The Rookery

The Emergence

On our very first day of Forest School we went on a mushroom hunt.  I wasn't sure what we'd find - although the week before I'd found at least a few mushrooms around.  Within moments, there were squeals of delight. A patch of giant mushrooms were growing under a pine, tiny ruffles attached to a bench, a circle of giant puff balls in our field...everywhere we looked there was something to marvel at.  And we were off.

Teaching in a progressive school demands a leap of faith every year. There are certain things that we always learn in fourth and fifth grade - similes, multiplication, topic sentences - but those things are woven into our other learning, learning that emerges from our interests and personalities.  Every class is different and I never know the precise direction we'll go.  I'll admit to a knot in my stomach that first day as the kids quietly come in to the classroom.  Will it work?  Will we find things to wonder?  WHAT IF WE DON'T?!?!  But then, within a day or two, we become the Herons - a class that has never been before and won't be again.

Mushrooms

Back to those aforementioned mushrooms - we have found an amazing assortment and are working to deepen our understanding of just what mushrooms are. We've dug beneath the mushrooms to find the  tangled web of mycelium that makes up the main part of the fungus.  Students are amazed to see how big the mycelium can be compared to the mushroom.  We've begun to formalize our ability to talk about what we're observing by creating a diagram of mushroom parts in our Blue Books.  We've also worked on our nature journaling skills, slowing down to observe, wonder about what we see and connect it to what we know already.  The Herons have had a ton of questions and we are beginning to do research to help us answer them, including a search for the world's biggest fungus.  When we found this:

This is NOT a real picture of the world's biggest mushroom. The Herons weren't fooled but thousands of other people were.

we had an opportunity to debunk an Internet myth using Snopes.  Doing real life research like this together enables students to hear my "think aloud."  How do we vet a source?  What tells us we can trust it?  These are skills we'll use throughout the year when we look for answers to our questions.  We also tried to make spore prints.  It completely failed. We had left all of our mushrooms overnight on the special paper we made.  Students had waited patiently to do the reveal and I was projecting up to our TV so that everyone would be able to see without crowding and then...nothing!  None of our mushrooms dropped spores.  It was a great opportunity to talk about variables and how we might change our experiment to get different results - time, humidity, age of mushroom and type of mushroom are all things that we want to change in the future.  These seemingly serendipitous lessons are the stuff of progressive ed.  It's my job to see the opportunities to bring our standardized curriculum into our work in meaningful ways.

A successful spore print.

Our spore print.

Our mushroom anatomy lesson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Authors' Craft

In fourth and fifth grade we spend a lot of time observing while we read.  How do authors do what they do?  How do they create worlds?  How do they teach us new things?  By analyzing the tools authors use, their craft, we can become better readers and better writers.  The Herons are proving to be very careful observers.  So far we've learned about similes and metaphors and have found them in spades (don't worry, we'll do idioms, too) in our current read aloud Mañanaland.  We've also started our collection of strong words which we call our word hoard -- a nod to Beowulf who "unlocks his word-hord" and tells about his battle with Grendel.  Among our favorite words that we've found in our books so far: blasé, luxurious, gritted and phosphorescence.  By celebrating great words together, students learn to slow down and ask when they encounter something new in a text.  Who knows, it might be a jewel we need to add to our hoard.

Factors and Multiples

Much of our math work this year will come from the Illustrative Math curriculum.  This curriculum has existed for years in the form of rich tasks that teachers developed and shared with each other.  We've used elements of it at Prairie Creek for about six years.  The creators received a grant to expand from the tasks to an entire curriculum including number talks and other routines that deepen students understanding of number.  I've always loved the tasks because while doing them, students uncover the math for themselves instead of just being told what to do.  Now, with interwoven numbertalks and conversational prompts, we are able to build a more cohesive understanding and use the math we are learning in authentic ways.

