FINAL WEEK! Dec 7- 13

This week we are finishing the book!!!! I wish I would have read the Giving and Getting Feedback chapter last week as I was babysitting my granddaughter and my daughter came home from teaching her second grade class one night talking about “Shawn”  and the difficulties he was having accepting responsibilities for his actions. It did not help Shawn’s mother called to yell at my daughter because Shawn was so upset because the other kids were making him get in trouble. I will be sharing this book with her and especially this chapter!  The chapter once again reminds me of how important it is to TEACH what may seem  to be obvious skills to children.  The concept of self evaluating may seem to be a high expectation for preschoolers but is such an important skill as they move ahead socially and to be successful with academic standards. Besides the suggestions in the book what would be some simple developmentally appropriate ways for preschoolers to learn to self-evaluate?

I was very struck at the bottom of page 167 with “ we don’t want them to make choices to seek our approval.”  How could we also send this message to parents?

And finally on page 178 I really felt she summed up the book with: “...by teaching the emotional language with the social skills, we can layer on the academic content and have successful and rigorous discussions, questions, discoveries and achievements  that go far beyond any scripted curriculum.” So powerful to get the suggestions in the book in place to be create a learning environment. I hope this book study has giving you suggestions that has changed your practice.

We have offered this learning opportunity in this blog form knowing how difficult it is for professionals to get away from the classroom for PD.  We are still held accountable that it has changed practice which  benefit students. Please fill out the following impact survey and evaluation: https://docs.google.com/a/cesa9.org/forms/d/1RZVqLouE1abNojYfpQvrVZ55xKuXxSJ-2KDgZfLQo0Y/viewform    At the beginning of this book group I listed the expectations to get a certificate  to be posting two times and giving a resource. Half of you have been able to do that. I hope that the rest of you can post at least once in this final week and we will send out certificates next week. Thanks!

AND we have a few more book winners! Eveyln Azbell  won Open This Little Book, Laurie Jacoby won Whimpsy’s Very Heavy Things and Lindsay Steig won My Blue is Happy! I will get these to you soon!

Week 6: Chapters 10 & 11

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing few days off.

Again, Mary Anne Buckley created two wonderful and useful chapters.  I really appreciated how she tied the value and benefits of play, including play during recess, to the writing process.  Play truly does help build self-control and perseverance.  Has anyone ever read or used the book, The First Six Weeks of School?  Sounds like a great resource for helping to cultivate community, which also supports play and teamwork, two elements the author values for helping kids generate and share their stories (page 140).  The resources embedded in these chapters are numerous.  She mentioned using Boardmaker as a way to help create visual checklists; a great resource I have used frequently.  When I was chatting with several ECSE teachers a few weeks back, they mentioned the use of pogoboards.  Like Boardmaker, it is a picture symbol system, only on-line.  I have not used it, but thought it may be useful and worth sharing.

This blog is in the home stretch.  And as the energy levels of your students elevates, and your time dwindles, persevere through these two chapters.  I guarantee they will be worth your while.

 This book came to mind as I read this chapter. 

As did giving children choices and giving children visuals to make those choices easier to make - this is especially important for children with special needs but works well with all children in the heat of the moment and they cannot verbalized what they need to do.

      

It also reminds me of the thought process for kids with disabilities and how helpful social stories can be. Here are a ton of examples - some good, some with pictures, some without but at least gives you ideas: http://resourcesforteaching.weebly.com/-social-stories.html

How could these strategies be altered if you work with child care worker? if you are going into the home? if you are itinerant? if you co-teach?

Have a safe and very happy Thanksgiving!

Week 4: Peacefulnes

I LOVE this chapter!  She delves into peacefulness as more than just being calm and calming down.  The author's goal with her young learners is to come to know the serenity of an inner calm; something deeper than a body that is less still.  It is very hard for adults to get to that place during the business of a day with children, and she recognizes that it is equally as hard for children.  She values teaching "peacefulness" as much as she values teaching kindness, empathy, and all the other emotions we humans have within us.

In this chapter, the author notes a few specific ways to help young learners understand the concept of peacefulness:  deep breathing and using art (specifically visual art.)  If you have other strategies for helping young learners achieve a level of peacefulness, please join the conversation and share your knowledge.  What are other pieces of art that could be used to teach the other emotions?  Are there any other strategies/resources you have for calming down a mind and a body? Maybe we can generate a resource list...

Also, check out the graphic on page 94, especially the question, "Is there an unmet need?"  and the bottom circle.  To me, it reiterates the fact that at times, a body may look calm, but the mind may not be, causing the child to present with potentially challenging behaviors.  I feel this is a very useful question, especially from a trauma-sensitive care perspective.  Using the reflective questions is critical for anyone to support the emotional development of children, yet hard to do during a day.  What strategies do you have, or you did employ, to get in the habit of being reflective about a child's time with you?  Happy reading and happy sharing!

