Human Agency - Day 5

Let's talk about Human Agency. Human agency is the ability for a human to make choices and then act on them in the world around them. They can choose their plan and make it come to life. Sounds good right? All human's thrive on choice. Kids especially. So, how can we use human agency in Kindergarten?

Have you done choice time? Or choice boards? Have you given your child a choice between foods, clothes, or toys? This is human agency. While kids thrive on routine, they also need choice.

When we think of human agency in the Kindergarten classroom, we are using their interests, respecting their ideas, and showing them that we care about them all at the same time. We can use human agency in school ALL DAY LONG.

Yes, we will need to have assessments, yes we will need to do things we don't want to do. But, if we give kids the power to choose how they are going to participate in school, we are giving them a gift.

Because we are living a crazy life right now, we can use agency to help students take control over their own learning. They can believe they are in charge and that you are there as a facilitator. As I have always said, and I was very glad to hear Kristi Mraz agree, you can put academics into just about anything.

If we give children a choice on what to play, we can work through that to 1) get to know the child, 2) utilize their strengths, and 3) teach them how to be thinkers and doers. I had a boy in my class in 2017 that was 100% hands-on. He was painfully shy and easily overwhelmed. But, when you gave him blocks he came alive. He would build and tell stories. I gave him a paper counting test and he ended up in tears. I gave him a bunch of plastic bears and he did amazing. This is the point where we can take what he CAN do and teach him that he can do more. We can show him how to do things on paper, and when he is ready he will choose to do it.

Ok, ok, I know some of you are like, "You can't just do what you want!" I agree, trust me. There are a lot of times where you just have to fall in line. But, what if in Kindergarten, we taught them to believe that their ideas matter? That they can speak up with their thoughts and feelings? What if we instilled in them the ability to choose the right thing?

How? Well, it starts in play. Children will play with what they are interested in. The dollhouse is thought of as a "girl" toy. Yet, boys will play with it. The cars are considered a "boy" toy. But, I had a very elaborate car collection when I was a child. Why not just watch and see what they choose? You will be surprised at what happens, and then you can choose what to do with it.

We all hear about Inquiry. It is defined as "the act of asking for information". Once you see what they are interested in, you can start to teach around it. Kinders love life! They are curious about everything! And each day is different. Pumpkins, friends, buildings, bugs, marbles, water, it is all there. What we need to flip is us telling them what they are going to learn and begin using what they like to start a conversation.

My launch of K will contain very small groups, which I explained yesterday. I will look at interests and group accordingly. This will build community, love of school, and enhance their curious nature. Take a look at this infographic. These are all of the things we want our students to do. We have to give them the OPPORTUNITIES to learn how.

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How are we going to even do this?? - Day 4

Today was my second day at the Ready, Set, Play Conference here in the Portland area. Yesterday we talked so much about equity, diversity, processes, anti-bias education (ABE) and it was a serious eye opener as well as very overwhelming. BUT, today was more about HOW we can do this. Yes, I said CAN.

Ok, so my district is going through an entire immersive play program. Students will do EVERYTHING in play. (Which is why I am writing this blog!) Reading, writing, math, phonics, science, social studies, everything will be done through play. So exciting right?!

Well, the hardest part of all of us is the burning question, "How do we even do this?". I could write a 20 paper essay on what I learned today, but I think I will piece it out to you because no one wants to read that much stuff.

What is the best way to begin? Let's think about this chart:

Credit: Beaverton School District

We think of this model for how we structure our class, going from whole to small. This year we need to FLIP it. We need to go from small to big. You do not need to meet with your entire class at once on the first day of school. In fact, you shouldn't. We need to start small and work up. I mean, come on, these are Kindergarteners. And, as my good friend Michelle Hubkey told me, having 27 Kinders on a Zoom at once on the first day was ... overwhelming at best.  

