Images from my day

In Kindergarten math, students practiced skip counting by 25 using a sequence of motions to develop body-concept connection. 

Next came a visit at the Laurel Creek General Store, where students went shopping for items, paid for their purchases,  counted their change and checked their receipts!

Some students did self-correcting puzzles to match coin shapes, names, and values.

Other students practiced adding sequences of coins.

Over in the Art Room, parent volunteers helped silk-screen on Walk-athon logos for next week's event.

In a combined Spanish/Music class, Rennea and Kim taught children songs and dances from throughout Central and South America.

In the Depot, tables were set up nicely for Temescal's Family Day Tea event.

Strawberry Creek (4/5) students worked on building memory boxes for their  Oregon Trail unit.

In Blackberry Creek (K/1), students continued working with the "size of the problem" concept from the Zones of Regulation curriculum. This sequence of lessons helps children match their emotions and reactions to the events and issues they encounter.

Middle School students worked in the art room to prepare for their upcoming Fashion Forward year-end event. This was a massive hit two years ago, and we're all thrilled to see it return!

Back in the Depot, families enjoyed the aftermath of the Temescal event.

Yeah, Bike-to-School Day!

Over at the Chaparral House, Laurel Creek students delivered plants they had germinated in pots they had painted, and sang a few songs to bring some sunshine to the residents.

Thinking and Linking Pt.3

You can read previous linksets here and here (or here for all posts with the tag "articles").


The Washington Post has a great summary of Linda Darling-Hammond’s proposal for a framework for effective and professional teacher evaluation.

The NY Times offers what it calls “essential questions” for failure across various disciplines and professions. These could easily become age-appropriate lessons that integrate with our approach to developing critical thinking and meta-cognition about learning habits.

The Herald News reports on a school using the technique of learning walks to encourage collaboration among teachers. I've reported on my experience with learning walks seven or eight times on this blog (such as here and here).

This piece on GovTech presents arguments on both sides of bringing technology into lower elementary classrooms. This is a topic of that the elementary faculty discussed briefly during our year-end division meeting – what is developmentally appropriate technology for children of this age? What are our responsibilities to integrate digital technology into the classroom in ways that support the school's Technology learning outcome? Should we broaden the concept of technology to include brooms and mops, pencils and pens, rulers and protractors, and other hands-on practical life tools that we believe are also important for kids to use successfully?

The Huffington Post reports on a study that shows that yes, Virginia, the amount (and quality) of sleep impacts a student's performance in the classroom. Didn't we learn that from John Medina already?

Brad Kunz hits the nail on the head with his post on ASCD: good teaching should be focused on student learning and understanding, not on the evaluation or grade that a child earns. Good assessment is just a tool to help teachers gauge a child's progress in the arc of learning, not a means to evaluate and judge a child's worth. Besides, we all know that grades are completely subjective and actually damage children's intrinsic motivation.

Algebraic thinking should be part of the upper elementary math curriculum, but as this article from the Harvard Education Letter points out, there's a huge difference between pushing 8th grade math to 3rd grade, and building off of what younger students already know and do in a developmentally-appropriate way. That's why we love the NCTM standards: the five strands of mathematical thinking - operations, geometry, algebra, measurement, and data analysis - should be taught at ALL grade levels.

Here's a short and sweet call for sanity from Renee Moore that resonates nicely with our approach to standardized testing.

In some ways, not understanding the importance of critical thinking skills is indicative of a lack of those same skills. This has to be some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.


I'll put up another installment next week (I've got a good collection still waiting for annotation and attention).

Scenes from today's classrooms

Blackberry Creek (K/1) & Cerrito Creek (4/5) - During buddy time, students were doing collaborative drawings; each piece of paper was divided into quadrants, and each buddy needed to contribute some drawing to each quadrant. This helps students practice skills of interdependency and creativity.

Laurel Creek (K/1) - Water Day, with a variety of water-related games such as Sponge Dodgeball and Water Balloon Toss. This was a student-selected "holiday", a tradition in our K/1 program that replaces simple birthday celebrations with activities and events that help children learn about each other's interests. 

Sweet Briar Creek (2/3) - During math workshop, students used Hundreds Boards to see the patterns created by doing "Multiples of" work, puzzled through logic problems, compared fractions using Montessori fraction tiles, and watched a Kahn Academy video showing what's actually happening during the standard algorithm for subtraction.

