This afternoon the Mighty Minnows and I spent a lot of time considering our five senses, and there was a fantastic unexpected development when we closed our eyes and used our noses to smell the aromatic Mr. Sketch marker I grabbed. It happened to be light green, which smells like mint. Bertrand thought it was toothpaste, Karina thought it smelled like bubblegum, and Janie surprised me by naming it peppermint right away (or maybe not, since her family is Thai).
As we discussed minty things, I realized that I could walk them right out into our lovelier-all-the-time school courtyard where parent volunteers have planted a Sensory Garden full of herbs. We danced to High Five's "Five Senses" song and then we lined up and went--the real deal, only two minutes away! (Go Outdoor Education Committee.)
Cora had suggested basil when I asked if anyone knew what plant those minty smells and flavors came from, so first we all sniffed a leaf of basil. I was happy to find a great clump of flowering mint, so that everyone (all 16--am I lucky, or what?) could have a sprig to crush and sniff and nibble and take home. On the way back to the classroom we became the Minty Minnows instead of the Mighty Minnows. : )
Later, after the bus riders departed, the rest of us were singing requests--classics like "Twinkle Twinkle" and of course "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Tonya had already taught us the sign language version of The Itsy Bitsy Spider, so I wasn't too surprised when Suzee made this announcement:
"I can sing the Alphabet Song in silent language."
*******************
Listen with Your Eyes
Secret clutched in a closed fist:
If you wait one pinky moment
Letting sounds slide towards your thumb,
Eventually they perch like birds on a fence,
Nesting two together on a quiet egg
Till the egg cracks and a beak of song breaks through
Back before Thanksgiving, when I asked the children to list what they were thankful for, I went for variety by specifying some categories: a person, a food, something in nature, something at school, something you like to play, a part of your body. Talia suprised me by writing
"my intinestinse" (which, unlike the average 5-year-old, she felt confident to spell independently).
Clearly intestines remain of great interest to her. Having read
Frederick all last week, we are looking forward to a visit from real pet mice and listing what we know and what we wonder about mice. On our KNOW chart, Talia's statement reads, "Mice have intestines." On our WONDER chart, her question reads, "Do mice have intestines?" She has a sense, very vague, of what intestines are for. But I think she could use some further information.
I'm working on a mouse intestines poem for Talia--do you have one too?
On Tuesday it was nice and bright, not too windy--the perfect day for 1st grade geographers to go out on the playground, well away from the portable classrooms, in search of natural features and human-made features. After they completed their labelled sketches, I allowed them to play for a while, and encouraged them to play among the natural features--trees, stumps, raspberry canes, bushes, vines, tall dead grass--at the edge of the woodchipped playground and sports field, which was dotted with large muddy puddles. It took them some minutes to realize that there was fun to be had away from the "mungke bars," but soon they figured out quite a few things to do. One of my more reticent English learners provided the rhythmic backdrop to the children's efforts.
wood work
hup! hup! hup! hup!
one twig two twigs
three twigs four
throw them down and pick up sticks
hup! hup! hup! hup!
big stick bigger stick
bigger stick branch
help me carry this big long branch
hup! hup! hup! hup!
I got it I got it
we got it we’re strong
hup two three four carry this log
chuck ‘em down stack ‘em up
sticks and twigs
chuck ‘em down stack ‘em up
branches logs
hup! hup! hup! hup!
build a bridge across this bog
build a bonfire pile of wood
we did this work we did it good
hup! hup! hup! hup!
~Heidi Mordhorst 2011
all rights reserved
Later I discovered that a) despite the calculated distance, this important work disturbed all the 3rd and 4th graders in the portables who were taking their high-stakes state assessments and b) practically everything I let them do is not allowed at recess. I took some great photos of the kids working cooperatively to carry 15-foot limbs and lay them across the boggy spot on the field , but it's also not allowed for me to post them here...so here's a stock photo instead, which does not nearly capture the joy of this half-hour.
From Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods:
"Countless communities have virtually outlawed unstructured outdoor nature play, often because of the threat of lawsuits, but also because of a growing obsession with order."
From Playing for Keeps by Deborah Meier, Brenda S. Engel, Beth Taylor:
"Leaving no time or space in education for children’s [creative] “playful” efforts to make sense of the world risks the future not only of poetry and science but also of our political liberties. The habits of playfulness in early life are the essential foundations upon which we can build a K–12 education that would foster, nourish, and sustain the apparent “absurdity” of democracy."
I wish you a playful day, and I'll see you over at Liz in Ink for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
The poetry version of last week's first-grade effort to grasp character traits...
On the outside, you can see my physical traits:
"I have tanish-pinkish sgin."
"I have krly eyelashs."
"my body is tall"
"my hair is shtrayt"
My words and actions show my character traits on the inside:
"I am a little shiy."
"I am prsistent."
"I take care of my frands"
"I have lost of ideas"
"I am ewnec. there is only one me in the wrld."
And an open letter to colleagues:
As we survey our reading asessment results and think about how best to meet the needs of children in our classes, I want to raise a few points that I think sometimes get insufficient attention in our “data-driven instructional model."
The students we work with are 5, 6 and 7 years old. They are all, to a greater or lesser degree, egocentric, and they live in the here and now of their daily experience. They come to us as children first, and no matter what their academic ability they share the fundamental needs we all have: the need for security and comfort, the need to be known (and yes, loved). That’s partly why we have chosen this job, because we’re good at making little children feel at home in our classrooms--their home away from home.
