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!!!
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Great "Resources" list so far! Could we start a "Book List" with people commenting on books listed in this book that they have used successfully and recommend? We have taken the Kimochi Curriculum and modified it to DAP and our Native children. Each "feelings" character has a book & activity bag for teachers to use. This book group is going to greatly add to our Teacher's resources :)
I really like this book so far. We use the Kimochis Curriculum in 4K at Lac du Flambeau Public school also. It will tie in really well with the friendship workshop format described in chapter 3.
I enjoy the examples used especially the clarity of details. I like how she recognized one student about to lose control and asked everyone to stop and take three deep breaths to relax then following up with a "phewfers, now I feel better, don't you?" while addressing the whole class and helping an individual without the dreadful singling out experience. I dig Mary Anne Buckley's teaching strategies and model for learning.
This book has provided great reminders of what I went into this field for! The past decade or so, I have had internal struggles as the academics have become more important and the social/emotional learning has been pushed to the side. My belief is that social/emotional learning IS important and the result will be that academics will follow. I intend to start a daily "Friendship Workshop" to make sure that these important lessons make it into my plan book and be intentionally taught. In years past, these lessons were part of my plan and with more requirements, they often are the first thing to be skipped. As we enter the 9th week of the school year, the honeymoon is over and some of those behaviors are surfacing. This book has come along at just the right time!
This book so far, is a great resource. It reiterated the importance of language and communication. I liked Mary Anne Buckley's example of taking pictures of her students for understanding the position words. In Chapter 2 "Teaching Students Self-Regulation" could be used in conjunction with some of Heather Forbes LCSW philosophy. In her book "Help for Billy" she discussed how the brain reacts to stress. Here at Lac du Flambeau Public School we are viewing Heather's webinar on "The Trauma - Sensitive Classroom" which stress the importance of brain based research, relationships, and managing behaviors. As I was reading I thought of Dr. Becky Bailey's Conscious Discipline. The ''I Love You Rituals" can help students create a positive environment for making connections.
I, too, thought of Conscious Discipline, as well as Pyramid Model. I appreciated that Ms. Buckley held the Friendship Workshops daily at the beginning of the year. I feel it is so important to front-load anything pertaining to social/emotional skill development at the beginning of the year because those skills do help children be able to learn.....period. I smiled when I read the section on "Peacefulness." What does 'peaceful' look like to a child? Feel like? I couldn't help but think that a body at peace does not necessarily mean a mind at peace. I think as I read more I will discover the focus on social/emotional learning will foster peacefulness as well as literacy development.
As I have been reading, I find great connections between Friendship Workshop and the lessons we are using from Kimochi's at LDF. The lessons for students to learn and the chance to practice these skills are necessary for their future academic success. If we neglect to spend time on social emotional well being and skills, we are neglecting our students. It's hard to remember this as the expectations and accountability pieces stack up for teachers to "prove" themselves in this day and age. This book is a great reminder of what we are here for, to help our students be successful!
Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised with this book. As an itinerant special education teacher in 4K classrooms, I can't help but wonder if the behaviors I see from a lot of my students are due to poor communication and models within the home environment. I really feel that the book does a nice job of outlining the importance of communication and how social emotional skills are so closely tied to that. I think as teachers of little ones, we are constantly worried about curriculum or policies that are not developmentally appropriate for our children but we have a "need" to get them ready for learning at a Kindergarten and beyond level. This book reminds me to get back to those things that we KNOW are beneficial for kids, such as the rich conversations with lots of vocabulary, and modeling how to interact with peers in appropriate ways. I'm excited to see what else this book has to offer and how I can help implement certain parts of it in my classrooms for my students with special needs but also for all kiddos!
As I read this chapter, the book The Tools of the Mind, The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education stayed with me. How we can use play to teach self-regulation skills and how we see children engage in regulated other first, before they regulate themselves. Knowing that, how can we set up situations, like the author does, that help children identify mistakes in the teacher's work. About once a month we have live theater during lunch. Our principal and other staff member put on a very short play demonstrating rules and situations related to what our students seem to need support with at that time. For example, if the children are struggling with lining up after the whistle blows outside...that is what the live theater is about. The fun part is that the staff does it wrong the first time. Then we ask the students for input in how to fix our problem. Then they try it again and see if that solution fixed the problem. The kids seem to really enjoy this...we hear them talk with each other about it while in the bus line.
We have had 4K in our district for 6 years now and we are finally starting to get our programs aligned and curriculum established. We choose to read this book as a group and I am hoping, together, we can establish some consistencies with our programs
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