Teach It Out

In my most recent post, I write about the importance of the classroom rug (or meeting space) as a constant and reliable safe space for students. There are many ways to use the classroom rug, for community building, for learning, for play and for important discussions. Read along and enjoy :)

https://teachitout.com/the-classroom-rug-the-constant/

I was grateful to join one of our kindergarten classes on a trip to the recently. Although most of my work this year was done in the classroom, I still have a special love for the learning that children can do in spaces outside of the school building. Taking field trips, even simple visits to a local shore or forest like our kindergarten and first gradeers do, can leave an impression on students and introduce them to a love of learning that helps guide them through their learning days in the school building.

Planning and facilitating these trips may feel hard, but it's an investment into curiosity, engagement, and equity, creating a common ground that our students can grow from, starting with a shared experience together.

At the end of last summer, I asked my daughter to name three memories from our time away from school. Thinking through each of these events, I tried to pull out the special element that made each moment memorable. As teachers, how can we use these little insights to make our teaching more memorable too?

https://teachitout.com/memorable-moments/

We've been visiting a variety of shores over the last few months, including the ocean shore, bays, and lakes. We've been checking in on systems that exist at the shores and understanding how parts of a system work together. Soon, we'll shift into a new study on systems that exist within our local neighborhood and school.

As we approach the halfway point of our year together in first grade we started making some shifts in our work time. We've slowly been introducing books and materials related to our shore study into our work time and over the last two weeks we've dedicated two of our three work times a week to creating projects about the shore.

On day one, our students choose a work time center and collaborate with their groupmates to make a plan for their project. Then, they begin working. On day two, we have a full work period when students complete their projects, ranging from building an aquarium or creating a model of a blue heron, to acting out scenes from the ocean and the shore.

The third work day of our week is an open choice time where students have been introduced to some new centers, including a fake snow recipe that my co-teacher, Emma, found. We hope to introduce new tools into woodworking and additional options for these free choice days.

Finding a balance between open-ended, play based work times, and work time that is centered on our larger study is never easy whether in first grade or older. But we're starting to find the right groove for exploring our study topics while leaving the work time product and expectation open for student interpretation.

1. Students playing in our fake snow sensory table
2. Students using reference photos to draw a beach
3. Students building an aquarium/zoo in the blocks center
4. An early plan for the blocks center
5. Students build a model of a great blue heron, which we recently observed on a shore field trip

Animals add such a beautiful and unpredictable nature to learning. Animals teach kindness, patience, and accountability, while adding a touch of curious chaos to a learning space. Our hairless guinea pigs can take time for some students to warm up to, but also teach students that living things, even those we're not familiar with, can bring joy to our room.

This year we've seen blue crabs, snakes, horseshoe crabs, clams, worms, slugs, various insects, birds, fish, and more! My own daughters, who continue to validate my work with children and their curiosity, thrive when interacting with animals, even when a pig chooses to nibble unexpectedly. 🙂 🦛🐹

Read my new post, Make it Matter, written about the importance of students feeling connected to their learning based on their characteristics, circumstances and their experiences.

https://teachitout.com/make-it-matter/

On Tuesday we start our new school year, and I'll be teaching first grade again for the first time in 8 years. Thinking back to all of our past studies, I'm reminded of how curious and confident my students were. Inquiry wasn't familiar to them (or me) at the start of our journey together in 2012, but we learned to quickly embrace it together. Here are a few snippets of take apart centers, trips to the farm, refrigerator box car models, gardening, block center presentations, sewing and more!

The girls and I spent a ton of time outside this summer. From backyards to beaches and every place in between. I watched how they naturally wanted to explore the outdoors. Not all kids will want to instantly grab a slug and pick it up like Rose, and not all kids may ask questions about the color of the sky or the moon like Harper. However, the innate desire to explore runs through all children.

Years ago I had a conversation with Renee Dinnerstein (Renee Dinnerstein) while we were preparing for a presentation we were giving at NCTE. We talked about the word "encourage." We don't allow our students to do anything, we don't let them, we don't make them. We want to engage students in activities that will encourage them to explore their interests and find answers to their own questions. But how?

How can I create a classroom that encourages students to ask questions? How do I build a space that encourages them to explore? How do I meet and build a relationship with them that encourages them to look to me for guidance or to share their latest discovery? As we all start our new school year together, it's a challenge to us all to create spaces where children feel at home and feel encouraged to wonder and explore.

As teachers start returning back to school here in the Northeast, it's important to keep community and joy at the forefront of your planning. Routines, rules, and expectations are important, but all of these can be taught through engaging and exploratory activities. Our students learned about the steps of a research project by studying caterpillars growing in our classroom. We also taught about the diverse needs in our classroom by looking at the variety of plants that we had to offer and discussing how they all had needs that were different from one another. Engaging kids in activities that bring them together and spark curiosity and joy is the key to a strong foundation for the year.

I wrote this about a year ago reflecting on how we can simultaneously save ourselves some prep time and also create a space that our students can call their own.

Read about a few ways I make my classroom reflect my students each year!

Teach It Out – Bring it in, Teach it Out Welcome! Teach It Out is an educational blog focused on inspiring and encouraging educators to teach curriculum content outside of the classroom. We focus on ways to make learning come alive through experiential practices that can be utilized by teachers and caregivers.