Allen Brook, Day 2

Today at Allen Brook School I was treated to a full schedule beyond Sharon's kindergarten class.  She so wanted me to see as much as possible that she thoughtfully arranged for me to see a variety of language arts instruction, a Reading Recovery lesson, and iPads in math.  I also spent time with one of the district's literacy coordinators.  I won't detail my day here--I'll just highlight a few parts of the day (like the Vermont cheese sampler we enjoyed for dinner!).

The day began with a visit with Julie Rogers' first grade students during their morning meeting.  I loved watching how her students so confidently lead, participate in, and enjoy the meeting that Julie facilitated.  Julie's morning meeting affirmed my belief that students should be at the very center of their learning.  There's so much more to say about the Julie's teaching--I will share what I observed from her in a post in the near future.

Just after morning meeting I flew down the hall to Maria McCormack's room where I watched her students using iPad apps as a way to target their specific needs.  They could choose between the Multi-touch Math app or the Number Rack app.  Not only did Maria invite me to observe her students but she opened her own vault of resources by sharing her team's website, her curricular wiki, her email address, and her twitter handle.  I will certainly be checking in on all of her digital gifts.

Later I met with Carol Huntington, Allen Brook's literacy coordinator.  My hour-long conversation with her made me feel connected to a larger community of literacy leaders.  Her words were reassuring--just the reminder I need as I prepare to head home and do important curricular planning for the 2012-13 school year.  Carol said that she tries to get the most bang for her buck in her work.  In her school she began by defining balanced literacy, looking at the schedule to find time for a 90-minute literacy block, and agreeing on standards of practice for each team.  She also reminded me that the WHAT of what we teach is non-negotiable, but the HOW is debatable; we must not get derailed by the "side conversations" that drill down into minutia or veer into complaint sessions.  I look forward to meeting with the K-6 teams to discuss the standards of practice for our reading instruction.

I ended the day with a visit to Jessie Stein's second grade Writing Workshop.  Her students were using Scribblepress to publish their realistic fiction stories.  Her students were so eager to share their stories with me and show me how to use this app to create books.

It was another whirlwind day, one that highlighted the importance of organization, forethought, and assessment in instruction.  I am sad that my visit will end tomorrow, but I will bring home ideas, plans, and connections that will enrich my long-range vision and day-to-day work.

The Best Professional Development: A School Visit

This week I am lucky enough to be spending three days at Allen Brook School in Williston, Vermont with Sharon Davison and her kind and generous colleagues.  Back in November I found Sharon's class blog when I was doing some research for our kindergarten's Jan Brett author study.  One look at Sharon's jam-packed blog and I knew she was a dynamic, creative, and passionate teacher.  Now that I have had the privileged of spending one day in her clasroom, I understand that she is a remarkable teacher driven to deliver only the most sound, effective, and meaningful instruction to her students. 

Sharon immediately welcomed me into her class, introduced me to her students and co-workers, and then got busy teaching so that I could see all that I came to see (and more).  She knew I was particularly interested in language arts and technology, so I saw her class use the Smart board, iPads, and computers.  I saw the students sort letters, write words, and draft blog posts.  I watched them enjoy the newest addition to their class blog, a slide show Sharon put together using Smilebox.  I heard them ask when they would get to compose their daily tweet, helped two students return the iPads to the technology room, and listened with them as Sharon explained the concept of pinboards on Pinterest.  Students in Sharon's class are at ease with technology because they have learned how to use it and understand how it enhances their learning--it is not a gimmick or a mere substitute for pencil and paper.

Taking pictures during Explore Time

Sorting letters during Explore Time

Morning Message

Fundations with Smart Board and iPads

Nonfiction text displayed via ELMO

Kidblog

Sharon spends a lot of time with her students--I was amazed by her schedule (below).  The students only had one special today:  art...at the end of the day!  Although her days are exhausting, Sharon is grateful for the amount of time she has with her students each day as she layers her teaching, always knitting content, process, character, and metacognition into her work with the children.  It is all fluid.  Not a moment is wasted, not an opportunity overlooked to teach her students how to think, act, and reflect. 

In addition to spending hours in Sharon's class, I also had the chance to talk with Allen Brook's technology integration specialist, Bonnie Birdsall, over lunch.  I loved sharing our experiences and look forward to talking more with her on my final day in Williston.  My conversation with Bonnie further solidified how lucky I feel to work at Flint Hill School, where our 1:1 iPad/MacBook program makes embracing technology so easy.  Our challenge continues to be using technology to transform our instruction; I hope my visit to Allen Brook will help me bring back new ideas on how to do that.

What Writing Teachers Know

This list captures what parents need to understand about how we teach kids to write.  If only the parents could trust us!

Next Stop: Vermont

Now that Spring Break and the VAIS conference are behind me, I am setting my sights on Vermont where I will have the pleasure of visiting Sharon Davison and her kindergarten class at Allen Brook School in Williston.  I am looking forward to learning from Sharon, her students, and her colleagues about the ways they use their iPads and other technology to enhance and transform their teaching and learning.  I would never have known about Sharon or her blogging, tweeting kindergarteners if I had not begun my digital professional development journey this fall.  Each time I run through my Google Reader or Twitter feed I learn something new, feel inspired, and wonder what I might try in my own school. 

