Teaching Morality

Here's an interesting idea to discuss: How do we teach morality in a government school? In recent years, schools have been taking on more and more responsibility when it comes to teaching children social skills. Many programs have been developed with this particular goal in mind.

Some parents of children in my class have come to me at a loss as to how to deal with children stealing, or playing inappropriately. As a teacher, I don't always feel competent to help them with their concerns. I know how my parents brought me up, but I was brought up with Christian values and the Bible as a guide. And this advice doesn't work for people from other beliefs. I know how I try to deal with things in my classroom, when they arise, but I feel that this really is an area where parents could be carrying the load.

I have been trying to teach my students more about the meaning of 'respect' over the past couple of weeks. We read a book about respect. We filled out a Y chart of what it looks like, sounds like and feels like. We made posters for our classroom to show how to respect our classroom environment. We made a book of how to respect others in our classroom. I've been using the word throughout the day and rewarding 'respectful' students with stickers and computer time. I've been reminding students if their behaviour is disrespectful. But it seems that all this talk and all this thinking through and planning has had little effect on how the students are behaving. Well...maybe that is unfair. There have been some changes - the classroom is being left much tidier. And it has been a while since someone actually told me that they thought my lesson was boring or refused to join in.

I guess I'm hoping to see some more evidence of respect in terms of how the children treat one another. Maybe that is an area that just requires more training...or more time.

Please leave a comment to let me know how you deal with the challenge of teaching morality.

(Photo by Trois Tetes on Flickr - some rights reserved)

Teaching Math Facts

While teaching in New York City, I was amazed to see how easily young children can learn addition and subtraction facts through regular practice. I now use this new knowledge to train my students to add and subtract numbers more efficiently.

I used to feel that drills were not important in the teaching of Maths - that it was more important that they understand the process, than practice the drills. While I still believe that it is important for children to understand the process of addition and subtraction, I now see the value in using drills to support this.

Each week, I teach a new set of facts to my students. These may be addition facts, subtraction facts, or more recently multiplication facts. I teach my students the strategy they need, using hands on materials and demonstration models. Students then make a set of flash cards to practice these facts. For the rest of the week, my students are given a Fact Sheet to complete at the start of the Maths lesson. This worksheet contains 25 practice questions for the fact we are learning. They usually take about 6 minutes to complete this, and then if they finish early, they take out their fact cards and practice working out the answers. We go through the answers together at the end, and if there are any discrepancies, I demonstrate through illustrations on the Smart Board.

I found that by beginning with some of the simple facts, the class realises how 'easy' math facts are, and build the confidence to deal with the trickier facts later on. Adding zero, or adding one are great facts to do early on. They also like the subtracting zero, and subtracting a number from itself. I actually find that one of their most favourite sets is the doubles facts. They get very excited when they see how these connect with the multiplying by 2 facts. One of the most difficult strategies for some of my students was near doubles, or doubles + one, as it involves a couple of steps. I found that when students struggled with the concepts, they reverted to the use of their fingers to solve the equations.

I'm now a strong believer in the use of this focused drill time, for building confidence and fluency in manipulating numbers. My students now show excitement about playing with big numbers, and some of them are able to apply the strategies they have learnt to solve equations with one or more 2-digit numbers.

UPDATE: I found this great website where you can make and print out math fact sheets - Math Drills. com

(Photo by "Old Shoe Woman" at Flickr)

Author Study - Mem Fox

We just began a new author study on the work of Mem Fox. This has been really exciting as I have found myself building on different skills to the earlier author studies. I'm also seeing a much deeper understanding of authors and illustrators and an interest in exploring new books.

We began with Mem Fox's most famous story – “Possum Magic”, and I was fortunate enough to be able to get access to a Big Book version of the text. I also managed to find a DVD of Mem Fox reading the story (and also “Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge”). On the first day we just read the book and discussed what we liked about it. On the second day we watched the video and then did some map work using the Smart Board and a worksheet I created. My students pieced together a map of Australia and then labeled the states. I then asked the class to find the places that Grandma Poss and Hush visited, and draw the path that they travelled. On a blank map they drew the foods they ate at the places they visited. I was impressed by how much they picked up.

