TOGETHER AGAIN

The joy of teaching is that each new year brings a sense of renewal. A fresh start.

We watch students rejuvenate old friendships and help a newly formed group bridge connections. Our first two days of school emphasized our interdependence and responsibility for ourselves and each other.

The group spent blocks of time interacting and cooperating.

Everyone also had chances to work quietly with a partner and alone. It was a smooth start.

And with this group, you know we had many opportunities to smile...

...and laugh out loud.

Welcome back, 2/3s!

Learning and Working Together

Time- and learning-intensive studies are a hallmark of a Parker education. These studies engage each of our learners in both independent and group work. Individual students are responsible for sharing their learning with a larger community -- other students, teachers, family and friends.












Culminating learning experiences pull the group together, as each of our learners is drawn into a community venture. As the deadline for our Show of Work looms, students seek out others and see the value in collaborating.

These pictures say it all.

Thinking of You: A Note From the Height of Summer

Greetings!
I have been at school a lot recently, putting the classroom back together after it was emptied out for floor stripping and waxing. The floors are gleaming (thank you, Wanda!). Our classroom library is back out of boxes and reshelved. Creative supplies are being reorganized. I spackled and tackled a couple of painting projects. Student tables are now in their spots. Lynne and I have met with Susie, Kate and Liliana, sharing ideas and making plans for next year's big studies: The Hudson River (fall) and India (spring). Our spaces are now just waiting, empty and hushed. I grin when I picture the return of our joyous students!

I hope you have been enjoying lots of family time during our mild summer. Yes, we've all had to dodge the raindrops, but my perennials at home are smiling and I've been enjoying the intense green in our landscape.

HOW DOES OUR THREE SISTERS GARDEN GROW?

Our corn, beans and squash have chunked out in the last week or so. Thought you'd enjoy having a view:

LOOKING BACK ON OUR END OF YEAR:

Collected here are pictures from the year's end. During mid-summer, I'm still reflecting on the year just finished while also getting energized for the year ahead. Here are photos for looking back!

COOPERATIVE GAMES, ANYONE?!

Visualizing. Constructing and Testing. Looking Ahead

VISUALIZING
Recently, I heard a report on NPR that spoke of the heated brain activity that accompanies reading. The commentator shared results of a study that looked at brain scans of volunteers who read while inside an MRI. What researchers found is that reading creates a powerful virtual reality in our brain. As the study's readers followed a character's actions--say, something as mundane as drinking from a glass--the part of the brain that controlled such motor activity lit up.

We live in a high octane world where small computer, television, and film screens provide us all kinds of visual stimulation. These images are given to us; we don't create them. Wonderful books and their adventurous tales create pictures and inspire in ways that rival any machine-generated images.

We spend lots of time in the 2/3s talking about the images that are created in our minds as we read our reading circle books. Students make connections to their own life experiences and hunt for passages that create vivid pictures in their minds. These "visualizations" are often committed to paper, deepening our connection to story. Lynne and I strive to inspire our class of readers to be ACTIVE, thinking and engaged. Readers who visualize are found to have better comprehension and deeper connections to what they are reading. Visualizing is a highly sophisticated reading and thinking skill.

Visualizing helps burgeoning writers create adventures in their own original stories. There's nothing like a quick sketch and character profile to help a writer get a story started.

CONSTRUCTING and TESTING

How can I construct a sound boat that will hold a bunch of pennies?
In Science, the 2/3s spent several weeks studying water density and buoyancy. They used simple materials--aluminum foil, cardboard, rubber bands and popsicle sticks--to explore these concepts.

We even hunted for buoyant objects in the woods.

This was a day to send sticks lashed together with grasses, boards with and without mud and/or moss on top, collections of leaves and any other interesting "something" from the ground to float down the stream on our property.

There's nothing like mucking it up in the spring mud!

LOOKING AHEAD

We have lots of action going on as we kick off our study of the Mohicans and Dutch. We will begin construction of a wigwam in Lynne's room before the close of the week. In Science, we have started seeds for our Three Sisters garden. After that, we'll create a Dutch interior in my room. Susie will work with the class to create artifacts for both settlements. Cultural interactions through simulations will close out our work. Our active learners love to work in these ways!

