Some kids come to kindergarten thinking that they are already supposed to know how to read and write and do all of the things I am teaching. Even though we talk a lot about what learning looks like, young learners can be resistant trying new things, telling themselves “I can’t do that”. My goal is to shift their belief, or “fixed” mindset, to help them understand that they don’t have to "get" things right away, and that the point of coming to school is to learn new things that they don’t already know how to do. Shifting to a “growth mindset” helps them understand that with hard work and focus, they will be able to learn how to do things they don’t know how to do yet. It teaches them to say to themselves, “I can’t do that YET, but I can learn how to do it!”. This year, I hope that they will learn that struggling with new or unknown concepts is an important part of the learning process, and that they become more comfortable with the risks involved in learning from their mistakes. One of the ways I can make this feel safe for my students is to encourage students to not compare their learning to other students’. Everyone’s brain is different, and we learn different things at different times, when our brain is ready. As a learning community, knowing how to do different things at different levels allows us to help each learn. | Last week, we talked a lot about the concept of mindset and read books that helped teach us the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mixed mindset. We also talked about how our brains choose our attitude each day, and when our brain is choosing an attitude that is negative we can change that with positive affirmations and help from our friends. We made this YET poster to remind us that we can learn anything we want to if we work hard and believe in our selves. Inside the letters, we drew pictures of the things we want to know how to do but have not learned how to do YET. |
Being Careful Not To CrumpleYou may have heard about Crumpled Charlie, a story I told last week about an imaginary new student who heard unkind words from his classmates that made him feel crumpled. After seeing and feeling how crumpled Charlie felt, the kids said kind things to Charlie that made him feel uncrumpled. Charlie will hang on our wall as a reminder that we need to work hard to use words that don't make our classmates feel crumpled. If we do use unkind words, Charlie can also remind us that we can use kind words to uncrumple the feelings we have hurt. | Writing Teaching Books!Last week, we continued to write teaching books about things we know an awful lot about to add to our classroom library’s “about the world” book bins. The list of things we are writing about includes: cheetahs, dragons, bugs, Le Mis, going on the bus, dogs, Halloween, dinosaurs, jet fighters, volcanoes, police, diamonds, pumpkins, plants, space, Scaredy Squirrell, monkey bars, recess play structure bars, zombies, ninjas ... As we write these books, we are thinking about how we can draw pictures and stretch out our words to make our writing the best it can be. We are planning our books page by page and we are asking and answering questions that help us add more. |
Math Thinking | Number TalksWe want our kindergarteners to be mathematicians who talk about numbers! Last week, we did our first "quick image" Number Talks together. A quick image is an activity where students practice the skill of subitzing. That's a fancy word for being able to see a small amount of objects and know how many there are without counting. During a number talk, a series of dots is flashed at the students three different times for about 1 sec each time. Their brains examine the dots and internalize the number based on some grouping strategy. Once they have seen the image, they have a chance to share what they saw and how they thought about what they saw. We started by looking at a variety of different ways to see the numbers 3, 4 and 5. This activity is not only a wonderful way for students to build number sense, but also a way for them to learn how to talk about numbers, share their strategies, listen to others’ strategies, and understand another way of thinking. The kids loved it as much as I do! We will share our strategies on the blog throughout the year. |
We Are Kind, Safe and Fair Kindergarteners!
3rd Grade Reading Buddies!On Thursday, we went upstairs to our 3rd grade reading buddies classroom for the first time. It was a lot of fun to visit their classroom and read their books together. | Building, Playing and Creating Together!This year, our K teaching team has made an intentional effort to provide our students with lots of consistent learning station time to build, play and create together. I am so impressed with how well the students in our class work together when engaged in these important activities! |