We are beginning as a class with an exploration of factors and multiples.  We built rectangles to determine what areas can be created by several rectangles and which have only a single form.  We are using multiples to quickly estimate and figure out the best way to parcel out objects.  We are also learning about composite and prime numbers as we explore numbers we can split in many ways (composites) and numbers that can only be split one way (primes).  It's a lot of new vocabulary so we spend some time talking about how to build synapses in one's brain to remember new things (it takes a lot of practice and repetition.)

Being a "Big Bird"

We have been isolated in our individual classes for over a year so we are spending a lot of time in these first weeks exploring what it means to be a "Big Bird" in the wider school.  We're the big kids now.  What we do is watched by the youngers and the 4/5s have a responsibility to teach the other students what it means to work to make the world a better place.  It starts small by how we interact with each other.  How we talk and how we listen.  We are in the midst of our "Big Bird Training" in which the 4/5s talk about how they want to help younger students at recess and throughout the school day.  We will be getting into our bird buddy groups regularly this year and the older students will be able to build meaningful relationships with our younger classes.  I'm so excited.

We are also learning and defining what it means to be a Heron.  We have written a series of statements about who we believe we are as a class (or what we aspire to be." To do that, we are using more formal discussion structures including accountable talk and consensus.  Unless we all agree on a phrase, it does not make it into our final document.  The final list is not really as valuable as the conversations that lead into it in which we really dissect what we mean by such things as "respect" and "kindness" and "challenge". Through these discussions, students begin to see what we hold in common as a class and we begin to become the Herons.

Whew!  You've made it this far - how about some pictures (who says Prairie Creek never uses extrinsic rewards?!)

Boiling water in a paper cup - so cool!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering What it is to Not Know

 

My "S" Hook

This summer, I spent a day - a whole day - learning how to make...a hook. At the end of six hours of hot sweaty work I had something that takes a professional blacksmith four to five minutes to make.  And frankly, it's not a great hook. But I'm fond of it and humbled by the experience of making it.

So often as adults, we do only things that we know how to do well already. Whether at work at home or at a hobby, we may hone skills but we are rarely starting cold. We rarely confront things that are totally new. Blacksmithing was totally new to me and it was hard.

When I embarked on my hook making, the instructor, Cody, showed us each step slowly and carefully - it all made complete sense - I'd shake my head firmly when he asked if there were questions.  And then I'd return to my anvil and...what was I supposed to do first (and second...and third.)?  What had been crystal clear during the demonstration was suddenly muddled. I would call Cody over and he would patiently explain it.  I'd set myself to do exactly what he said...but it wouldn't work.  What created a beautiful, symmetrical point on his metal did nothing on mine. After his (second) demonstration, I understood what to do intellectually but lacked the ability to do it. I tried and tried and, slowly, the metal would start to conform to my wishes...but then my wrist hurt (and I tried really, really hard not to whine).  I was tired - surely this wasn't the smallest hammer available? I found myself struggling to remember new words.  What, exactly, was the name for the tool that I was currently in desperate need of? 

By mid day I had the top half of my "S" hook done.  After lunch we returned to work on the bottom half and Cody announced that he wanted us to do it as independently as possible - digging back in our (now foggy) memory of the morning for each step and each technique.  He was there if we needed him but he urged us to try to remember ourselves, try to figure it out.  My daughter and I conferred and reminded each other of bits of advice as we went along and every once in a while, we turned to Cody for confirmation of the next step.  Much of what we did was easier the second time around - we were beginning to understand the basics enough to stop working when the metal got cold and to trust the forge enough to heat the metal adequately.  I was able to pinpoint the skills that were still very difficult and ask for specific advice.  In the morning I'd just been able to say, "It's not working!" by afternoon, I could say, "the metal seems to be tapering the wrong way." His encouragement toward independence helped us push against the urge to be led through the task a second time - it was a lot harder to do it ourselves but we definitely cemented our learning and understanding in the process.  The bottom half of my hook is not quite as nice as the top half - but it's all mine.  And chances are good that my second hook would be better than my first.  And maybe, after 1000 hooks, I could make one in 5 minutes.

