Cliques in the Classroom
Happy Superbowl Sunday everyone. Any other teachers out there that have no desire to drink and stay out late tonight because you know you have to deal with kids tomorrow morning? Oh yes, that’s me.
Today I’d like to discuss the topics of cliques in the classroom. Normally I think cliques are considered a bad thing. They are a group of students who only hang out with each other, and really are not welcoming at all of other children. Sometimes cliques may even be mean to children outside their clique. Shockingly, cliques, by this definition, do at times exist in kindergarten. Fortunately, I can usually nip them in the bud by talking to the kids, the parents, and changing up my seating arrangement etc.
However, what about “groups” within the classroom? Kids that generally play together during every choice time and recess. They are not particularly unkind to other children, they just prefer to play with each other. Truthfully, I feel that “groups” are also considered negative in the elementary environment. Often teachers will purposely separate kids from their friends so they will meet new children and build new friendships. I see the purpose of this and I definitely advocate for children knowing how to begin and cultivate a friendship. But, do we sometimes take this too far? For some children, might it be important to have one or two friends they know they can always count on? (as much as you can count on a friend at this age when they are known to scream, “I am not your friend anymore!” over a stolen lego piece…).
In my own elementary school experience I had two ongoing friendships. One was with a friend from preschool. She lived in the town next to mine, where I lived until right before kindergarten. We had playdates once a week for most of elementary school. We shared no common friends, or classes- but we just got along so well and she was my “best friend” for many years. My other ongoing friendship was with a next door neighbor who was in the same school as me, but one grade below. She was the friend I would play with afterschool and on the weekends, and it required no effort, we just met in the backyard 🙂 In school and in my classes I did not have these kind of ongoing friendships. Sure, I had friends, but then inevitably the teachers would separate us the next year and we would rarely see each other and we’d make new friends…only to start the process over the next year.
My guess is I probably learned something from switching friends so often. However, at the time I don’t think I saw it that way. I also wonder if I still might be the same (though maybe slightly happier in elementary school) if I had not been separated from my friends each year. Are children from small towns at a disadvantage because they stay with the same class for years at a time?
My struggle now is deciding what to do about my own students. One of the greatest things about kindergarten is that I get to see so many friendships develop over the year. But then, I have to decide if I will allow the students to easily continue that friendship into the next school year or if I will leave it up to their parents to schedule outside of school playdate times…Sometimes the decision is clear. Often friends are not very good for each other and I know it will be a benefit for them, and the teacher, if I separate them. Sometimes friends are very clearly good for each other and I know it will be good for the teacher and the students if they stay together. I once had two boys like this, one could be a bit of a trouble maker, and the other was a model student. Trouble maker thought Model Student was the coolest kid in the world and acted much better when Model Student was around and playing with him. I put the two students together in first grade, and that teacher put them together again in second grade. Apparently, it’s still working out.
But what to do about other students where they aren’t particularly great or particularly bad for each other? I have two girls this year that are very clearly best friends. They play with lots of other kids, but they also play with each other. I think they are good for each other because they avoid “girl drama” together and one motivates the other in terms of academics. However, they are both social girls, so am I limiting them by allowing them to spend more time together next year? Will we ever know?
What do you guys think? Do you tend to separate students from their friends so they will make new friendships? Or do you want students to have the comfort and security of ongoing friendships that last several years?
Let’s Get Multisensory
It’s 3 am, I can’t sleep and what am I thinking about? Oh, just my students. The funny thing is, I actually tend to come up with some good ideas at 3 in the morning.
I started to think about this little boy I have this year- we’ll call him Sam. Sam is one of those kids who is so incredibly adorable, funny (but not in an annoying, class clown kind of way) and he is such a hard worker. Even though almost everything we do in class is hard for him, he never stops going right back to his seat and getting to work.
Sam is really struggling in kindergarten…more so than most, if not all, of the 82 students I have taught since I started teaching K 4 years ago. With kids like Sam, there is always a balance between making sure he gets all the help he needs and completely overwhelming him to the point where he hates school at the age of 5. In order to walk that fine line I have been trying to think of ways to help Sam remember all of his kindergarten skills in a fun way.