Temescal Creek (2/3) - During a writing workshop, students worked on taking notes for the Informational Texts they are creating. They consulted research sources and wrote their notes into graphic organizers preloaded with questions around topics including diet, interactions, lifespan, anatomy, and habitat.

Strawberry Creek (4/5) - Student worked on painting props, backdrops and staging for their end-of-year performance of understanding about California history, coming up next Wednesday.






Bonus: Video of Sweet Briar Creek practicing If I Had A Hammer

A morning spin through the K-5 classrooms

Blackberry (k/1) - Mindful breathing as they transition from recess into a work period

Laurel (k/1) - Practicing estimation techniques in math class

Sweet Briar (2/3) - Designing tri-fold posters for their Egypt Festival

Temescal (2/3) - Designing and folding paper airplanes in art class

Cerrito (4/5) - Independent reading period

Strawberry (4/5) - Writing scripts in small groups based on their recent literature circles

A Morning Math Stroll

This morning I took a walk through the classrooms to see what transpired during the various math periods around our elementary level.

In K/1, students were either playing "roll and record", a game in which they roll two dice and record the total of the two showing faces -- thereby providing practice with number recognition, static addition, probability, and record keeping -- or creating simple patterns ("AB" or "ABC") using snap cubes and then coloring in pattern charts to match their snap cube chains -- practicing their pattern sense, visual matching, and visual memory.

In 2nd grade, students were completing a series of problems that called on them to use skip-counting, or counting in groups (a precursor to multiplication) along with pattern prediction. They were presented with some information ("each floor of the building has X rooms on it"), and a chart containing two columns, one each for the floor # and the total number of rooms in the building up to that floor. They used grid paper and snap cubes to help themselves count by groups when necessary.

In 3rd grade, students investigated how to find the perimeter and area of shapes that don't lend themselves to easy measurement. They each traced the outline of one of their feet onto centimeter graph paper, and were then asked to find ways to calculate the perimeter and area of that shape.

In 4th grade, students practiced with multiplication math facts, completing a sheet of problems without using any kinesthetic or material tools to help them calculate. Finding just the right balance of repetition and novelty is an important part of the learning process (for more on this, check out John Medina's website on Brain Rules).

In 5th grade, students practiced their understanding of percents by writing and giving each other problems set in restaurants, where the goal was to calculate the amount of money required for a tip of a certain percentage, because creating problems is one of the strongest possible performances of mastery.

Moments from my day

I haven't posted on one of my learning walks in some time, so here's what I saw today (Tuesday).

Blackberry: During a math workshop, some students worked on the problem "I have two cows, two hens, and two ducks. I want to put boots on all of their feet. How many boots do I need?", which gets at counting by groups. Others used beads and pipe-cleaners to make 100s chains.

Laurel: As part of their ongoing Ant Study, students shared the multi-media images of ant farms they had created, and discussed what aspects of the pieces were realistic to actual ant farms.

Sweet Briar: 2nd grade students had a word study lesson drawn from Words Their Way, the developmentally-based approach we are using K-5. They began by reviewing various letter combinations that make long "a" sounds (_ai_, _a_e, and _ay), and then moved onto a word sort for either the long "o" sound (_o_e, _oa_, etc) or initial consonant sounds (_ell, _ill, _oll).

Temescal: During a writing workshop, students worked on drafting new pieces, editing and revising work previously begun, and adding illustrations to pieces at various stages of completion.

Strawberry: Half the students were working on their Fort Ross historical fiction assignments, while the other half was in music practicing for the winter holiday concert.

Cerrito: A spirited discussion of the pros and cons of writing collaboratively, using clips from a recent episode of The Simpsons as a foil. As Mike wrote on the Cerrito Creek blog, "Today was also the first day I have ever shown an episode of The Simpsons in writers workshop, or any TV show for that matter, especially one aired on Fox. Fear not, it was tied intricately to our study of the writer's life, and how books get made. When I caught this episode over Thanksgiving, I couldn't help myself, I had to show it to the students to help them think critically about what they read. Check it out this evening and get a good, deep laugh. We all need it!"

That's autonomy, interdependence, critical thinking, creativity, communication, technological proficiency, and discipline understanding in visible action - seven of our nine learning outcomes.

More moments from my days...

