Last week in Ms. Patte's kindergarten class was so much fun! The kids did a math lesson that involved raw eggs, blocks, and estimation! Ms. Patte explained to the class that they were going to estimate how many blocks would need to be stacked up for an egg to fall from and crack. The students wrote their names on a piece of paper along with their estimation, and then they gave them to Ms. Patte to paste up on the board. Ms. Patte took a raw egg which she had painted the face of Humpty Dumpty on and set the egg on the first block. She called a student up front to help her hold the egg on the block. In unison, the students chanted the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. When they got to the part where they said "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall," the student holding the egg gently lifted his finger off of it and let the egg tumble off the block. Ms. Patte then looked at the numbers to see if anyone had guessed if it would take one block for the egg to fall off and crack and saw that no one had guessed just one block. She continued to repeat this exercise as she added a block to the stack after each time the egg fell from it without cracking when it hit the floor. Finally, after block number 11 was stacked , and Humpty Dumpty was let go, he fell to the floor and cracked! One student guessed 10 blocks and another guessed 12, so Ms. Patte explained that these students both had estimated the closest number of times to when the egg would fall and crack. This was a great exercise to use to engage students in a lesson on estimation. I definitely would like to use this lesson in my own classroom!
I noticed that Ms. Patte used great classroom management skills upon teaching this lesson, and in past lessons I have seen her teach to create a strong classroom culture as Lemov discussed in chapter 5. For instance, Lemov explains that the five principles of classroom culture that must all be asserted are discipline, management, control, influence, and engagement. I have noticed that as Ms. Patte teaches she seems to have mastered balancing all five of these principles as her students are always so well behaved, and they know what is expected of them in her classroom. I notice that Ms. Patte uses a lot of positive reinforcement in her class. She focuses on encouraging and engaging her students. I think that this is important for teachers to do in their classrooms because it lets the students know that the teacher respects them and believes in their ability to succeed. In turn, students are more likely to show respect in return towards the teacher and more of a willingness to learn and continue to be engaged in the lessons the teacher teaches them.
Since I am not there in the morning to see if Ms. Patte uses a "Do it Now" technique, I can imagine that she does because she seems to use it throughout the day. For instance, her students always seem to know what is expected of them when transitioning from one activity to the next. I notice that Ms. Patte rarely has to continuously remind them what is expected of them. I can remember in my own elementary classes where we would have a " Do it Now," expected of us when we came into the classroom in the morning. Usually, it had to do with a writing prompt that was written on the board for us to write about in our student journals. We all knew that the first thing we must do once we sat at our desks was to pull out our journals and begin to write. I think this a great way to maintain control of the classroom when starting off the day!
Great post Liza-I love to hear that your teacher is using such engaging and exciting lessons. Like you said, positive reinforcement is so important particularly at this age and I like that so many of the Lemov techniques focus on this. I am impressed with the students at SES for always staying on task. I think a lot of this can be contributed to the teachers explaining their high expectations from day one and also using this Do Now technique. This leaves no chance for boredom, anxiety, or acting act. As both of our classrooms seem to prove, this is a successful technique that cuts down on the amount of disilplinary action needed.
ReplyDeleteLiza- I really like the lesson that you described. The shear experience of seeing an egg fall and crack is enough to get students excited. I think its great when you can incorporate something into a lesson that gets kids excited about learning. Sometimes when this is done, students just think they're having fun and don't even realize how much they are learning. Each teacher that I have worked with so far has stressed to me how important it is to set up the rules and procudres the first few weeks of school, and to go over them at nausium so that they are ingrained in the students to where they don't have to think about what is expected for them to do. I'm intersted in read the book Dr. Bartel mentioned, The First Six Weeks, and how the author addresses this.
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