On Mem Fox’s website, she outlines how to read a book aloud with expression. I found it interesting, and have been encouraging my students to use some of her suggestions. In particular, I pointed out that Mem Fox pays close attention to the end of her stories and wants the reader to draw it out to enjoy it more fully. I read “Koala Lou” with one of my guided reading groups, and demonstrated how Mem Fox would stretch out the words on the last page. I've also been re-reading my favourite parts with the class, so they can experience my enjoyment of the way the text is created.

Today I read “Sophie” as part of our unit of work on The Way We Were. It is a great illustration of the circle of life and the changes we go through. After reading this, the kids made a timeline of their lives so far.

One of my favourite moments was when one of the girls pointed out that “Sophie” tied in with both the Integrated Studies and our Author Study. This made me realize that my class now pays attention to who the author of the book is (even before I mention it). Another student also pointed out that they had read another book illustrated by Craig Smith – “Cats” a recent book week nomination.

It’s exciting to see students developing this interest in authors and illustrators. I set up a mini Eric Carle and Lauren Childs sections on my class bookshelf so they can begin their own author studies during independent reading time - we'll see how that goes...

The Way We Were

This week my grade began a unit of work called “The Way We Were” focusing on what life was like when the students’ grandparents were children. I am very excited about this unit of work and have been searching out useful resources.

YouTube has some segments and trailers from movies and television programs of this era: Shirley Temple, Little Rascals, Popeye, Bambi, Singing In The Rain, Lone Ranger, The Wizard of Oz...

I found a local seniors computer club that we will communicate with via email. I contacted the convenor, and they passed my details onto relevant people within the organisation. At least 6 people have replied, so we will have a couple of people for each class. We will brainstorm questions as a class, write the email, and then send it off. I'm hoping we will then be able to scan in student work and send it to say thank you. We're also getting word out to the kids' grandparents to see if any of them would like to communicate with us via mail, email or fax.

The principal has agreed to prepare and present “A Day in the Life of Me as a Child”. I think this will be great! And another teacher has offered to bring along a little suitcase of goodies she has kept from her childhood.

We are going to create a “Time Machine” in the classroom where we will store and label artifacts that we can find. (We have a lockable storeroom we will use for this in order to keep the items safe.) One of the teachers grew up in a house that is about to be heritage listed, and so has many items to share and ponder. I'm going to check out what I can find at my parents' place this weekend.

Early next term we will have a “Grandparents and Grandfriends Day” where students will get to ask their Grandperson about their childhood. We will do some singing and activities together in the morning and then share a picnic together.

Another day we will simulate a school day of the past. We will research, plan and timetable it with the students so that everyone knows what to expect. I've heard of other teachers doing this (and finding it exhausting!).

My desire for this unit of work is that it will be driven by the memoirs and stories of students’ grandparents and the email communication from the Seniors Club. I feel this would be much more valuable to the children than if I just do a bunch of research and spoon feed it to my class. I'll let you know how things progress.

UPDATE: Click here to see an overview of our program: Overview of The Way We Were Feel free to use it to help direct your own program on personal histories, and feel free to contact me for further details.

ALEA Conference

On the weekend I attended the ALEA Conference for Literacy and Numeracy Week. I try to get there every year as I find it so inspiring. When I walk away I have a whole new set of things to try out and absorb into my teacher toolkit.

Recently I have been trying to use author studies and commercial picture books to teach my English content. In previous years, my focus has been more on the use of Reading Scheme materials. I have felt really excited about teaching through commercial picture books, but have been a bit worried about the lack of reading on the part of my students – generally I have been reading to them, as the writing in the book has been too small for the kids to read along.

At the conference on the weekend, we thought through a few options for overcoming this hiccup. I’ve decided I can scan or photograph the pages and display them on the Smart Board for the class to read along with. I also popped into my school library and found multiple copies of some of the titles I am interested in. This means I can use these texts for guided reading rather than being limited to reading scheme materials.

I was also challenged to give more specific feedback to my students, and to ensure that writing tasks that I set have a purpose and an audience. So…this week I got my class to design posters to remind students to respect our classroom environment, and a booklet on respecting others for students to read when they are sent to the thinking spot.

I found some great books I’d like to use later on: “Zen Ties” by Jon J Muth, “Woolbur” by Leslie Helakoski, and “Sunday Chutney” by Aaron Blabey. I’m thinking that I will use “Sunday Chutney” to help students consider what it feels like for the new kid at school and as a lead in to students writing letters for the new student who arrives.

I’m excited about all the possibilities with the use of quality children’s literature and am now looking with fresh sight at children’s picture books.