Here is my plan: 

The week before school I will be meeting with each family via Zoom individually. I will use a form provided by our Multilingual Department to learn about them and see where they are, what they need, and how they feel. I am lucky to get an extra week before school begins to do this. I realize that not every school district provides this option, but I do encourage family meetings if you can. 

First week of school - I will invite small groups of children to meet with me. There will be 2 to 3 at a time. Each session will be maybe 10 minutes long depending on their attention stamina. I will ask them to show me a favorite toy or something special that they love. This will give us a place to launch. 

Second week of school - I will form groups that are a little larger (5 maybe?) with kids who hold similar interests, have similar social identities, or whose schedules work together (hey, you gotta do what you gotta do!). We will begin play at this time - an invitation of something I know they are interested in. Maybe they all like Legos, we can play Legos. Maybe they all love stuffies, we can play that, etc. My goal is to build a relationship between them and me, and them and each other. 

The next two or three weeks - I will start to combine the groups based on interests, identities, or schedules. These will be groups I think will get along with each other and will learn from each other. I will be working in small academic lessons based on what we are playing. Can we all make the letter "s" using our jewels and then count how many it took to make it? 

By the end of the first month my goal is to move into larger groups for more structured lessons, but still use playful inquiry within that lesson. I will know a lot more about my students now. I will know a lot more about my families. 

I may never get to a whole class meeting. That's ok. What I want is to be able to reach my students. I need to change the way it has always been done because our worlds are flipped as well. 

My students will still be working on Seesaw on asynchronous activities. They will be reading books, tracing their name, playing games. Today I learned HOW I can begin to work with each little brain so that they are connected. 

Mind Explosion - Day 3

Today I went to a conference called Ready, Set, Play. It was put on by the Beaverton School District and had a wonderful keynote speaker by the name of Soobin Oh of the Children's Institute. I also had two classes with Kristi Mraz, the author of Kids 1st From Day One and Purposeful Play. I am a bit of a fangirl about Kristi, I have to say.

What did we work on? We worked on play, of course! But, mostly we worked on creating a way of teaching through play that is culturally responsive. While I have so many thoughts swirling inside my head right now, I am trying to hone in on the major take-aways from today.

Kristi Mraz talks about Stuart Brown's Play Personalities. Thinking along these lines we are going to create virtual play. Students will get materials to bring home (loose parts) and we will create small group play via Zoom. Sound hard? You bet it is! Hence the mind explosion. More on the logistics of this later, but the overall idea is that we will get small groups together and we will encourage them to play while on a Zoom meet. Our goal is to build language, collaboration, and social skills.

Another take away was from Soobin, who spoke about Persona Dolls. I had not heard of these before and I have to say, I am very excited about them. These are dolls that are special and only visit your classroom for a little while. All dolls have a rich back story and should help the class deal with a problem, whatever it might be at the time. Ideas include diversity, exclusion, empathy, etc. I am very excited to use these this year. Formal persona dolls are almost life size. Because I do not have the money to buy them or the skills to make them I will be using smaller dolls of different ethnicities to tell stories. 

We spoke a lot about singing, physical motions, and building community within the Meets. We want to create a space that children want to come back to. We want to create a space families want to come back to. 

I am attending Day 2 of the conference tomorrow. 

Here is a little FREEBIE! Class songs to sing while you are on your Class Meets. These songs use your students' name so that you can make a personal connection each time you meet.

Grab it Here!

Playful Inquiry - Day 2

"The reality is that they [children of color] struggle not because of their race, language, or poverty. They struggle because we [schools] don't offer them sufficient opportunities in the classroom to develop the cognitive skills and habits of mind that would prepare them to take on more advanced academic tasks." -Zaretta Hammond, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

Working through the Field Guide of Playful Inquiry in the Early Years from Teaching Preschool Partners is going to be my primary road for this topic. And what do they begin with? Human Agency. What is Human Agency? To know that one can initiate actions, carry out plans and create meaning both independently and interdependently with others. 