But I want to return to the feelings of frustration and helplessness I had in the morning as I was learning a brand new skill.  It was hard and I felt stupid* at times.  I wanted to just be done.  I wanted to hide my mistakes.  I complained (a little).  I took a lot of breaks. Not knowing was so difficult.  And yet, that's what kids do every day - multiple times a day.

I am humbled by the work students do in the classroom.  They are faced with a barrage of new words and new concepts.  They are forced to confront the things they find most difficult.  They are constantly being asked to do things that are completely new to them. Imagine if you spent six hours a day, five days a week learning brand new things.  In short, your kids are amazing!

There are some things we can do to support their work. If I hadn't had a lot of experience in eventually gaining competence, I would have given up.  It's important that we help students understand this pattern and recognize it in their own work.  Highlight their growth when you recognize their accomplishments.  Celebrate the the perseverance and effort it takes to overcome that initial frustration. Confirm for them that confusion is a necessary (and powerful) step in understanding. Help them to genuinely add a "yet" every time they think, "I can't do this."

And, if it's been a while since you were a complete newbie at something, give it a try.  Take a class.  Go to Instructables and explore

The finished product.

something new.  Take up an instrument.  Work on a language.  Share your experience with your child - tell them about your struggles and how you're tackling them.  Let them see you practice and fail and practice and fail and practice. They are used to seeing you as a "done" human - chances are, they don't think there's anything you don't know yet.  Watching you not be perfect will give your child a lot of confidence to try a new thing. You'll gain invaluable insights about their learning.  And, you'll learn a new skill to boot!

I am so excited to be back in the classroom with our students - and so ready to be in awe of the "everyday" work they do. -mmm

* I looked up the etymology of "stupid" when I wrote this.  It's from the Latin "stupere" to be amazed or stunned.  I think, in this context, that's an apt connotation because to be stunned is temporary.  One may be stunned initially but then the shock wears off.  Similarly, the feeling of helplessness or stupidity fades as we gain experience and confidence.

 

To See a Child one Must Look Long

This whole week as I prepare to write narratives, the first lines of William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" have been on repeat in my head:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour

I'll be honest - I wasn't sure why they were on repeat but it was better than the Bon Jovi song that had been there the week before so I embraced the change.  But today, as I sat down to write, Blake's words revealed their relevance.

 

Writing narratives is a gift of time with each child.  As I write, I hold them up, consider them, rotate them in my palm, if you will.  Inevitably, moments of learning, small triumphs and little jokes - long forgotten in the bustle of the school day - bubble back to the surface.  I often chuckle out loud or have a sudden revelation as the pieces fall into place.  And, by the time I am finished, I know a child better than when I had started.

 

And that is where the value of narratives lie for a progressive educator.  Not in the recording - although that is important, too, especially in the absence of traditional (superficial) measures like grades - but in the understanding.  Through collecting these moments and writing about them, I come to see a child so much more clearly.  The once disparate details coalesce into an understandable whole and patterns reveal themselves.  When I am finished, I see new ways forward and have a new respect for the journey the child has been on already.

 

We often talk about "formative assessment" at Prairie Creek.  We use assessments to chart the next instruction for a child.  Perhaps it's a reading assessment or a math "share what you can do so far" activity that tells us what the next week's work will be.  But we rarely talk about narratives as formative assessments.  In many places, they would be "summative assessments" - a wrap up and report of what a child has learned.  But, for me at least, writing a narrative uncovers where a child is heading by looking at where they've been.  I discover so much when writing them.  It shapes the work to come and, in a progressive setting where we create authentic work for kids, knowing them so deeply is vital.

 

Is it a lot of work?  Sure. But knowing students is the work of teaching.  I emerge from narrative writing so connected with my students and so excited to launch into the months ahead.  It truly is a labor of love.

