Reading Readiness

I ran across a preschool teacher's blog with some ideas about helping children get ready to learn to read. I liked her list of 15 ideas. Here are the first 10 items on her list:

1. Read to your child. Everyday. It should be an enjoyable activity.

2. It is a wonderful thing when a child wants to hear the same story over and over again. Read it until you have it memorized, and then read it many times more.

3. Talk to your child. Ask your child questions, even when they are too young to answer. (Always pause and give them time to answer.) Tell your child what your are doing. Provide a running commentary as you go about your day. Talk, talk, talk!

4. What difference can following numbers 1,2 and 3 make? Tens of thousands of words! Children are a blank slate, capable of learning ANY language in the world. Just imagine the vocabulary you can teach your child.

5. Sing songs that rhyme. If you can’t sing, then chant nursery rhymes. Rhyming is so important for hearing the ending sounds of words. Many children love silly songs and poems, and may create some of their own.

6. Alliteration is the beginning sounds of words. Find songs or poems with alliteration. Teach them to your children. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Children will learn to hear (and feel with their mouth) the beginning sounds of words.

7. Sing the ABC song over and over again. Everyday. You can even use a small chart and point to each letter as you sing it. You would be amazed how many children think that “LMNOP” is one giant letter. Many children think that there is an “N” between Y and Z.

8. While reading a story to your child, ask questions about the story. “What color is the dog? Do you think the dog will ever get home? What will the dog do next? Did you like the story?” This builds comprehension and vocabulary.

9. If you think your child might not know a word, give it a definition. “Do you know what a spade is?” (Wait a little while for a response, even for non-talkers.) “Spade is another word for shovel. Do you see the spade?” Then point to the picture.

10. When reading a story follow the words with your finger. Left to right, return sweep, top to bottom, front to back. Let your child help to turn the page.

Hints 11 to 15 can be found at her blog post called "Reading Readiness."

Leopards, Etc.

Rob and Barbara Dicely came to Dunham School this afternoon with some of their wild cats to educate us about the needs and habits of some of the wild cats around the world.

I've known Rob for a long time, from a time before he did cat shows.

You can learn more about his enterprise at their website: www.wildcatfund.org.

Kgosi, a rare King Cheetah




Nkuru, a Serval, hunts mice.
This one uses its left paw to retrieve
a piece of chicken from a plexiglass cylinder
that Rob calls his "portable mouse hole."



Nkuru can leap high in the air to catch birds.




Moremi, a Caracal, born last October.
Caracals are wild cats of the dry African savanna



The oldest cat they showed today was a 15 year-old Siberian Lynx named Oksana.
Barb does the presentations; Rob handles the cats.

Car Wash

This time of year we do a car wash as one of the centers. I'd been "saving up" my Voyager van for some weeks; it was dirty enough that the kindergartners had no problem seeing what needed to be done.

It came out shining clean. We're tackling the principal's car tomorrow morning.

And, although it NEVER rains in California this time of year, I hear we're supposed to have rain next week. So...we'll see...we may not do this center in the rain.

CD of Dunham Music

Andrew, our music teacher, recorded a CD of Dunham students singing their best music. Our kindergarten class is featured on the CD on three of the tracks.

It's available for $10 in the school office while supplies last.

Boomerang Homework

Someone out there on the web who scours the Internet looking for posts on homework sometimes stops by this blog.She cautions me that homework is inexorably negative. Maybe she will stop by tonight and leave a comment.

As you know, homework in this neck of the woods is truly optional. I don't know how many kids to their homework, maybe two-thirds of them or so, depending on whether it's interesting, or they're busy, whatever.

About half of the class did last night's homework on boomerangs. We flew them during choice time. What fun!
Alex made a boomerang that didn't come back, but it flew great—all the way across the playground. From the kindergarten door he could fling it to the garden fence. It would fly low over the ground and then start to climb just high enough to clear the handball wall, disappearing on the back side of it. So cool.

Alex with his long-range rang.
His dad said they added weight to make it fly farther.
Alex tends to put in enough effort on his homework to make it really
worth having a good look at it. Ziyad seems to think so, too.

Other students made boomerangs that circled back. Jack B. made one that I repeated flung into the air, and, without moving my feet, was able to catch on its return trip to my hand. Amazing.

David holding Jack's super-returning rang.

At the end of the day, my KIDS club kids demanded EXTRA homework. That was a first. And what kind of homework do you think they wanted me to give them? Exactly the kind of homework I would not expect them to ask for: math worksheets. Go figure.

Kids in older grades sometimes tell me that they loved kindergarten homework. I think its being optional and interactive might have something to do with their affection for it.

Pattern Blocks

We used to have a math program (which shall remain unnamed) that featured a scripted curriculum.

It included work with pattern blocks. I can't remember exactly what it asked teachers and kids to do, but I do remember it assessed students by asking students to use them to cover shapes, like doing a puzzle. I can remember feeling the curriculum was really more about students following teacher directions than really working with their imaginations. I'm so glad we replaced that math program.