Schools are historically designed to have students listen to teachers and do what teachers say. This leaves little room to think for oneself and a lot of room for bias and outdated policies. And then we wonder why students don't want to learn for themselves! We haven't allowed them too. Especially when it comes to students of color.

Think about a time you were really interested in a topic you learned in school. Most likely it was a topic you were already interested in and wanted to learn more about. I loved my states unit in 3rd grade because I was able to make a 3D (topographical) model of Minnesota, and I loved art. To this day I love the The Hobbit, but hated reading it in the 8th grade. Why? Because it wasn't my choice. The point is, kids will learn more and deeper if they are tied to the topic somehow.

How do we create an environment of learning where students can develop and use Human Agency? 
In the early years we need to work on 4 things:
1. Intention - Showing commitment to a plan
2. Forethought - Making connections between what they are doing now and what they can do in the future.
3. Self-regulation - Showing engagement to carry out the plan
4. Reflectiveness - Thinking about your experiences and making connections and meaning.

These are best practices in teaching, but it is so much more than that for the child. My letting them work through their topic in a way that is of high-interest to them, we are helping them build and use human agency.

Playful Inquiry for me will be to help students build these qualities while they learn to read, write, and do math. There will be a thread of identity, diversity, justice, and activism  running throughout. These are goals set up by an Anti-Biased Education by the NAEYC (National Association for Education of Young Children). This will be my foundation.

Embarking on Playful Inquiry - Day 1

I am embarking on a whole new path. The path of Playful Inquiry has been a long time coming. I have been doing parts of it for years. I have experienced WHY we need to have children learn through play. I guess I just needed the theory, the background, someone to show me the way.

What is Playful Inquiry? According to Teaching Preschool Partners and founders of Opal School at the Portland Children's Museum, Playful Inquiry "describes the human capacity to seek and make meaning of experiences through a playful stance toward learning - a stance that welcomes curiosity, imagination, and the enchanting experiences found in play."

It allows children to incorporate all senses as they learn, creates healthy habits of mind, and invites children to become thinkers, planners, doers, and reflectors. It authentically creates the skills needed to be in school (and in life) before or as they get there (physically and mentally).

Playful Inquiry is the step we lost along the way. It is the step that makes school fun, learning fun, being social fun. When we skipped this step we saw a rise in severe negative behaviors in preschool and Kindergarten. We saw more reading problems. We saw more anxiety and stress. Why did we skip this step? One word: Assessments. We needed Kindergarteners to perform. We thought that starting them earlier would make learning accelerate. What did accelerate? Everything we didn't want. Something had to be done.

So, here I am. I am following in the footsteps of Opal School, Kristi Mraz, and even Mr. Rogers. How, why, why now? Well, I hope to work through these questions. I hope to use my time during Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL) as a soft landing, and find my way to giving students back what they lost.

2020-2021 Behavior Calendars

I have been using Behavior Calendars in my classroom for many years now. This resource allows me to communicate to students and to families student daily behavior.

I do not use a clip chart or color chart for behavior that hangs up in the room. I feel that these types of charts only shame the child because everyone else in the class can see their behavior on display. Instead, I use these calendars, which are kept in their daily homework folders, so that I can communicate to student and parent about how the day went. I look at the overall behavior at the end of the day and record it in the behavior calendar. If a student received an uh-oh or sad face they will also receive a conference with me and a note home to their family explaining the behavior. The beauty of this is that students can always turn their day around and make the right choices. They can earn back a mistake, which is what we, as teachers, want anyway!

Engaging Families in Literacy for PreK-2

I have been racking my brain on how to get families involved this year in their child's literacy. We are already asking so much of them with Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL) that I feel like helping their child is going to feel like a chore! How can we help parents understand what literacy is made of and how to help their child in a fun away that is not all online. I created a little packet with some ways to help parents during this strange school year (aren't you tired of hearing "unprecedented times"?). Take a look and see if you can use any of it. For me, I am going to send home my Literacy Handbook in my Kindergarten toolkit (MORE TO COME ON THAT!) and do reading challenges throughout the year.