Will There Be Enough Food? Report Cards, Assessment and Inquiry

Whenever we had guests over for supper when I was a child, my mother would always worry that she did not have enough food. Despite decades of experience in cooking ‘for company,’ she still has that worry today. And we have never run out! I am reminded of that as my partner and I review all our assessment information to write an evaluative final report card. We feel like we just wrote the last one yesterday in some ways, and worry we won’t have enough “food” to share!

The Theory:

Young children show their understanding by doing, showing, and telling. Early Learning–Kindergarten teams need to use assessment strategies of observing, listening, and asking probing questions in order to assess and evaluate children’s achievement. (FDELK Draft Program, p. 28)

Observation, as well as the documentation of observations, is the most important method for gaining assessment information about a young child as he or she works and interacts in the classroom.

Observation should be the primary assessment strategy used in the early learning program. (FDELK Draft Program, p. 30)

Reporting should reflect achievement in the skills and strategies that the children are developing as they progress through the program. (FDELK Draft Program, p. 32)

The Practical:

  Working in an inquiry stance with students, where there isn’t generally one experience, representation, observation… that all did on a given topic as in the way we planned those ‘theme’ experiences in the past, we worry that maybe we ‘fed’ some too little. So at this time of year, when we really look at the sum total of what we know about ‘this student’s development in relation to…’ we were gratified to learn that all that documentation of their thinking was plenty of food.  Taking the Science strand as an example, we had many quotations of their thinking, their own drawn and written representations, photos of the learning in action… all in a variety of different experiences all over the classroom and in our notes.

This year we worked toward building methods of observation and making the childrens' thinking visible in the classroom. That will continue to be the journey. My learning as I write the report cards is to add a deeper layer of reflection on this. To take the bird’s eye view of our assessment information more often, maybe once a month next year. In looking at Science as an example, I notice that some students are more drawn to this strand, just as some are more drawn to visual arts, and note that we need to continue to invite and look for interests, questions and opportunities to provoke the engagement of those who gravitate more to other areas (and bring the ‘science inquiry stance’ there). Some students were more drawn to nature and environmental explorations (e.g. the snails that were carted in),

some to ‘substance’ exploration (e.g. cornstarch goop), some to investigations (e.g. the ‘wheels’ experiments),

 some to ‘curiosity’ explorations (e.g.  an individual Dollarama egg poacher put with a large paper to record thoughts about “What can this be used for?”), some to ‘design’ explorations (e.g. constructing a car; taking apart a real telephone), etc…

The ‘bird’s eye view,’ let us see that pattern of interests a little more clearly which of course becomes another stepping stone towards planning.

In conclusion, this report card is really bringing clarity to the value of our observations, the value of taking time to discuss those observations. For example,  standing back and looking at a documentation panel together and asking ourselves, “What is this telling us about what they know, strengths, interests, next and future steps?”

Now I really must get back to that report card writing… although this has been a worthwhile reflection… it has also been a procrastination LOL!

Playing with the Mathematics Itself

The Theory:

Knowing that I need to work on my own understanding of how math concepts develop (see last blog), I try as much as possible to ‘consult with the experts’ when planning. We are just swinging back into Geometry, so I went to Van De Walle’s  “Teaching Student-Centred Mathematics” (Grades K-3) and the K-3 Guide to Effective Instruction in Mathematics – Geometry and Spatial Sense (see link below) for support. Kindergarteners are learning to “explore, sort, and compare” as well as “identify and describe, using common geometric terms” two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional figures. The “identify” is only one small part of that, the bigger part is becoming aware of geometric properties. “We know now that rich experiences with shape and spatial relationships, when provided consistently over time, can and do develop spatial sense” (Van De Walle, p. 187). Kindergarteners are generally working at Level 0 of van Heile’s Levels of Geometric Thought (see Guide, p. 12) where students identify identify two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional figures by their appearance as a whole.

