Common Core

I belong to a Facebook group that's called Encouraging Teachers. It was started by Angela Watson who is an educational consultant in New York City. Angela's blog The Cornerstone is packed full of resources and insight for teachers and she has authored several books. Angela started the FB group to create a place where teachers could go to support one another and focus on the positive aspects of teaching.

I just came across a post linking to this article about the Common Core. The slideshow at the end of this post offers a succinct clarification of exactly what Common Core is, which is helpful, because many people who fiercely oppose CCSS believe that it is a national curriculum, when in reality, Common Core is a set of standards.

Although I don't like to engage in political discussions and therefore have not entered into a verbal battle with anyone on the topic of Common Core, I do enjoy reading about both sides/perspectives. It helps me have a better understanding of people who so vehemently oppose the status quo of public schools and now Common Core and to figure out exactly where I stand on the topic.

The first thing I noticed about this presentation/article is the words Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation painted across the first slide. I think, when digesting this information, it's important to take into consideration how much monetary support the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given to CCSS. Although informative, I can't say this presentation offers an unbiased explanation of CCSS.

A few slides I'd like to highlight...

http://www.ed.gov/k-12reforms/standards

I appreciate how this slideshow clearly indicates there is a difference between standards, curriculum, and assessments. Some people clearly do not understand the difference between standards and curriculum, so that is a very important distinction to make.

  The above statement about curriculum, however, makes it seem as though teachers have a lot of freedom in how they go about teaching to the standards. That may or may not be true depending on where said teachers work. My "creative license" with curriculum is somewhat limited. I am not at all criticizing the district/school I work for/in, rather just addressing the fact that these statements are designed to convince a particular audience and don't necessarily represent the teaching reality for all educators that are subject to CCSS. To say that CCSS just gives me the standards and I can teach to those standards however I want, is not true for me.

I don't feel as though I have gotten a straight answer regarding whether or not, and to what extent, teachers were involved in the creation of the Common Core standards. People who oppose CCSS claim that teachers were not involved, yet other sources indicate that they were. I am fairly certain the source where I read teachers were involved was more reputable than where I read that teachers were not involved, but it's frustrating that misinformation floats around so much. Also, the statement that teachers overwhelmingly support them is not true. I know there are many teachers who are frustrated with CCSS and would not group themselves among supporters.

Personally, I feel as though as an educator in public schools, I will see many changes to the ways in which we teach children and I am willing to go with the ebb and flow of those changes. In focusing on my particular students, grade level, standards, and curriculum, I see no reason to oppose the CCSS. Our state standards in OR have always been high, therefore CCSS has not brought about big changes in what we teach. Also, my students do not participate in state testing, therefore, in my little Kindergarten world, there are huge aspects of CCSS that I don't experience and am not as knowledgable about.

Something that is really interesting to me is the emphasis that CCSS places on critical thinking, yet people are very quick to focus on one source of information and take that as gospel. That's not critical thinking, now is it?  I agree that the world needs more critical thinkers! We should be critical consumers of all this information and I am a firm believer in seeing both the positives and negatives in anything because that is reality. It's not all good. It's not all bad.

I think many (not all!) people who are against CCSS don't truly understand what it is, yet at the same time, there is so much (mis)information out there, even as an educator I have a hard time grasping what is truth and what is not.

I like this page that addresses Myths versus Facts about CCSS.

More Myths and Facts from the US Dept. of Education

Another interesting link is 10 Things You Should Know About Common Core from the NEA website.

Also, the Common Core State Standards Toolkit, which can be downloaded from that link.

Take a minute to click through this slideshow. 

As fellow educators, I'd love to know your thoughts!

Bored

As a mom of a toddler and a newborn, the word BORED is not part of my vocabulary. I rarely have time to myself and I feel like I am continuously in motion trying to juggle a million different things at once. Even if we are just hanging out and playing at home, it's not boring because there is a constant busyness that permeates our days. And although Baby Sneaker (wait, can I really get away with still calling my 2 year old a baby!?) has a very impressive vocabulary, she doesn't use the word bored because it has never been said in front of her!

