Teaching Poetry

It really is my favorite writing unit. For me the key words are "freedom" and "choice".  We expose kids to lots of types of poetry, give them lots of inspiration, and challenge them to be thoughtfully experimental.  They explore the many tools in a poet's toolbox and put them to good use. 

Our big question is "Why is there poetry?"  What can the poet do that is different from other writers? What must the poet do that is similar to other writers? 

Our guiding questions are:

How can we use the form of verse to express thoughts in an imaginative way? 

How can we use language to communicate feelings and create images?

How can use figures of speech and symbols to extend the meaning of a poem?

Here is our poetry board with favorite poems alongside connected objects and illustrations. 

We also read Spinning Through the Universe by Helen Frost out loud and together. It's a brilliant book on so many levels. It seems to be out of print but it's worth searching for. We found a bunch of library copies. The ups and downs of a fiction class are told from a variety of perspectives using a wide range of poetic patterns and forms. My students become invested in the stories and fascinated by all of the secrets the poems beg them to discover. 

Not all of my students come in loving poetry, but I try to change their minds. Best of all is when the ones who love poetry write a verse just for them:

The First Leaders Club

What is a "good" leader?

We talk to fourth graders about being leaders all of the time. As the oldest members of our community the expectations for their behavior and scholarship are high.  But what is a "good" leader?  What qualities do they exhibit?  What actions do they take? To think about this question we take two first leaders, Qin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor of China who united that empire, and George Washington, our first president.  Both of these men left lasting legacies, but of what sort?  We did our research, looked the facts, formed our opinions, and had a debate.

Not everyone got to debate something they believed, but a few argued very convincingly for their side and changed their own minds!

In the end, qualities and actions like fairness, thoughtfulness,  empathy, and communication, along with the ability to make tough decisions and do the right thing even when it isn't popular were greatly admired.

Exploring Area with Tangram Animals

Tangrams are an ancient Chinese puzzle and therefore a no brainer for math integration in our classroom. After exploring various animal shapes we were ready to tackle an exemplar. What is the area of a Tangram animal? Well it depends on which Tangram equals 1.  We made some choices and took notice of the results.

The Lull

Wow its been a while since I wrote...or reflected.

The truth is I feel a bit of a lull and I am indulging in it.  School is not stressful right now.  It feel good and fine and under control.  But it's not like I am not working...so what am I working on?

1) The Panda Problem

We have been studying various problem solving strategies, working on algebraic reasoning, and writing word problems.  The next phase of our year long problem solving curriculum is the Exemplars.   Before Thanksgiving I introduced the Panda Problem which has us thinking deeply and mathematically about panda reproduction.  It also supports our social studies unit on endangered animals and our writing unit on research reports.  It went really well with all students feeling like they could access and understand the problem, as well as find a path to a reasonable solution.  This particular problem does not have an exact answer.  I figured out that the range of answers is 36-124 and I will be satisfied with any justifiable answer in that ranger.   The nice thing about exemplars is that the point in the justification.  In justifying their answer properly students tend to self correct.

I broke this rollout into three parts:  Finding the Solution, Explaining the Solution, and Evaluating the Solution.  Monday I will model building a solid explanation with the hope that student will be able to replicate the building blocks we go over in future problems.  The Exemplars come with rubrics and so we will spend the following Monday evaluating our solutions and making any final corrections.  Then I have a geometry problem I will send home with them to be completed over the break.

2) Geometry Unit

Last year we found through assessment that student were not remembering geometry vocabulary or the difference between area and perimeter.  This year I need to take a slower approach to geometry and not make any assumptions about the difficulty of the material.  I have been trying to break down the concepts I want to go over and match them up with a variety of hands on activities.  I am still searching for some sort of culminating geometry activity that will allow us to use learned vocabulary and concepts in a meaningful way, like pattern making or model building.  I am not sure yet what to work on.  It needs to be artistic too.  I should probably go on pinterest.  In the meantime I have some good activities lined up to support the understanding goals I have identified.  I hope that by going slower we will increase retention and understanding.