I'm working on report cards now and the kindergartners have the opportunity to spend some time with classroom materials on an unscripted basis, with plenty of time to follow their imaginations.

Here's what Jack had been working on:










Believe me, this is light years beyond the "script" we used to follow.

Report Card Assessments

We're only 3 weeks from the end of the school year, and I've begun to work on report card assessments.

This is a good time to review the Soundabet cards and the kindergarten sight words with your child (you can look at the winter report card to find what the sight words are). In school we've concerned ourselves with other things and the "forgettery" (the antidote to memory) seems to have been at work in some of the students' minds.

We did work on these words today and will tomorrow and the next day, but a little home support will really help, too.

Thanks!

Open House

We had Open House on Thursday night. I don't think my room ever looked nicer than on Thursday night, thanks in large measure to my student teacher, Amanda Brice, who helped ready the room. (I spent a good part of the day talking with next year's kindergarten kids and their families.)

Here's how the room looked just before we opened the door:


It sure was nice to see so many of you and to talk. Thank you all who visited!

More Blocks

There are so many reasons to love blocks. The Scientific American article mentioned their many benefits.

I love blocks because they get children to work together. Blocks foster creativity, too. Blocks have no agenda other than to stimulate the imagination of the builder.

I'm amazed at how much interest simple blocks hold for five and six year old boys. They seem never to tire of them. Look--



Pattern blocks can hold the attention of five year old children too. Look what Olivia did today—

Staff Appreciation Breakfast

I got to school a little early to enjoy a breakfast that the Dunham Student Council provided to the teachers and staff.

What a wonderful breakfast!


A plate of good food....





Roses on the table....







Good company....

Thank you Student Council and their parents.

Scenes from the Garden Ribbon Cutting

All the classes of Dunham School gathered near the garden this morning for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the improvements made to the garden under a grant from Fiskars the company that makes fine scissors and garden tools with the orange handles. MaryAnn Bowman, who wrote the grant, said that our school was one of 10 nationwide to receive the grant.

Quite an honor.

Mrs. Bowman, left; Mrs. Wilding, right.


Fourth Grade provided musical entertainment.


This was also the occasion to show our new school banner.
It was designed by sixth grader, Bridger Munk.



And, because we met our goal of reading 800,000 minutes at home,
Mrs. Wilding got her hair dyed purple, as she promised she would.

Scientific American Magazine on Play

THE SERIOUS NEED FOR PLAY - A few highlights, also from the
February/March, 2009 issue of Scientific American Mind:

"Free play," as scientists call it, is critical for becoming
socially adept, coping with stress, and building cognitive
skills such as problem solving. Play-deprived childhood
disrupts normal social, emotional and cognitive development.
Psychologists say that limiting free play in kids may result
in a generation of anxious, unhappy, and socially
maladjusted adults.

Why are experts concerned that structured games--such as
soccer and more structured activities--are eating into free
play? Certainly games with rules are fun, foster learning to
work with others, and develop group cohesion.

The reason is that games have rules set up in advance to
follow. Play, on the other hand, does not have a priori
rules, so it affords more creative responses. This creative
aspect is key because it challenges the developing brain
more than following predetermined rules do. In free play,
kids use their imagination and try out new activities and
roles.

Children's free play involves fantasies--such as pretending
to be doctors or princesses or playing house--or mock
fighting, as when kids (primarily boys) wrestle and tumble
with one another for fun, switching roles periodically so
that neither of them always wins. The activity does not
need to have a clear goal.

Play helps develop social skills. Young people don't become
SOCIALLY COMPETENT by teachers telling them how to behave.
Those skills are learned by interacting with peers, by
learning what is acceptable and what's not acceptable.
Because kids enjoy an activity, they develop persistence and
negotiating abilities. They do not give up as easily in the
face of frustration as they might doing a math problem.

Play is also critical for emotional health because it helps
kids work through anxiety and stress. Through imaginative
play, which is most easily initiated without adults or
rules, children build fantasies that help them cope with
difficult situations. Play encourages flexibility and
creativity that may be advantageous in unexpected situations
or new environments.

Relieving stress and building social skills also seem to be
the obvious benefits of play. But there is another, more
counterintuitive area of influence: Play actually appears to
make kids smarter. Play improves problem solving. By playing
with blocks or a Quaker Oats box, for example, youngsters
spend less time in unproductive developmental activities
such as watching television. (Even when young people are
watching educational programs, the activity of watching
is a passive one rather than an active one.)

Many parents believe they are acting in their children's
best interests when they swap free play for what they see as
structured learning activities. Some hesitate to let their
kids play outside unattended; they fret about the
possibility of physical harm that sometimes arise during
play fighting or rambunctious fantasy play. A child who has
had a rich exposure to social play experiences is more
likely to become an adult who can manage unpredictable
social situations.

Parents should let their children be children--not just
because it should be fun to be a child but because denying
youth unfettered joys keeps kids from developing into
inquisitive, creative creatures. Play has to be reframed and
seen not as an opposite to learning but rather as a
complement. Curiosity, imagination and creative are like
muscles: if you don't use them, you lose them.