Lynne's next blog will contain images and reports on these activities.

A PROCESS of Learning

HOW DO WE MOVE FROM THIS...

...TO THIS?

Deep, integrated project learning is a passion that Lynne and I share. We thought it would be valuable to explain the learning your child experienced in this big process. Here are our key steps:

• Developing a BASE OF COMMON KNOWLEDGE.
• Following a clear RESEARCH PROCESS.
• Using MODELING, FEEDBACK & COLLABORATION to inspire and support beautiful work.
• And finally, working towards a CELEBRATION of hard work.

SHARED KNOWLEDGE

• Parker’s 2nd/3rd grade class embarked on this year's first research project with great enthusiasm. As a class, the 2/3s learned essential information about dinosaurs and their times through: presentations by Kate Perry (our fantastic new science teacher); completion of several experiments about fossils; hands-on and in-class assignments that engaged students in imagining and sketching dinosaur habitat; measuring, marking and comparing the lengths of all the dinosaurs our class was researching; exchanging theories about the factors that led to the dinosaurs' extinction; and learning about the different time periods in which these creatures existed.

THE RESEARCH PROCESS

• Once our common knowledge base was established, each student began an independent research project on a dinosaur or other prehistoric creature of his/her choosing. Our students then collected essential information and recorded notes on the way to writing a report on this dinosaur. Carol, our school librarian, and Lynne assisted students in the library, working with very small groups to closely guide them in using electronic databases (Searchosaurus, EBSCO, etc.) to gather facts. Books and articles supplemented this research. Students used our research template to record all of their information.
• Research was enhanced by the careful construction of paper mache models in Susie's Art class. Creating sketches of their dinosaurs, and then moving into 3-D models gave our students a chance to think about scale and important physical characteristics, which fed back into their report writing. Our students became really connected to their dinos!

MODELING

• Their second task: moving from notes to written reports. Students investigated the elements of strong (and complete) sentences by gathering collections of nouns, verbs and adjectives. We moved into model report drafting sessions. The group collaborated with me in using a set of notes on a dinosaur to write up a "sloppy copy" of a report. That direct experience helped set our students on the path to their own independent report writing.
• In addition, as students planned how they would present their information to the community, we introduced our commitment to craftsmanship. Achieving careful, detailed work takes time and feedback from peers and teachers. Students also need examples of carefully crafted work to serve as guideposts. Otherwise, the notion of craftsmanship might remain an amorphous concept.
• We used concrete examples--samples of excellent work pulled from our archives--and presented them to the class. We asked them to look at this work with care, and we discussed what they noticed. Students admired how the visuals and text were arranged and balanced, appreciated careful and detailed sketches, noticed that our former students used fancy fonts and larger text sizes so that words stood out, and appreciated the little details each student used to make their work unique and beautiful.

FEEDBACK & COLLABORATION

• Students then drafted up plans for the form (books, posters, or other displays) and layout of their work. Plans were then presented to a team of fellow students for critique. In critique sessions, students pull together a small group of peers to look carefully at their work and offer constructive suggestions to improve it. We teachers act as scribes to record comments from peers and offer our own feedback. Once critiques get going, we find our students are enthused about presenting their work to others.
• Lynne and I marvel at the respectful exchanges that happen in these meetings, and see that peers can be the best inspiration to take work that extra mile. Revision can be tough for young learners. But with critique in place, we find our students inspire each other. Constructive feedback fuels a commitment to going back in on their work with new energy and clear ideas for improvement. Revised projects are shared a last time with a small team of peers and/or a teacher.
• Once our students get hooked into this process, nothing ever stops them from doing their best. We hope you noticed the value of following such a collaborative and deliberative work process. Each project presented you with evidence of extremely careful and attentive work by these 7, 8 and 9 year olds.

CELEBRATION

• After all this hard work, a celebration and show of work must top off the whole process. Our students aspire to be 2nd/3rd grade experts on their dinosaurs. Standing before their work allows them to mark their achievements and feel the pride in a job well done.

Thank you again for celebrating with us!

