Last week for the first time this year right in the middle of a math lesson one of our class's most dedicated students came up to me and said, "I don't get it. I don't know how to do this." Then another capable student approached me and said the same thing. My heart sank. No teacher wants to hear those four fateful words, because it's a code for every teacher's most dreaded thought: I didn't do a very good job teaching this lesson.
It was at the end of the day and I immediately had the children pack up their math books and told them we would go back and try it again the next day. Upon looking closely at the work the students had completed, it was clearer than ever that indeed, they really didn't get it. Even the children working independently had gone off the track.
I went home that night with my head swimming over the day's lesson. What had gone wrong? We had worked for a long time on a thinking out loud problem called a "headline story". I posed an open-ended word problem on the board and the students can fill in the blanks in any number of ways. The students had offered a number of solutions and had been eagerly engaged in the problem. Everyone wanted to offer a solution. In the next activity we worked on making number sentences with our hands, in some cases using three hands to make numbers larger than ten. Everybody was working and learning -- until we returned to our desks to complete the lesson's workbook pages. It was at this point that my student brought me to reality with her lack of "getting it." I hadn't spent enough time making the connection between counting our five fingers and counting by fives.
For the next few days we have been counting by fives, looking at multiples of five using nickels and adding on from five with a vengeance. Having a lesson blow up in your face is one of the quickest ways to examine -- and alter -- your teaching practice. In this case, it made me deeply aware of how important it is to take the time to connect one simple activity (working with five fingers on two hands) with the larger concept (skip counting by fives). Having a student tell me he or she doesn't get it is tantamount to throwing down the glove -- it's an ultimatum I'm not going to ignore. but I also recognize that something else was at work: I'd never taught money using this math book before. I needed the day's slightly painful events to make me aware of how the activities in our new math curriculum fit together. It was one of those "teachable moments" -- only the one being taught was....me!
For the past three years, prompted by parents unhappy with our district's spotty performance on state assessments, a perceived lack of rigor in our town's elementary math curriculum, increased awareness of the national conversation about diametrically opposed styles of math teaching (see "Math Wars") a district-wide Math Performance Review Team met with teachers, parents and administrators over many months. I joined one focus group convened over two years ago (maybe it was three years?). As part of a group of elementary teachers I spent an afternoon discussing our likes and dislikes about the present math curriculum. We listed things we would change if we could. We voiced frustration about gaps in the "core curriculum" that provided a skeletal framework of activities you would teach throughout the year. We noted that if wanted be true to the town learning expectations and the state frameworks, we would have to purchase, beg, borrow and photocopy from as many as ten other books in order to meet these two sometimes differing standards.
For example, in 2005 the town math curriculum contained no unit on money in either the first or the second grade, so teaching money (usually pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters) meant hunting down and deciding which worksheet to use after an activity or game played during class. Over the years my colleagues and I became quite comfortable teaching about money: we refined a number of activities and worksheets that we adapted to various grade levels. We shared materials, workbooks and ideas. The downside of the lack of materials was that our work felt very "random" and of course there was the issue of equity in classrooms throughout the system. It was clear that this lack of district uniformity had become increasingly untenable.
So the good news is, our town made a decision sometime in the past year to purchase a new K-5 math curricula. Pilot teachers were limited to various grade levels -- this year those teachers compose the advanced class. Their one year of working with the new textbooks and curricula provided them with one extra year of teaching with materials that us newbies didn't have. They are the experts in this endeavor right now, although I'm sure they might dispute the label!
Very few teachers will read the directions to a lesson and not change some aspect of the instructions, whether it's changing the unit by adding vocabulary, altering the lesson's pacing, replacing one activity with another, etc. Teachers treasure their independence and value the ability to make spot judgments based on the group of students in front of them. I'm constantly assessing the level of my students' engagement while I'm teaching -- how many students begin to detach from the group and begin rolling around on the floor? While I'm teaching, I'm thinking, "Are they still with me? How many are listening with their eyes and raising their hands eagerly?" I try to gauge their engagement (or lack thereof) in observable terms. If things are going too slowly, even the most engaged learner will start to fidget. If the lesson moves too quickly, or I haven't spent enough time on a critical piece, the lesson will fall flat on its head. I can see it in my students' bodies!
