Problems arise in any classroom and part of my job is helping kids learn to deal with them. In an effort to establish some common language within our classroom surrounding problem-solving, I have begun to identify the size of a problem as “pebble,” “rock,” or “boulder.” Pebble problems can be solved on one’s own. Rock…
Last week, my students learned a new vocabulary word: sensationalize. The usual best practice approach to teaching vocabulary is to wait until students have grasped a new concept before introducing the word that describes it, and this is a concept we’ve come to know well lately! As a morning message last week, I asked the…
One great thing about working at a small independent school like Chicago Friends School is the freedom the teachers are given to take units and lessons in the direction of students’ interests and needs. In the school where I worked before here, we followed scripted curricula for most subjects and did not have opportunities to…
There are so many reasons that small group instruction is a good format for learning. I had always known that teaching small groups was better for differentiating instruction, but the more small group instruction I do this year, the more benefits I discover. Small groups are good for targeted instruction. When students in a small…
April is National Poetry Month, and all the classes are celebrating poetry in one way or another. Poems can be rhyming or unrhymed, silly or somber; some are easily accessible, and some are more dense. We’ve been setting up for our poetry unit by reading Feathers by Jaqueline Woodson The first week of April, my…
Last week and this, one group in my class is learning about lines, rays, and measuring angles in math. One of the interesting things about this unit is that it begins from ideas that students this age understand intuitively, on a level that was taught to them years ago — lines and corners and points…