First Days...a Heron lens

We have a shared blog this year - but I realized as I was writing and placing in pictures that there will be moments, many moments, that are the Heron's alone (just as there will be Kestrel and Robin moments that are not duplicated in our classroom.). I'll use this blog to share some of those moments (and pictures!).  The Blue Herons were amazing this past week - they truly rose to the moment and met the year with excitement and joy.  I can't wait to welcome the Green Herons tomorrow. Here are some more Heron pics from our first days together.  Remember not to share any photos of children other than your own on social media.  Thank you!

Frankie, our friend from Done Right Foods. We were so excited to see him again.

 

 

Bringing Failure to the Forefront

About two weeks ago, I listened to a remembrance of a front line worker who had died of Covid 19.  Yves-Emmanuel Segui was a pharmacist in Yonkers, New York.  Originally certified as a pharmacist in the Ivory Coast, Mr. Sequi had worked very hard to both learn English and pass the pharmacy certification test in the U.S.  His daughter remembered when he first took the certification test and failed.  He took the letter, marked it with a "Number 1" and put it on the refrigerator.  When the second failure letter came, he marked that with a 2 and posted it along with the first. This continued again and again and again until he received "the one where it says, congratulations. You passed."

What struck me as remarkable was the way he displayed his failure publicly.  I think our human nature is the opposite - we tend to tuck away those letters if we save them at all.  But Mr. Segui shared his openly.  His daughter remembered the story vividly, inspired by his tenacious spirit and his determination to help people.  I was struck by this too, but I think it's stuck with me for another reason.

This spring, while we were distance learning, I was desperate to see students fail. When we are in a classroom together, I see all of the micro-steps of learning which necessarily involve failure.  (As they hear all the time, "If you haven't failed, you haven't learned."). But online, they weren't there for me to watch.  I didn't see the failure. I wasn't there to diagnose what was hard and support them with encouragement and more teaching.  Once in a while, a child would come to the zoom room because they were confused but, I think more often, when kids encountered something hard or new they shrugged and... stopped.

My colleagues teaching younger grades shared that they sensed parent anxiety when children were turning things in with incorrect spelling or other errors.  Families were expending a lot of energy getting their kids to perfect before the work got shared back with the teacher.  After all, we are programmed as a society that "doing well" is "getting it right."  It's really hard to not "help" a child by correcting their work.

One of the things I've been thinking a lot about for our distance learning scenario is how to capture failure.  What I need is a virtual refrigerator where kids are posting their fails.  The things that don't make sense.  The things that are hard.  Instead, so many of the tools on-line are geared toward finished products - not the messy middles.

The need to see failure goes beyond the superficial "celebration of failure" - how we fail determines the next steps for learning. One of the things I ask when a student is wrong or stuck is "tell me what you are thinking."  That's how we glean the information we need to chart a course through failure.  If distance learning is to be successful, it must have tools that illuminate what's hard, not just report what is done.

No small task - but one that I think is do-able, especially given the chance to develop our online community together from scratch.  We'll have a chance to determine together that learning online doesn't just mean getting it right - it means figuring out how to learn from what's wrong.

The Summer Ahead - What To Do?

So, we're one week in to summer and I just walked into my living room to find two children sprawled out on the floor, their screen time exhausted and their day stretching before them.  What to do?

This is an unusual summer (understatement, I know).  We are coming off of two and a half months of distance learning and lurching into three months of summer in which most if not all camps have been cancelled or put on-line.  Biking to a friends or the pool or the playground - if it was even an option before - is now much more problematic and there are only so many times you can say, "Why don't you walk the dog?" before even the dog starts to roll their eyes.

I have a few thoughts -- but know that, with my parent hat on, I'm trying to figure this out, too.