Students do not describe properties (defining characteristics) of shapes and figures. We are supporting them to work towards understanding that all shapes or figures within a class share common properties (e.g., all rectangles have four sides, with opposite sides parallel and congruent).  Progression from one level to the next is less dependent on students’ age or maturation than on instruction that promotes reasoning about geometric ideas.

Van de Walle and the Guide recommend that students have a lot of experience with sorting and classifying shapes.

 

The Practical:

Following ideas from the Guide about triangles, after a quick “Minds On” (telling a partner what shapes they could see in a piece of art), we began the “real triangles” problem. I gave pairs a baggie with about 10 different triangles (traditional and non-traditional forms) printed on paper. I did not say that the bag contained triangles, just that it had pictures of shapes. Their problem to solve was to find and bring back to the circle the “real triangles.” While they worked on sorting with their partners, I took anecdotal notes on the language that I heard.  For our consolidation, we sat in a circle with the “real triangles” on the floor in front of us to show others. A few students shared why they had picked these. The idea of three sides, and three “points” (vertices) was shared. The idea that they were actually all triangles was not. Hmmmm. Right in line with what I had learned about Level 0!

Our next step… Sort again, only this time, pose the question, “What are the other shapes?”

The Guide also has a great idea on page 18, to continue with shapes that are ‘trianglish’ (e.g. open three sides; soft corners…) and to ask why they aren’t triangles, and how they could be made into triangles!

We’ll see how that goes, then move to the “real rectangle!”

My key learning here continues to be the need for my own continued learning about the development of mathematical concepts, paired with effective problems that invite the students to engage with meaningful mathematics.

 

References:

 

K-3 Guide to Effective Instruction in Mathematics – Geometry and Spatial Sense

  http://etfo-ot.net/Site/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/geomspatsense-guideeffectinstrmathgrk-3.pdf

 

Teaching Student-Centred Mathematics, K-3, John Van de Walle and LouAnn Lovin.

Rethinking Mathematics

Thank you for the commentary posted to the previous blog:

Wondering if you have dug into math learning through the 3 part lesson? We are wondering what this would look like in our FDK class?

I would frankly have to say that math is an area of our program that I am not nearly satisfied with. However I am happy to share where I am at in my rethinking right now.

The Theory

My current key sources have been the Full-Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program (draft), a fairly hot-off-the-press literature review about “Mathematics for Young Children”, a Capacity Building Series article “Maximizing Student Mathematical Learning in the Early Years” and the EduGains.ca video on “Numeracy Through the Day” (see links below). That information gave me some reassurance, and some major pressure! Some highlights of my learning through quotes from some of these sources:

·         Good math experiences in the early years are vital! Here’s the pressure that is clear in the literature review undertaken by M4YC:

“There is ample evidence that a child’s Socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly predictive of mathematics achievement.” (p.10)

“For at risk children, early intervention and education, in the form of rich mathematical experiences, provide the only hope of closing the gap created by SES differences – a gap that widens without intentional mathematics intervention.” (p.13)

 “Children’s school entry mathematics abilities were not only consistently predictive of later achievement in mathematics but in reading as well.” (p.15)

“…robust studies point to the incredible importance of mathematics learning for young children to prepare them for school and life success.” (p. 16)

·         We (educators) need to grow our understanding!

“While children demonstrate remarkable facility with many aspects of mathematics, many early childhood teachers do not have a strong mathematical background. At this time when children’s mathematical potential is great, it is imperative that early childhood teachers have the competence and confidence to engage meaningfully with both the children and their mathematics.” (M4YC, p. 18)

·         Most children come to school with more mathematical knowledge and experience than previously believed but need “math talk” support to grow that understanding.