I noticed the other day that Sam is really good at all of the skills that have movements attached to them. For example, we tap out syllables on our arms in my classroom and Sam is very solid in his ability to divide syllables. He is also relatively good at segmenting words into individual sounds, which we do on our fingers.
I immediately started to think about how I could make some of the other skills he needs to learn more multi-sensory. To teach phonics we use Fundations, but also the Telian Lively Letters program. The Lively Letters each have a poem, song and hand cue attached to them. I decided to go back and focus on the hand cues with my kids to see if that with help Sam, and some of my other students who are struggling with the sounds. We are going to review 2 letters per day, and I am going to take a picture for each letter of one of my students doing the “hand cue” associated with that letter. When we finish, I am going to make Sam a book of his friends doing all the hand cues.
I also am in love with a new friend I got for Christmas last year:
Yup, Eric and I got a flip video camera that I have been trying to use with my kiddos. Already we made a video to show their parents how to “tap out” a word. Our next video is definitely going to be the kids doing all the hand cues for letter/sounds.
My next challenge is figuring out how to make math more multi-sensory…
What are some multi-sensory techniques you have used to help kids remember important skills?
What are some ways you have used video cameras to enhance learning in your classroom?
Math Journals
I first learned of the idea of “Math Journals” from Mrs. Mikesell’s website a few years ago. I could never quite figure out how to schedule it into my day until this year. My kids come into the classroom in the morning and complete calendar folders, but when they are done- why not do some math review and practice? With the strong focus on literacy skills in kindergarten, it is hard to find time for math practice, but practice and application is so important in the math development of these children.
Therefore I started math journals as a first thing in the morning activity. Basically, how it works is as follows:
- The kids have a composition notebook they store in their cubbies. Each morning, they take out the notebook and take a math prompt off my teacher table.
- The math prompts can be related to anything we have worked on this year. It is always review, not new material. I print out 20 of the same prompt and then cut them out. The kids have to glue them into their math journal.
- Each child takes a prompt, glues it in his or her book and then begins working on it. Most students cannot read the prompts themselves, but I read them for a few kids and then eventually everyone knows what it says.
- Each child solves the problem at his or her own level. For some this means drawing a picture, some will write, and others will add a number sentence to the story (if it applies).
Some examples:
I will also attach some of the math journal prompts I have made up for kids. I hope they are helpful to some of you!
Odd One Out- Beginning Sounds
Good morning everyone! Is there anything more terrible promising than a Monday morning?
I just wanted to quickly share a resource that I created last week that may be helpful to some of you. In my district we use a phonemic awareness screener called the PASI (Phonological Awareness Screener for Intervention). One section is called ID/Category, and the kids are given 4 words and they have to tell which one does not belong based on it’s beginning sound. It’s definitely a tricky section becasue it requires the kids to have an understanding of beginning sounds, but also be able to remember 4 words, and recal which one was different. Although this is tricky, it’s also a good skill to be able to hold multiple words in your head and word with them. However, I have a few kids struggling with it, so I decided to do some small group work with it. We started with 3 picture cards, two starting with the same sound, one with a different sound. The kids would have to identify which picture “does not belong.” Now they are ready to move to 4 pictures. I am starting with the pictures to give the kids a good base for the task without asking them to memorize several words. We will, of course, move to all auditory in the next week or so.
I used images from Kelly’s Kindergarten to create some cards with 4 pictures on them. Each page has 4 pictures, one of them starts with a different beginning sound than the others.
I hope these are helpful to you if you are working with students on these skills!
