Back in the saddle

Hello,

It was nice to get our afternoon back.  A few students got called out to do make-ups, but it sure felt good to have a little time for reading, writing and science.  We are now going to try to wrap up some of the loose ends that are still dangling.  Geography picture dictionaries need to get finished by tomorrow.  Recipes for play dough will go home with the hope that we will get some brought in on Monday and Tuesday.  The goal is to give students the chance to show off what they know by creating islands with multiple landforms.  I realize that not every family will be able to, but I would appreciate it if you could help make a batch or two of the dough. 

We did a pass it on writing game this morning to get our pencils moving across the paper.  Students wrote a sentence of a story and then passed on the story to someone else.  I was impressed with our first attempt at this.  Often I have story "hijackers" who try to turn every story that passes their eyes into an intergalactic shoot out.  That didn't happen.  I also usually have a lot of bathroom humor or graphic violence.  Also not a problem today.  They did a good job coming up with topics, staying on topic, and interjecting the stories with some type of problem to make the story more interesting.  Bravo!  We'll do it again from time to time, and it is fun to see the improvement, but this was a very good launching point. 

My math class got into rounding numbers to the nearest ten, hundred or thousand.  I played a squirrel crossing a highway to illustrate this.  On one side is the the next highest ten (or hundred or a thousand).  On the other side is the nearest lower ten.  Students had to decide whether the squirrel should round up, (continue to cross the road) or round down, (turn around and go back.)  If the squirrel chooses wrong, he turns into roadkill.  We took volunteers to play the signs on the side of the road holding up the nearest tens, hundreds or thousands.  I only played the squirrel once before getting volunteers for that position.  We only had one roadkill incident.  Luckily the oncoming traffic was imaginary.

Math continues to be a bit of poking and prodding to see what they know.  We are currently doing a combination of subtraction, time and rounding.  We begin each day with Rocket Math which is an individualized program that I really like that measures when students have their facts down.  Each student gets two minutes to study their facts and then takes their daily one minute test.  Their goal is based on how fast they can write.  They should be able to answer math facts (like 3 + 7) as fast as they can write.  If not, then the fact isn't automatic yet.  As they pass each test, the next one adds a few more facts.  I handed out thirteen different tests today for my twenty math students.  It is a bit more of a pain to grade, but I find that it is definitely worth the extra time.  Multiplication Rocket math will start at the end of the month, regardless of where they are in their addition and subtraction facts.  We will return to those after they have their multiplication facts down.

I can't believe that it is almost Friday.  The week and the year are going too fast and I'm feeling inadequate.  We have some work to do.  I'm going to have to get them to buckle down to get to where we need to go.

Have a good night.

Mr. Shea

Testing is done! Well, sort of...

Hello,

We finished the math portion of our NECAPs this afternoon.  I was able to squeeze in the school questionnaire right at the end of the day as well.  The questionnaire is a portion of the test where the students answer what they do and how often they do it during a normal school day.  There are no wrong or right answers, only opinions.  By finishing this, we can attempt to have a more normalized day tomorrow with a full literacy block and science class.  Unfortunately the rest of the school has seven more days of testing.  Special education services won't kick back in until after next week.  We will do our best to differentiate and challenge everyone, but we won't be back to our regular schedule, which the kids have hardly seen anyway, until the week of October 24.

We had our first staff meeting tonight.  I have joined a scheduling committee to try to make our schedule fit the building a bit better and to try to give the younger students easier afternoons.  We discussed the lunchroom and the playground.  More changes for the better should be coming soon there as well. 

Please don't panic if you don't see anything written in your child's assignment book tonight.  We finished the questionnaire with about two minutes to spare.  The kids got ready to go as I collected the books.  It would be a good night for them to get in their reading log minutes.  Other than that, the only homework is for specific math classes. 

We got a new student today.  I hope your child can tell you something about her.  At the very least, they should be able to tell you her name and where she is from. 

I read a story called The Character in the Book by Kaethe Zemach this morning.  I am trying to get them to embrace all of the freedom that they have during writing time to create whatever they want, like zany characters with ridiculous quirks that live in faraway places.  I'm anxious to get back to our regular schedule so they can get their free reading and writing times in. 

All for now.  Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea

A couple more days of testing

Hello,

I'm ready to get back on track, but we have a couple more days of testing to get through.  I think the kids are giving their best effort.  I'm just trying to get them to see that what they call their best effort, can be better.  Our testing time is a full ninety minutes.  Most students can easily finish in forty-five.  I would really love to see them take advantage of that extra time to read through all of the questions slowly, just to make sure they didn't miss anything and to see that their answer makes sense.  Some have made some big improvements with this over the past five testing days.  Some would rather finish quickly.  We'll keep working on it.