“Most young children come to school already knowing a great deal about mathematics. Children bring with them an intuitive knowledge of mathematics, which they have developed through curiosity about their physical world and through real-life experiences.” (FDELK Draft Program, p. 20)

“By modelling and fostering math talk throughout the day and across various subject areas, educators can provide the math language that allows students to articulate their ideas… increase growth in understanding of mathematical concepts.” (Maximizing Student Mathematical Learning…, p. 4)

·         Mathematics in the early years classroom requires both math that is found/ provoked/ supported in children’s play, and also rich mathematical instruction (we seem to think these are mutually exclusive, when in fact “overlap is natural and desirable” (M4YC, p. 24):

 “Sarama and Clements suggest that mathematical experiences can be narrowed down into two forms, play that involves mathematics and playing with the mathematics itself.”  (Maximizing Student Mathematics… p. 2)

“The Early Learning–Kindergarten team can create an effective environment to support young children’s learning of mathematics by planning daily hands-on experiences that focus on a particular mathematical concept and by identifying and embedding significant mathematics learning experiences in play, daily routines, and classroom experiences.” (FDELK Draft Program, p. 21)

“High quality instruction in mathematics and high quality play need not compete for time in the classroom. Engaging in both makes each richer and children benefit in every way.” (quotation in EduGains video)

 

The Practical

Here are a few ways that we are currently provoking play that involves mathematics:

1.       Inviting play with math materials

2.       Adding math materials to established play

3.       Acting on the teachable moment in play

4.        Our presence at centres, when we can build on mathematically-oriented in-the-moment play and talk.

Sometimes we notice the math happening, sometimes we look for opportunities to build on mathematical understanding or gaps previously observed. For example, we have a young JK student, who thinks that counting should begin with the number three. As a young soul, he also thinks that the world revolves around him, so I theorize that this obsession with starting counting at “3”may have to do with the amount of time he spent being three years old as numbers began to become relevant to his life. To support his development in play, we have incorporated many opportunities to count, highlight counting and numbers in his environment. We catch every opportunity we can to have him count, and notice numbers during his play!

 

Where we are currently at with playing with the mathematics itself:

With Kindergarten colleagues in my Board a few years ago, we looked at all the specific math expectations of our K Program, with an eye as to sorting which ones needed direct instruction through a highly-scripted transmission modelled math lesson vs. those that could be approached through a problem-solving model. Even I, who had set the others up for this activity, was amazed at how few we found that required the former. That made me a stronger believer in a problem-solving approach.

So what about the “3-Part Lesson?” Rather than working the math through an instructional practice formula, I consider the spirit of the elements of this instructional path that are important as we plan to “play with the mathematics” itself. Our last lesson happened to be a spontaneous example… all the kids were riveted… it had all the great characteristics: real-life context, engagement, stemmed from a student’s comment, and rich, open-ended, higher level math. It not only hit on nearly all of the numeration expectations as well as some of measurement, geometry and data management ones, but was also an example of proportional reasoning at its Kindergarten best, and yet was accessible to all! The problem-solving “How much toilet paper is enough?” question started with the new toilet paper dispenser that we received. The new holder ‘rolled toilet paper out’ with much greater ease and velocity than our previous one. This of course led to the discussion around our “clogging” issues. Little ‘Jen’ informed us that at their house they have a rule that “only 3 squares are allowed.” A mathematics 3-Part Lesson was hatched!

Before/ Getting Started (connect to schema)

How much is 3 squares of our toilet paper? We asked Jen to get us some, and counted out the squares. We also looked at the length of 5 and 8 (the amount/distance from dispenser to floor) squares.

During/ Working On It (problem-solving stage)

Key Question: How much toilet paper is enough? To support the thinking, we wadded up a three square strip into real life usage, and passed it around the group with the questions, “If you were sitting on the toilet, getting ready to wipe your bottom, does this feel like enough? (We also happen to be working on visualization as a reading strategy, LOL). Do you need more? A little more? A lot more?

The students did a Think-Pair-Share and told their partner their opinion and reasons. Students added their names to the ‘length of their choice.’

After/ Consolidation (sharing, reflection, highlights, summary)

"What did most people think was enough toilet paper?" We discussed our results, shared our reasons as a group, and recorded some of them.

Teacher Reflection: We want to look for more opportunities like these! The students were really engaged because the context was very real to them. We could have made further use of comparing mass by the non-standard “feel” of the crunched up balls of all three sizes. I would have liked more ‘hands on’ exploration to it. We could follow up with a post-practical-use survey posted outside the bathroom door!

