Beginning writing is often one of the most difficult elements of literacy development for young children. I recently found a great YouTube channel full of reading videos designed to give parents and families support in reading and writing. One great video from the collection is "Writing for Younger Children." Check it out:
The video includes some great suggestions for helping your child develop writing skills in meaningful ways every day. Check out some here:
Get a collection of interesting writing supplies together: Fun pencils Gel Pens Markers
Think of fun, but simple, ways to include your child in the writing activities of daily life:
Make lists: Shopping, To-Do, Gifts
Write notes
Write Postcards, greeting cards to friends and family members who don't live nearby
Write a daily journal with your child (Pictures and words)
Use the computer to type words, sentences, stories
Write email messages
Use a spiral notebook or stapled pages to write a dialogue journal with your child
Last year, I read Debbie Diller's Spaces and Places and was very inspired to create a classroom where every inch of space fostered literacy and learning.
This year, I moved into a new classroom and inherited "stuff" that a teacher who retired long before I came along left behind. I still-- at the end of October-- don't feel settled into my space. I have a feeling that in the coming weeks I'm going to be awfully tempted to take everything out and start over.
The biggest bain of my existence, currently, is my mammoth teacher "desk". It literally takes up 1/4 of one wall of my room, and does little more than collect piles of stuff. That's not the kind of enabling that I need...
In my last classroom, I followed some very sage wisdom and got rid of the teacher desk. I went to Walmart and purchased a $39 computer stand (because I do need a place for that), but gave away my "teacher desk"-- it became the student writing center, and housed all the supplies students might need for writing.
I miss those days terribly! I couldn't leave stacks of paper at the end of the day because there was no place to leave them! I would spread out and work at a table once the students were gone...but I would need to clean that up each night before the kids came in each morning. I didn't have to worry about the kids touching "my stuff" because I really didn't have any! :) Anything that was within hands-reach they were allowed to use, and they used it quite responsibly! There were no power struggles over encroaching on "teacher space" because I had very, very little...and the kids seemed to respect that I had a little bit of space for my own stuff like they had a little bit of space for theirs. In my re-imagining of the classroom, I get to go back to my little island, and leave behind the massive desk. I think that's really going to be the first step in beginning to fell more organized.
Today we played a great game to practice place value exchanges when adding.
I started with a template of ten leaves, each with a digit 0-9. (You can find it at here) I cut the leaves out, and then placed them in a pile. Students drew four digits, and arranged them to create two two-digit numbers.
Next, students lined the two numbers up to practice double-digit addition. Differentiation, anyone?My students--even my highest math kids-- are shaky on the concept of regrouping. Some don't "carry" at all...some do it at random...others do it, but don't have a strong conceptual understanding of what they're really doing when they "carry" a digit.
To combat the confusion, and to make more visible the need for regrouping, I took a file folder (dual purpose: use for storage afterward), opened it up, and drew a grid with boxes that would the leaves.
Another support strategy: Draw the grid on your students' personal whiteboards with Sharpie or other permanent markers. This can be removed later, and quite easily, with either bleach cloths (think Clorox or Lysol) or by simply wiping a regular dry erase marker over your Sharpie lines.
I did both, using the folder myself for demo and modeling and giving each student a whiteboard and marker to actually write out each problem (since the ultimate goal is for them to be able to line up and correctly add multi-digit numbers independently). For some of my learners, writing what they know is a critical part of committing it to memory.
In order to really make the need for regrouping more apparent, I also wrote the digits 0-9 onto post-it notes. This way, when we added digits to a sum larger than nine, I could say, "whoa! problem!" and demonstrate that I couldn't fit 2 digits into one place value position. (Eventually one of my students remarked, "Wow, Miss. You got so much problems!")
Enter the base-10 manipulatives: Once it was obvious that all of the ones we had wouldn't fit into the ones place, I asked my students, "What can we do now? Is there any way you can get some of those ones exchanged?" After looking at the 10s-strips and 100s-flats in front of them, eventually each group figured out that I would trade them a 10s-strip for 10 of their ones. And once that exchange took place, they were able to select which of the two digits from their original answer went in the 1s place, and which went into the 10s place.
One more note of differentiation: I modified the activity even farther so that the addition was one-digit. Even students who are only adding one digit numbers can practice exchanging ones for tens, which provides them with background experience for adding double-digits later on.
...That's the long version. The short of it is that this activity was SO effective for practicing all of the skills and concepts necessary for successful double-digit addition!
So your child just brought home a clear bag filled with books, post-it notes, and a letter from their ever-zealous teacher declaring how important it is that they read and leave tracks of their thinking.
What? This week, I introduced the children to the idea that good readers leave tracks of their thinking. For several days, I have modeled how I think as I read. I am constantly thinking. In fact, I told students, the most important thing about your reading is your THINKING about the text.
