Chapters 3 & 4 (7/10/09)

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Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 13, 2009 at 8:22pm

Habitude #3- Perseverance

When I started reading this chapter I immediately thought of "building stamina". I was relieved to know we are already doing some of these things so going deeper with perseverance should be easily intertwined.

I like the gift anchor lesson, but worry about two things. One- we do a gift anchor lesson with questioning and two-the chaos it may cause when kids try to open a package together! I just wouldn't want that to overcome the meaning of the lesson. But maybe that's the point and my first reaction to that lesson as a teacher is "NO WAY!" Is there a different anchor lesson that we could start with that might be a better fit for our age group? I was thinking of the book, Froggy Rides a Bike, or other books from the building stamina book list in my file. (of course that is at school) Maybe we could pick a good book or other analogy??? (ex: climbing on the monkey bars at recess, or connect back to learning how to ride a bike)

Lesson 1: Life Happens-hmm...I'm blank on this one so far...

Lesson 2: Failing to Succeed- I like to tell kids how making mistakes makes you a better person. I like the scenarios that show kids real life people who have persevered in so many ways and that doesn't just pertain to those people but everyone.

Lesson 3 & 4: both seem pretty self explanatory

Permalink Reply by Stephany Messer on July 21, 2009 at 2:42pm

Habitude 3: Perseverance

I think this is a tricky one too. There are several good points but it seems like it would be a stretch to make the lessons fit our level. The book lists are good and fitting it in with stamina during Daily 5 sounds like the perfect way to get it going since we'll be talking about that right off the bat.

The first thing that stuck out to me is the definition. "Perseverance: The act of continuing to do something in spite of difficulty or opposition." (pg.50) Teaching students this alone would bring up many conversations in the classroom. Any time somebody comes up to you and says I can't or wants to give up you've got the perfect word to use and a great teachable moment. After we've used a few of the books they'll be able to make text to self connections too! :)

The other lesson that I liked was the one where you write Failure with black marker on a paper. It wouldn't work to do that with small groups but it could be a great large group conversation. I think the kids will respond to this if we can give examples of things we've failed at but kept persevering. That might just be something we throw in when attitudes are getting a little negative and we want to push kids further.

Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 14, 2009 at 8:39pm

Habitude 4: Self-Awareness

As I have started this chapter my thoughts have been all over the board! At first, I thought- maybe this habitude should be the first one taught. I liked the analogy that everyone's fingerprints are different and so no one learns the same way either. It seemed a little abstract but doable. Then I read a little more and got to the whole anchor lesson. It was a little intimidated by the activity. I like doing an artifact for their portfolio- maybe we can 'kinder-ize' it!!

I kept reading on to Lesson 1- I thought- Oh! I have a song for Meta-cognition that I rarely use b/c it doesn't fit into one of the comprehension strategy lessons that I have. It seemed fairly easy to introduce...then it really got deep! I will need more conversations with you girls about "Taking your Thinking Out"!!

Reading on...Lesson 2: I like that question: "What are you thinking" I just had a "duh" moment!!

Lesson 3/4: seems pretty good- i'm interested to see how it will go over!

Permalink Reply by Stephany Messer on July 24, 2009 at 7:47pm

Habitude #4 Self Awareness

This is a tricky one! One phrase that I thought would be easy to use to help explain this is our built in check-and-balance system. A few of the qualities a self aware learner should possess are ability to recognize strengths and weaknesses, monitor their own behaviors and actions, and become more confident and successful. I really appreciate that list because I think they are all things I can learn from as well. One of the best parts about teaching kindergarten is getting students to believe in themselves and feel like they are an awesome person. Teaching this habitude could hopefully lead them to that.

Anchor Lesson: I like the connection of the fingerprints and different learning needs. I think they could all connect to that very easily. We could do a lesson with that for sure. That would be a good one to do early. We can also throw in the comment that they are in charge of their learning, it is not something that is done to them! (That would be good for parents to hear too!) We could also fit this in pretty easily with some of our character building stuff in the first couple of weeks. It would be a great way to intro I PICK and good fit books. Maybe we could have them stamp their fingerprints and have them come up with one thing that's special about them as a person or as a learner. We could save that for portfolios. It might even be interesting to ask them three times throughout the year about what their strengths are as a learner to see how their answer changes or if they come up with other qualities. Maybe we can talk through that when we plan.

Lesson One:
Perfect idea about the song Amy. I don't use that either but they LOVE those songs. So maybe we could teach that song and then just do the modeling that we do non stop all year long with think alouds, recording, and sharing. If we throw in the new vocabulary (self aware, metacognition) we wouldn't have to change anything.

Lesson Two:
My favorite phrase from this lesson is, "What are you thinking now?" I never ask that question but it certainly would be interesting to see what response comes from it!

Lesson Three:
I struggled to bring this to our level.

Lesson 4:
I like the idea of teaching students about the conversation they are having in their head and what is important in that thinking and how to ignore the distracting voice. Kdg kids struggle with that. How many times are you in the middle of teaching and they get off on a tangent about a cat they saw in the picture and then everybody has to share a story about a cat! Wouldn't it be perfect if we could just say that's your distracting voice so you need to keep that thinking to yourself. :)

Kara, I also love those comments and think they would be perfect for Daily 5. Maybe we should make a cute poster to put up so we remember to ask them! I know myself and I will forget unless I have it right in front of me.

Permalink Reply by Stephany Messer on July 14, 2009 at 9:02pm

I can't keep up...I'm so sorry girls! I will get going with you.