“Through active participation in mathematics investigations, including problem solving and discussions, children develop their ability to use mathematics as a way of making sense out of their daily experiences.” (FDEL K Draft Program, p. 96)

Not all of our lessons happen to be an engaging spontaneous moment of course! I am trying to keep the idea of problem-solving towards an understanding of a big idea in the forefront of my mind as I comb resources, real-life contexts, literature, etc… for jump-points.

This is where we are at right now… I am sure of more growth as we continue!

Resources:

Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program, Draft 2010

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/kindergarten_english_june3.pdf

Mathematics for Young Children (M4YC), Literature Review

http://sim.abel.yorku.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/M4YC-Lit-Review-2012.pdf

Maximizing Student Mathematical Learning in the Early Years, LNS Capacity Building Series, 2011

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_Maximize_Math_Learning.pdf

EduGains.ca, Kindergarten - “Numeracy Through the Day” video

http://www.edugains.ca/newsite/fulldaykinder/videoa.html

 

Inquiry Part 1

The “Theory” for getting postings out on this blog was that I could do 1-2 a month. The “Practical” is that life sometimes takes many unplanned turns. We sadly and unexpectedly lost my beloved’s father last month, which naturally reset priorities for a while.  Hope to reset back to my ‘theory’ now!

The Theory:

The Ontario curriculum, as would be true of many around the world, speaks of inquiry as being ‘at the heart of learning in all subjects.’ Research suggests that students are more likely to develop as engaged, self-directed learners in inquiry-based classrooms (Jang, Reeve & Deci, 2010; NCREL online).  In the Ontario Early Learning Full Day Kindergarten Program (Draft version 2010), the word “inquiry” is used 39 times, and refers to inquiries by students AND educators. Thinking about what inquiry means to me (an evolving thought!), has been leading a lot of my ‘rethinking’ of kindergarten.  As educators, we are constantly in the centre of the maelstrom as we launch  multiple inquiries through observing children, adding provocations into the environment, and seeing what develops.

  The document tells us that just natural curiosity on the part of children is not enough. Four basic stages of the inquiry process are recognized (seen also in many other professional references to inquiry-based learning): initial engagement, exploration, investigation and communication. Our role is to gradually guide the children to become more focused and systematic in their observations and investigations. (This would seem to pertain to ourselves as the educators as well as the children!)

The Practical:

We began our own inquiry into ‘inquiry in a Kindergarten classroom’ with this quote from the Ontario document in mind:

Children learn best when dealing with topics they can explore directly and in depth. Abstract topics (e.g., rainforests, penguins, planets) are difficult for children to conceptualize. The topic of any inquiry should be drawn from things that are familiar to children in their daily lives.

Three months into the year, this is what that has meant for us so far…

We started with the encouragement to observe more closely in very small ways at the Discovery Centre, putting out materials such as multi-headed black-eyed susans, a variety of  herbs, cut up vegetables, things the students brought in… with magnifying glasses and a question. We encouraged them to use their senses and modeled recording their thinking.

Our first bigger inquiry was launched by one of the children who brought in gourds from his organic farm. Most of the children did not know what they were. This led to great questions (“Is it a banana, pineapple? What does it look like inside?”) and the start of some investigation as we cut them open. We also learned that we could gain information from experts, books, videos and through our investigations and observations. This was the first inquiry that we went public with.

The most challenging part of our professional learning curve with this so far has been how to effectively go public. I confess that I tried to make it all look ‘pretty’ by putting the learning into a powerpoint that we could watch, and print out for the wall (later to become a classroom book). While the children’s questions, words, photos and ideas were captured, it didn’t seem as relevant to them in this form.

One of our EA’s brought in a “Skinny Pig” (a hairless guinea pig) that we introduced with the question, “What is it?” The students used their senses (except taste!) to create theories for what this animal might be. Here we began to see the emergence of representations of their thinking that went into the next book about our learning.