Schedule

Set up a rough schedule with your child that includes wake up time, meal times, screen times, project times (perhaps when you are available) and active times.  They are old enough to plan outings, too.  The schedule should definitely include chores and tidying up times (especially after those projects!). Social times with relatives and friends are also something kids can look forward to (and take more coordination with others).  Have them cook a meal or two every week as part of the schedule.

Summer Academic Work

Normally, I suggest reading every day and reviewing some math facts/playing with math ideas on a regular basis.  Summer is the time to muck around and get a little bored.  It's a time to recharge.  But this year, with the spring disruption of our regular academic work, I'm recommending some additional academic work.  I'm sending out a summer learning grid every week that has articles to read, math games to play, and lots of making/experimenting ideas.  I'll send it to the students and carbon copy you - I'd like this to be their summer work. The idea is not to do everything on the grid but to keep things fresh and different.  Summer slump always happens to kids - they lose some of that hard fought learning over the summer.  I would like to minimize that.

At the very least, students should read at least a half hour a day and, ideally, be read to for fifteen minutes to a half hour.  Students should also continue to work on their math fact fluency.  I will share a blog post next week on ways to work on fact fluency with your child.  

Chores

I mentioned this already but it bears repeating.  Students this age need to be contributing to the work of the household.  They are old enough to be really helpful and they also like to be needed (even if they complain at first.). In our house, most chores are not compensated with money - but several "optional" tasks like lawn mowing or weeding are a way to earn a little pocket money.  Learning how to manage the discomfort of doing an unpleasant task is so valuable and it's a skill students use when they are tackling new and difficult academic content.  (If we are distance learning in the fall, being able to manage the discomfort of learning will be extremely important as I won't be right there to cheerlead and help kids get over that initial struggle.)

Goal Setting

On the radio this morning, the journalist mentioned that she had asked her children to choose an activity to get good at this summer - something to devote time and energy to mastering.  Her daughter was going to learn a language with DuoLingo.  I think this is a great idea.  A language? Drawing animé? Unicycling? Juggling? Nature sketching? Yo-yo? Cooking?  What would they like to be good at by the end of the summer?

Outings

Getting out and about is going to be important this summer.  We've been compiling outing ideas for years on the Out and About Blog.  It's searchable by "free" and "Northfield".  Some of the information might be dated (especially in light of Covid) so call ahead or check on-line.

Projects

Just as another resource - here's the Prairie Creek Makers blog.  I've been documenting the projects that we do along with web resources and ordering information.  It might be a good place to send a kid who is saying, "I'm bored..." Of course, it could lead to the situation I'm in today which is helping my daughter find screen and a blender so she can make paper.  (Whose idea was that!?! Oh, yeah.)

What's working for your household?  What resources are you looking for?  Add your thoughts and ideas and questions to the comments!  We're going to need all the help we can get these next few months!

 

"Like a dinner time conversation..." - Talking to Your Kids about Race

It was strange talking to the Herons about George Floyd last Tuesday. We've had hard conversations about race in the past year but we've always been together in the meeting area for them. These faces that are usually so immediate when we are in a conversation were isolated in their own squares.  Their looks of confusion or hurt or anger were obscured by the screen pixels.  But they asked questions.  Some shared what they knew.  Some shared historical connections. Many wondered how it could happen...again. I shared factual information (and where I was getting my information) and gently clarified some historical information.  But the conversation that would normally have taken on a life of its own was shorter and more circumspect that it would have been if we were in person.  And, as I said, it felt strange.

Afterward, I had a chance to ask a student how it had felt for her.  "Oh, fine.  It was just like one of our dinner time conversations."

I was relieved.  For her, at least, the connection and safe space that I had tried to create for the Herons had survived the transition to distance learning.  Our zoom room, miraculously, had the casual, secure feeling of her dinner table.  Her point was also that her family talks about race at the dinner table, which meant that ours was not the only conversation she would be having.

If conversations about race are not happening at your dinner table, they need to.