When teaching 1st graders you can also assess whether the students understand what they are doing by how quickly and happily they get to work - on whatever they do. Noise levels are also a major indicator of how well students are absorbing material. If there is a high degree of chatter, it may be because the students are less than excited about what they are doing. They'll talk about anything rather than work on something they don't understand -- not too different from most adults! That's why I knew immediately what the problem was when my student said, "I don't get it!" When I hear those words, I know it's time to go back to the drawing board -- and reteach the lesson. As a teacher of young children, (actually this was true for my 5th and 6th graders as well) you have to be thinking all the time about what successful learning looks like. Any new curriculum worth its salt takes the teacher's need to make independent judgments into account. If it's not working, I'm going to change it!
That need for decision-making independence must be balanced with accountability, and all new curricula published today are keyed to state standards (Massachusetts curriculum frameworks). In our district the curriculum chosen by the town ("ThinkMath!)is more than explicit about what standards are being taught in every lesson. I'm pretty excited about what we're doing in math right now -- we're working on a unit on pennies and nickels -- yes, it IS included in this curricula -- and the students are really enjoying the various activities which range from trading pennies for nickels in games, making change, counting on, skip counting by fives. We'll take up dimes and quarters later in the year, using some of the same methods and games. I like how the curriculum circles back to the same activities at different points in the year, using larger denominations. It gives me and my students a sense of familiarity and confidence.
So back to the original reason for starting this blog -- thinking and reflecting on teaching. Doing something for the first time is always challenging, even for an old-timer like me. Especially for an old-timer like me! Teaching something for the first time feels like the proverbial ground is shifting underneath you. Although I've taught several grades over the course of 20 years, this is my third year of teaching first grade and in many ways, I consider myself a novice teaching young children, since 13 of my 20 years were teaching 5th and 6th graders. There's no doubt about my being a novice teaching this new math curriculum. In sorting out how to approach so much new information and so many ways to present material it really helps to reflect on what makes good teaching, whether teaching the material for the first or the fifteenth (or even more!) time. And most importantly, undertaking a new teaching challenge reminds me of my imperfections, makes me work hard at what I do, and reflect upon what's working well, and what I need to do better every day.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
In Praise of Student Teachers
I'm home sick today with a raspy cough, woozy headache and achy body. I called in sick this morning at 6:00 a.m. and left word that I needed a sub. This means that a person who has never met my class will arrive at the door a few minutes before 8:00 a.m. and need to be brought up to speed as quickly as possible by my student teacher. She is in the (somewhat) awkward position of directing someone (who may be 15-20 years her senior) who is paid to orchestrate the day in spite of the fact that my student teacher is the one who is going to keep things together. As a graduate student she will not get paid for keeping it together. We chalk it up to a "learning experience," and hope that things will go well.
When you're as sick as I was this morning, you don't really want to get up at 6:00 a.m. and write a "to-do" list, so I felt very grateful that my student teacher and I had planned the next week last Friday before leaving school. Since she had planned the day and knew our routines for Monday, it wouldn't be a big deal for her to plow through the activities we'd planned together. It was also a blessing that I'd stayed late to copy a good part of Monday and Tuesday's work, even though I could feel myself deteriorating even then. At least she wouldn't have to run around early in the morning trying to figure out what to copy. When I spoke to my student teacher mid-morning, she had things well in hand, calmly assured me all was well, and told me in a nutshell, to "go back to bed and get some rest!"
This is all to say that for the past fifteen years I have been blessed with a myriad of student teachers, interns, one-day-a-week pre-practicum students and observers from a host of academic institutions in the greater Boston area. These novice educators have ranged in age from 22 to 45, mostly single but occasionally married, some beginning second (or third) careers and completing their master's in education, and some in their junior or senior years in college. One year when changing grades I refused a pre-practicum student, thinking that it was enough that it was my first year teaching first grade, and I needed to spend my time learning a new curriculum. That was the same year my class had a large sub-group of English-Language-Learners who needed a very strong dose of extra literacy. Tearing out my hair didn't produce any results, but by chance I mentioned the need for extra support for these ELL-ers to one of our special educators, who just happened to have a graduate student who needed to do extra hours with lower elementary students! Voila!
That particular grad student willingly volunteered two-three hours per day for the year -- until April when she found a job as a permanent sub. A runner and former athletic coach, she was committed to having students use their bodies to help them learn all kinds of basic skills, ergo she developed a number of games using movement, throw and catch, even the old parlor game "Twister" to make her phonics and literacy lessons engaging for the students. She purchased software targeting the skills where my ELL-ers needed support. During rainy day recesses she organized relay races. It got to the point that when she appeared at the door all the students would BEG to be picked to work with her. We had to explain that she was practicing with the ELL-ers, but they still begged. We finally gave in and let the ELL students pick a friend to accompany them, for at least a part of the lessons. When she left for her new official teaching position, we all felt the loss of her enthusiasm, expertise and passion; I felt the loss of companionship and inspiration.