From there we thought we  could provoke some more investigation and theories with some non-working electronic pieces (e.g. an answering machine) at a centre that we called “What’s Inside?” We put out tools, did some learning on safety, and watched what unfolded. We recorded what they noticed through quotes and photos. Next they represented their thinking about what they would find in a clock radio. Their theories included wires, plastic parts, etc… as well as Super Mario, worms…   Later reviewing their theories in comparison with their findings, led to more grounded theories for the next items, a couple of defunct phones they are starting to deconstruct next week.  

 We are also getting smarter now… we will ask the students how they think we should all share what we have learned! This may mean giving up control of the camera and the ‘prettiness!’

Side note… while this blog reflected more ‘science-based’ inquiries, we have also been taking this approach in other learning areas, for example with the great math question, “How tall is Ms. M?” (“46,” “30 pounds,” “longer than my arm,” “shorter than two students”… LOL). More to come as we continue to learn and evolve in our professional understanding!

Resources:

      Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program, Draft 2010 – p. 14-16

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/kindergarten_english_june3.pdf

Capacity Building Series: Getting Started With Student Inquiry

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_StudentInquiry.pdf

Video: Kindergarten Matters: “It’s About Inquiry”

http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/kindergarten/inquiry.html

The Great Differentiated Phonics Coaching Experiment Begins!

The Theory:

My most “stellar” moment (said with tongue in cheek) as an Early Years consultant occurred during a discussion of phonics. While the caterer was setting out lunch at the back of the room, I was responding to a question by explaining that letter and sound recognition are a constrained set of skills. “This means that once you have the ‘A-ness of A,’ you don’t need to keep practicing the ‘A-ness of A.’ It won’t give you any deeper understanding of the ‘A-ness of A.’” If you have said this out loud to yourself as you are reading, you will know why people were starting to smile, and why the caterer was now turning to stare at me. Taking these social cues in, I started to listen to myself as I kept talking and heard myself use the phrase aloud. “That just doesn’t sound right.” People joined in the laughter, and the caterer shook his head and closed the door to the room. Sigh.

However, the “A-ness of A” did stick in my mind. How can I really meet students’ needs in this department and not waste precious time having some of them practice an understanding that they already have? While we want to allow for the time needed for development, we want to be spinning wheels when that is not needed. It takes knowledge of about 19 of the 26 letter sounds to be able to start reading. Research tells us that for most students, if they leave Kindergarten reading at about a level 5/D, they are more likely to meet provincial standard on Grade 3 EQAO, then later succeed on Grades 6 and 9 EQAO standards, and exit high school successfully. Hence part of the reason for Full Day Kindergarten… we are affecting their life’s path and choices. No small amount of pressure!

My Question:

How can we meld the research-supported need for systematic phonics instruction, within the play-based environment in a differentiated way to support the learning of specific individuals?

The Practical:

In considering how this might actually happen, we were juggling a number of important factors:

·         Children learn best when they play

·         Student choice leads to higher levels of engagement

·         Sensory experiences support deeper learning

·         They don’t need to practice what they already know!

·         We need to support the sight, name and sound recognition, as well as printing of the letters

·         They will all be in different places in terms of what they know

And thus the “Great Differentiated Phonics Coaching Experiment” was launched one week ago!

We have the great good fortune of having a volunteer Grade 4-5 class willing to be our Kindergarten Coach Buddies.  They are benefiting through the character education, social and coaching skills end of this experiment.

What this looks like…

Our Coach Buddies join us right after morning announcements. They come into the classroom and pick up their buddy’s letter card from a chart stand. A letter card is in each K child’s pocket. We also post a daily “Coach’s Tip” to support their coaching skills.

On the front of the card is the letter, and the “Jolly Phonics” ™ action that we use with it. On the back of the card is the “Handwriting Without Tears” ™ method for making the letter. We are focused on the lower case letters.

Their Kindie buddies know the choices that are available to them to practice their letter in different centres in the room. For this time only, the numbers at those centres are limited (happy faces on photos indicate numbers of Kindies that can be there) and Kindies have to stay at the activity of their choice for the entire time. A choice board is available as a reminder.

