Academic and Social Learning

If I were to sum up in a nutshell what I see as the ultimate goal for me as a teacher, it is to establish a trusted relationship with each one of my students, getting to know them at a level that meets both their academic and social needs. In this way, I can find what fuels their love of learning while giving them tools to function as a member of our classroom community. I strive for this with skills I have developed over my career along with programs we use as a school district and within the Porters Point School community.

At PPS we use two nationally recognized approaches to teaching a social curriculum: the first is called PBIS Positive Behavior and Interventions and Support ( http://www.pbisvermont.org/) and the second is the Responsive Classroom (https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/).

Over the course of this year you will learn how our school uses PBIS as a whole school structure in establishing school-wide behavioral expectations. All students are expected to follow three main expectations: Be Safe, Be Respectful and Be Ready to Learn. Students are recognized for demonstrating these by all staff with what we call a "warm fuzzy." The warm fuzzies (pom-poms) are collected in a classroom container (an empty plastic bear) and added to a whole school collection every Friday at our Whole School Friday Morning Meeting. When the whole school meets a particular goal that is set, all students earn a celebration. During the week before last, it was an extra recess for the entire student body immediately following Friday School Meeting. Sometimes our own classroom sets a smaller goal and we earn our own mini-celebrations. For example, last Thursday some kids were asking about an extra recess and so I took the opportunity to challenge them that day toward earning a large cupful of warm fuzzies... as soon as we filled that smaller cup, they got their own extra recess! It was a great community-building exercise, with all students contributing to a common goal. You will hear other ways PBIS is implemented in our school and classroom in the coming months. For example, at each Friday School Meeting the student body learns tools for how to Be Safe, Be Respectful and Be Ready to Learn in all areas of the school. Some recent topics have included watching a video on how to ride the bus safely and how to "freeze at the bell and walk at the whistle" when the recess bell rings to signal the transition to lunch.

In our classroom the Responsive Classroom approach helps me to integrate the social and academic learning throughout the day. Students are nurtured to become strong and ethical thinkers as they learn to care about their classroom, one another and their learning.

One of the six key components is called Guided Discovery. This is a focused, purposeful yet playful technique I use to introduce materials, centers in the classroom or school and any new activities. It is a deliberate and careful introduction to each new experience for kindergartners. My goals include creating excitement to explore materials with imagination, help students make choices that are productive, develop their ability to work cooperatively and listen to peers, and establish rules and expectations for using, taking care and cleaning up supplies.

Some of our Guided Discovery lessons have included using:

• tape, scissors, stapler and whole punch safely
• patterns blocks
• tangrams
• color and shape BINGO
• attribute blocks
• wikki sticks with alphabet letters
• patterns with pop beads and pattern blocks
• watercolor paints
• markers, colored pencils, drawing paper, writing pencils, erasers, pencils to be sharpened
• whiteboards
• blocks
• math games

During Guided Discovery I introduce the material, find out what they know about it, establish some common vocabulary around it, and encourage them to explore the material. Together we establish rules for taking care of the material, model how to use it and generate their creative ideas for using it.  They are given time to explore further and represent their work. They learn some language for sharing their work with the group while others practice listening. We then learn how to clean up safely and store the material so they can access it independently.  During "choice" times they can use the material in a productive and satisfying way.  Many of the early literacy and early math photos viewed in previous blog posts started off within a Guided Discovery model.

Our first Friday School Meeting...emptying our class bear container of "warm fuzzies" into the school's weekly collection bin.

Mr. Shepherd officially dumping the whole school collection into one of the three school wide expectations bin.... that week we didn't fill the whole container, but we achieved the goal the following week as the Plexiglas bin was filled to the brim!

Ms. Millham leading a teaching lesson about playground safety.  Mr. Kriger following up on what we learned through an in-class lesson... all toward an understanding of how to Be Safe, Be Respectful and Be Ready to Learn throughout our day.

More learning and excited preparation for the weekly fuzzy dump to see if we met the goal for a school wide celebration.

Last week our class met a one-day challenge goal of filling a red cup with warm fuzzies in order to celebrate with an extra recess.  We earn fuzzies for using PAX voices.  PAX encompasses a set of tools all teachers use to instill self-regulation and clear behavioral expectations.  Our class will work for more mini-celebrations this week.  The extra recess celebration for our class was a big hit!