One year I had a student teacher with little experience with 6 and 7-year olds -- she was enrolled in an Early Childhood Certification Program and she really wanted to work with 3 years olds. Her previous teaching experiences had been in pre-schools and pre-K camps. I remember we spent a lot of time working on management, how to speak to 1st graders, how to wait until she had their attention before giving directions. Her supervisor and I worried that she might need more time in the classroom, but somehow in the middle of the semester, she morphed, butterfly-like, into a strong speaker, someone who took charge! She loved developing curriculum and constructed a wonderful unit centered on medieval castles and castle life. We sent home a letter asking for paper goods -- I remember being unnerved by the deluge of materials brought in from home. We stockpiled barrelfuls of paper rolls, flattened cardboard , egg cartons and oatmeal boxes. I will never forget how excited the class was when we gave them time to use their imaginations and build drawbridges, trebuchets, turrets, walls, and staircases. There was an occasional squabble over materials and methods; in fact, the three days we spent building were messy and one could even say, chaotic. What quickly became clear was how each excited and highly motivated each child was by building. What also became clear is how much I had underestimated what this particular young teacher had to teach me about how to engage young learners.
Having a student teacher is a bit like a temporary arranged marriage --both sides get to "vet" the other, and if the two parties don't agree, either one can say no. The courtship begins when the educational institution sends a potential candidate to meet you (the supervising teacher) the semester before she is scheduled to begin her requisite teaching. At that meeting she will have an opportunity to look over your classroom, question you about your philosophy, see you in action and "get the lay of the land" where she'll be working for the fourteen weeks of her student teaching. During this meeting the supervising teacher gets to observe how the candidate interacts with the students, whether she is able to communicate with them, how easily she moves around classroom, what kinds of interactions she makes, notes the kinds of questions she asks (what's important to her?) and how comfortable the two parties are with each other.
I've come to believe that sometimes the magic of the student teacher/supervising teacher is just plain luck. Several years ago a local college sent a candidate beginning her second career to interview with several teachers in our building. There were opportunities in at least five classrooms, but somehow after all the interviews were over, the two of us had both selected each other.
From the beginning, this candidate was unusual. Eager, enthusiastic, excited about learning, with a great sense of humor she related easily to the students. Her previous work experience gave her a sense of purposefulness. She managed to engage students with her easy smile and her unshakable patience. I remember one day, while looking over student drawings of eyeballs (Optics was a part of the 5th grade curriculum), we came upon a picture of an eyeball that had red lines emanating from the center. It's impossible to describe now, and there's no way I can do the moment justice. All I can say is that when the two of us looked at a student's drawing of two bloodshot eyes, we dissolved into laughter that lasted for several minutes. We could not stop laughing. Twelve years later I still smile about that moment and cannot recall having had so much fun with another teacher. I remember thanking my lucky stars that she had somehow managed to land in my room.
The student/supervising teacher courtship arrangement usually works. Both sides know the liaison is temporary, lasting only fourteen weeks. There is quite a bit of pressure for the student teacher to get "up to speed" quickly in such a short time frame, and there is a need for the supervising teacher to willingly open her doors and unlock the teaching experience in a short time. The September -December practicum is valuable in that the student teacher sees the development of the class from its beginnings: how to set up the environment, how to lay out the routines, how to manage the classroom, and of course, discovery of who the students are as learners. Round Two, which begins in late January and continues through early May, may be challenging for both supervising teacher and student. The supervising teacher needs to reconstruct the history of the previous four months in order to figure out how to be in the classroom. I need to provide the backstory so that the newcomer can fully appreciate what we've learned and why we do things that we do. The best kind of arrangement is an internship which lasts from September through June for both parties; however, we have far fewer applicants for internships these days.
So this is my paean to student teachers, the most underrated and undervalued members of the education community. I have been the beneficiary of the process of their education,nudging and guiding, watching them grow, working alongside them, observing them as they take risks and take on the responsibility of teaching. Having these young teachers in my classroom has been a gift to me in my own teaching: I've learned to observe through their eyes what technique works with what kind of learner, who needs a special kind of teaching, who needs to take a break, who needs close monitoring, who needs a firm or a gentle hand. My students have benefited as a result of their teaching; even, - no maybe especially - when things didn't look neat and tidy, we were all learning.