The Coach buddies coach their Kindie partners in ‘creating’ their letter while practicing the name of the letter and the sound.

After ten minutes, all clean up together. Finally the Coach Buddies returning pertinent activities to their designated shelves and the letter cards back to the pocket chart on their way out. The Kindies come to the carpet for the next phase of their day.

What I have learned in this first week…

So far it is working with great success! Keeping it short keeps those who would normally want to move on to another activity willing to stay in place. Naturally there are some Coaches who need… hmm shall we say… “more modelling” of how to be coaches. I will be popping into their classroom on my prep to do some roleplaying and demonstrating of ‘how to actively support your Kindie.’

I have quickly realized that I need to follow the “K.I.S.S.” principle…. “Keep It Simple Sweetheart!” My first thought was that I’d need to be testing their letters constantly to see if they were ready to move on to the next one. Rethink! (Seriously, let’s get real… with 30 kids, would I be able to do this every week and do any other assessment or instruction!) Yet how long do I want a poor three year old to practice the A-ness of A’ if they are just not developmentally ready to absorb it yet? Let’s move on and ensure frequent exposure!  So I am switching the cards every couple of days, currently keeping within the set of Jolly Phonics ™ sounds we are singing. And “Hey” (light bulb moment) – I have these Coaches that can certainly check their prodigies themselves!

The coaches of those students who know most of their letters just checked them for letter recognition and sound recognition. They all still have a few to work on, and I need to start scrambling to create the sight word component of this experiment. More on that in a future blog!

Obviously only one week into this experiment, it is too soon to say if this will make a significant difference! I will share more in a future blog about our learnings as we go along!

Next blog: My early phases of capturing the learning.

Who Is Doing the Learning?

The Theory:

I have worked with many teachers who have videotaped themselves interacting with students over the last few years. Every single one of them (including the one that I see in the mirror daily) have all said, “Wow, I talk way too much!!”

Somewhere I picked up the quotation that ‘the person doing the talking is the person doing the learning.’ As those who know me would tell you, I must be doing a lot of learning! Maybe it is a characteristic of the type of person who goes into teaching? I am trying to curb that tendency now!

There is quite a bit of research done on ‘Wait Time.’ The average ‘wait time’ that a teacher waits between posing  a question and asking a student in the class to offer up an answer is about 1 second. Wow! The recommendation is to wait at least 3 seconds (Kathleen Cotton, “Classroom Questioning”). Doesn’t sound that long until you count it out in your head! When I first read this, I started putting a 5 second interval into practice with the JK's I was teaching. Interestingly, not only did more of the students raise their hand (especially boys), but more actually had an answer rather than “I don’t know” (i.e. ‘I just like raising my hand’). I became a believer! I made it explicit by calling it “think time,” so students would know what they were supposed to be doing (and allowing others to do), and often showed the time passing by counting the five seconds out on my hand.

Connecting the “Think Time” back to ‘the person doing the talking is the one doing the learning’… I am wondering about how we can optimize that ‘kid talk’ in our classroom. We have 30 students, a teacher, an ECE and three one-on-one EA’s.  It is easy for that many adults to talk for kids, or even for kids to talk for one another. Also to ‘do’ and ‘create’ for one another.

The Practical:

A simple example brought this all together for me. As we continue organizing the classroom and the materials, I began to sort the crayons into a tray. Suddenly I caught myself, thinking, “What am I doing?!! I am not the one who needs practice sorting!!!” 

Doesn’t it really come down to:

·         Don’t say anything a child can say  (Reinhart, 2000).

·         Don’t do anything a child can do.

·         Don’t create anything a child can create. (Connecting this to the last blog about the alphabet frieze we are constructing with the students)

We have a sign up now (high up out of the kids' zone) to support us in remembering who needs to be doing the talking, thinking, doing, creating and learning! We are also posting prompts/questions for each of the six curricular areas to support adults in the room in fostering more student talk.  

