Teaching Kindergarten 2014
James E. McGuire
March 31, 2014
“Stretch your
brain. Stretch your sentences,” said
Mrs. Slaughter as 22 kindergarten students went from the carpet to their work
tables to begin their journal entries.
The students had already written the first four words: “Over the weekend, I …. “ Now they were to complete that sentence, describing
their weekend. When finished with the
writing, their assignment was to draw and color a picture relating to their
journal entry. Our assignment was to respond to a raised hand by providing assistance
to writers who were stuck. During the
15 minute journaling period, Mrs. Slaughter made her way around the room, deftly
checking work, helping to erase and re-write mistakes in spelling or incomplete
sentences, and finishing her review with a star and a comment.
Before starting to write, the students had discussed
their week-end activities with each other in an exercise of active listening
that I also use in advanced mediation training.
“Pair up with a partner,” Mrs. Slaughter said. “Ask your partner what she or he did over the
weekend. Listen carefully because you
are going to share with the class what you heard.” The silence that had lasted during these
instructions was broken quickly as excited young voices told classmates what
they had done over the weekend. I could
hear only snatches—“playground. . . playdate; shopping for . . . ; trip to . .
.; had fun with . . . .” Then Mrs.
Slaughter called time and asked a student to tell the class what his partner
had done over the week-end. She prompted
for more details—“Who did you go shopping with?” “Where?” “What did you play?” “Stretch your mind. Stretch your sentences.”
At
8:00 am on the first Monday in February, we had stood outside classroom zero,
Mrs. Slaughter’s kindergarten class at the Country Lane School, waiting for the
doors to open. We watched as the line of
kindergartners filed in with a gaggle of parents clustered on the other side of
the breezeway. My heart was beating a
little faster—I was excited and somewhat apprehensive at my first day as a
kindergarten helper. We had volunteered
because our granddaughter is in Mrs. Slaughter’s class. Every Monday for the
next two months, for ninety minutes, we would assist Mrs. Slaughter. I did not know what that meant. I thought I was up to the challenge, but
still felt that little frisson of fear we experience when facing the unknown. I took a comforting sip from my traveling tea
mug and then took a picture of our granddaughter Dara as she came skipping
across the playground to join her classmates.
Promptly
at 8:15 a.m., Mrs. Slaughter opens the doors with a warm smile and welcoming
words. She is dressed professionally,
slacks, a colorful top and leather shoes with modest heels. We enter and put
away our jackets as the students enter and go directly to their cubbies to
deposit backpacks, jackets, and morning snack .
Then they walk quickly and sit criss-cross on their assigned spots on
the colorful carpet. All know the
routine. Each day starts with a class
meeting. Taking attendance is easy: is there an empty spot? When all are settled, It looks like a
miniature United Nations General Assembly.
Mrs.
Slaughter puts us to work while she meets with the students for morning
meeting. Our tasks vary. I graduate from removing staples on school
work that had been stapled to the wall to stapling together the pages of next
month’s journals to filing the papers students will take home. The quantity and quality of the student work
impresses me. Here is the homework packet for January—multiple pages of various
reading, writing, counting, drawing projects completed by the students at home (goal:
10-15 minutes/day), with comments, corrections, and stars from Mrs.
Slaughter. Here are portraits of
presidents and illustrations of stories that had been read in class. I struggle a little to decipher unfamiliar
names written by the students on their paperwork—Riko, Naila, Suhas, Zichen,
Medha. Claire learns how to use a glue
gun (great fun) and the cutting board to cut colored paper to size for some
future project. Confident that we understand our first assignments, Mrs.
Slaughter turns to give her full attention to her students.
Mrs.
Slaughter sits in a comfortable director’s chair in front of her class. There are two flip-charts in the front near her
chair and a plastic console filled with markers, pointers, and school supplies
of all sorts. Near her feet are plastic tubs filled with
books. On the side is an activity board for recording important
information: the day of the week; the
weather; the number of days that the students have been in school. The carpet itself is an education. The colored rows depict the visible
spectrum: bright red and orange near the
teacher; blue and violet at the far end.
The border of the carpet has the days of the week and the months of the
year with a seasonal picture for each month. Each spot is a rectangle, 18’
x24”, just big enough for a kindergartener’s personal space.
In
the center of the room are five tables and chairs. Each table has a centerpiece, holding a mound
of erasers, and boxes of crayons, colored markers, pencils, and scissors. Around the room, the walls are covered with completed
student work, the alphabet, sight words, and new quizzes. The section captioned
“Algebra and Functions: Symbols,
Operations, Properties” has a new neatly-written question: “Which symbol shows ‘equals’? + - $ =. ” Next to that is the section
entitled “Math reasoning: Word problems.”
Today’s word problem: “Sadie went whale watching. She saw 7 orcas and 7 blue whales. How many whales did she see altogether?”