When you're as sick as I was this morning, you don't really want to get up at 6:00 a.m. and write a "to-do" list, so I felt very grateful that my student teacher and I had planned the next week last Friday before leaving school. Since she had planned the day and knew our routines for Monday, it wouldn't be a big deal for her to plow through the activities we'd planned together. It was also a blessing that I'd stayed late to copy a good part of Monday and Tuesday's work, even though I could feel myself deteriorating even then. At least she wouldn't have to run around early in the morning trying to figure out what to copy. When I spoke to my student teacher mid-morning, she had things well in hand, calmly assured me all was well, and told me in a nutshell, to "go back to bed and get some rest!"
This is all to say that for the past fifteen years I have been blessed with a myriad of student teachers, interns, one-day-a-week pre-practicum students and observers from a host of academic institutions in the greater Boston area. These novice educators have ranged in age from 22 to 45, mostly single but occasionally married, some beginning second (or third) careers and completing their master's in education, and some in their junior or senior years in college. One year when changing grades I refused a pre-practicum student, thinking that it was enough that it was my first year teaching first grade, and I needed to spend my time learning a new curriculum. That was the same year my class had a large sub-group of English-Language-Learners who needed a very strong dose of extra literacy. Tearing out my hair didn't produce any results, but by chance I mentioned the need for extra support for these ELL-ers to one of our special educators, who just happened to have a graduate student who needed to do extra hours with lower elementary students! Voila!
That particular grad student willingly volunteered two-three hours per day for the year -- until April when she found a job as a permanent sub. A runner and former athletic coach, she was committed to having students use their bodies to help them learn all kinds of basic skills, ergo she developed a number of games using movement, throw and catch, even the old parlor game "Twister" to make her phonics and literacy lessons engaging for the students. She purchased software targeting the skills where my ELL-ers needed support. During rainy day recesses she organized relay races. It got to the point that when she appeared at the door all the students would BEG to be picked to work with her. We had to explain that she was practicing with the ELL-ers, but they still begged. We finally gave in and let the ELL students pick a friend to accompany them, for at least a part of the lessons. When she left for her new official teaching position, we all felt the loss of her enthusiasm, expertise and passion; I felt the loss of companionship and inspiration.
One year I had a student teacher with little experience with 6 and 7-year olds -- she was enrolled in an Early Childhood Certification Program and she really wanted to work with 3 years olds. Her previous teaching experiences had been in pre-schools and pre-K camps. I remember we spent a lot of time working on management, how to speak to 1st graders, how to wait until she had their attention before giving directions. Her supervisor and I worried that she might need more time in the classroom, but somehow in the middle of the semester, she morphed, butterfly-like, into a strong speaker, someone who took charge! She loved developing curriculum and constructed a wonderful unit centered on medieval castles and castle life. We sent home a letter asking for paper goods -- I remember being unnerved by the deluge of materials brought in from home. We stockpiled barrelfuls of paper rolls, flattened cardboard , egg cartons and oatmeal boxes. I will never forget how excited the class was when we gave them time to use their imaginations and build drawbridges, trebuchets, turrets, walls, and staircases. There was an occasional squabble over materials and methods; in fact, the three days we spent building were messy and one could even say, chaotic. What quickly became clear was how each excited and highly motivated each child was by building. What also became clear is how much I had underestimated what this particular young teacher had to teach me about how to engage young learners.
Having a student teacher is a bit like a temporary arranged marriage --both sides get to "vet" the other, and if the two parties don't agree, either one can say no. The courtship begins when the educational institution sends a potential candidate to meet you (the supervising teacher) the semester before she is scheduled to begin her requisite teaching. At that meeting she will have an opportunity to look over your classroom, question you about your philosophy, see you in action and "get the lay of the land" where she'll be working for the fourteen weeks of her student teaching. During this meeting the supervising teacher gets to observe how the candidate interacts with the students, whether she is able to communicate with them, how easily she moves around classroom, what kinds of interactions she makes, notes the kinds of questions she asks (what's important to her?) and how comfortable the two parties are with each other.
