window on learning: teacher field trip!

One of the best best best ways to invigorate my own teaching is by visiting other preschool classrooms. I had the privilege of observing a full morning at my colleague Laura's site [the site name and location remains confidential as per the director's request] which is in the San Francisco Bay Area in the beautiful state of California.

Peek through my 'window on learning':

One student glues the bones of her invented dinosaur to her paper - maybe a long neck? a t-rex? Students had "discovered" bones the day before in their sensory table and this day each child formed their own dinosaur with their findings!

Laura works with one dinosaur designer to name and explain his prehistoric discovery.

Collaboration at its best when many many hands are in on the formation of this flat block design.

Color, shapes, order, sequence, tall, low, and oh-so-organized.

This kind of math exploration is complex and intentional. Do YOU think these children have done this before?

This kind of work is no accident. Dedicated focus to stack stack stack turn turn turn.

Outside writing space under tree, slanted roof, fence-posted mirror and trays of accessible marking tools.

This is an over-sized garden planter box that is a dirt-filled construction site today!

Nature and more nature, crevices for play, large spaces for play, over, under, far and near. Makes you want to Go Play!

The teachers took apart a 'plastic play house' and attached the walls to the fence for dramatic play in the sand box - the red door swings open and the oven on the left pulls forward for all your baking needs! I've never seen this idea before!

Planters, huge trees, and of course children working with dirt and more dirt!

This huge tree is a favorite for climbing, I was told, and check out the swing attached to the pole through the tree! Love it!

Laura has a little meeting with a group in the tire building area - maybe planning a party? solving a debate? talking about their dinosaur inventions?

This girl was fascinated with these small gem of fruit from the tree above her. Laura and the girl figured out they were small "white" plums!

Approaching these tubes is quite a challenge to balance just right, to lean this way, and have your arms that way - then Let Go!  Impressive!

This Peg Board worker explained to me how the orange was "going around and around and around" the red stick.

When I came back to the Peg Board worker, she had started another "around and around" with blue pegs - and this time with a friend helping!

When is the last time YOU laid on your stomach on the carpet, grabbed a sunflower pen and started writing Right There with three pages ready for marking?!!

It is wondrous to visit another school and live the daily routine as the children navigate their way through what they know is School. Seeing my colleague Laura in action with her students was a gift for myself as she is such a talented, kind and patient educator.

Have YOU visited another school lately? It is such a rich professional development - and professional support - experience that allows you a window on learning that would be impossible via blog, article, or video.
BEING THERE amid the life of a school day is priceless.

the quiet classroom

End of the school year always brings such mixed feelings for me.

The last two years I have been an instructor at a state university in California and even closing the grades with college age students stills brings the same feelings for me.

The investment, relationships, personalities, understandings, discussions, 'aha' moments, struggles, joys...they are all bundled into the final days at a school and the days afterward when the classroom is so quiet. So very quiet.

how could you NOT miss these faces, these personalities, these people?

For now, though, it is the bittersweet tug-of-war of emotions of being glad for a summer break and also being sad that the group I just finished working with will never form together the same again. I tell people that I can compare it to a business model of work  - it is like every year my entire "department" of colleagues leaves, it just happens that my colleagues are five-years-old. Sigh.

Here is the my favorite, all time favorite, poem that I use when I work with young children and their families. This poem is usually the end paper in the children's individual portfolio books. The poem is the most lovely, quirky, exact compilation of how I feel, what I wish, how I have joy, how I have sorrow.

Here is the incomparable wordsmith talents of Jack Prelutsky:

Today I'm going yesterday as quickly as I can,

I'm confident I'll do it, I've devised a clever plan,

it involves my running backward at a constant rate of speed,

if I'm mindful of my timing I'll undoubtedly succeed.

Today I'm going yesterday I'm moving very fast,

as I'm putting off the future for the rather recent past,

I can feel the pressure fading as I hastily depart,

and look forward to arriving on the day before I start.

Today I'm going yesterday I'm slipping out of sight,

and anticipate I'll vanish just a bit before tonight,

when I reach my destination, I'll compose a note to say,

that I'll see you all tomorrow, which of course will be today.

So, maybe your classroom is Oh So Very Quiet. Yet, you can keep 'going yesterday' and you will hear the joyful noise coming from the walls.

3 ways to steal time back

Don't you love being a GUEST ?

It is such a treat to be invited somewhere to do something and to be a GUEST.

My special Guest Appearance happened today over at the ever-amazing Christie's blog Childhood 101. Christie has her energies focused on her newest adorable member of her family and has scheduled many guest bloggers over these weeks with "mom-in-the-hotseat" or "teacher-in-the-hotseat" posts.

How to get time back? GIVE it to the children.

Click Here To Read The Entire Post Over At CHILDHOOD 101. 

Here are few blog-bites from the post all about the Challenge of Time for Teachers:

Time Stealer #1: Teachers focusing on Teacher Agenda

"...a Time Stealer is when teachers are not “present” with the children in the moment to witness learning, scaffold an experience or take photos and/or document an exploration. Teachers instead have the children “busy enough” in class so that the teacher can prep the NEXT thing they want the children to be engaging in or doing. The day is a blur of next, next, next. "

Steal Time Back #1: Leave room IN your agenda for children’s discoveries to guide your teaching.

"...When you sit down nearby a group of children building in the block area, examine the materials they have chosen, listen in to their drama they created around the Cave for Dinosaurs. Your formal or informal collection of this kind of data in turn authentically informs your teaching for the next day or weeks instead of needing to hurry up to prep a butterfly art project that has no connection to what the children are really DOing."

Time Stealer #2: Teachers impose their exact way for children to do something

"...This kind of ‘teaching’ usually has a complimentary “Don’t press the brush” “Don’t dip in two colors” “Don’t use too much paint”. Not a favorite style of mine. This is a Time Stealer because children don’t require our guidance in this way."

Steal Time Back #2: The classroom environment is set for children to USE and EXPLORE materials and tools on their own. 

"...Yet, really, does paint require a How To? What if children surprised you with how they mixed and dabbled and smushed and dotted different colors? Wouldn’t that enrich your understanding about that child’s creativity and exploration with color and tools? Would all the colors being mixed to brown be the worst thing? Would smashed bristles on a paint brush be the worst thing? Would paint dripping off the easel be the worst thing? All of these can be used in a discussion of “Oh, what happened here?”...  If teachers let go of How To, there will be huge amounts of Time given back to exploration in all areas of the classroom. You don’t need to teach children how to play. We need to let children show us how they play."

Time Stealer #3: Teachers need to Prep and Clean all day

"Teachers need to wash, disinfect, sort, stack, prep, organize all day long with food, materials, and children’s items. Teachers allow this part of our job to Become Our Job all day. "

 Steal Time Back #3: Teachers partner with children to care for the classroom.

"...Children who take ownership of the classroom have a much stronger role in the care of the classroom. When children are in an environment where they choose their materials and tools, have extended choice time to play, and have authentic relationships with teachers, they in turn have an awareness of the care that is required for their classroom and desire to be caring members...

Children learn sorting, sequencing, organizing, as well as being a member of a group, helping, and recognizing what a ‘cleaned up’ classroom looks like."

Hmmm. Who would have known that the best way to GET TIME BACK FOR TEACHERS is to GIVE IT TO THE CHILDREN ?

oh, so simple...so very very simple.