I love Share Circle.

Me: "And Steven, what is your goal for this week?"
Steven: "My goal is to be friends with the animals. It's my job in my kingdom in the fields."
Me: "That's a great goal. Thank you for sharing."

First Sick Day

All that subbing came in handy this morning when I went in to write my set of sub plans. Hope it goes okay...

Update: My substitute teacher appeared in all of his motorcycle garb. The kids looked from me to him with wide eyes. "I've never really taught kids this young," he said. "You'll have fun," I replied. "Bye kids!" His sub notes were three sentences long - One student talked a lot. Another student talked a lot (and was helpful). And the rest of the class was decently quiet.

I could've guessed.

It wasn't as hard as I would have thought releasing my 26 students in the hands of an unknown sub. Though it's almost as much work coming in to write plans than it is to just stay and work the whole day. Guess I just didn't want to contaminate the whole school...

Things have changed

D'nealian

vs.


Zaner-Bloser

Nurtured Heart Approach

I've decided to implement the Nurtured Heart Approach as my classroom management strategy. I learned about this approach at the school I worked at this summer. Howard Glasser created this approach in the 90's as a response to working with difficult children when nothing else seemed to work. This approach supports the belief that positive behavior should be reinforced and rewarded and negative behavior should receive a neutral response. Any attention given to a negative behavior is giving wanted attention to children and can feed into the behavior patterns (e.g. Saying: Stop annoying him, you should not be doing that, I told you to stop, this is your last warning OR giving a child a negative consequence such as a time-out). Oftentimes children act out or display unwanted behavior due to a need for attention or a simple reminder to stay on task.

Research shows this approach can especially help with difficult students and students who have ADHD. "The Center for Disease Control (CDC) implemented a program where children who were referred to them because of behavior management problems were supported with Nurtured Heart before seeing a physician. When a physician typically saw a child, medication referral rates were close to 75%. Children who went through a nurtured heart program were referred for medication less than 3% of the time. Additional studies show statistically significant benefits associated with this program."

The only problem is following through. It's hard to solely give neutral responses to kids who exhibit negative behaviors. For example, when a child is pushing others on the playground my natural response would be to say something along the lines of, "It is not okay to push someone else" and then have the child move to a different area.

In my classroom I introduced the kids to Nurtured Heart by telling them whenever I say "reset" I want them to take a deep breath and think about what they are doing and then make a new choice. We practiced as a class many times. The kids picked up fast. Every student knows to take a deep breath at their cue. The biggest problem now is that 30 seconds after a reset is given, some students continue on with the unwanted behavior. (Typically the naturally distracted ones- who I totally relate to.)

The nicest thing about this approach is that I can say one word to have a child change a behavior without stopping a lesson, interrupting the flow of the class, or embarrassing a child with a punishment.

I'll keep practicing and hope this sticks. I really want to avoid a system where for example I move kids' names from green to yellow.

I also have positive reward marble jar. I put a marble in when I catch the students doing something good like staying quiet during independent work time. I haven't quite figured out the prize when the jar is full. Extra recess or free choice time? Popcorn while I read stories?

Things they say

"Today my job is to get water, fruit, vegetables, and food for my dragon."

Oh, really?

First Week

I haven't updated in awhile because it was a busy first week! I'm having a lot of fun with my mini-United Nations classroom. I love the spontaneous conversations I have with the kids. For example:

Me: "Our friend is absent because he's out celebrating the end of Ramadan."

Student 1: "I know what that is! We celebrate it in Morocco. Only the adults do. It's when they don't eat until sunset."

Student 2: "Is that a holiday? (To me) Do you celebrate Halloween?"

Me: "Yes, but everyone celebrates different holidays."

Student 3: "I celebrate crayons and pencils."

Each day I have lunch with the kids and also go out to recess with them. I've been doing my own little anthropological observations of the students and student cultures. I love hearing the languages and watching interactions. It's quite fascinating. My minor in college was anthropology, so maybe it's only fun for me. :)

This week in math students are learning about number bonds. (e.g. 5 -> 2 &3 or 1&4.) I had the kids create some impromptu number bond picture stories, which turned out kinda cute. I'll have to post them later. I'm thinking they could make a nice parent curriculum night display.

Okay, off to cooking class for me (Indian food). Maybe we'll do some graphing of our favorite foods tomorrow...

Cultural Awareness

There are at many cultures and at least six home languages represented in my classes including Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindi, Japanese, and English. The school has a high Japanese influence because this is the culture and native language of most of the administrative staff, head of school, and a high percentage of our student population. Because of the blend of cultures and languages, I've been doing a little research.

Did you know...
-In Japan, it's considered rude to eat standing up. (A teacher caught me having a snack in the hallway and kindly passed along this information.)
-Traditional Japanese culture promotes a sense of group identity while the Russian culture promotes a sense of individualism.
-In Russia, you can obtain a free college education by passing an exam. Russia has the highest educational level of the world. More than 40% of the population has a college or university degree. Having a PhD is not a big deal.
-The Vietnamese value system is based on four basic tenets: allegiance to the family, yearning for a good name, love of learning, and respect for other people. These tenets are closely interrelated. Doing well in school honors parents and the family name. (I know a few students who could learn from this.)
-Vietnamese culture includes a desire to achieve harmony between the self and the non-self. (This culture sounds very peaceful, I like it!)

I love anthropology. If I had to choose a different profession, I think anthropologist would be it.