I've come to believe that sometimes the magic of the student teacher/supervising teacher is just plain luck. Several years ago a local college sent a candidate beginning her second career to interview with several teachers in our building. There were opportunities in at least five classrooms, but somehow after all the interviews were over, the two of us had both selected each other.
From the beginning, this candidate was unusual. Eager, enthusiastic, excited about learning, with a great sense of humor she related easily to the students. Her previous work experience gave her a sense of purposefulness. She managed to engage students with her easy smile and her unshakable patience. I remember one day, while looking over student drawings of eyeballs (Optics was a part of the 5th grade curriculum), we came upon a picture of an eyeball that had red lines emanating from the center. It's impossible to describe now, and there's no way I can do the moment justice. All I can say is that when the two of us looked at a student's drawing of two bloodshot eyes, we dissolved into laughter that lasted for several minutes. We could not stop laughing. Twelve years later I still smile about that moment and cannot recall having had so much fun with another teacher. I remember thanking my lucky stars that she had somehow managed to land in my room.
The student/supervising teacher courtship arrangement usually works. Both sides know the liaison is temporary, lasting only fourteen weeks. There is quite a bit of pressure for the student teacher to get "up to speed" quickly in such a short time frame, and there is a need for the supervising teacher to willingly open her doors and unlock the teaching experience in a short time. The September -December practicum is valuable in that the student teacher sees the development of the class from its beginnings: how to set up the environment, how to lay out the routines, how to manage the classroom, and of course, discovery of who the students are as learners. Round Two, which begins in late January and continues through early May, may be challenging for both supervising teacher and student. The supervising teacher needs to reconstruct the history of the previous four months in order to figure out how to be in the classroom. I need to provide the backstory so that the newcomer can fully appreciate what we've learned and why we do things that we do. The best kind of arrangement is an internship which lasts from September through June for both parties; however, we have far fewer applicants for internships these days.
So this is my paean to student teachers, the most underrated and undervalued members of the education community. I have been the beneficiary of the process of their education,nudging and guiding, watching them grow, working alongside them, observing them as they take risks and take on the responsibility of teaching. Having these young teachers in my classroom has been a gift to me in my own teaching: I've learned to observe through their eyes what technique works with what kind of learner, who needs a special kind of teaching, who needs to take a break, who needs close monitoring, who needs a firm or a gentle hand. My students have benefited as a result of their teaching; even, - no maybe especially - when things didn't look neat and tidy, we were all learning.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Setting the Ground Rules
(This post was originally created 9/20/08 as part of a parent newsletter and is just being posted as a blog entry to 1DDiaries today)
Today was our 15th day of school, which means the school year is about 8% completed. During these past fifteen days, we have accomplished a lot!
Many of the accomplishments can be counted -- we've completed one math unit on shape attributes and patterns, and are well into a second unit on number lines. In Science we've begun to observe the tree outside of our window and use a hand lens to give us a better opportunity to observe the amazing world around us, and then document our observations in a journal.
We have read fiction books where mice were the main characters (authors
However, many of our accomplishments are harder to document. We have had discussions about how friends support each other's learning through attentive listening and celebrate each other's successes. We spoke today about how each week we give awards at our weekly assembly. Each week I give an award to a student who has made an exemplary improvement, acquired a new skill, made an insightful contribution to a classroom discussion or done something that I really want to point out to the whole community. My students need to know that each child in the class will receive an award sometime during the year. Receiving the award should be a surprise to him/her, although I try to let parents know in advance so that they may plan to attend the Assembly if their schedules permit. It’s important for my students to know I notice when they work very hard. They ARE working hard – ofcourse we all have days when we work with a little less enthusiasm! – and have completed some really good work during the week. It is crucial for me to provide the motivation for all my students to WANT to learn, to work hard and have the desire to be excellent and extraordinary students even if they are NOT going to get an award on that week!
We have had more than one discussion about what it feels like when a classmate acts in a negative way: sometimes a person doesn't have to say anything to make another person feel anxious or worried. Will she hurt me or won't she hurt me? Sometimes a student makes a mean face or gesture in response to another's words. Sometimes body language alone can make another child feel worried that he or she is going to be get hurt. Students generally will tell me when they are worried or anxious or just feeling bad about an interaction on the playground or the cafeteria. Sometimes we can have general, whole-class conversations about these incidents, and but occasionally it is necessary to sit down with the children involved and talk through what each child’s perceptions of the situation are. It’s important for each child to feel safe as well as having their voices heard.