Word Lists
I first got the idea for “Word Lists” when I was getting trained in Orton Gillingham almost three years ago. Orton Gillingham, for those that don’t know, is an approach to teaching language that was developed for children with language based learning disabilities. In the Orton Gillingham lesson plan, the second section is called “Words To Read.” When you use Orton Gillingham to teach reading you give the student words that have elements that he or she needs to learn and/or review. So for example, if you are teaching a child about “ar” words, you might put the words cart, hard and far on the word list, along with some words that include review topics from previous sessions. It is all very individualized. Since Orton Gillingham is 1:1, there is no way for me to do it exactly in my classroom but I still use the idea of “Words to Read” with my kids in small groups.
In Kindergarten, we do a lot of practice with consonant-vowel-consonant words (CVC), such as bat, mop and ten. The hardest part of reading these words for most kids is the vowel, so I will often give the kids a word list of several words with the same vowel.
*Note- Documents must be cut in half vertically after printing.
Then, I will ask them to highlight the vowels (kids love highlighters and my school got these awesome “erasable” ones this year). After, they highlight the vowels I ask them what sound will be in the middle of all of the words. Once, they know that, they are ready to read the words on their own. Depending on the independence level of the group I will either have each kid whisper read the words (and I listen to as many as I can) or I will have them take turns each reading a word.
When they get good at reading words with all the same vowel, I start to change the vowels, but follow the same procedure. Now, they have to focus more on what sound is in the middle:
Our new intervention specialist tells us that kindergarten kids should be reading decodable text without pictures, because the kids get too dependent on the pictures. Personally, I think boring decodable text with no pictures is a great way to make sure our kids hate reading when they go to first grade. I think Word Lists are a good compromise because they allow students to practice reading words without pictures, but they can still read real text after. I incorporate word lists into my guided reading lessons. The schedule for my lessons usually looks like:
Phonemic Awareness or Phonics Work
Word Lists (often related to Phonics topic & some review words)
Guided Reading- book introduction, strategy lesson, independent reading, comprehension questions/summary
Word lists can be adapted depending on the needs of your students. If they are having difficulty reading ending sounds, you can have them focus on the ending sounds for a couple of weeks, highlighting the letter they see at the end of the word. Often you will have students in Kindergarten or Grade 1 who are ready to move beyond CVC words. Here are some examples of word lists for more advanced students. I still have these students highlight a concept we are working on, and I often throw in a couple of review words from previous concepts.
Do you use Word Lists, or anything similar, in your classroom? If not, are they something you may want to try?
The Teaching Part of “Being a Teacher”
Why I Have Gotten Very Little Actual Teaching Done This Year:
Martin Luther King Day!
Every January I have the same dilemma right before Martin Luther King Day. How do I honestly, but appropriately, teach my kindergarten students about Martin Luther King? On one hand, understanding the life and death of Martin Luther King is a lot for a five year old. But on the other hand, it’s an important lesson to learn.
Martin’s Big Words
Happy Birthday Martin Luther King
Both books do discuss Martin Luther King’s death, so if you are looking to censor the kids, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Some years they do get a bit preoccupied with this, but I always try to answer their questions as honestly as possible and then let them talk through their feelings about it.
On Friday, my kids got together with their second grade buddies and we made a “Dream Quilt.” I cut white construction paper into squares and gave one to each student. All the students had to do was color and write about their “dreams” for the world. I did have to emphasize this does not mean their dream for their own life (to get a dog, to play a video game) but what they want for everyone in the world. The kids came up with some amazing ideas, including, “I want all children to be able to go to school,” “I dream that all kids to have everything they need like clothes and food,” and “I have a dream that everyone would be able to read.” We plan to put all the squares together to make a big “quilt.”
Other fun Martin Luther King activities include:
Reading and Writing
*Create a timeline of Martin Luther King’s life. Depending on the age of your students, you can give them a paper that says the part of the timeline they should illustrate, or you can ask the kids to create it.
Resource: Kid Pix Martin Luther Timeline
Art
*Students use multicultural paints to mix their own skin color. Then, students make hand prints using their skin color on white paper. Glue each hand to a red heart. Punch a whole in the top and hang with ribbon.
Resources: Perpetual Preschool
What are your favorite Martin Luther King activities and resources?
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