Yesterday: In Sweet Briar and Blackberry, students shared ideas at different steps in the process of making class agreements...in Cerrito, students completed the "Grow Your Garden" activity the faculty first learned about three years ago when we introduced the Positive Discipline curriculum to TBS...in Laurel, each student made a small card that was pasted onto one poster for a birthday child....in Strawberry, students finished decorating and setting up their writing journals.

Today: In 5th grade math, students worked on the concept of greatest common factor using arrays....In Blackberry, K/1 students selected from five options during reading workshop; the listening station, a read-aloud with the teacher, making blank books, and more....in 3rd grade math, students began investigating the concept of data...in Strawberry, 4/5 students wrote their first Reading Response Letter, following a model provided by the teachers....in Laurel, students choose among fine motor, gross motor, and studio art activities during choice time.

Moments from the First Day of School

Ah, the first day of school. The excitement, the anxiety, the surprise, the wonderment, the exhilaration....and, the learning! Today I was able to walk through the K-5 classrooms and observe each for a few moments. Here's what I saw:

In both Blackberry and Laurel (the K/1 classrooms), choice time followed the cool-down "siesta" period that comes after lunch. Students had opportunities to engage in group play such as dress up, board games and blocks, or more solitary activities such as art making, working in the sand table, and reading in the library.

In Temescal (2nd/3rd grade), students were working

on collaborative posters titled "All About Us". Using words and pictures, they worked to answer seven questions about each member of the group: What is your name? When is your birthday, and how old are you? What is your favorite animal? What do you look like? What is something you really like to do? And, what question would you like to have the answer to? What are some things you would like todo in your life? Similarly, but different, in Sweet Briar (2nd/3rd grade), students created "Get to Know You" Glyphs based on this handout.

In Strawberry (4th/5th grade), I walked in during a short 15 minute period between a class conversation with Kate Klaire, our Recess Facilitator, and the start of the recess/lunch hour. Students used the time to finish previous work - some continued or finished decorating name tags that will go on their indoor cubbies, others "shopped" for in, or read books pulled from the classroom library, and others talked with the teachers about the relative merits of using online sites such as www.coolmathgames.com for teaching or homework purposes.

And in Cerrito, the students gathered in the back room - the library - to discuss their experiences as readers this summer, and get oriented to the reading that they'll be asked and encouraged to do this year. This was exciting to see because I know that Mike worked hard this summer on rethinking his approach to teaching reading, and that the passion for reading that he discovered in himself was truly

driving his instruction.

Some patterns emerging already: reading, play, structure, choice, group work, and self-knowledge.

Today's learning walk: division reigns supreme

While out buying ham and cheese croissants at Cafe Fanny for a special Mother's Day breakfast yesterday, my 7 year old daughter asked me how to divide 120 into three equal parts. She quickly understood that 60 was half of 120, so 120/2 = 60, and with a little bit of prompting she understood that 30 was half of 60, so 120/4 = 30, but 120/3 remained a puzzle to her. This morning riding our bikes in to school, I tried to break it down a different way; first, we determined that 120 is made of up 12 groups of 10. Then, we agreed that 12/2 = 6, and 12/4 = 3, after which she was able to reach the conclusion that 12/3 = 4. At which point we counted by 10s (aka multiplied) to reach the conclusion that 120/3 = 40.

While doing a 45 minute walk around the 2nd-5th classes today, I saw numerous ways in which students were engaged in mathematical thinking building their division skills.

One group of second grade students was working on static subtraction, using either a bead frame or working mentally with just a paper and pencil. Subtraction is an important concept on its own, but it is also foundational to division, which can be conceived of as repeated subtraction (the inverse of how multiplication can be seen as skip counting, which is repeated addition). The other group of second grade students was working with the division board, a Montessori material that literally makes division visual (in this image, 12 beans have been divided into 4 equal groups of 3 per group).

Third grade students were also working in two groups. One was doing

"pencil & paper" work on a group of problems that included addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers with four digits. The other was learning to write the remainder of division problems such as 32/10 in more sophisticated mathematical expressions, from "3 r 2" (where "r" = "remainder) to 3 & 2/10, to 3.2, using materials including the Stamp Game, Fraction Tiles, and Test Tube Division. BTW, the Stamp Game is an incredible material that can be used to teach all four operations (in this image, 2432 x 4 = 9724), and some important extensions of those ideas - you can check it out here.

