Teaching kindergarten 2014

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 125^th 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.