The conversation that the Herons had can't be the only one.  Race has to be a part of the conversation we are having all the time.  For families of color, this isn't an option.  It can't be for white families either. 

It's not comfortable. Kids ask questions in these conversations that I don't know the answers to.  Some are giant existential questions about good and evil and I can answer honestly,  "I don't know...I don't understand either."  Others are questions about history or law that I can answer honestly, "I don't know yet...but its' my job to find out."  And it is.  If a deep understanding of race relations was not a part of your education (and it certainly wansn't mine) then it's part of our work now as parents and teachers to learn.

We can't wait for the topic to come up - and the conversations can't just be reactive when something happens (athough those are important, too.)  We have to initiate and make these conversations the normal.  As I told the Herons one day after we looked at an article about kids in Baraboo who were doing the Nazi solute because a photographer told them to and "they didn't know any better" -- we need to know better.  And the only way they'll know better is to talk with them.

There are a lot of great resources out there.  Here is a radio interview with Jennifer Harvey, author of Raising White Kids about having conversations about race with children.  

Woah. They've Got This. The Power of Independence

My very favorite moment as a teacher is when the room is a maelstrom of varied, intense activity and I am utterly tangential to it.  The students know what they are about.  They have made their plans, they have learned their stuff.  They are on a mission.  Sure, they need me to fetch something from the basement or to spell something when Google Docs spell check has failed them.  Sure there are messes and missteps.  But, it's their show.

That's how I felt this week watching the honors and fourth grade projects.  These kids knew their topics so well they were able to transfer their work over into an all new medium in just four days.  And here's the thing - by in large, they did it without me.  Once they knew the tools, once they had mastered juggling multiple tabs, once they knew the keyboard controls...they were off.  They did far more than I was expecting and far more than I thought they were capable of.

And that's saying something. They are truly rising to the occasion in ways I couldn't imagine.

Parents are often surprised at conferences by what their child is doing and, more often, how they are able to talk about it. I know that kids present differently at home - school is their "work" after all.  It's not infrequent that a Heron will bring up at meeting, "My parents couldn't believe I could do this by myself" and the other kids and I will nod.  Home is often where we grow up last. But I feel like the Herons are rising in this unique moment and are working to be as independent as possible. 

In the "How I was helpful" area of their daily work record, kids list doing things without being asked, figuring out things on their own, not whining...And then I'm getting e-mails asking questions and suggesting things we can do.  Kids who say, "I set an alarm so I wouldn't miss our meeting."  And, most exciting for me, kids are starting to take off on projects - sending coded messages I haven't required, running with ideas and taking them to the next level, suggesting "our next theme" or, just recently, military jets, peep social media and Peep-azon delivery business for Village.

If this doesn't sound like your kid...perhaps it doesn't sound like your kid YET.  Can you make yourself less available?  One of my favorite ways to increase student independence is to look really busy or have a long line of others who are getting help first.  Try setting a time when you are available for help - 10 minutes in the morning or 10 minutes in the afternoon.

Ask 3 before me.  Remind your child that they have resources to figure things out.

1. Did they go to the morning explanation meeting?  If not, did they watch the explanation of the day on Herons at Home?
2. I'm in the Zoom Room all morning and much of the afternoon to explain things (and I'm really lonely...) have they checked with me there? 
3. Have they put a note in the stream for their peers to answer (there have been many tech issues that I don't know about until they are solved by the students.)

If your child is getting done too quickly or not taking advantage of extension work*, maybe let them be bored (but limit their options when they aren't doing school work during whatever your school hours are.) Setting up a household routine with clear rhythms can help your child feel more at ease and less inclined to rush.  Know that, if your child isn't doing the work I expect, I'll work with them first and if they need local support, I'll be in touch (usually via a cc on an e-mail I sent to them.)

But really - let's take a moment to marvel.  Our kids have just done the equivalent of getting a new job.  They have had to learn all new ways to work and learn.  And really, they're rocking it, all of them.  I couldn't be more proud.

