Working Together

The 2-3 Assembly

 A hallmark of a Parker education is the multiple ways children get to work together. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity for this collaboration than our 2-3 Assembly on Friday. All I can say is what about those 2nd and 3rd graders?! 

Besides offering your child a chance to get on that stage and share skills and talents, I find this special Assembly brings many gifts to me. It reinforces that if you give a child an opportunity to own what he or she is going to share with others, every child will be motivated to do the best. The event encourages children to take risks and put themselves out there. I always feel refreshed after —I get a fuller picture of your child as a learner and member of a social network. This group showed such appreciation and constant encouragement for each other as we devoted more and more time in class to preparation and practice. It was a great two weeks of working together. Let me end by noting as well that this special Assembly is just plain fun!!  

Third Grade Mathematics

The 3rd grade mathematicians have spent several math classes sharing their knowledge of place value. Place value is a core foundational concept in mathematics. As the 3^rdgraders hone their understanding, they're exploring the structure and sequence of numbers, developing greater facility with comparing and ordering numbers, finding connections among numbers, and composing and decomposing numbers into parts (like seeing 627 as 600 + 200 + 7) to ease calculations with other numbers.

We then moved into practice/review of adding and subtracting 10. The group noted that the zero in the ones place makes for quick calculations and mental math work. I refer to 10 as being friendly and asked the students to think about how the structure of 10 makes it so easy to work with. We’re now extending our work to 100 and the 3^rd graders will be thinking about the relationship between 10 and 100.  

Working With the K-1s

Our partnership with the K-1s is going beautifully. Our Muddy Boots club brought us to the creek two Fridays ago. The children roamed on the shores, dug in the mud and looked under rocks. One group was hot on the trail of salamanders and soon attracted a crowd when they got their hands on them. Up the creek, another group was lifting rocks and finding slugs. Cool!!

 This past Friday, we took a hike on the power line trail. We went hunting for evidence of CHANGE in the season. The children noted changing leaves, cooler air, and wildflowers. We saw monarchs, listened to crickets, got hot in the sun and then made our way into the woods for shade and a cool off. What a way to end our week.

Back Together at Parker!

Our two opening days were so comfortable and pleasant. Friends greeted each other, classmates were getting reacquainted, and our group began linking back together. I marveled at how easy the transition felt. Sure, many of the children reported butterflies and funny sleep the night before Day 1 (so did we teachers!). The overall mood, though, was easygoing and happy. 

Our multi-age classrooms at Parker offer all of us--students, families, teachers--an opportunity to really know each other during our two years together. We become one version of a family. Students and I immediately fall back into old jokes, share memories, restart and revise routines, and pass traditions on to the 2nd graders now joining us. This idea of "looping" is not a new idea in education but it is not the norm in American classrooms. I know how lucky I am to be in this environment. How powerful it is to hit the ground running with my students each year.

After a brief Morning Meeting on Thursday and Friday, Sara Schuman--our 2nd grade mathematics teacher--and I launched right into our grade level math classes. Off the 2nd graders went with Sara next door. 

Almost immediately, I organized the 3rd graders into pairs and handed them a mathematics exploration from Marilyn Burns, a leading thinker in mathematics instruction. In her book, About Teaching Mathematics: A K-8 Resource, she presents the Consecutive Sums Problem. The challenge is for students to explore whether they can add consecutive numbers together to make a given sum (for instance, 2+3+4=9). The pairs were asked to work with the numbers one through 15. This work taps into students' problem solving and their creativity. They look for patterns, hypothesize and test their ideas, and have to find ways to organize and present their findings to others. They must also deal with the fact that for some numbers, they won't find a solution. The problem solving was a two day process and each pair will present and summarize their findings on Monday. I was there to help the partners get started, offer support to get them out of ruts and/or challenge them to extend their learning. Every pair was self-motivated, engaged and totally productive...on Day 1 and Day 2 of their school year!! Whoop-whoop!

Our new students toured the school with classmates and were welcomed by everyone. The 3rd graders are acting as mentors for the 2nd graders, orienting them and helping them feel comfy.

We topped off our week with our new Muddy Boots Club. K-1s and 2-3s buddied up and we hiked out into the field, to Tire Island, wound down the hill and across the tree bridges, worked our way to the pavilion and back up to the school yard. We stopped midway with Liliana asking us to pause--in silence--and look up. What did we notice? Hear? See?

Can't wait to see everyone again on Monday!