Teaching with Intention: Chapter 5

Good Evening!

I took last week off to deep clean my house and then spend time with visiting family so tonight begins catch up. Tonight I am finally linking up with From Kindergarten with Love and The Kindergarten Smorgasboard  for chapter 5 of Teaching with Intention.

 

What a great chapter! This was a beautifully laid out lesson plan to help students comprehension grow and develop. I love the idea of using a poster board as a folder to post our schema (what we think we know), new learning, and misconceptions. I also love that she uses post it notes (in different colors of course) to post the thoughts of the students throughout lessons and readings. That is a great way to show them an example of moving thoughts around or evening "deleting" a thought if it is not accurate. It is also a great way to teach them to pull thoughts from their reading and write them on post it notes to share with the class. This will help them remember the information from the reading and it will give them the power to teach/share something with their classmates. This will be a great tool to use this year for my science and social studies classes.

Ashley

Teaching with Intention: Chapter 4

Hi Everyone!

Tonight I am linking up with Schroeder Shenanigans in Second , Positively Learning, and Kindergarten Smorgasboard for chapter 4 of Teaching with Intention. Our wonderful hosts gave us two questions to help guide our thoughts on this chapter.

 

This has been a very eye opening book for me and this chapter is no exception. Thinking about my classroom culture was interesting. Looking back at this school year I don't feel like I displayed my thinking in all areas like I should have been. Reading and Math are the areas where I share the most and where I encourage students to share the most. We discuss stories and what we think about them as we break them apart. We talk through different ways to solve a problem or what tools we can use to solve a problem. We write things down a lot in our journals or on our desks. Most of those are not displayed so this next year I will need to make sure that more of these moments are displayed in the classroom for them. Only a few activities each month were posted in the classroom. All the other subjects will need to be improved upon when it comes to more thinking being displayed by myself and my kiddos.

To help us with displaying our thinking and our students thinking Miller gives a lot of scenario examples. I loved it. In here examples she words everything so wonderfully and she makes them think through everything and say their thoughts out loud. I also loved how she handled the attention seeker students. I have met the sweet kiddos who will be in my class already and I can see a few who have the potential to be that attention seeker who will say anything whether it is on topic or not. Asking students to provide evidence for their statements is perfect. I wish I could say that I had been smart enough in the past to do that with those attention seeker students. I believe that I responded mostly with a little frustration because they were not paying attention. That will change this year.

Throughout this next school year I will also make sure that I am present more. I walk around observing and helping pretty often. I am rarely at my desk, but there are still too many times that I can remember where the assessments, meetings, tests, technology problems, and all the other craziness distracted me from being present with my students 100% of the time. I think this will be the hardest thing for me to work on because I can be easily distracted with the tech issues that my classroom has and unfortunately there are a lot. It will be worth it in the end to make sure that I am present more. It will help me display my thoughts to my students more often when they are partnered or in groups. 

 

During our reading time we discuss the stories. We stop every couple of pages and start by discussing Who and What. From there we talk about why we think things are happening, what we think will happen next, what characters are thinking, etc. I love hearing their comments. Some are very out there and some are really in depth for such young minds. It makes the stories more interesting to me. This is probably where the most discussion happens, well here and devotion/Bible story times.

We also discuss a lot in math. I had the privilege of teaching Singapore math for a year and fell in love. It opened up a whole new way of teaching math. I loved how much it made the kids and myself think about the methods of solving and how many different ways a problem could be solved. I think it made kids more open and creative in the way they look at math. I no longer teach Singapore but I still use a lot of the strategies in my room which leads to lots of discussions on how things can be solved, number talks, etc.

Other subjects are not as open as reading and math but discussion do happen is smaller capacities. This will definitely be something to work on for this next school year. 

Thanks for reading my thoughts on chapter 4. I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Ashley

Teaching with Intention: Chapter 3

Hello!

This morning I am excited to be linking up with Surfin' Through Second, The Learning Chambers, and Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching for Chapter 3 of Teaching with Intention.

Chapter 3 was all about the environment we create in our classrooms. She posed a lot of questions in this chapter that really had me thinking about my room and what I want to keep or change for this next school year.

One thing I know for sure that needs to be changed is organization. I thought I was pretty organized until this year and I was a new mom out a lot with a sick baby. You realize how much more organization needs to happen in your room when you have subs in your room as often as I had to have this year. Kids know where supplies and basic materials they use are but when it comes to my centers and teaching materials they are organized for me, not necessarily for someone else to locate things. I have already started labels for just about everything in my room so we are off to a good start.

I am also excited to change the set up of my room. I want more comfy work areas for my kiddos instead of the main focus being desks. I would also like to spread out my reading bins a little more and expand our meeting area. I don't have any pics right now. They are cleaning the carpets in our rooms so everything is stacked in corners and on shelves. Hopefully we will be allowed in next week to start setting things up and I can begin sharing about all the changes happening.