*There are some really great things to beat boredom at our 4/5 Reading Room and 4/5 Math Circles.

 

Now that We've Settled In

At the end of three weeks, it feels like things have settled in.  I am so impressed with the Herons - they are approaching this with energy and good humor.  I love seeing them every day.  We have completed our first culminating event and we're ramping up for our on-line projects.  Thank you for your patience as I try new things out and put some systems in place.  Here is where we are right now:

• Morning Schedule Overview Meeting 8:05 - Live on Zoom (I turn the room on at 7:50 for hanging out and connecting).  A recording is available on Herons at Home by 9am.  I go over all of the work for the day and encourage kids to do optional work.  I basically sell the day of.learning.  I answer questions after I go over the schedule and send kids off with a wave and a smile.
• Zoom Room - I remain in the Zoom Room all morning to answer questions and, when I'm lucky, teach!  I love when kids come to me with things they are encountering on Kahn or in CommonLit that are new to them.  I often also do mini-lessons explaining elements of the day's work.  Times for mini-lessons are shared on the Daily Work Record and in the morning meeting.  They are optional unless noted.
• Daily attendance question and daily work. All Herons are engaging with these!  The attendance question helps me know who is here.  I (or someone from the office) track down kids I haven't heard from or seen on-line that day.  The Daily Work Record lays out all of the work for the day with links to each assignment.  Kids often keep this open on a tab as they work so they can check things off.  The Work Record also has the Zoom Room schedule and opportunities for optional work.  Work Records are returned to me by the end of the day and I comment on each one and return it.
• Daily 1:00 zoom meeting. This is the highlight of my day. I am keeping this mostly social. I give kids time to chat in breakout rooms, I share announcements and take questions, students share anything they wish, and we play a game.  Often, we have very silly dance parties.  It's our chance for the Herons to be Herons.
• Language Arts
• Read Aloud: I am reading Out of My Mind on FlipGrid.  Kids are posting comments.  I miss the spontaneous discussions that our read alouds often engendered and am looking for a way to capture some of that.
• CommonLit I assign articles from CommonLit about three days a week (we took a break this past week as we introduced Book Clubs).  Most of the articles are non-fiction and they have comprehension questions.
• Book Clubs We are currently in book clubs.  Students have assigned reading every week and they are recording vocabulary, authors' crafts and discussion questions as they read.  We are meeting on Friday morning to chat about the book and set the goal for the coming week.
• Writing Circles We have established a writing circle routine.  On weeks when we do writing circles, students choose a topic, write, record on FlipGrid and then share feedback.
• Independent Reading If your child has run out of books, let me know.  Many students have gotten free accounts with Epic which has many, many on-line books to choose from.
• Math
• CueThink I am assigning one problem of the week on CueThink.  I do a zoom mini-lesson walking through the problem each Monday for kids who need help getting started.
• Khan Academy Course mastery is working pretty well for most students.  It enables kids to move at their own pace through content - reviewing what they know by jumping to a unit test and learning new content by watching videos.  I encourage kids to come to the Zoom Room when they come across a new concept.  I would love to teach it to them "face to face."
• Theme - We just completed our Chindogu theme and have been working to transfer our projects on-line.  I am deep into the work of translating the Village experience to distance learning, too.  Phenology and forest school are continuing as well.

But wait, there's more!

• Optional Google Classrooms: All students are welcome to join 4/5 Math Circles classroom and the 4/5 Reading Room classroom. These are open to all 4/5s, and they are places for students to go who want more interaction and/or more challenge or engagement. I offer a lot of math choices in her room.  I lead a daily math exploration at 11am in our zoom room. The reading room is just getting started, and Cathy has asked kids who join to let her know what they are interested in reading and discussing.
• Hamlet - I sent an e-mail to kids seeking kids interested in doing a readers' theater of Hamlet every day.  This will be another opportunity for us to connect face to face in a very Heron-like way.
• Wonder-fulls - kids are doing mini-projects and posting them on FlipGrid.
• Serendipitous learning - one of the things that I miss the most is the spontaneous conversations and questions and explorations that we get to have in the classroom.  It's starting to happen more.  Kids are coming to the Zoom Room and connecting with others to do a math game or an escape room.  I'll continue to look for more chances for this to happen.

