The Rookery

As a tangential part of our industrial revolution study, I have begun to teach/review cursive letter formation.  I often write the morning message in cursive so that students become more comfortable reading it, but I'm ambivalent about taking large amounts of class time to teach cursive handwriting.  At least when…

I am very happy to report that the Herons have set a new record.  We set out chairs for lunch in an astonishing 1minute, 52 seconds.  When we began the year, four minutes seemed a very fast pace.  Our new record caused such a celebration that a staff member came…

Them's Fighting Words - Many thanks to Jana Hirsh (K.S.'s mom) who came in today and took on the role of Sarah Bagley, a mill operative who was involved in strikes and turn outs in the 1830s.  I asked her to foment some dissent and boy did she!  As a child read the article in "today's" paper about…

I've enjoyed having the opportunity to help the Herons do some data handling each Wednesday with the results from their Monday night surveys.  Usually, we've done quantitative analysis — counting certain responses, graphing them and using those data to help us make predictions or observations. Today, we tried our hand…

I've had several families ask me if I had any gift ideas for the holiday season and I realized I did.  I spend a lot of time with fourth and fifth graders, as you know, and have some ideas for things that are always hits.  You can also check out…

Today we experienced the factory model and interchangeable parts first hand.  I broke down the instructions for an origami box into individual folds and had students work in assembly line fashion to complete the units. Each child had a single fold to complete and then passed the unit along to…

Two posts ago, I mentioned four things that I could be writing about.  Since then, the pile of "to writes" has grown.  One of the challenges of busy times at school is that it can be hard to stand outside of the fray for a bit to reflect and write.…

"Everything happens 'after lunch'" lamented one fifth grader when I told her that's when she would find out about the persona she'd have for our Industrial Revolution theme.  By the time I handed out the roles, the Herons were at a fever pitch.  As they read, they called out questions,…

Today I had four possible blogs — the importance of understanding the fundamentals of multiplication as one learns an algorithm (I'm teaching it in foundation math right now), the fun we had constructing three dimensional shapes from nets (and challenge that this kind of spacial work provides for some kids who…

My colleagues and I spend a lot of time thinking, reading and talking about math instruction.  It's an incredibly complex topic and, unlike reading, there is no consensus in the expert community about how it should be taught.  Part of the challenge is balancing computation and vocabulary with conceptual understanding…