December Already?! Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

LIKE A BIG, BOISTEROUS FAMILY
I watched today as a big group of 2/3s ran around like mad, playing tag at our second recess. I noticed that this game had pulled together groups that do not typically spend recess together. This big bunch of friends--both old and new--were having a raucous time. Although there were some collisions and lots of wet clothes (the fields are so very mushy right now!), everyone laughed and hollered for 30 minutes!

We're having lots of discussions about how we care for each other--by listening carefully, waiting our turn to speak, and finding ways to work together. We are starting our Morning Meeting with at least one minute of silence and are finding that this boisterous group also knows how to be quiet and reflective. These moments of contemplation--or just silent breathing--refresh the mind and prepare us for the learning ahead.

READING CIRCLES
We're now in full swing with reading circles. Every group is reading their second or third book together. Our goal is to match up similar readers and help them choose great books that inspire discussion with others. Groupings often get mixed around as we go through the year and our readers become more independent (and ardent!) about the books they plan to read. Already, many groups are completely comfortable negotiating the number of chapters they'll read before the next meeting--I often join a group and discover that they've already set up their own assignments! The art of compromise is in full play as individual preferences are balanced against the group's ideas. Yes!

DIGGING INTO DINOSAURS
The 2/3s began their study of dinosaurs a few weeks ago. We plotted out a geologic time line that extends from the creation of Earth to the present day. Habitation of Earth by both dinosaurs and humans is clustered together on the time line, even though the dinos were here so many millions of years ago.

Yesterday, the 2/3s took a closer look at dinosaur teeth. They compared photos of the teeth of carnivores and herbivores, noticed differences in shape and structure. Eventually, the class was up to their elbows in a flour-based dough, creating replicas of dinosaur teeth. Everyone was sticky, our surfaces were cloaked in flour, our shoes had globs of dough stuck to them. Not only were close observations going on, but everyone was also having a hoot!

Every student has chosen a dino to research on his/her own. This research will support the creation of two projects: a paper mache model, completed in art class, based on careful sketches each student drafted from images we collected; and, a research paper written in the classroom.

Today, a group of our researchers went off to the library to begin collecting information on specific dinosaurs. We created a graphic organizer to both guide and help organize the research process. Everyone hunts for the same general facts (height, weight, diet, etc.), but will also have the time, opportunity and encouragement to gather as much fascinating information as possible. Carol, our librarian, is settling the group in with both reference books and online databases (Searchosaurus and online encyclopedias). In our classroom, we'll move from notes into sentences, paragraphs and a final report. Classmates will provide both support and feedback as we go through this process.

SPEAKING OF BIG, BOISTEROUS FAMILIES...
What a delight it was to watch our students work together with Special Friends right before our break. I was so happy to have this company join us in the room and to read the books of thanks that our students created with these special people.

Our First Week

JOINING TOGETHER
Lynne and I launched our first full week co-teaching this class of 22 lively students! Students began learning our routines, reconnected with each other and welcomed our new & returning students. With our daily morning meeting, we all have a chance to come together, greet each other, get aquainted, and preview our schedule for the day ahead.

A QUIET DAILY READ
Students learned and shared strategies to ATTACK unfamiliar words in their independent reads. Daily opportunities for sustained silent reading gave the children lots of time to try out these strategies and "fall into" their chosen books.

WILL IT FIZZ?

Our new science teacher, Kate, had the class utilize their PREDICTING skills with a cooperative, hands-on experience. Students donned goggles (always a thrill!) and were asked to predict whether a collection of substances -- salt, Tums, baking soda, chalk, & dry soap -- would fizz or not when 10 drops of vinegar were added to each. Teams shared ideas and responsibilities for this work, recording their predictions and findings.

A SUMMER QUILT

Each student was asked to create a sketch that represented a favorite summer memory. The plan is to put these individual pieces together in a whole-class paper "quilt" of these memories. On Friday, students began a draft layout of the quilt and learned how challenging it can be to organize a patchwork of images into a pleasing whole.

THE WEEK FLEW BY!

We're off to a smooth start in our 2/3 world. What could be better than laughing and learning together, developing new knowledge and skills, and enjoying the great outdoors in this lovely fall weather?!!