3) Blogging

Blogging is going okay for some of my students and terribly for others.  There is a project management piece that some of them just can't handle independently and some are not buoyed enough by the concept of blogging to work these issues out.  Others are blogging day and night and at home and love it.  These seem to be kids who are technologically proficient and who enjoy writing.  If they are hesitant in either of those areas, it seems to slow them down.  Also some of them are not strong typists in general, and others are not sure how to transfer confident keyboard typing skills to the iPad.

With my "mandatory" blog posts, I seem to be creating some stress.  I have removed that word from the categories as it did not seem to generate interest or motivation in actually completing them.  It was just stressing them out.  I am going to keep working on how to give them more time to complete these tasks. I totally see the value in doing the blogs, but we have a wide range of ability in this area.   Since it's our first year, I think I will pay close attention to the true successes and the abject failures.  If there is a middle group that can mostly get it done independently - great.  The successes can show me what is truly interesting, inspirational, and possible with this platform.  The failures can show me what is truly challenging and in need of support so I know what lessons to build in.  I am going to have to cut some of them slack with this particular experiment.  But I need to remember that this is an experiment.

4) Supporting Animals.

I am teaching some writing/research lessons while E leads for her first time.  This is my third year with this unit and we have been pushing the idea of being an advanced researcher and really tackling some of the concrete skills that some children infer, but that all students can do if taught.  Our students run the risk of being too surface and resting on ability that is really "fine" for fourth grade.  However if we can push them to think more deeply we should.  Two lessons that are rocking their world in terms of animal research are the idea of general topic research and working with numbers.

I taught both of these lessons for the first time this year and have been amazed that they really do need them!  The general research lesson was about not becoming too focused on just their animal - that there was value in learning about that animals genus and family too.  Students often skip over resources because they don't mention their specific animal.  But all genus and family information applies and thus they are missing key info.  The research numbers lessons encouraged them  to really investigate what different measurements and time periods given mean by making comparisons,  to do math problems around given numbers so they can write information in their own, interesting ways, and to make charts with information that is other wise confusing.  They grasped these ideas right way and were having many wow moments over their numerical information once they really got down to thinking about it.

The best part of team teaching is that you don't have to do all of the work.  Right now my partner is taking on a lot of the work while running the reading and writing program.  I am okay with that because it is giving me time to think about my passion projects (above) more deeply.  My attention is not being dragged in too many directions and I really have time to think.   I also have time at home to relax which has been really nice.  I am enjoying this little lull as a luxury!

Foursville: Place Value Fun

This was a great math week. I gave out worksheets and taught traditional algorithms.  But it was a great math week.

Why? Because I deeply believe students in the fourth grade should know how the traditional algorithms for addition and subtraction work. But more importantly they should know why they work. And for that I have a secret weapon: Foursville.

I learned about chip trading at Dana Hall math camp. If you've never been, run, don't walk to sign up this summer.  I didn't fully appreciate the beauty of our base 10 number system until Dana Hall but ever since then I have been in love. 

We start Foursville as a game. For fourth graders trading chips is hard work. They really have to think and work together. 

It sounds easy enough. 1 on the die means one yellow chip. 4 yellow chips = 1 blue chip.  4 blues = a green. 4 greens = a red. One red and you win.  In the subtraction game you start with a red and see if you have anything left after passing through a few tolls.  It's all the same idea as "carrying" and "borrowing" in our base 10 system but it blows their minds. 

Early ah hah moments are when they roll a 4 and just take a blue. Or figure out 1 red is worth 64. The advanced students just do the subtraction in their heads translating the amount needed into Foursville chips.  Meanwhile we are reviewing the algorithms learned in 3rd grade but now we can write them in expanded notation and see what all of that crossing out and regrouping really means. We ask ourselves questions and try to make connections. 

Soon students are realizing we could play Fives or Sevensville because there is pattern. Boom! Base systems of numbers. 

I feel good when students see why our society thinks the algorithms are a good way to do some math problems. They also know lots of efficient ways to do these problems mentally. The important thing is that they can make choices and are learning how to decide when to whip out pencil and paper and when it isn't necessary. 

We finished Foursville by noticing the place value patterns of all base systems. In Foursville the green is 4x4x4.  In Tensville it is 10x10x10.  In Fivesville it is 5x5x5. 

