Book Study: Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites - Chapter 1

So, I decided to take part in an online book study reading, discussing and putting into practice the ideas in the book Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites by Marcia L. Tate.

I decided to do this for a few reasons:

1) I have pretty much been out of the classroom for 6 weeks as I've had a student teacher doing 80% of the teaching. She leaves next week and this book study came along at just the right time to get me fired up for teaching again.

2) I always have more to learn! After perusing the book, which arrived one day before the official start date of the book study (thanks Amazon!), I realize that I am doing some of the strategies but I know that there is always room for improvement. 

3) The book study is being hosted by some of my favourite bloggers. I admire the work they do and hope to learn more by linking up with them.

4) It looked like fun!

So, Chapter 1 is about the strategy Brainstorming and Discussion. Elizabeth over at Kickin' It In Kindergarten kindly shared a graphic organizer to organize our thinking as we do the book study. Here are my thoughts:

I feel like I am doing a lot around brainstorming and discussion in whole group situations but there is definitely room for improvement in the small group or 1-1 area. I plan to add more of this when I am back to teaching full-time after Spring Break. 

I love the Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) strategies in general and have had great success using both the "class, class, class" and mirror strategies. I want to spend some time training the class in the "OK Teach" strategy. 

We will be doing the Second Step program after Spring Break and I think that more partner talk will deepen their learning. What better way to teach social and emotional learning than through real interactions with others?

Also, I really like the idea of  schema charts rather than K/W/L charts. I saw these over on Deanna Jump's blog post for this book study. Just click on the link above and it'll take you there! A traditional K/W/L chart gets the students to tell what they Know about a topic, then say what they Wonder about the topic and, finally, to reflect on what they have Learned about the topic. While I have never had problems doing the K and L parts of the K/W/L, it seems like we never manage to cover all of the W's that come up. I have never felt like the kids, or myself for that matter, really click with the K/W/L charts. They have always just felt like a hoop to jump through. You know, that thing they told you in Teacher's College that you have to do at the start of every new unit. 

I feel like the schema chart just fits me better somehow. And I know from experience that if I am invested in something then that comes across to the students and they become invested too. I like that a schema chart asks students what they already know, what new learning they acquire through the unit and what misconceptions they held. I also like that the language (using the word schema) ties in so nicely with the teaching I have already done around reading. And I love the way Deanna Jump does them using colour coded post-it notes (the colour coding makes my heart go pitter-patter!) I am going to use this for my Grade 1 science unit on Seasons in second term. Thanks for the great idea, Deanna!

I will post about Chapter 2 later in a separate blog post. It is on the strategy of using drawing and artwork. One of my favourite things to do!!!!

Cheers!

Olwyn

Well, after being away from school for close to two weeks, I am back teaching again. I hope and pray that I never, ever get bronchitis ever again! I am still a little under the weather and definitely feel more fatigued than usual but I am glad to be back at work.

Yesterday I taught the grade 1's Science. We are working on force and motion right now. I did an experiment about friction. We were all surprised to discover that an ice cube did not move very quickly down a laminated surface and stopped completely on construction paper! I was so happy to hear that one of the grade 1's went back to his class and gave a very clear and correct description of friction. Mission accomplished!

Today we had a professional day. We went to visit at a school that was built a couple of years ago. It is not quite the same floor plan idea of our new school (that is currently being built) but the teachers there do a lot of team teaching and collaboration. It was really informative and gave me some really good ideas about what we can do in the coming months to prepare us for our new building next year.

We got to take a tour of the school and, of course, I found some neat ideas and just had to take pictures! I would like to do some of these things in our classroom!

I enjoy teaching everything (except gym!) but some days, when I look at all the cool ideas I have for art projects, I wish that all I taught was art. Being creative is such a HUGE part of me and I want to find more ways to bring that passion into our classroom. Recently, I have been re-reading a book I bought a year ago called The Power of Pictures - Creating Pathways to Literacy Through Art and I am finding it really inspiring. Don't be surprised if you see some photos on here with student writing inspired by their art!