As
we worked, we listened to the morning routine—“For this week, Caden will be our
line leader; Barak and Dara will be handing out papers; Anna is our attendance messenger;
and Aadya is our caboose.” “What day is
today?” Little hands shoot up; one answers “Monday” and goes to the board to
change the day. “And yesterday
was?” A smaller number of hands go up;
one answers. “And tomorrow is?” It is sunny today and this is our 125th
day of school. So let’s stand and count,
this time by tens.” Mrs. Slaughter leads
the students in running in place or jumping. Everyone shouts, “Ten, twenty,
thirty, forty . . . one hundred twenty;
one hundred twenty-one . . . .” Then
everyone sits back down and Mrs. Slaughter explains the schedule for the day
and the themes for the month. “This is
the first Monday in March. This month we
will learn about Spring, leprechauns, and whales.”
Seamlessly,
Mrs. Slaughter slips into reading mode.
I had glanced at a schedule on her desk—five days divided into 15-minute,
color-coded blocks. She read from the
book in the fluid style of practiced teachers the book turned so that all could
see; an animated voice, able to switch from reading to commentary and
back. The children listened with rapt
attention. When she came to a
challenging word—“The whale raised its fluke.
What is a fluke?” The hands shoot up; someone is called on and correctly
answers and the story continues. Other
concepts are explained—‘‘breaching; spy-hopping; lob-tailing”-prompting another
hand to shoot up. “Lobtailing is like a
whale ‘high five’,” offers one boy. Mrs.
Slaughter stops reading before they have reached the end of the book. It is 8:30 and time for learning centers.
Mrs.
Slaughter divides the class into five groups.
She consults a wall chart, calls
out the students’ names, and directs them to one of five tables. We have been joined by two other volunteer
parents, seasoned veterans, I think. I
am given a table with iPads, encased in sturdy green plastic protective covers
and attached to a set of headphones.
This is self-directed learning.
My job is to monitor and help if there is a technical problem. For several sessions, I observe the students join
a penguin on his adventures. To move to the next stage, he must solve a math
problem. Most problems involve addition or
subtraction. Some introduce simple
equations—balancing a scale with an equal number of blocks so the platform is
stable and the penguin can climb. Each
student starts at the beginning of the game and proceeds at a comfortable pace. The adventures are more exciting and the
challenges more complex as the game advances.
I can observe that some struggle to find the solution. The patient iPad never scolds or quits. When mistakes made, the penguin must try
again. Occasionally, I offered a small
tip to help someone who was stuck. In March, the iPads were supplemented with
Chrome notebooks with high speed internet access. The students learned (or already knew) how to
navigate with the notebook and open an eBook.
The stories were read to them, usually by a celebrity. Then the students would either discuss with
me what they had heard or listen to a
new story.
At
another center, Claire helped a group of students set up and play a game to
improve reading and spelling. At another
center, Karen, a parent volunteer, is helping a group of students on an art
project—creating a seascape with pieces of colored paper—a whale habitat. Another parent is reading a story to her
group and helping the students chart the facts from the story. Mrs. Slaughter is leading a group of readers
at her center, all reading the same story.
Mrs. Slaughter calls out, “Three more minutes.” And later, “one minute—get ready to move to
your next center.” And fifteen fast
minutes have gone by and I have a new group donning the headphones and turning
on the iPads. I glance at the other
tables—every group is quickly engaged in the new activity.
I
return to my group and study more closely the games they are playing. I knew
generally about Common Core standards, adopted by 44 states, to guide an
integrated curriculum in math and reading for K-12. I had downloaded the Common Core standards on
my own iPad and had mused about how some of these standards translate to
teaching kindergarten. http://www.corestandards.org/ The titles can
intimidate: “Counting and Cardinality,
Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Number & Operations in Base Ten, and
Geometry.” The actual standards are more
understandable: “K.OA.A.2. Operations & Algebraic Thinking: Understand addition as putting together and
adding to, and understand subtraction as taking apart and taking from.” And now I saw this in action—an iPad and an
adventure game that was easy to learn and fun to play. Wow. I
was still watching, but now engaged at two levels: watch them the play the game; map to Common
Core. Too soon, I heard Mrs. Slaughter, “Three more minutes” and then “one
minute, finish your project and come back to the rug.”
9:15 am. My
first hour was done and I felt like I had been on a fast-paced exhilarating
ride. I sip my tea and enjoy with some
free time to just observe. Mrs.
Slaughter and the students have resumed the story they had started
earlier. When the story ends, Mrs.
Slaughter stands at the flip chart to print the information the students provide
about whales: where they live; what they
eat; what they do. I observe and reflect: “Common Core standards: Reading: Literature. RL.K.1. With prompting and support, ask and
answer questions about key details in a text.”
RL.K.4. Craft and Structure. Ask
and answer questions about unknown words in a text.” Mrs. Slaughter glances at the clock and
announces, “Time for journaling. Today I want you to write about whales and draw
a picture of whales in their habitat.
Stretch your mind. Stretch your sentences.”
9:45.
Journaling is done for the day and so are we. Mrs. Slaughter and her class are less than
halfway through the day. I know only a little about the rest of the day: snacks
and recess, of course; a trip to the computer lab, possibly; and more learning,
certainly. I also know I will never
underestimate kindergarten and the professionals who teach it.