Doesn’t mean we adults never do any of the talking, doing, creating… LOL… we are just learning to be more strategic about where it is needed!

Learning Environments… the Walls

My Background:

Let me start with a full disclosure… I have created insanely visually busy environments in the past. Not only have I had the brilliantly coloured corrugated paper, with the matching themed borders, one year I decided it would be great to get “hom-ier” and I used patterned wall paper. One bulletin board even had a quilt of wallpapers samples for the background. They were however in the same colour grouping- LOL! And that doesn’t begin to cover what went on top of them and up in every spare square inch of wall space!

Then a number of years ago it did occur to me that if I wanted a peaceful and calmer class, I needed to begin with a more peaceful space. I read an article on Feng Shui for the classroom (just ‘google’ for many sites), and brought in more plants and some soft furnishings.  I snuck in on the weekend, as I know many of you have, and painted the bulletin boards (not that we condone that practice, wink, wink) very similar to the peaceful tones of this blog.  That did give me a calmer feeling, much like the staged homes we see in magazines, done up in harmonious colours.

I also let go of control of the bulletin boards. I didn’t have stunning displays set up for the first day of school. I tacked up some commercial posters that connected with what we would be looking at later that year to introduce the grade. I allowed the students to create the borders and help put materials on the walls. I even gave up my addiction and compulsion to make all titles with those bubble letters! I was more relaxed and felt that it was more of the students’ classroom.

Besides ‘calming the visual overload, I also took a critical look at what went up on those walls. My theory was that if the kids or I didn’t actively use it, it had become akin to the aforementioned wallpaper.

Putting The Theory Into Practice:

The influence of Reggio Emilia philosophies, the thinking behind Ontario’s move towards a play-based, child-centred Kindergarten and research on self-regulation has caused a change in our thinking as my partner and I began to set up our environment this year. Knowing that we were expecting more than 30 kids (we have ended up with 29), we considered the impact of the busy visual environment on those who already have difficulty self-regulating (and their students- ha ha ha!). We decided we wanted a calm neutral background to build on and stripped down to the corkboard (surprisingly neutral!). We chose not to put up commercially prepared materials (see article by Patricia Tarr – below-for a compelling argument about the cute, stereotypical and trivialized image of childhood these may convey and that children will fit themselves into) and really build what went on the walls with the kids. Literally nothing was on the walls for the first week of school- not your typical K classroom” look by any means!

Blocks Centre and Reading Pool area set to go. Discovery Centre by window.

We are trying to consider how the environment aligns with our image of the child (see previous blog entry) as a creative, competent, brilliant little being. How therefore can we reflect the richness of their individuality, their learning, thinking and work? How can they be co-creators of that environment? An simple and  telling example of the shift within us is that we do not yet have the alphabet up (end of second week of school)! Shocking! However, our movement is deliberately away from the transmission of learning model imparted by a commercial and other-created alphabet frieze towards co-constructed learning. This coming week we are going to begin creating our focus letters with materials in the classroom, and photographing the results. Thus THEY will start to create that alphabet frieze.

So, two weeks in, our walls were no longer bare for Open House on the 7^th day of school.  The bulletin boards contained:

·         Artistic productions from the ‘Creation Station’

·         A “Play Is How Young Children Learn” display of photos of the children learning through play (labelled with the main area of learning) surrounding  quotes about play from our Program document and from other sources

·         A display of the role of adults in the room with photos of us with small captions

·         Examples of the starts of drawing and writing beside a chart of the stages of writing (introduced and discussed with the children)

·         A display of students sorting items as part of our documentation of their math learning

We know that our on-going journey with our walls will be to expand on our use of how we (with the students) can use them to more deeply document our thinking and learning.  I am sure I will have more to report in this regard!

Helpful Resources:

·         Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program, Draft 2010 – p. 35-37

        http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/kindergarten_english_june3.pdf

·         Consider the Walls by Patricia Tarr

http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200405/ConsidertheWalls.pdf

Next blog:  Who is doing the learning?