In 5th grade, students were working on graphing. In the story problem, one child had grown at a steady rate from age 2-10, while the other had grown more rapidly from age 2-4, and then less rapidly from age 4-10. They had been given the choice of either completing a table showing the two rates of growth and then plotting those lines, or drawing lines to represent the growth and then determining the amount of growth in interval to fill in the table. In a fascinating bit of insight into 5th grade mentality, every single one of the 21 students had chosen to draw the lines of change first - which left them to work out some complicated division problems involving decimals.

Today's learning walk

My absolute favorite aspect of being in administration is the ability to go into every classroom in the school and observe students and adults teaching and learning together. Today I did a "learning walk", in which I managed to see nine classes in about 80 minutes. As Tony Wagner says in The Global Achievement Gap, "The learning walk is one way to essentially audit what's taking place in a group of classes in a given period of time.... you have a snapshot of the teaching and learning that take place in that school. It's obviously not a way to evaluate individual teachers or an entire course, but this kind of sampling detects patterns within and across schools."

My walk began in the middle school, where I observed a 7th grade science class discuss a recent experiment on photosynthesis, and the relative effect of heat compared to light on the process. I then moved into a 6th grade math class, where students were putting the finishing touches on their Plan-A-Park Projects, and consulting this rubric to improve their work. In a 7th grade math class I watched as students wrestled with multiplication using negative numbers, predicting patterns and utilizing thinking routines to explain their thinking. In 8th grade English, students were engaged in a Reader's Theater read-through of the final scene from Romeo and Juliet.

I headed to the elementary level, where a work period was underway in Temescal Creek. Half the students were working with various pattern works from the TERC: Investigations curriculum, and the other half were using math-based Montessori materials such as the Stamp Game and Bead Frame to extend their understanding of multiplication and division. In Blackberry, students played class-favorite Roll and Record, or created number sentences based on the culinary exploits of the titular character in The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. In Laurel, students chose from a variety of activities during Reader's Workshop, including card work with consonant blends, sound/symbol association, investigation of short "a", spelling work using the Wilson Fundations program, and games that involved matching initial blends to word families.

In Strawberry, students were engaged in a poetry writing workshop. They worked at a range of places along the writing process continuum, from brainstorming to draft to editing to publishing, on pieces including concrete poems in the shape of rivers and boats, acrostics, and prose poems. One student was working on his mastery of syllables:

Geckos can blow our minds asunder.

They can climb and it makes us wonder,

Is destroying their habitat a blunder?

Students in Cerrito were working on poetry as well; they read a poem titled Melodic As Machine Guns, and analyzed it for "unbeautiful imagery." They then moved on to brainstorming ideas for their own unbeautiful poems, developing one of those ideas into a full-fledged concept, and writing a first draft. My learning walk ended in Sweet Briar, where students ended their mornings in a read-aloud, before discussing appropriate transition to hot lunch, and the cleaning procedures to use with the non-disposal plates and silverware that were introduced this week.

Several consistencies and patterns jumped out during my learning walk. One was the degree of individualization that was structured into the program, as seen in the Blackberry, Laurel, Temescal, Cerrito, Strawberry, and Wildcat (6th grade) classrooms; in each case, children were engaged in activities that were related by theme, and provided with an opportunity to choose from within the structure provided by the faculty. In contrast, the 7th and 8th grade students were working on the same work at the same time, as a collective group - a technique that happens throughout the school as well. Another similarity was the emphasis on creativity; from Blackberry's literature-based number sentences to the poetry of the 4/5 classrooms and the math projects in 6th grade, students were given opportunities to express their creative thinking in the service of problem solving. Equally present was the emphasis on critical thinking; first grade students were asked explain why certain numbers showed up more often than others in their game of Roll and Record, 4th grade students were asked to analyze poetic imagery, and 7th grade students were asked to reason about the impact of different conditions on the result of their science experiments. The importance of understanding the role of patterns in mathematical thinking showed up from Kindergarten, where a child pasted pictures from The Very Hungry Caterpillar in a "sweet, not sweet" pattern, to the third grade TERC: Investigations work, to the 7th grade attempts to predict and extend patterns abstractly. And finally, in six of the eight classrooms I visited without consulting a schedule prior to the start of my walk, students were engaged in mathematical and language arts, which has me wondering if it was coincidence, or a manifestation of how our teachers plan their days.