The Rookery

On our schedule today, I simply wrote "discussion" in one of the time slots.  I knew what our starting point was going to be, but I did not want to dictate the subject.  But we needed to talk and talk we did. Our Heron potluck on Friday was a wonderful…

Word work began today.  Students meet with me in groups of 1-4 to do the sort.  Initially, they work together without any guidance from me, trying to find patterns among the words.  Gradually, I point out features and patterns in the words and we use that information to refine their…

Sorry about the title, it was bound to happen eventually. Our second attempt at medieval labyrinths went much better than the first.  The students felt very comfortable and many rocketed ahead of my instructions, excited by their own ability.  This was familiar territory and it felt good.   Repetition of…

On Friday we opened the woods for free play — one of the most anticipated days of the year.  We spend the previous four weeks discussing how to include younger students in our play, how to solve conflicts, and, generally, how to be the kind of "big kids" that the…

 If I'm lucky, you didn't hear about the complete debacle that was our maze lesson on Friday.  This summer when I read "How to create a labyrinth" I thought, "No way — it will just bring them to tears."  Enthusiasm got the better of me, however, and on Friday we…

Last night when I was at my chorus rehearsal a man looked over my shoulder, "Mazes?" he asked.  He seemed surprised, perhaps because the maze I was working on was a lot simpler than something that would normally captivate an adult. "Yeah, it's for my 4th and 5th graders —…

The past few days have been joyful in the Herons.  Students have settled in and found their place and have begun producing some beautiful work.  Our nature journals arrived from the Sketchy Artist on Tuesday and, instead of our planned math review, I decided that the blank pages were just…

 We began our first week of shared math on Monday.  This year, students will be working with the same group on foundational math skills for the first twenty minutes of our math block.  This is a time for students to solidify algorithms and number sense.  Many days will begin with…

There is a provocative article in Sunday's New York Times by Elisabeth Rosenthal about her children's experience being tested in at the Beijing International School.  In part it looks at the different approaches to testing in the U.S. and China arguing that more frequent but perhaps less "high stakes" testing…

Today was a special day upstairs in the Big Bird classrooms.  The students received their blue books, the books in which we do almost all of our work for the year.  After a very loud and spirited drum roll, the children got down to the work of numbering pages (240!),…