I will use my blog to journal about my experiences in Vermont, so perhaps someone can learn a thing or two from me.  Stay tuned!

Reading Comprehension via Silent Film App

When we discovered the Silent Film Director app we knew we had to find a way to use it.  And, luckily enough, one of our fourth grade teachers was game.  She was reading The Green Book by Jill Paton Walsh to  her students and wanted to find a way to help them dig more deeply into the text.  Rachel chose to read this book to her class in part because of their study of Jamestown and all of the ways people needed to adapt when settling a new colony (another layer is that in science her students are studying animal adaptation.) 

Here's the description of the book from Amazon:  "We are at Shine, on the first day, " says Pattie, when, as the youngest member of the group, she is given the honor of naming the new settlement. Refugees from the dying planet Earth, they, along with other ships, have been sent into space in the hope that some of them will survive to continue the human race. But the success of Shine remains doubtful as crops fail and provisions brought from Earth dwindle. Even the excitement surrounding the hatching of the giant moth people from the "boulders" in Boulder Valley doesn't make the group forget the hopelessness of the situation. It isn't until Pattie and her sister Sarah make an important discovery that survival becomes a certainty.

Rachel had her students focus on the obstacles the characters had to face and how they overcame those obstacles.  They selected the major obstacles in the book, divided into groups, and began to plan for how to recreate their scenes as silent films.  This began with teaching the kids how to write effective summaries.  Then we taught them about mood, tone, and symbolism.  Finally, we taught them some cinematic terms, particularly those that would allow them to select their camera angles (wide shot, close up, pan, shoulder shot, double shot, etc.).  We also showed them many examples of silent films and analyzed how these films made meaning without dialogue.  The students planned their costumes, selected their setting, and mapped their shots using a storyboard.  They were deeply immersed in an analytical study of the novel.

Friday was shooting day.  The students demonstrated so much enthusiasm about their scenes and so much understanding of the book.  And they had fun with the filming of their silent films. 

The app offers a lot of choice in terms of effects and sounds.  Check it out!

Lego Friends: Friend, Not Foe

There's been a lot of talk about the new Lego Friends collection recently.  I've heard several interviews on NPR with angry commentators and bloggers who argue that these new Legos, designed for girls, are perpetuating gender stereotypes and negatively impacting the girls who choose to build and play with them.  For a few days it felt like whenever I turned on the radio I heard another angry woman bemoaning this new Lego line.

Why?  Because some of the blocks are pink and purple.  Because the people are not boxy--they have curvy figures and more human-like features.  Because one of the sets is a beauty shop. 

I think these arguments are silly.  There are plenty of blocks that are white, brown, black, and blue.  And Lego people have come a long way since the early robot-esque figures.  Most of the sets are interesting with lots to play with--a vet clinic, a tree house, a cafe, and a dog show, to name a few.  These Lego sets are not harming my daughters; they are inviting them to play with a toy that was otherwise not very interesting to them.  And best of all, they build these sets with Daddy.

I'm glad that my girls have the choice to play with Legos that appeal to them, especially since these sets do not involve weapons, tanks, or other forms of devastation as so many of their other collections do.  Where are the angry bloggers complaining about the violent Lego toys?

Nothing

I just finished reading Nothing by Janne Teller and I'm not sure what to do with it.  The book or the ideas in it.  Nothing is a Michael L. Printz Award Honor book and a Batchelder Honor book.  Both awards are given to notable young adult and children's books.  It is a small book:  just 227 pages and a lot of white space on each page.  But the message is weighty.  Here's the first page:

Nothing matters.
I have known that for a long time.
So nothing is worth doing.
I just realized that.

From there the narrator, Agnes, explains that her classmate Pierre Anthon walks out of school on the first day of seventh grade pronouncing that life has no meaning.  He spends each day in a plum tree on the road to school, taunting his classmates from high in the branches.  Desperate to prove him wrong, Agnes and her classmates decide to collect items of meaning to show Pierre that life has value and to get him out of the tree.  Item by item, the meaningful contributions become more serious.  What begins as a pile of Dungeons and Dragons books and a fishing rod becomes a gruesome heap of mortality:  the grave of a two-year old, the head of a dog, one boy's finger, and one girl's virginity.  And still Pierre won't come out of the tree to see the collection.  Not until things turn really ugly.

So I don't spoil the book, I'll leave it at that. It's worth reading to see what happens.

What I'm wondering is, should I put this book in our seventh and eighth grade classroom collection, available to any student who wants to read it?  I want to.  I really do.  The Printz and Batchelder people want me to.  But this is not the sort of sci-fi dystopian novel our kids love so much these days.  There's nothing magical or fanciful in it that can leave a comfortable distance between its message and their minds.

If I don't put it on the shelf, then Pierre may be right.  I want the kids to think about life's meaning and find what matters to them, even if the book will be disturbing.

There's my decision.  Wish me luck.