Thanks again Primary Inspired for allowing me to join a Book Study.
Wow!
What I just finished reading was such a powerful chapter.
I finished reading it thinking...
"This is exactly what I want my classroom to be like!"
This week we're all talking about the second chapter which is all about the foundations of Daily 5.
I kept thinking about how important foundations are to buildings... and ended up drawing myself huge pyramids that involved what was found in this chapter. But I thought to myself
"How can I show people what popped out to me the most?"
So I decided to find the quotes that emphasized these key points.
- Trust & Respect
- Community
- Choice
- Accountability
- Brain Research
- Transitions as Brain & Body Breaks
Trust and respect are foundational for good teaching in general.
But how do you gain and give trust?
It can't be a blind trust, where you hope and pray for the best. You have to make sure that students are being explicitly taught how to read and write before you can trust them to do things independently. The quote above emphasizes how trust and respect affects your classroom and the students you interact with. Now... that being said you may have explicitly taught them and they may falter in their stamina and on task behavior but it's important not to slip back and start blaming them or thinking they "CAN'T" do something. Instead it's important for you to reflect and say, "It's time to practice more and I need to provide more support". It's a two way street. You have to show respect and trust in order for your kids to be able to do it too.
Actions speak louder than words.
If you've read my blog before you know I'm huge on creating community in my classroom. I loved The Sisters' explanation of how trust and respect go hand in hand with community. I also am glad they described community not just as something you start on the first day of school by getting to know one another... It's something that is continued all year embedded in everything. The quote about how community empowers students struck me because I've seen examples of how students will keep each other motivated, accountable, and engaged.
Choice. Ooo boy! Choice is honestly one of the most terrifying and powerful things in the classroom. And after my reading, I would think The Sisters agree.
Choice comes in the form of where the students can sit, what they read and write, and what activity they can participate in.
That is something that can be scary as a teacher because all the unknowns.
"What about noise?" or "Will they be working the whole time?" etc.
But choice is not something that is just given as whim, it's like trust and respect. It has to be earned and only can happen with instruction and practice.
I loved that it wasn't just talking about how accountability measure what students are doing.
It was also putting the pressure on what the teacher has done to enable the students to be independent and accountable. Teachers must teach their students explicitly what it looks like, feels like, and sounds like to participate in these productive tasks. Then the students will be able to be held accountable and hold one another accountable.
Brain research is one of the hottest topics in education so I enjoyed seeing it come up in this chapter. If you read the quote above, you'd notice it's a quote about data.
Let's just say you'r teaching the stereotypical method of lots of teacher talk and a little kid practice....
If you're in a room full of 9 year olds then their attention span is... well about 9 minutes.
No matter how engaging your lesson might be after that time span you might see "off task" behaviors and want to start going into police mode.
That's not fair to the students!
After about 10 minutes just about everyone needs a slight shift to refocus.
Remember your last staff meeting if you need an adult reference!
Shorten your focus lessons, allow for student practice, and increase rounds of these.
This was my favorite part of the chapter because it emphasized that transitions are okay, and quite frankly important. When using the workshop structure allows students a lot of time to practice but sometimes it is a long time to be mentally engaged.
By having transitions during the Daily 5 allows:
- Physical breaks from student work sessions
-Kinesthetic movement helps give the brain and break to focus back at the task at hand.
-Provides time for students to shift gears and move onto another focus lesson.
Wow! Good stuff! See you next week with our next chapter!
The quotes that you pulled out of the book were also those that I underlined while reading. It's funny how those small statements can leave such a big impact on what we are going in our own practice. I am looking forward to yet another year making progress in the implementation of D5 in my classroom!
ReplyDeleteCarrie
Make Time for Glitter! (The Foundations of the Daily 5)