I read quite a bit of Rafe Esquith's There Are No Shortcuts this weekend.  Rafe is a California teacher and the author of one of my favorite books on teaching, called Teach Like Your Hair is on Fire.  I agree with him on a lot of issues, including that our teaching time per day is too short, and that our teaching year is too short.  I feel like I don't have time to teach everything that I need to teach.  Starting off the year with assessment after assessment doesn't help either.  I don't know the answer, but am starting to think that I need to offer some optional instruction times either before or after school.  When you add in the fact that many students are behind the norm already, school will never get better for them until they can catch up.  I'm throwing this out there to see the reaction.  So give me some feedback.

I plan on following quite a bit of Mr. Esquith's classroom responsibilities plan.  I run a similar program during my government unit, but he takes it to another level.  We will elect a president, senators, representatives and a sheriff.  Judges will be appointed.  We will draft a constitution.  I've done all of this in the past, in what is generally a very popular unit, but this year the jobs will be paid.  (Fake money, of course, but students will be able to buy real priveleges and items with it.)  I'm excited about it already.  I'll start that in November, but stay tuned for further details.

I've got to run to a dinner.  Best turn out so far for reading logs.  Way to go folks!

All for now,

Mr. Shea

Have a good mini-break

Hello,

I wanted to remind you that Friday is a no school day.  It is a furlough day for the staff.  As long as we were going to get unpaid days off, I would rather have had it during the summer. 

Monday is also a no school day, in observance of Columbus Day.  I've asked the class to ask their parents about Columbus.  I tried to provide them with some different perspectives.  Now I want them to hear your opinion. 

The first day of the math test is always a tough one.  Unlike the reading, kids tend to decide whether they "get" the question or not rather quickly, and then either rush through it or take their best guess.  I think we'll see the same jump in their ability to check their work over the next couple of days, as we did during the reading tests.

I hope everyone has a good mini-break. 

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea

Schadenfreude?

"What in the world is the teacher wasting everyone's time teaching them a German word?  Doesn't he know that were in the middle of testing?"

That is what I imagine some of you might have been saying last night.  The word, schadenfreude, was highlighted in the picture book that I read to them titled That's Not Funny by Adrian Johnson.  The main character is a boy who laughs at the misfortune of others.  At the end of the story, a mishap occurs and he ends up being sat on by an elephant.  He didn't think it was so funny then.  The postscript of the book explains that we don't have a word for this in the English language.  Pronounced "shah-den-froy-duh," it is laughing or taking delight in the bad luck of others.  This is one of those books where the postscript is essential in making the book worthy of reading.  Otherwise it is just a book where a little boy gets his comeuppance.  I thought it would be nice, light reading for the class after another hard day of testing.  The little lesson at the end intrigued enough of them for me to give them a quick assignment to show me that they understood the word.  I got some funny stories.  They understand.

I read the last few pages of Morning Girl by Michael Dorris today along with some excerpts from the journal of Christopher Columbus.  Columbus gives his initial impressions of the native Taino that he met: "... it seemed to me that they were a people very poor in everything...  They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe that they would become Christians very easily, for it seems to me that they have no religion... I will take six of them (back to Europe) to your highness when I depart, in order that they may learn to speak (our language)."

Morning Girl is written from a Taino girl's perspective.  She thinks the white men that come to visit are "fat" and "dressed silly."  They stare at her "like babies: wide eyed, with their mouths open." 

These excerpts are just part of what I read this morning.  It sparked some lively conversation.  Some students were calling Columbus a jerk.  I reminded them of our tribes yesterday.  It must have been extremely difficult for both "tribes" - in this case the Europeans and Taino.  I asked the class to look at all the incorrect assumptions that both sides were making.  I drew some more parallels to yesterday.  I think some were making the connections, many will take another day. 

We'll read Encounter by Jane Yolen tomorrow.  It is a picture book.  It is also a "guessed at" history from the Taino's perspective.  Which brings me to another lesson: Who gets to write history?  I touched on that a bit today, but am hoping that there are so many hands in the air tomorrow wanting to give their two cents, that we may have to leave that for another day. 

Harry Potter Book Club started today.  I opened it up to all classes, but capped it at 30 kids.  I had 43 kids two years ago and it was just too much.  We split the group and met twice a week.  We needed twice the after school meetings.  I won't do that again.  Thirty is enough.  If we have some drop outs, we'll add some from the waiting list.  Today's meeting took place during lunch time.  I handed out a Sorting Quiz to help sort them into a house.  If they don't like the results of the quiz, I will give them a one time chance to be sorted by the Sorting Hat on my IPhone app.  But then, it's whatever the hat says, goes.

Some activities that the kids seemed enthusiastic to do this year include: quill making, Quidditch, movie watching, wand making, Harry Potter Jeopardy Challenges and tea leaf reading. 

Wow, it's late.  I'll stop.

Good night.

Mr. Shea

We got outside for ten minutes today!