As a teacher, however, the word bored does come into play and it makes me cringe.

Every. Single. Time. 

I pretty much hate the word bored.

And, typically, this taboo word is uttered from the mouths of parents not students. 

Last night I came across this article on facebook. 

It reminded of this sign I had seen previously on Pinterest

I heart this sign.

It applies more to at home boredom than boredom in the classroom because I wouldn't exactly want to encourage my students to take up exercise in the middle of my lesson if they somehow felt boredom creeping in...but it does remind me that creativity, play, and exercise are all things that help keep students engaged in the school setting. The issue of parents claiming that their children are bored in the classroom is a whole other blog post...but I will say that my typical response is that Kindergarten is not boring. I pretty much just leave it at that. 

Although boredom has not reared its ugly head in my home as of yet, I think this sign will definitely be put to use when my girls are older. I think every parent needs this sign somewhere in their home, especially during summer break! 

Do you feel bored during summer break because school is out? 

How do you combat boredom for yourself and/or your kids?

How do you handle parents who say their kids are bored at school?

Summer Teacher Reads

In the past few months I have purchased several teachery books and unfortunately they have just sat on my desk so far because I haven't made reading a priority. It's much easier to read a book if it's digital because I can read on my phone or iPad when I am feeding the baby in the wee hours of the morning, so my only reading as of late has been novels. But, alas, when I read teachery things, I really prefer to have "real" books, pages to turn, and paper pages to write on. I like to make notes on Post-its and write in margins, so that I can put the ideas to use in my classroom. 

I have quite the collection of teacher books...

I know, I have a problem...

The three that I have on my summer reading agenda are in this stack right here

The Daily 5

 Kagan Cooperative Learning

Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Focus on Kindergartners

I am always super excited when I come across a book that will give me new ideas for my classroom, but I am far from as diligent about reading these kinds of books as I was when I was working on my doctorate.

I came across a book study that many bloggers are doing with the new edition of The Daily 5, so even though I am not officially participating in the book study, I am hoping to read along with them so that I can think about using The Daily 5 (in some aspect) in my small groups next school year. Since we have 1:1 iPads in our Kindergarten classrooms, I don't think my version would look exactly like how the Two Sisters do it, but the iPads may allow me to do digital versions of work work or something like that. 

What is on your summer reading list? 

Do you prefer to read for business or pleasure during the summer?

Something Old or Something New?

Last summer I ordered my very first Erin Condren teacher planner. After using it for an entire year, I am debating whether or not to get another one. I really liked it, but her planners are quite spendy with a base price of $59. I'm just trying to figure out if I can justify the expense again (last year I used some of my graduation money for the big purchase). 

I've heard a lot of teachers mention planbook.com, which is only $12 per year, so I am considering that as a much less expensive alternative. I love the idea of being able to easily link content standards to my plans. That seems like a great way to be really organized and stay focused on the CCSS that are applicable for each lesson. 

Personally, I like to have a hardcopy calendar as opposed to a digital calendar and I use my teacher planner for both school and my own personal calendar so that is a vote for another Erin Condren. I also liked how I could bring my EC planner to meetings and keep important notes in one single place. I am notorious for bringing a random piece of paper for meetings and then promptly losing it along with any important info that I wrote down. I wasn't 100% happy with the amount of space I had to write my plans in my EC planner, but given that I only teach half day, it was pretty doable. I also really liked having checklist sheets in the EC planner because I kept track of HW and report card grades on those pages. The biggest bonus of the EC planner was that it kept me organized and I had everything in one place. 

I think I am leaning towards buying another EC planner (my two favorite designs are above), but I am still intrigued by planbook.com. I do so many things digitally that I feel like I should give it a try.

What kind of planner do you use? 

Have you tried planbook.com? If so, what are your thoughts?