More often students get upset with a friend for angry words and then reverse course, forgiving and forgetting what the accuser did within minutes! There are also times when the students need to know when a gesture or words they saw or heard were not meant to be hurtful. Sometimes we have misunderstandings or a miscommunication. Frequently we have accidents and a child needs to accept responsibility. These are big words and huge ideas for six year olds to digest. We role play, and talk about how to respond when someone hurts our feelings or does things to us that we don’t like. We have to practice saying words that are hard to say: “Please stop!” “I don’t like this game. I’ll play something else.” We learn to advocate for ourselves. We talk about how sometimes we don’t mean to hurt someone. Accidents happen; however, if, through his actions or words, a child accidentally hurts someone, he needs to accept responsibility for what he did and apologize.
We have to talk about rules of the game, know and understand that everyone – EVERYONE -- must be included in our games and that no one may be left out if he or she wants to play. For some first graders, thinking about, considering and talking about how someone else feels is the hardest thing they’ve ever had to do.
First Grade, like so much of life, can get very complicated. The students in 1D are a sensitive, thoughtful and responsible group of children. They have great empathy for each other and are quickly developing into a community of learners. We are working on developing rules that will guide us in our classroom behaviors for the rest of the year. So far, we have come up with the following Rules for our Morning Meeting:
* Show Respect;
* Listen quietly without calling out to the speaker;
* Raise your hand to speak;
* Pay attention to the speaker.
Setting the “ground rules” is just one of many ways we develop community as we get the school year underway. As the year unfolds, we’ll look more closely at some of the ways we work together to build our understanding of how each person contributes and strengthens our classroom community.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The Best Laid Plans of Aardvarks and Mice...
I've already said that everyday after lunch, we read aloud. This year I've been trying a new way to organize my read-aloud choices. I decided that every month we would choose books with a different animal focus. One colleague suggested that I begin the year using the Arthur books (author Marc Krensky) because the original Arthur was 25 years old (at least) and Arthur's Nose, the first of the series, had been re-issued in a birthday edition and there was a lot of hype this year around its re-issue. I could find several lessons to talk about how the author/illustrator had changed his vision of his character; we could research aardvarks, which start with the letter "a" -- a good way to begin the school year. I thought this was a really good idea, but -- alas, when I went to the library, the book had already been checked out, it would take time to order a new one, and I needed a book to read - stat! So I defaulted to another beginning of the year book, Kevin Henkes' Lily's Purple Plastic Purse. I love this book for several reasons: its main character, Lily, a lovely little girl mouse, adores her teacher -- she wants to be a teacher, she practices her teaching skills on her baby brother Julius, until one day, the teacher lays the law down, telling an impatient Lily she will have to wait to show off her new purple plastic purse to her classmates at a classroom sharing session. Lily, an impetuous, passionate and willful young lady, rebels by drawing a caricature of her teacher with accompanying negative labels which he discovers. Being a thoughtful and sensitive model for all educators, the teacher handles Lily's bad behavior in a productive way, gives her a chance to do the right thing and resumes his position as one of her favorite people in the world.
There are many Kevin Henkes' books where the main characters are rendered as mice: Chrysanthemum, Julius, Baby of the World, Wemberly Worried, and Owen to name a few. There are probably more, but these are a few that we read as part of read aloud this September. I really like Henkes' main characters -- they're original, spirited, and act a lot like six year olds. They get mad, have tantrums, regret their bad behavior, and usually learn a behavioral lesson and apologize in the course of the book. Henkes might have chosen a different animal to become his characters, but he chose mice. So, you guessed it, rather than using aardvarks to launch our read alouds, we began the year with a study of mice. In addition to reading the above Henkes' mice picture books, we read a lot of Leo Lionni: Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse, Matthew's Dream, Let's Play, Frederick, and The Greentail Mouse.
We also read two versions of the city mouse and the country mouse. One of my favorite moments in the month was, while reading Jan Brett's beautifully illustrated Town Mouse, Country Mouse, we came to the part where the male country mouse falls from a kitchen precipice into the paws of the slumbering house cat. At least one of my students had to turn away from the book, and shrieked, "I can't look!!!" This moment underscored for me the incredible power of reading to children at this age -- this little boy visualized a terrifying fate for the tiny husband and wife mice characters and he just couldn't face the prospect of what would happen if he looked at the book. He was very relieved and calmed down when he heard that, in this version, the two mice escape to return to their comfortable (at least to them) tree home in the country.
