Savouring the Small Moments.

I often wish that over my years of teaching I had kept track of some of the comments and happenings in my classroom. Those moments that warm my heart. Perhaps if there had been blogging back then, I may have!

This week: 
Tuesday: As I am sitting at my computer marking the roll before I go to lunch, the last student out says, "Thanks for the  gaming Miss T".  ( We have just started the Quest in Gamestar Mechanic.)
Still focused on the roll I reply, "You enjoyed that?"
"I didn't just enjoy it, I LOVED it!"

Wednesday: At the end of the day we are reading the 12 Tasks of Hercules. We have a bit of a conversation about Greek and Roman gods.  Unknowingly I offend one of the Year 8 boys with my opinion about them. ( I only have limited knowledge of them based on Rick Riordan's books!). Fortunately his mother clues me in on how he is feeling. I realise I brushed over his opinion.  I understand he hasn't felt heard, so the next day, while seemingly having a reading conference with him, I apologise for not listening to him properly, explain that my knowledge of the gods is limited, and after some deep discussion we are on the best of terms again.

Thursday: After morning tea, we are again on Gamestar Mechanic and completing the next mission. I am watching the whiteboard, where one of the student's games is showing as he plays it. His Year 8 partner stands beside me viewing it as well.
"What if we don't get this finished today?" he enquires.
"It can be finished for homework." I reply.
"Hmm, not bad, gaming for homework!" he says in his understated droll way, a slight gleam in his eye.

Friday:  Friday has a few large chunks taken out of it each week with other curriculum areas so we have shorter time for Literacy and Maths.  This Friday I took the Literacy time to administer a STAR reading test. After morning tea, someone is demanding in the background, "When is Literacy today?" The look of disdain and disappointment on her face when she learns we've had it for today, warms my literacy loving  heart!

As we leave for the day, I remind students that Monday is Labour Day, that we have a long weekend, so don't come to school. "What's Labour Day?" someone asks. The bell has gone so my answer is short! "Labour means work, we've worked hard all year, Monday is the day to appreciate it and rest!" (Probably not accurate but....)
"Oh, says a Year 8 girl, I thought labour was the birth of a baby!"
"Well when a baby is born, the mother does a lot of hard work, so I guess that is why it is called 'labour'." I reply.
"Oh, I never knew that," she says, and others nod their head.

And so the week ends.  A week to savour!

A Born Again Reader.

I have always been a reader, but not of children's literature.  Since exiting childhood I left that genre of books behind.  In fact as a child I was often mystified by my best friend's mother enjoying reading children's books. I have of course over the years of teaching read aloud many books to my class and have been touched by most of them.  There is nothing better than to share a book with a class where everyone is totally engaged.

Last year I was introduced to The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller through twitter.  It was then than I decided I could read at least one children's book a week, and set out to do so.   I am pleased to say since about September last year I have honoured that commitment to myself.  I began to read some of the books my students were reading, and I was able to share some suggestions of ones I had read as well.  A whole new world began to open up for me and I became 'converted'.

During our summer break I have begun to follow the #nerdybookclub on twitter, and that has introduced me to wonderful possibilities in the world of book reading.  These people are really dedicated readers and have a wealth of knowledge between them, I sit as a novice at their feet and soak in as much as I can.  I have chosen to take part in the Newbery Challenge - see the link on the side bar.  I am going to take it slowly, and I have decided that rather than begin with the first book, I will begin with the later books and work backwards.  Not in order though, as I await books from the library I will take whatever comes first.

So each week I hope to take part in the What are You Reading Monday over at the blog Mentor Texts.

Last week I  read Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher.  This is about a class of students and how they act and interact when their substitute teacher does not show up for the day.  They decide to run the class themselves and do so rather ably until there is a crisis.  As it turns out they handle this well, and change happens.

I think readers in my class will enjoy this one.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt was definitely my favourite of the week.  I read this as an e-book on my Kobo ereader, borrowed from our town library. That was a first for me too, as it is only very recently that our library has had this facility available.

This is the story of a middle grade boy who belongs to a poor family and has moved to a new area and school.  Doug Swieter will remain with me as a favourite character of all time.  I loved him and the book so much I have purchased it and intend it to be my first read aloud of the year to the class when we go back in two weeks. One small detail that entertained me was that the class at one time are set a project to do on New Zealand!

I loved this video which I watched after reading the book of Gary Schmidt talking about this book. He explains it far better than I could.

A Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole.  This is the story of a mouse and her search for a home and her friendships and challenges along the way. I had borrowed it from our local library via my Smartcard, again a new experience for me.  Some of our local libraries have teamed up and books can be reserved and send to the library of your choice for no cost.

Needless to say I have since bought the book.  There are students in my class who will love this book.  Again here follows a short video that will show you some of the art work in this wonderful book.

The last book that I read this week was a first as well.  My first graphic novel. Sure I have read plenty of comics in my time but no comic novel.  Although that reminds me I have a Diana Gabaldon graphic novel sitting on my shelf that I must read.  The book I did read was Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol.

Anya is a Russian American and struggles with who she is and how she is perceived.  Falling down a hole she meets up with a ghost from over ninety years back who also fell down the hole.

They escape the hole and over time form a bond, until things turn somewhat black and dark.  Finding her way through this darkness Anna also finds herself.

The art work is wonderful and the whole novel is well done.  I am not sure if I should release it into my classroom, I think perhaps Year 8 girls would benefit from it with discussion.  I have decided to ask our local town children's librarian to read it and give me her opinion.  She knows my class well as we visit there once a fortnight.

