to talk.  

If I can't get the student to calm down enough that I feel certain that they're physically safe, I call my principal.  She is amazingly calm and has a fantastic way of talking with kids when they are upset and I trust her to support me in making good classroom management decisions.

Second, have a private conversation.

Once I've had a moment to collect myself, get the rest of my class started on something, and given the student a chance to try to calm down independently, I have a private conversation with him or her.  If I don't know the reason for the outburst, I usually start by asking "Are you having a home problem or a school problem?" and, typically, the resulting answer can give me enough information to figure out the basic details of the conflict and decide how to move forward.

One thing I'm really trying to work on if I do know the reason for the conflict is questioning less and describing more.  Dr. Bailey talks a lot in Chapter 4 about the power of ascribing and narrating the positive intent behind students' actions.  I'm loving her script for responding to outbursts so much; it's getting a spot on my whiteboard so that I can have it at my fingertips when I need it.  Instead of playing 20 questions, I'm going to respond like this:

• "You wanted ______, so you _____."
• "You didn't know how to ___."
• "You may not ___ - ___ hurts."
• "When you want ___, say (or do) ___."
• "Let's practice that now."  (Child repeats words or actions.)

(You can read the full explanation of the script and a few examples on pages 177 - 178 of Conscious Discipline.  I think it's pretty genius.)

Third, give them the words to solve their problem and practice with them.

Our littlest (and some of our biggest) kids often don't have the words or the experience to solve their own problems and resolve their interpersonal conflicts independently.  They need us to hold their hands and tell them the words to say to make things right.  Think of teaching behavior like teaching content - first you model, then you try it together, then the student tries it independently.  This goes for both students who hurt someone else and students who are hurt by others.  My two go to phrases are:

• "I don't like it when you ____.  Please stop."  (This phrase is my number one cure for tattling.)
• "Next time when you want ___ to ___, tell him/her ___.  That will help you both get what you need.  Let's practice together and then you can go tell ___."

Conscious Discipline Resources: Chapter 1

I know you spent a lot of time on Friday in the book club and your morning meeting session talking about ways to build connectedness in your classrooms, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite resources and ideas.

Starting the Day the "Brain Smart Way"

Morning meeting is a perfect example of starting the day in your room "the brain smart way" and easing the transition from school to home.  Dr. Bailey outlines four key components of the morning routine, here's how I incorporate them into our day:

1. Activity to unite - We sing the "Welcome to School" song by Dr. Jean.  (This is also the kids' cue to clean up their morning work and come to the carpet area for morning meeting.)
2. Activity to disengage the stress response - We greet each other at the start of morning meeting and end the meeting with the "It's Brain Smart Time" song.
3. Activity to connect the children to the teacher and each other - We play some sort of game that either requires us to work together or reinforces that "even though we all like different things, we can still be friends." (This is the "activity" portion of our morning meeting.)
4. Activity to commit oneself to learning - We review the schedule for the day before ending our morning meeting.  I also try to use the morning message to give the kids a preview of the most important things we'll do that day.

Activities to Relax

Click the picture to download your own icons and directions.

Dr. Bailey talks a lot in this chapter about the power of mindful breathing and relaxing.  I use these icons and the associated breathing techniques all.the.time!  The kids LOVE them and I've seen such a positive response in my room since I started using them regularly.  We don't usually use the breathing exercises first thing in the morning, but I love using them when we're a little wiggly on the carpet or after we've done an activity that has us all wound up.

GoNoodle also has some great breathing and calming videos - "AirTime" and "Belly Breathe" are two favorites in my room.  And if your kids aren't sick of it yet, "Let It Go" usually does the trick as well.

Managing Anger and Upset Feelings

Click the picture to download your own copy of the poster.

I really like this visual for my kiddies who need some help recognizing when they are beginning to feel angry or upset so that they can calm themselves down before they make a poor choice.  I introduce the idea of driving your car and being in control of your body and your feelings at the beginning of the year and then I put the poster on the whiteboard.  When I see someone getting upset, I grab the poster and pull them aside for a private chat.  I usually say something like, "Andrea, it seems like you're starting to get upset.  When I look at you, I see that your face looks like this and your hands are balled up like this.  That makes me think that you might be getting ready to get in the backseat.  Let's take some deep breaths and make sure that you stay in the driver's seat."

The Second Day of (Summer) School

My brain is much too mushy to try to write an actual post tonight, but I did want to give you the heads up on what we're doing tomorrow in Room 512.  You can click the picture to download my agenda for the day.

At the beginning of the year I always struggle to remember what I did for the first few days and weeks of the previous year to set things up, so I'm hoping that filing these agendas will help all of us out come August.

The First Day of (Summer) School

It's almost here... the first day of summer school!

Throughout the summer, I'll be posting my lesson plans and the resources that support them here on the blog.  For now, I'll just post daily agendas since the lesson plans are already created for us.  Click the picture below to find out what we'll be up to tomorrow.

I know y'all won't be teaching this week, but these agendas are very loosely based on my actual first week of school plans, so I hope they help you start to form a picture of how the first few days of setting expectations and explaining rules and procedures work (at least in my room).  I'll post lots more about the first few weeks of school later in the summer.

Last year I loved and used all of the ideas that Brooke Hildebrand of "Once Upon a First Grade Adventure" shared to support a reading of the classic children's book The Kissing Hand on the first day of school.  Time permitting I'll include a few of these activities tomorrow, but they're definitely all worth checking out.  That handprint painting and poem was a HUGE hit!

Welcome!

Welcome to Nashville!  I'm looking forward to getting to know each of you over the next few weeks and can't wait to have you all as my teaching teammates for the summer.

My name is Andrea Neff and I'll be your lower elementary model classroom teacher at Cole Elementary.  I'm originally from Richmond, Virginia and graduated from William & Mary in 2008.  I joined the Charlotte corps immediately after graduation and taught kindergarten and fourth grade as a corps member.  After my time in the corps, I spent a summer working at the first Delta Institute and then joined full time Teach For America staff.  I worked in operations in Chicago for a year and here in Nashville as an MTLD for two years.  Last year I got my master's degree at Lipscomb and followed my heart back to the classroom as a kindergarten teacher at Cockrill Elementary.

I hope that this blog and the model classroom will be a place for all of us to learn, share, and grow this summer.  I'll be back next week with lots of ideas and resources!