Make sure to check out our three leaders this week. There links are up at the top. Until next week : )

Ashley

Teaching with Intention: Chapter 2

Hi!

This evening I am linking up with Flying into First Grade, The Primary Gal, and Mrs. Dailey's Classroom discuss chapter 2 of Teaching with Intention. These awesome ladies are the hosts for this week and they have come up with some guiding questions to help lead our discussion. If you haven't joined this study yet, I encourage you to do so. I love love love this book!

 

If you haven't joined this study yet, I encourage you to do so. I love love love this book! In this chapter she has us looking at our teaching. Do we practice what we preach? Really deep thought for the second chapter but a great one. 

Well, we discussed this in greater detail with the first chapter, but it has been something that I have been thinking about a great deal. I know that no matter what I teach I want my classroom to bright, cheerful, inviting, happy, and full of learning. I want people to walk in and see evidence of student learning in the groups of kids working all over the room as well as in the decor on the walls. I want my students work to be the primary decor for my room. They need to be able to see and feel proud of their accomplishments. I also realize that this takes time to build. I also want to be organized, almost obsessively so that my students and I can find anything we need without frustration. I work with first grades so working in groups will take time and practice. Getting work on the walls will also take time and lots of learning experiences need to happen first.

I also realize that this next year of teaching will be a very defining year for me after reading this book. It will be the year that I ensure that I am actually practicing what I preach. That my beliefs are being displayed for students, coworkers , and parents in the way that I interact with students and the way that my classroom runs. It will be the time that I make sure that the ideal room I have been working on creating in reality works the way it should. I believe that the fifteen minutes of reflection that Miller mentions in this chapter will come in handy.

I believe that a classroom should be inviting and organized. Students, teachers, and anyone else who walk into the classroom need to feel welcome and be able to find any materials they may be in need of without frustration. I think that this helps students feel ownership in their room if they know where things are that they can access them when needed.

I believe that my students should feel safe and comfortable in their classroom. They should know by their teacher's words and actions that they are loved and respected. They will not be teased or made fun of for wrong answers, clothing they wear, things they like, etc.

I believe that students should be engaged in learning. They need to be a part of the learning that is happening. It needs to be presented in a way that makes them enjoy learning. Having students work in groups and giving them choices on the groups they work in helps with this. 

Thanks for reading through my thoughts on this chapter. See you next week for chapter 3. 

Ashley

Teaching with Intention: Chapter 1

 

I am having one of those weeks where I am ten steps behind everything. Yesterday the book study with Greg from Kindergarten Smorgasboard, Teaching with Intention began. The first chapter was all about what our ideal classroom would like.  This was the perfect thing to start with. This year I will only be teaching math, science, social studies, handwriting, and Bible so the way my room looks and is structured will need to change.

My ideal classroom for my little firsties has a lot of open space. I am not a big fan of little ones spending a lot of time in desks so I would prefer to have several tables to use as workstations. Then kids could work at those or on the floor. I feel that kids need to have some say in how they work, especially when they are so young and are full of the wiggles. This comes with a higher noise level but I don't mind as long as their is learning going on.

The room would also be full of bright colors. Bright colors make me feel happy and I think that they would have the same effect on my little guys. I would also like to have lots of work displayed. They should be able to look all over the room and see stuff they have learned and created. I want them to develop a sense of pride in their work and I think seeing it displayed helps with that. 

          

In my ideal classroom the students would be working independently, in small groups with peers, or with the teacher in a small group. I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time whole class teaching. Kids this little don't have the focus for that and I think they learn better when they are actively creating or using something to help them understand a concept. Listening to me talk continuously isn't going to help anyone. 

I would be either working with a small group who is struggling with something or walking around the room assisting groups as they work through whatever activity we are working on. 

For the last two years I have worked on moving away from whole class instruction all the time and moving to mini lessons and then group or center work. I have also been working on creating more hands on and interactive activities for them to help them understand lessons. This last year was probably the most hands on my classroom has been and I loved it. I had groups all over the room a lot of the time. This resulted in a lot of noise but we were having fun learning. 

I really need to work more on organization.This last year  I was a new mom working full time so I feel like I just shoved things in cupboards and drawers because of a lack of time and sleep. Now its time to deal with all my hidden stashes. I am hoping it will be easier now that I only have a few subjects.

I would also like to add more seating alternatives to my room. I have one table and desks and then lots of floor space. I would like more options so kids don't feel like they need to either sit on the floor or at a desk. I am not sure what that will look like yet but I am open to ideas. 

I would also love to change the lighting in my room. I don't get very much outside light in my room so I have to rely on the overhead lights which just seem to bright and half the time are flickering. I usually only turn half of them on and that helps a little but I will be looking into a few lamps. My teaching partner has a few in her room and I love the vibe they give the room. 

I am so looking forward to the rest of the book and all the changes that are happening in the way that I view my classroom and teaching. Its going to be a great summer of learning and a great year a changes. I hope you can join us on this adventure. 

Ashley