So that was my reading last week.  This week I have books on order for the Newbery challenge, but my experience is now that they take about a week to arrive.  In the meantime I will read Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan.  The boys in my class have been fans of these books and I have heard them discussing them often.  I have read the first two in the second series but now feel compelled to go back and explore the first series.  

The Joy of New Learning!

Some of my students do the ICAS Mathematics papers with the University of New South Wales. They just like the challenge and it’s a choice for them if they want. Those that are good at Mathematics generally like to give it a go.

The following question in the Yr 7 and Yr 8 paper had the better students in my class stumped. As their teacher I was totally lost as well.  Teegan went home and asked her sister and she came back with an explanation that we couldn’t follow so being the end of term and year we left it.

However when the holidays came around it was something I wanted to find out about so I took the problem to my friend and a past Math’s teacher to help me.  Here was the problem.

35.                          4! = 4x3x2x1

                                5! = 5x4x3x2x1

                                Jess wrote the expression 20! – 19! on the board.

                                Which of the following has the same value as this expression?

(A)        1!

(B)        20

(C)        19x19!

(D)         20x19!

When first looking at it I thought maybe (A).  I was applying the only background knowledge I had which was  taking 20! – 19! =  and thinking of it as 20a – 19a =.          However having peeked at the answers I knew this wasn’t correct. I was worried by the top piece of information but I couldn’t find any pattern and in the end chose to ignore it.

                                                                   

                                                       

However now I have new information!   The ! is a special symbol, it stands for factorial. I hadn't known that. So 4! stands for 4x3x2x1.    5! as above.  6! would be 6x5x4x3x2x1.   Factorial is related to the word factor. So 6,5,4,3,2,1 are all the factors of 6!

I now had some helpful information but it took me awhile longer.  So….

20! – 19!  =  20 x (19 x 18……x1) – 19x(18x17….x1)

                  = 20 x 19! – 19!

                    = 19 x 19!          which is (C)

Factorial numbers get bigger quickly.   20! is 20 x 19!  so if we take away one 19! we have 19 x19!

20! is 20 times larger than 19!

The part in blue took me a little while to get.  Later in the day I went over it in my head and I said to my friend awhile later, “So I’m going over the factorial thing and this is what I think…

As he listened he said “I don’t think you have got this part, and he named the place where 20! is 20 times greater than 19!, so we chatted over that and finally I saw it.  Or at least I did, until I sat down to write this and then I had to go to his paper to look at the notes he had jotted down and then it came back to me.

Now to those that did Maths for high school and college this probably is a no brainer. But for me who was told in Year 10 that girls didn’t need Maths (1960’s) this was very new learning.  My love is reading and writing, however I need to teach Maths to Year 8 and I actually enjoy it too.
 

Why did I want to solve this problem?  Well firstly I was driven by the fact that I wanted to be able to teach my students about it.  That was my why.  It has no other relation to my life, and I have to say it probably has little relevance to a large part of the population.  So why would my students need it? Well obviously they are not going to get the message that girls don’t need Maths so it is a small step in the bigger picture.  Now that I knew the word factorials I was empowered to search further about them. A video on You Tube showed me a little more. 

I hadn’t seen them mentioned in Algebra at the Year 8 level but what’s the harm in going further? I was partly driven also by my need not to have my students say half way through the year “I haven’t learned anything new in Maths this year!”  Now while it wasn’t Teegan who said this, or indeed anyone in my class in 2011, I know I will get great joy in sharing my knowledge with her and the others who are ready for it.   Students who on the whole are showing through testing they are at Level 5 in the NZ curriculum but are still at primary school.

And learning for the sake of learning is actually very satisfying.  Now I need to share it in a way my students will get it, so that one day very soon they can go beyond me.  One thing I can predict is they are going to grasp this far quicker than I did.

Writing in the Classroom

Recently I have been working on what good writing looks like, and what the teaching of that looks like as well.  Last summer holidays,- overseas readers  its just going into Spring down here- as teachers do, I was searching around for new viewpoints on writing.  I came across the Northern Nevada Writing Project.  It has some wonderful pointers on the teaching of writing in the classroom.

It takes the six traits approach to writing, and I find this really helpful in teaching the skills of writing.  When I went to school, we didn't learn that much about writing.  Once when my mother went to a parent interview the teacher said, "You would think her writing would be better with all the reading she does".  My mother came home and repeated that to me, and it's a remark I've never forgotten. It wasn't that helpful, and if I was being myself now, I would say, "So teach me to write!"  Back then, we were expected to learn about writing by osmosis perhaps? The Northern Nevada writing project which you can link to from the picture below, features children's books that can be a model for writing.

I noted this site, but it is only recently that I have returned to it and started to really make use of it.


There is also a Ning linked to this site, which again I joined but did little about until now.  You can check it out through the picture link below.  At present I am grappling with developing the skills of sentence fluency with my class.  Another post on that later.  Let us say I am coming to terms with the participle phrase, hoping that my students are at the same time.

It is said that what we need to learn,  is best learned by teaching it.  You see, it is not only my class that are developing their writing knowledge and skills, count me in too.  At present I am preparing a guest post on books for another teacher.  I just need the time to revise and edit it first!  I want to put into practice what I am learning.  Hope my class does too.

Were you taught about writing when you went to school, or did you learn by osmosis?