Here's a simple representation:
Think about a salad. Not a complicated salad, just a run of the mill lettuce-and-tomato deal. A big bowl full to overflowing with lettuce and tomatoes. Yum.
Now-- what is there more of in that typical bowl of salad. Lettuce? or tomatoes?
Generally the answer is lettuce.
When we think as we read, we do two major kinds of thinking. Right There Some of the thinking we do as we read is recalling or remembering. The information right there in what the text says or the pictures show us is important. But recalling or remembering is only a small part of really comprehending what we read. That's why our recalling and remembering are like the tomatoes of the salad-- they aren't a salad all alone, but a salad isn't a salad without them, either. (Whew! How's that for circular reasoning?) Right there thinking is important, but we also need connections, predictions, and inferences to really deepen our understanding to comprehension. In Your Head Those connections, predictions, and inferences you make as you read often take place In Your Head. You might never say them out loud at all, but that doesn't make them unimportant! Helping students become aware that they think as they read can be a tricky task. That's why we've taken the sticky notes in hand, in hopes of becoming more metacognitive learners-- thinking about our thinking!
If your child is having trouble identifying thinking in their head, and are stuck on telling what is happening just like the text says or the pictures show, you might point out that In Your Head thinking might sound like one of these things:
-- "I wonder if..."-- "Because.........., I think ................... will happen next..." -- "Oh, I get it now...!" -- "At first I thought................., but now I think....................... ." -- "What would happen if...?" -- "Why?" -- "This is good because..." -- "This is like the time that..." -- "This reminds me of..."
Because thinking about thinking is tricky, it can be a slow process acquiring the skills to identify thinking as it's happening. Leaving tracks of your thinking is important to young readers as they learn to value their thoughts as the other critical element of comprehension.
It's unlikely, at first, that students will really be able to identify more "lettuce" than "tomato" in their thinking. That's okay. But feel free to ask your child, "Is that tomato-text or lettuce-thinking?" Encourage them to use the sticky notes to write down the thinking that is happening in their head, then attach it to the page where that thinking took place. The Real World Connection Very rarely do adults read text simply for the sake of recalling it later. Most often, we read to gain information that will help us make a decision or complete a process (like putting together new furniture or filing our taxes). Being able to read for information involves taking what we read and personalizing it for use ("Oh. I need to turn this board around before I screw it to the other one."; "My husband's email says we're out of milk. That means I need to buy more on the way home."). In order to do that, students need to get comfortable with the idea of actively engaging text, and learning what it means to dig in and understand.
Clearly, we are at the very early stages of this process with our young readers. Thank you so much for engaging with your child as he or she reads at home, and for supporting their learning with your time and energy resources! And thank you for supporting our class!
Back when my husband and I were first dating, I was working multiple jobs that involved young elementary school-aged kids. It wasn't long before the resulting anecdotes were dubbed "cute kid stories", and were staples of our "How was your day?" conversations. Last year, when I found myself moved from teaching in elementary schools to teaching in a middle school, one of the things I missed the most were the funny stories that I had felt were part and parcel to teaching. The stories that just made you giggle were harder to come by...and I was feeling the withdrawal.
Fast forward to last Wednesday, and I'm back to elementary school. I once more have 4th and 5th graders in my classroom. The night before school began, I couldn't help thinking: "What if the kids aren't funny?" What a silly thought. It didn't take long before the quips and one-liners from the students-- their genuine responses to real life-- had me smiling. And today? Well...
One of the teachers in my building has a friend who makes cakes and cupcakes as a side business. Every week or so, samples of the newest flavor variety are available in the staff lounge. This morning, one of the paraeducators in my classroom brought back a couple of today's selection (Blackberry frosting on white cake) for the teachers in the room. I've been trying really hard lately to carefully monitor the amount of sugar and fat I'm taking in, so my cupcake sat on a table in the back of the room for most of the morning. When my students returned from recess and lunch, one of my boys caught sight of the sweet treat.
"Is that yours?" he asked.
"Yes, it is," I replied.
His eyes danced over the pink icing and tempting-looking berry. "I just want a small bite," he said.
Before I could even remind him to use good manners and ask (I gladly would have given him half without hesitation), he picked up the cupcake. The word "wait" was on the tip of my tongue. And the frosting was on his.
THE KID JUST LICKED MY CUPCAKE!
How could I not laugh?? Practice. I stifled the laugh and looked at him with shock. "Did you seriously just lick my cupcake right now?" I asked as I tried to hold back a grin. "For REAL?"
"Are you mad?" he asked.
I could feel the way my eyebrows were wrinkling in utter surprise. I want him to get the message that it's not okay to take things that don't belong to you. I want him to know that people will not think it's okay, or find it funny as a general rule. Had he got that message? "Are you going to do it again?" I asked. "No," he returned.
We'll see about that. But in the mean time, have I mentioned how glad I am to be back in elementary school? :) Bring on the funny kid stories!