Our students come to us second as individual learners. Each one has his or her strengths and weaknesses, and part of being a good learner is growing into a sense of where you have the power to help others along and where you might need to ask for help. We create heterogeneous classes because that’s what the world is like, and part of a good education is learning to be an effective participant in a diverse community. (In fact, I believe that’s the whole point of public education in a democracy, which is why, even as a reading teacher, I tend to start my planning with the social studies curriculum in mind).
Third on the list, our students come to us as readers--and now they all have a nice fresh label attached. In my first grade class, for example, I have two boys who are alike in many ways—mischievous, not as intrinsically motivated to “do school” as we might wish, and within 6 months of each other in age (which is quite a lot, really, when you’re only 72 months old). They have both moved from Level 5 to Level 8 since the beginning of the year, but I will not be putting them in the same guided reading group, because they are very different learners.
One is wired to decode pretty well, but he has a hard time focusing on the ideas behind the words, and in general his problem-solving skills are not strong. He needs a lot of support in reading for meaning, and a slower pace will also be a benefit as he struggles with some unfortunate family circumstances. I’ll put him with the Level 5/6/7’s because there he can have a chance to shine a little and the comprehension demands will be manageable.
The other boy is much more attentive to life generally, more observant, has shown himself ready and willing to rise to a challenge as long as it wasn’t actual reading. However, he’s been very conscious of his struggles in comparison with classmates, and now that he’s making some noticeable progress, this is the moment to put him with a snappier group of thinkers, to capitalize on his competitive tendency and to maximize his growing investment in becoming a reader. I’ll be putting him with the 10/11/12’s--for now.
And then there are the books. We know that all Level 8 books are not equal, and just because both boys read the Level 8 fiction selection successfully doesn’t
"CONCLUSION [OF THE MARYLAND STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION]:
...because we find that the local board has failed to provide any rationale for its decision, we reverse and remand [the appeal case of
Global Garden Public Charter School ] so that the local board may reconsider its decision in light of the rulings we have made in this case. We expect that such reconsideration shall occur within 90 days of the date of this decision."
Who Am I?
The trees ask me,
And the sky,
And the sea asks me
Who am I?
The grass asks me,
And the sand,
And the rocks ask me
Who I am.
The wind tells me
At nightfall,
And the rain tells me
Someone small.
Someone small
Someone small
But a piece
of
it
all.
~ Felice Holman
"Who are you?"
I've spent time sitting through the "Students at a Glance" meeting and talking with other teachers about the children who are coming my way this year, but the fact that there are brand-new ones coming in always reminds me that even those we think we know are brand-new. And yes, I want to know when their birthdays are, and their favorite colors and their pets' names, but even more I want to listen to who they tell me they are, off the "All About Me" sheet.
Here's a poem to remind all of us teachers that part of the essential beauty of our students is in what they
don't say.
The Hand
by Mary Ruefle
The teacher asks a question.
You know the answer, you suspect
you are the only one in the classroom
who knows the answer, because the person
in question is yourself, and on that
you are the greatest living authority,
but you don’t raise your hand.
You raise the top of your desk
and take out an apple.
You look out the window.
You don’t raise your hand and there is
some essential beauty in your fingers,
which aren’t even drumming, but lie
flat and peaceful.
The teacher repeats the question.
Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,
a robin is ruffling its feathers
and spring is in the air.
I would have liked that to say "fall is in the air," but it is as it is and it's a perfect way to wish all you teachers a Happy First Day of School!
Poetry Friday is at Book Aunt today with Kate Coombs and a marvelous selection of poetry for and by teens.
Those of us who thrive in the classroom environment have now been out of school long enough to be thinking of "next year." (Actually we were probably scheming about how do everything Better, Stronger, Slower before school was over, or that might just be me.)
So I woke up this morning (too early; bad cat!) thinking about the sense (or not) in a class mission statement, which led to a picture of me and my new reading class of 2nd graders making our silent and stealthy way ("Your mission, should you choose to accept it...") through the halls of our new school building, occupying and exploring our new room, and in the background was playing the theme from Mission Impossible (click to get the effect), which only works if you participated in Pallotta TeamWorks AIDS rides of the 90's, the motto for which was (and here finally is today's poem, a brilliant one-word piece of punctuation genius)--
I'mpossible.
I think my second-graders just became the I-Team. Poetry Friday is at Irene's Live. Love. Explore! blog today.
a beak of song
That's it exactly. Very nice.
What a great post! Say hi to the Minty Minnows from The Write Sisters!
-- Jet
I didn't know you taught the little ones, Heidi. It sounds like a marvelous day, capped by the poem. I like that 'silent language'.
Sounds like the Sensory Garden is doing well -- "Mint for everyone!" I have few herbs, but my parents have a serious herb garden. I "quizzed" my kids on the herbs in my parents' garden once...two of them knew quite a bit, and one of them had no idea, except possibly for mint. Sweet poem!
What an amazing post to follow Tabatha's!
LOVE the minty minnows!!
Oh, how I wish I had an Outdoor Education Committee...or even teachers who would bother to take their children to our Land Lab (maintained by this Committee of One) to taste the lemon mint and feel the soft of the lamb's ear or the pricks of the yucca...
Oh, can I come to your class? How wonderful this is.
Once again, I want to be a Mighty Minnow. Or a Minty one. You all have all the fun!
Hi, Heidi. I'm amazed at what you did with this little acrostic riddle. The last line -- wow, I hope your Mighty Minnows continue to sing throughout the year. Thinking of you, my friend!