Week Three!

I would like to add to the author’s suggestion for getting pictures of emotions from Second Step.  The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning  (CSEFEL) website also has many free options of how to use emotion pictures and includes the pictures. Go to  csefel.vanderbilt.edu  and look under the resources for teachers. There is also link on the right side of this blog under Website Resources.  As you read the chapter on Empathy I could not help but think of myself on many occasions causing stress in my classroom because I had to be in charge and in control. Stress on my part and that of a child could have been reduced by being more empathetic letting my control go and allowing the child to hold a toy during circle time or lay down instead of sitting.  It would have meant  adjusting “my own preferences for what would benefit the class as a whole.” (p.64)  Can any of you relate to that?  I  also like her suggestion the if a certain procedure is not working smoothly, then stop and reteach it. I also had to think.

I would have to question her comment on the bottom of page 71, “Easing the journey from oracy to literacy”  This implies scaffolding and I would prefer to think about it as Christopher Kliewer, Ph.D does, more cyclical. His document Building Blocks for Literacy and Language is for parents and it references children with special needs. It can be found at http://www.pealcenter.org/images/PEALBook_Kliewer_for_web.pdf  and I will add this link to the resource section.

Moving on to Kindness… I have put every one's name in a hat for the book The Invisible Boy   which is  a great story about kindness and  Kristine Koerner-Bowe has won this children’s book -I will bring it to you next Friday since I will be seeing you then! Congratulations!

On page 73, I was mulling in my head - do I feel that addressing a situation with the whole class is appropriate for 3 and/ or 4 year olds as well? Any opinions out there?

My other thought as I read was obviously this has taken years for her to get to the point where she could write a book about it. Where would you start? What can you do right now and what can you aspire to do the rest of the year?

One last thought - I tend to believe that everyone in a class are not “friends” I prefer to call them classmates. What I do feel is important is that you are friendly with all your classmates. This might look different for 3 year olds - we could possible talk about everyone being our friend then but by 4 and 5 I think it changes.  Agree? disagree?

November 2-8

Welcome to the 2nd week of Sharing the Blue Crayon.  Thanks to those who posted during the 1st week, and we encourage you to keep sharing your thoughts.  I was reading chapters 4 & 5, and some things caught my eye.  First is the Chart 4.2; I wondered how, other than time and maybe trial and error, the author paired the social/emotional skills with the various aspects of literacy learning.  I wondered how others would match the S/E skills to the literacy learning skills.  

Ms. Buckley notes on page 46, that "Teaching is not 'a matter of urgency' but rather a thoughtful and systematic development of an environment that supports learning."  I wondered how often teachers felt the urgency, felt the pressure of the urgency, not to mention the pressures of being a teacher.  What strategies do you employ that enable you to stay focused on the systematic development of a supportive learning environment?  These can be personal strategies to help foster positive mental health and/or teaching strategies for the supportive learning environment.  

Welcome to Sharing the Blue Crayon book group.

Since you committed yourself to this book group and I need to be accountable for providing this as professional learning, there are a few expectations. I (or Cathy) will provide you each week with some guiding questions to ponder as you read the week’s pages. Feel free to deviate from the questions and share your “ah has,” “I wonders…” and/or questions. In the past with a lot fewer people I would ask everyone to respond each week. I have tried to figure out the best way for people to share without overwhelming everyone with having to read 43 comments each week. The expectation is that everyone will:

·       Comment at least 2 times over the course of the 7 weeks ( if you want to contribute more please do)

·       Provide one resource that pertains to the readings (a children’s book, a website, a teacher resource….) These will be collected from comments and placed in the resource section of the blog (right side under the book picture.)

·       Be prepared at the end of the seven weeks to describe how the information/conversations have impacted a change in your professional practice AND what you see happening differently with students (including some specific examples.)

You will receive a certificate at the end of the 7 weeks once the above information is received.

This week we are reading the Introduction, Chapters 1, 2 and 3.  Here are some possible “comment” starters but feel free to reflect on what struck you as you read.

On page10 the author says “ Our conversations and discussions during Friendship Workshop help us reach academic standards; they don’t pull us away from these goals.”  Do you agree with this? What assumptions does the author hold? What do you want to argue about this?

If you are not a classroom teacher, what pieces can you take and use from the book?

The author speaks of young children still being self-centered. What can you be modeling from her suggestions? What can you be doing until they are developmentally ready to participate deeper in Friendship conversations?
Happy Reading!!! 

Welcome to our blog, this will start on October 26th. Looking forward to great discussions. Beth