We made a list of facts we knew about mice, and lest you think first graders don't know anything about mice -- here's what we knew: mice have four legs, two eyes, two ears, a nose with nostrils, whiskers, gray, black or brown fur, and a long tail. Mice have tiny teeth, and they can bite you. Mice are not pets. Mice like to eat cheese, and run around the house. Mice live in holes, outside or in the house. Mice poop everywhere. Mice run fast.
In the course of the month I read snippets from books about mice and we uncovered more interesting facts: mice have 4-9 babies in a litter and an average of 17 litters in a year (!!!); baby mice are called kittens (we thought that was really interesting). A mouse's only real defense (according to one source) is its ability to run fast in a zigzag motion to escape a predator. We learned lots of animals like to eat mice -- almost all big birds, bats, owls, eagles, cats, tigers, and other big cats. Mice have amazingly sensitive hearing and can smell very well, but, on the other hand, mice can barely see. One non-fiction source said that some researchers think mice can only see one-two inches in front of them, which might account for why these little critters can wander into the clutches of my two orange tabbies and not blink an eye.
And so this September our 1st graders became mouse experts. Last week after three weeks of reading books with mouse characters and talking about mice anatomy and behavior, we went to the computer lab and drew pictures of mice, then opened a text box and wrote mouse facts on our drawings. It brought a very satisfying end to our discussions and when the students heard our drawings were going to be posted in the library with some of the books we had read -- well, we went wild! It was a very exciting culmination to the month.
Who needs aardvarks? Next month ... alligators!
There are many Kevin Henkes' books where the main characters are rendered as mice: Chrysanthemum, Julius, Baby of the World, Wemberly Worried, and Owen to name a few. There are probably more, but these are a few that we read as part of read aloud this September. I really like Henkes' main characters -- they're original, spirited, and act a lot like six year olds. They get mad, have tantrums, regret their bad behavior, and usually learn a behavioral lesson and apologize in the course of the book. Henkes might have chosen a different animal to become his characters, but he chose mice. So, you guessed it, rather than using aardvarks to launch our read alouds, we began the year with a study of mice. In addition to reading the above Henkes' mice picture books, we read a lot of Leo Lionni: Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse, Matthew's Dream, Let's Play, Frederick, and The Greentail Mouse.
We also read two versions of the city mouse and the country mouse. One of my favorite moments in the month was, while reading Jan Brett's beautifully illustrated Town Mouse, Country Mouse, we came to the part where the male country mouse falls from a kitchen precipice into the paws of the slumbering house cat. At least one of my students had to turn away from the book, and shrieked, "I can't look!!!" This moment underscored for me the incredible power of reading to children at this age -- this little boy visualized a terrifying fate for the tiny husband and wife mice characters and he just couldn't face the prospect of what would happen if he looked at the book. He was very relieved and calmed down when he heard that, in this version, the two mice escape to return to their comfortable (at least to them) tree home in the country.
We made a list of facts we knew about mice, and lest you think first graders don't know anything about mice -- here's what we knew: mice have four legs, two eyes, two ears, a nose with nostrils, whiskers, gray, black or brown fur, and a long tail. Mice have tiny teeth, and they can bite you. Mice are not pets. Mice like to eat cheese, and run around the house. Mice live in holes, outside or in the house. Mice poop everywhere. Mice run fast.
In the course of the month I read snippets from books about mice and we uncovered more interesting facts: mice have 4-9 babies in a litter and an average of 17 litters in a year (!!!); baby mice are called kittens (we thought that was really interesting). A mouse's only real defense (according to one source) is its ability to run fast in a zigzag motion to escape a predator. We learned lots of animals like to eat mice -- almost all big birds, bats, owls, eagles, cats, tigers, and other big cats. Mice have amazingly sensitive hearing and can smell very well, but, on the other hand, mice can barely see. One non-fiction source said that some researchers think mice can only see one-two inches in front of them, which might account for why these little critters can wander into the clutches of my two orange tabbies and not blink an eye.
And so this September our 1st graders became mouse experts. Last week after three weeks of reading books with mouse characters and talking about mice anatomy and behavior, we went to the computer lab and drew pictures of mice, then opened a text box and wrote mouse facts on our drawings. It brought a very satisfying end to our discussions and when the students heard our drawings were going to be posted in the library with some of the books we had read -- well, we went wild! It was a very exciting culmination to the month.
Who needs aardvarks? Next month ... alligators!
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