We'll see if they can think it through on Monday.  I might still find time to show them Mayan math in base 20, but even if not, man it was a good week. 

What It Is To Be Human

I ride the bus mostly now.  My husband's new job is in Virginia so he takes the car everyday.  On the bus you are exposed to all kinds of people.  There is the young man whose mom brings him every morning.  He is differently abled and apparently deaf since they use sign language.  I often wonder where he is going all by himself.  There is another gentleman who comments on my pretty brown eyes, He is surprised by my quiet thank you which is a recognition of his personhood, a reaction I choose instead of a rebuff to his unwelcome flirtation.

I often look out the window at sights that are not that interesting.  But today my eye caught a man with a dog keeling over.  Another man ran towards him and I knew it was an emergency so I called 911.

In a previous emergency I found I was a person with a cool head who could think of who to call and get others out of the way.  As I jumped off of the bus and ran towards the scene I had witnessed I felt good about my decision to become involved.  Really there was no other choice.

When I got there several men were with the fallen gentleman.  They were rolling him over.  He was turning blue.  I felt in that moment my limitation.  I could make the call, but I stood away and apart unconfident in my years ago CPR training, not wanting to touch his darkening, dying skin or the blood that poured from a cut where he had hit his head.

I stayed on the phone never having called 911 before.  I was trying to describe what I was seeing and convey the urgency of the situation to the operator. He was telling me to stop talking and listen.  He wanted to know about the CPR training of the men who were checking his airway and listening to his chest.  He wanted to know if they needed instructions but they didn't because despite the blood coming from a cut on the man's head and his increasingly blue face, they were doing it.  Sweeping the mouth, opening the shirt, hand over hand pressing on his chest.  A man standing above declared the CPR giver "pretty good".  I repeated the directions so the operator wouldn't get mad at me but they didn't match their actions and it was confusing and I was afraid to make it worse.  Meanwhile,  his face was still blue.  He was still dying.

A woman named Maggie was holding his dog.  He had been out walking his dog, a quick walk before work.  He was dressed for work.  A button up shirt.  A jacket.  The dog was named Diva, a doe-eyed golden retriever who just sat quietly as if she knew she needed to be a non-issue.  She had a red bone tag with two numbers.  Numbers we needed to call.  And say what?

The ambulances arrived.  I thought they were slow to get out, the firefighters.  But maybe that is how you approach a life or death situation when you see them everyday.  With slowness, with calmness, with intent to deliver the right care.

Because they did. They took over and hooked him up to a AED and did what they must do many times a week.  His face was still blue when they stopped and put him on a stretcher and loaded him onto the ambulance.

The man who had given him CPR - Chris - said he would call the numbers on the tag.  He was all in. He spoke to a woman - Claudia - a wife to tell her that her husband was being taken to the hospital in critical condition and there was a dog here.  What should we do?  He didn't think she understood.  She said she would come get the dog.  Was it her English?  Was it her shock?

Soon everyone drifted away.  Most didn't say goodbye.  What had connected us was over.  We had get to work.  Maggie gave me a hug and gave Chris a hug.  I hugged him too.  He had been so brave.   I had cried the whole time.

This morning I saw a man dying.  I also saw a hero try to save his life.  I called 911 for the first time and witnessed an emergency response.  I saw people not walk by and support one another.  I saw a woman with headphones walk over a small pool of blood and not notice and not wonder what had just happened.

I suppose scenes like this happen everyday to lots of people.  Sometimes it doesn't end with a pulse and a man breathing on his own, signs of hope and possibility that it all ended well.  Today it happened to me.  And in that moment I knew what it was to be human.  To be walking the dog and have a seizure or heart attack.  To stop and make a call or use a skill learned at some other time.  To be present with strangers and care about someone else.  To see heroism and humanism and learn they are one and the same.  To be afraid and stuck and unable to turn away.  To let go and release.  Inshallah.  God willing.  To walk forward.  Towards the day.  To go to work.


UPDATE 11/20/13: I heard from either a fire or police lieutenant that the man who had the heart attack is still alive and doing okay!  We saved his life!

Place Value Construction

As part of our review of place value concepts: