Chapters 1 &2 (7/3/09)

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Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 6, 2009 at 7:00pm

Habitude #1: Imagination
The first thing I thought of before I read this chapter was how much I love my job of teaching kindergarten! I love that our days are different each day. I think I chose teaching b/c it is a great way to be creative with every thing I do in the classroom. One important thing I have learned is that each year the kids always come up with things I have never thought of. I love learning from them!

Imagination- I thought the lessons in this chapter went well with the comprehension strategy visualization. We use our imagination the same way that we visualize: using feelings, our senses, connections, and knowledge in order to solve a problem or create a new idea. I have several of the texts to use with my students and would like to come up with some kindergarten friendly activities to possibly do to enhance their imagination and creativity either with the texts or simply enhancing their workstation time by questioning and/or having them share their learning. I realized last year the power of sharing and hopefully can be more consistent with that next year!

Another thing I thought of with imagination was our ELP lessons at school. Some of the lessons lent themselves well to imagination even though I'm not sure they served their purpose. They would be good lessons to dig deeper with possibly for next year. Or at least give a jumping off point to thinking about lessons that can be done to help promote more imagination.

Permalink Reply by Stephany Messer on July 7, 2009 at 6:57pm

Visualization was exactly what popped into my head too! We can easily incorporate imagination with some of those activities. It would be nice to get started with imagination a little earlier in the year because the students can easily identify with this habitude. What can we do earlier in the year to get this going???

Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 6, 2009 at 7:56pm

Habitude #2: Curiosity:

After reading the curiosity chapter and connecting it to how important questioning is, I realize that I need to make sure to have questioning a big part of every lesson, not just when I teach that comprehension strategy. I am still a little uncomfortable with how to teach questioning at the best level but I will hopefully gain a little more from the habitudes.

I read the book, Where Do Balloons Go?, by Jamie Lee Curtis last year. It was at the end of the year and I had the kids try to figure out which strategy was most prominent in the book and why that was important.

Another thing that made me ponder was, 'when was the last time my students were allowed to seek knowledge in a topic they were cuious about?' I realize that I can let go a little and let kids take charge of their learning through what they might be interested in. I hope Daily 5 and more one on one conferencing will help with this.

Permalink Reply by Stephany Messer on July 7, 2009 at 7:23pm

Habitude #1: Imagination
This is the perfect habitude for kindergarten. They all have vivid imaginations! The hard part is getting them to realize how you can use it as a tool in your learning. Angela's anchor lesson was perfect. Two key comments I think students need to hear are, "successful learning is more than just absorbing and remembering information" and "imaginations help you get the image as clear as possible." (pg. 17) Her scenario of the rock climbing will be hard for our students to identify with. What scenario can we use instead? I do think the lemon test would work with our students.

Lesson Two for teaching imagination included the game "How Come?" Let's brainstorm questions we can ask. This is new thinking for me so help me out!
How come...
--All of the students went to the lunchroom but there wasn't any silverware. How come?
--It was a really hot summer day and I went to the pool to go swimming. Nobody was in the water. How come?

Lesson Three: Imaginative Reading
"Great readers do not just read the words in a book; they envision the world of the story in their minds." (pg. 23) If only words came out of my mouth so clearly! I need to have that on a sticky note to teach this lesson. I love the revolving role game it it would be perfect to use with "The LIttle Red Hen." Students would love the chance to act out the characters and come up with their own ideas of what will happen next. I typically ask students to answer what if questions while we are in whole group but with that approach only a select few get to participate. When working with a partner everyone has to get it a shot.

Lesson Four: Visualization and Imagination
"imagine the Music" seems a little deep to me. Do you think we can do this with our kids? Give me your thoughts!

The book list had a lot of great suggestions. Did any of the books jump out to you as things we can use to teach more lessons? Maybe even use them during read aloud?

My final thoughts are that I am not a very creative person, I like straight lines and following the rules. It's hard for me to pull creativity and imagination out of my students when I do such a poor job modeling! Hopefully using the vocabulary and presenting the lessons right away will give us all a chance to use our imaginations!

Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 13, 2009 at 6:08pm

Okay! I am going to try to consolidate a reply from everything in this discussion so far!? I'm not sure I will be as clear as I want to be but not sure how else to respond!?

Here goes:

From Stephany's question about how we can implement Imagination earlier in the year: Do we want to structure introducing a new habitude once a month so that would give us enough time to introduce and get some extension lessons done within that time? I think we can stick with our comprehension schedule the way it is. I was wondering about taking out the Monitor and Fix Up (January?) since we do that from the get go and all year long. That might free up some time for other things. I realize that might be a "checklist" thing to do but I am going to have to have some kind of schedule or I won't fit it in! Any other ideas on implementing?

Anchor Lesson: I like the lemon test too. I was wondering about substituting the mountain climber story with something that the kids would connect with more in their own life? such as learning how to ride their bike? I like the beach one too!

Lesson 1: How Come? I like those questions you guys have started! I am trying to be "creative" with some more and seem to come up with tragedy ideas like, " the plane is falling, how come!" I'm not sure why my brain is going there so I am working on it! LOL

Lesson 2: Mind Map- since we do these a lot with brainstorming ideas, I like this idea to help kids problem solve. I want them to know there are different ways you can use a Mind Map.

Lesson 3: I think the kids would really enjoy this and get more out of it than I am willing to admit! I rarely take the time to do role playing activities. This reminded me of an activity that I wanted to try from Angela's boot camp a few years ago: several kids role play a different fairy tale character all sitting at the dinner table- what would their conversation be like? or maybe they all have to work cooperatively together on a project of some sort?

Lesson 4: Imagine the Music: This one does seem a little scary, but those are the lessons I need to be willing to try! It's hard to step outside the box but I need to force myself to do it. Every lesson that I have done that I think it will be over the kids' heads, they have really surprised me and stepped up to the plate! I think it would be great if we tried this one on the same day so we could have a conversation about how our kids did right away!!

Read Alouds: I was at the Learning Post and saw a really cool book that was perfect for adding to our list of Imagination books..and now I am on the couch and don't have the exact name...but I just looked at the book list and some of the same books were in there! I didn't know what they were before I saw the one in LP. They are: Imagine a Day and Imagine a Night. I will find the other title, maybe Theresa has some of them!

Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 13, 2009 at 6:24pm

Curiosity:

I agree Kara! I think questioning is hard for our age group. For one, we have to teach them the difference b/w a question and a telling sentence. That is hard to do when they want to share so many stories! Even though they are so naturally curious and asking questions about everything around them, teaching it may be harder for us than it is for them!? One of the hardest parts for me is getting beyond the fact that I don't need to provide answers for all of the questions or that it's not even important for them to find all the answers and just to keep asking questions. I like the "Genious Questions" as well.

Permalink Reply by Stephany Messer on July 14, 2009 at 8:00pm

Yes, I need a schedule too. Especially the first year or I won't accomplish anything. I like the idea of throwing one in each month. Then we can spread it out over time and hopefully be able to make deeper connections that way. We can probably incorporate some of it during our share reading time but also read aloud and our end of the day after recess time too. We can think of a logical order once we're finished reading all of the different habitudes. Imagination would probably be a good one to start with because it is something the kids can relate to and have heard of.

Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 18, 2009 at 8:34am

I know I will be talking to you but should we look at a time to get together the last week to upload on to the wiki and get the schedule for habitudes set? We can also "beef" up the first and second month's lessons for us to have ready! any thoughts???

Permalink Reply by Stephany Messer on July 21, 2009 at 1:50pm

Do you girls want to come over here again on Wednesday afternoon (7/29)? 1 or 1:30? That way we can work during nap time. I say the sooner the better! I can do Thursday or Friday afternoon as well. So if Wednesday doesn't work I'm flexible!

Permalink Reply by Amy Jo Manning on July 22, 2009 at 3:48pm

Wednesday sounds perfect to me! I have Thurs and Fri open as well just in case...