Small Groups in Kindergarten

This year we adopted Journeys Common Core as our core reading program. We were encouraged/instructed to use small groups as part of our reading instruction, which is something I had never done before in half day Kindergarten. Small groups were never part of my routine for two main reasons:

1. I only have 2 hours and 20 minutes with my kiddos. With all the mandated curriculum, I never felt like I had time to organize and run small groups.

2. I think small groups can be a management nightmare because 5 & 6 year olds don't always work well independently.

Despite my concerns about using small groups, I gave it a try. Having 1:1 iPads and some parent helpers were lifesavers and helped to make small group time run somewhat successfully, but I know there is still room for improvement.

Next year, rather that students leaving for 30 minutes each day to receive pull out ELD instruction, we are going to be able to keep our kids for the entire duration of AM Kindergarten. ELD services will be part of an extended day program instead. The extra 30 minutes that I am afforded based on this change is extremely exciting because it gives me so much more flexibility in how I organize my schedule and affords me extra time to use for small groups, writing, and possibly even science!

I'm excited to do some planning for small groups this summer so I'd love input from other Kinder teachers, or any teachers that use small groups, on how you make small group reading instruction work for you!

Heidi gives a lot of great ideas in this article and I'd love to know what YOU think as well!

Do you use small group reading instruction? 

What do your other students work on when you are working with a small group?

Year in Review

I had such high hopes about keeping up with blogging this school year and basically completely and utterly failed at that endeavor. I spent a good amount of time last summer posting about what I was planning to do in the upcoming school year, but then never got around to posting about how those things played out in the classroom. As I mentioned here, in yet another post where I talked about how I hadn't posted in awhile, I had a good excuse for not having the energy to blog....I was going through first trimester pregnancy exhaustion while I was also experience beginning of the school year in Kindergarten exhaustion and the combination left me wanting naps more than I wanted to rehash what happened during the school day on my blog.

In a nutshell, I think I had my hardest class ever this year and it was by far the biggest class I've ever had. I started the year with 25, then got a new student maybe 1 month in,  gained one and lost one on the same day in January, then got two other new students in March making a grand total of 28 kids.

That. Is. Too. Many. Kids.

I know that class size is a huge problem for many teachers, but this year was my first experience with a class that I considered just WAY too big. I struggled so much with just trying to gain and hold everyone's attention, which was a tiring exercise every single day. I didn't even have any kids whose behavior was awful, yet several students had attention issues, and overall it was just tough.  By the last new student, I was literally running out of supplies and space. I am very hopeful that our large sizes were just a fluke this year and we will return to class sized of about 23 next year.

Highlights of the year include:

• Presentations at three professional conferences including the Creative Teaching Conference in Paris, the Northwest Council of Computer Education's Conference in Seattle with my colleague Leslie, and at the Globalization, Diversity, and Education Conference in Spokane, Washington. The presentation with Leslie was about how we use iPads in Kindergarten and was the most exciting out of the three because not only was it the longest (2 full hours compared to 15 minutes at the other conferences), but it also drew the biggest audience. We love talking about how we use iPads in Kindergarten, so we had a blast gabbing away about what we've done with technology and our students' successes. The other two presentations came from my dissertation research and focused on home visits. 
• Publishing an article about iPads in Kindergarten this year through the International Reading Association. 
• The birth of our second daughter Sammy who turns 1 month old today! 

This summer, as always, I plan to spend some time reflecting on this past school year and planning for the upcoming year. We are facing some changes at my school including a new principal and new counselor. I will also be moving to a new classroom, which is both exciting and daunting at the same time. I hope that moving helps me get more organized. I always start each new school year with fresh ideas and always make changes of one kind or another. I never do things exactly the same, so it will be interesting to see how a new room changes things up. 

I am somewhat doubtful that anyone will actually read this based on my looooong absence on the blogging scene, but if anyone is out there reading, keep checking back! Summer seems to be my blog revival time because for some reason I am more interested in talking about school during the summer than I am during the school year :0)