Hello,

The effort on the NECAPs was strong today.  I appreciate some of the talks that I assume went on at home.  No questions skipped.  Students were ready for me when I came by to collect them.  They took some pride in saying, "I checked everything."  Bravo.  Great improvement in just one day.

We did a fun activity this morning that ties into our mini-study of Christopher Columbus.  I separated the class into four "tribes."  The Bambams, the Funfuns, the Haphaps, and the Jubjubs (not fruminous) each had their own language and goals.  The initial point of all of this is to see if people can communicate when they have totally different languages.  You can ask your child for the details.  Two of the tribes were all about fun and happiness.  Their goals were to get members of the other tribes to do different actions that would mean that they wanted to be friends.  The other two tribes had goals that were a little less admirable.  The Bambams were trying to get people to touch the sink, which obviously was a sign that somebody was agreeing to do all of your cleaning for you.  The Jubjubs were trying to get classmates to touch their feet, which was a sign that the person felt beneath you and was willing to be your servant.  All goals were kept secret from the other tribes, but each tribe knew that the others also had goals.

As expected, there was a ridiculous amount of gesturing and frustration.  It was fantastic.  In the end The Funfuns and Haphaps were much more willing to go along with the requests of the other two tribes because they were less suspicious of their intentions.  These two tribes had a lot more trouble getting others to go along with their requests, however.  The Bambams and and Jubjubs were much more suspicious and tended to ignore other tribes requests. 

We discussed this a bit, but I don't think all of it will sink in until I can relate it to the Europeans and Native Americans.  They had different languages, different expectations, and very different suspicions.  I'm sure the kids aren't going to like to see that Columbus wrote in his journal that the people of the "Indies" would make "good and intelligent servants."  But I'm hoping I can put this in a little better context by pointing out the culture that Columbus came from.  He thought like a European.  He wasn't a "bad" one.  He did and thought what most any European would have done and thought at the time.  He didn't believe that the Natives had language.  He believed they didn't have religion.  He believed that they were very poor.

Every tribe in class today thought the others were behaving ridiculously.  They made a lot of assumptions.  Columbus also made a lot of assumptions.  Columbus thought that they were basically agreeing to become slaves by their actions.  Kind of like today. 

I thought this activity up two years ago, and I've expanded on it a bit.  I like it and I think it works.  They understand a bit better how ridiculous those first few meetings of new cultures must have been.  Some kids will still dislike Columbus quite a bit for what he did, and I can't blame them too much for that, but I think I can present it in a balanced way by showing them that his thoughts and actions were a product of his culture.  No one in the Bambams thought any of their own tribesmembers were out of line today.  Their new servants might think differently.

I have more to say, but I'll update you tomorrow on where we go from here.  Half of the connections that I made here, we haven't done in class yet.  So you might hold off talking to your child much beyond asking what tribe they were in and what they thought of it.  It will all come together in the next two days.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea

Steve  

NECAP testing day one

Hello,

I thought the class did fairly well on their first day of NECAP testing.  They still need a little more practice on what checking their work means.  Four times I had this conversation:

Student: I'm done.

Me: Did you check your work, make sure everything made sense, finish everything?

Student: Yes.

Me: (after perusing the handed in booklet) What about this one?

Student: Oh, I guess I didn't see that one.

Me: (to myself)  AAAAUUUUGH!!


I don't think that they are all lying to me when they say that they have checked their work.  I don't think that many of them know what it means to check their work.  We'll go over that a lot this year.  Then again, and there is no way around this, some are just lazy.  The test isn't overly exciting for them and they don't feel like it is important.  You can see why they might want to finish ASAP.  Unfortunately it is important to the teachers and the school.  What is most frustrating about it is that it makes it so the test doesn't necessarily register what they know, but rather how poor their test taking skills are.  So the test may say that a student is weak in say, parts of speech, when really the student just skips portions of the test in their haste to get it done. 

The teachers agreed to go light on the homework this week.  My math class has their first weekly challenge of the year.  It is meant to be challenging and is not due until the end of the week.  The idea is that they should be pecking away at it all week.  They can ask me questions about it all week.  They are not graded on whether or not they got the right answer, but by how hard they worked on it.  I think that it is important to give them some problems that are unfamiliar.  American children rank high in how quickly they give up when they see something unfamiliar.  So please don't help your children on these.  Let them struggle.  Let them come in with their questions.  As long as they can show the work of their attempts, they will get the highest marks.  At the end of every week we will discuss the different strategies that we found out.  This weeks challenge are Numbrix puzzles from Parade magazine in the Sunday paper.  We did about 25% of the first one in class.  Let's see if they can finish the rest.

These testing days don't leave a whole lot of time for work.  Our afternoons for the next six days will include a special and a ninety minute test.  My day of teaching is practically over at 11:15.  Not my favorite days, to say the least. 

Thank you for signing the reading logs this week.  We are down to five "forgetful ones."

All for now.  Thanks for reading.

Mr. Shea