 This would be a great time to check in with your Heron and do some reflecting on how things are going. Are they feeling confident and independent? Which of the learning experiences being offered are they taking advantage of?

The Power of Place

I'm trying not to look at calendars - the amount of change in the past month is overwhelming.  It is humbling and exhausting to be trying to bring our Heron classroom online.  As a first year teacher, you often spend more hours planning than you do teaching and I've found that to be true again.  I am creating systems and content. In the absence of routine, I'm planning meticulously. I'm trying to invent new traditions.  I'm throwing a lot of things on the wall to see what sticks. I'm making a lot of mistakes.

One of the greatest challenges is bending these on-line tools to our school's progressive will.  They are tools that are designed for extrinsic motivation - grades, mostly.  They're analogous to reams of worksheets waiting for gold stars.  Some of them have really good content, but without being able to wander among the tables to provide encouragement, context and instruction, I find that often the students get frustrated or blast through things without giving it much thought just to be able to check it "done." (Today I had a student ask if watching a video or getting a hint would affect his score.)

It's not true that progressive education only uses "intrinsic" motivation.  I've only taught a few kids who were purely intrinsically motivated.  They were amazing, but they also never did anything unless they felt like it.  These creative maelstroms would listen to a carefully planned lesson and say, "Hmmm...I think I'm going to do this instead."  No amount of cajoling, praise, threat or puppy eyes would shift them (and grades weren't a much more successful motivator later on.)

So if most kids aren't purely intrinsically motivated at Prairie Creek, how are they motivated?  I've "had more than one visitor wonder why the kids are working so hard if they don't get grades (or candy.)  "How do you get them to do work when it doesn't 'count'?"

This past week has brought in to sharp focus the power of relationships.  Relationships live in the space between purely intrinsic and extrinsic motivation - indeed, they literally fill the spaces between the us. We build classrooms in which the drive to work comes from the respect we have for one another.  The expectation is that we are together to learn and create and play.  I model engagement and excitement in the classroom and, because of the relationships we've nurtured, the students want to do the same.  I don't use fake praise to motivate kids - but I definitely share in their excitement when they've done a good job, when they've worked really hard, when they've figured something out.

And now they are so very far away.  I rely on quick smiles, crinkled up noses, and furrowed brows to see how things are going and urge kids in to new challenges.  A well placed, "You've got this," can help a kid tackle the hardest things.  A smile and a, "is that your best work?" can engender a smirk and re-engagement.  And an excited "ooh! ooh! ooh!" can inspire a kid to go above and beyond.  All of those tools are gone (or at least mediated through a tiny screen). 

In an effort to make sure work and expectations are clear, I've created checklists which seem to shift the conversation to, "What do I have to do" instead of "what do I get to do."  Google Classroom, Khan, and CommonLit amplify the impact by measuring kids' progress in "turned ins"  I am conflicted.  Abandoning a checklist all together would put the burden on parents to provide an enriched environment in which students are choosing from among many options (but needing a lot of interaction and feedback.)  That's not a fair ask.  You'd be doing my job.

So I inch forward.  Tools like FlipGrid provide opportunities to share and celebrate work in a genuine way.  Students are beginning to use the technology creatively and are making new traditions every day. I'm hanging out in our Zoom Room for hours, encouraging students to stop by with questions or work shares (or life shares).  It's the closest I can come to being in a real classroom. The more chances I get to connect, the more I can use relationships to motivate learning and the deeper I hope the learning can be.  It won't be the same - but it can still be good.  I know it can because your kids are amazing.