Big Rocks

As our school book study of "Creating a Culture of Thinking" by Ron Ritchhart came to a close in June, I was reflecting on my big "take-aways."  And what I decided was that I need to...

• add more collaborative learning into my small group instruction
• pay attention to the my language and ensure that it promotes thinking
• my time needs to reflect what I value
• analyze thinking routines to determine what I can utilize consistently in small groups
• use language that provides feedback rather than just praise

Time seems to be a big focus for me these past few years because it is a tricky thing.  Balance is challenging.

One story that Ron Ritchhart shared was about a professor that used big rocks, pebbles, and sand to demonstrate the usage of time and values. (Click here for a short video explaining this.  Or click here for a short story about it.) Now, I have heard this story before.  But sometimes when we hear things at different points in our lives, we have different reactions.  This story really struck me at this point in my life.

And so I thought about it.
And thought about it.

Finally, I came with my "big rocks" or the things that I value the most and want to spend the majority of my time on.  I tried to word things in a way that would reflect my personal and professional life.

Rock 1: Varied Experiences
One thing I focus on with my own children and in my life is trying out new things, going to new places, or traveling (even if it is just to a different road I have not been on in my town).  These experiences can happen within the walls of our home or outside them.  But I want the same for my students.  It just looks a little different.  These experiences come through books, experiments, or games.  But for both my personal and professional life, I want to experience what is around me.

Rock 2: Love for Learning
This encompasses my hopes for my two girls, all my students I have taught and will teach, and myself. I want this to drive my instruction.

Rock 3: Professional Development
This may seem like an unusual rock.  But when I blog, read blogs, attend workshops, and read...I am growing.  And I want to keep growing throughout my career and life. The growth that I make in the professional sense, impacts me personally and vice versa.  So this rock is important to me.

Rock 4: Mental Healthiness
Mental health can encompass a lot. I want to help others (including myself) to believe in themselves and to be kind.  This is going to help their inward and outward health.

I want to be sure that I focus on these values as I schedule my time. Below is a link to a graphic that I will be using to help me display these "rocks."

Big Rock Graphic by Emily Marko

What are your big rocks?

 

Connecting Time to Values

Last summer my building did a book study today with Reading Reflex by McGuinness.  It was a lot of fun to get together each week throughout the month of June and talk about school but also work to build a better understanding for what we each do in our classrooms.  It turned out that we utilized a lot of the information that we gathered from the book study during our school year.  I saw little pieces of the book throughout the different classrooms that I work in.

This year we decided to hold another book study as a building.  We decided on "Creating Cultures of Thinking" by Ron Ritchhart.

 I know that several bloggers read this book last year and posted about it.  And I did start to read it last year but felt the impact of the book would be stronger if it was read as a school group.  It is one thing for me to tell my teammates what I read, it is another thing for them to read it themselves, but it is awfully powerful for us to read it together and discuss its impact.

One of the chapters that I needed to read this week is titled "Time."  Yes, Mr. Ritchhart, please help me with this!!  There was a paragraph within this chapter that I keep coming back to in my head again and again.  I wanted to share it with you..
He starts off the paragraph by listing some of the pressures that we have as teachers such as tests, curriculum, number of students, etc.  Then he says,

"These pressures are real.  Furthermore, it is certainly reasonable that an individual might not be happy with the way he or she is allocating time.  The key takeaway here is that our choices, even if we aren't happy with them, are sending messages to our students about what is deemed important and worthwhile in the classroom.  That allocation, even if it isn't what we want, is nonetheless shaping the culture of the classroom." (p.98)

Later in the chapter he asks two questions that connect really well to this paragraph and they say a lot about our values and priorities: "How am I spending my energy now?  How should I be spending my energy so that it is consistent with my deepest held values?" (p.108)

This speaks volumes to me not only in my teaching but in my home life.  What messages am I sending to my students, my two girls, my husband, my friends, my family.  I know there are moments when I allocate time for something that I do not value.  It is time for me to take a look at this and make some changes.

Count Down to Leap Day

Yep.  It is a Leap Year.  That is kind of a big concept for our little ones because the concept of time is tricky.
They are very immediate creatures.  Thinking four years ago or four years in the future is hard when you are five, or six, or seven.  But we have some tricks up our sleeves this year to help our PreK-2 building understand the concept of Leap Year. 

 This count down is hanging in the hallway.  Each bag contains some object that represents or explains an aspect of time. 

Eeeeek!!  I am so excited.  Keep checking back to see the contents of these bags!

Challenges with Time

Most of year thus far in math class has been spent on number sense.  Tens frames, dot cards, strategies, and anchor charts have been our lives! Now that the foundation has been laid, it is time to move on (for a little bit, at least).

Time is our next stop in mathland.

These are the two standards that we need to meet.  The first one is Social Studies and the second is Math.

* Time can be divided into categories (e.g., months of the year, past, present and future).

* Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks.
  Our reading and writing classes are working hard on analyzing stories and artifacts from the past.  (You can check out more about that over at Adventures in Literacy Land, if you would like.)  But we really feel that our students do not have a good understanding of a day, week, month, and year.  This is so abstract for our little learners.  They are all about the here and now.

To kick off this study, we used an old receipt paper roll.

We wanted them to visually SEE the difference between a day, week, and month.  This allowed us to discuss the number of days in a week versus a month.  And then came the year...

It wraps around half the room, which is just amazing to them!  They can't get over how long a year is when compared to a week, month, and day.

To introduce the clock, we explained that 24 hours make up one day.  Then came the cutting!

Allowing them to see that our day is cut into 24 pieces that we call hours, was a great introduction to the clock.

This lesson is not the end of our discussion on categorizing time.  We will continue to explore the different things that we measure in years, months, weeks, or days.

Any suggestions??  This is difficult for some students and if you have any tricks we would love to hear them.