Reducing "free play" in attempts to promote academic
achievement (as in making kindergarten into first grade) is
another well-intentioned but counterproductive approach--as
are the others at
http://www.marvinmarshall.com/counterproductive_practices.
htm.

Link to the Scientic American article: Here.

Garden Investigations

This was a fine afternoon to be in the garden.Ms. Deay, David, Luke, Olivia, and I ventured into the garden in search of what we might find there.

We brought our hand lenses and a camera.

We turned over lots of stepping stones.



We found a slug,


A lizard,


And some sixth graders there.

The following article is taken from the Alliance for Children's website. It's worth reading.
Play once had a central role in the educational programs designed for young children, and for good reason: it is in play that children develop social skills and emotional control. Play allows children to develop their creativity and follow their interests. I think that the best learning happens during choice time.Anyway, here's the article as appears over at the Alliance for children website:

Kindergarten Playtime Disappears, Raising Alarm on Children’s Learning and Health

New studies show play losing out to formal lessons and tests, even though multiple benefits of imaginative play are well documented

College Park, MD, March 20, 2009—Time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing, according to three new studies released today by the Alliance for Childhood. Classic play materials like blocks, sand and water tables, and props for dramatic play have largely disappeared from the 268 full-day kindergarten classrooms studied.

The studies were conducted by researchers from U.C.L.A., Long Island University, and Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Their findings are documented in Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School.

The researchers found that

• On a typical day, kindergartners in Los Angeles and New York City spend four to six times as long being instructed and tested in literacy and math (two to three hours per day) as in free play or “choice time” (30 minutes or less).
• Standardized testing and preparation for tests are now a daily activity in most of the kindergartens studied, despite the fact that the use of most such tests with children under age eight is scientifically invalid and leads to harmful labeling.
• In many kindergarten classrooms there is no playtime at all. Teachers say the curriculum does not incorporate play, there isn’t time for it, and many school administrators do not value it.

Child development experts have been raising alarms about the increasingly didactic, test-driven, and joyless course of early childhood education. “These practices, which are not well grounded in research, violate long-established principles of child development and good teaching,” states the Alliance’s report. “It is increasingly clear that they are compromising both children’s health and their long-term prospects for success in school.”

The three studies break new ground by examining the use of time and materials in public kindergarten classrooms and the factors that affect children’s access to play. Independent research teams received funding from the nonprofit Maryland-based Alliance.

Numerous studies have shown that children who engage in complex socio-dramatic play develop higher levels of thinking, stronger language skills, better social skills, more empathy, and more imagination than children who do not play in this way. They are also less aggressive and show more self-control. Play also lowers stress levels in children.

Nevertheless, child-driven play has fallen out of favor in the U.S. Many people believe that kindergartners need to settle down and engage in serious learning. They see play as a waste of time, or worse, a descent into chaos.

Crisis in the Kindergarten argues that the superficial, chaotic play in “anything-goes, laissez-faire” kindergartens is as unacceptable as the highly regimented, didactic classroom that is devoid of play. The report also describes scripted teaching, which has gained momentum in schools across the country in the past decade, as “a vast experiment with virtually no basis in valid research.”

Psychologist David Elkind, author of The Hurried Child and The Power of Play, calls the new research findings “heartbreaking.” In a foreword, he writes, “We have had a politically and commercially driven effort to make kindergarten a one-size-smaller first grade. Why in the world are we trying to teach the elementary curriculum at the early childhood level?”

The authors of Crisis in the Kindergarten, Alliance directors Edward Miller and Joan Almon, argue that the disappearance of kindergarten play is part of a larger societal problem. “Play is one of the vital signs of health in children,” they write. “We do not know the long-term consequences of the loss of play in early childhood, but this has become a concern for pediatricians and psychologists.”

They report evidence of significant increases in behavioral problems and school failure among kindergartners. They question unrealistic standards that are developmentally beyond many young children, forcing teachers to spend long hours trying to meet them, and leading to the wrongful labeling of normal child behavior and learning patterns as “misbehavior, attention disorders, or learning disabilities.”

The authors note that children in China and Japan, which are envied for their success in teaching science, technology, engineering, and math, enjoy a play-based, experiential approach to schooling until second grade. Finnish children similarly have a lengthy and playful childhood, not beginning formal schooling until age 7. Yet Finland consistently gets the highest scores on international exams.

Synthesizing a range of recent national and international research, including the three studies reported here for the first time, Crisis in the Kindergarten describes the current state of public kindergartens in the U.S. as “a national disgrace.” It calls for a refocusing of early education on well-designed play-based approaches, warning that the nation is “blindly pursuing educational policies that could well damage the intellectual, social, and physical development of an entire generation.”

* * *

Crisis in the Kindergarten makes six recommendations for education policymakers, school administrators, teachers, and parents. For more details see Chapter 8 of the report.

1. Restore child-initiated play and experiential learning with the active support of teachers to their rightful place at the heart of kindergarten education.
2. Reassess kindergarten standards to ensure that they promote developmentally appropriate practices, and eliminate those that do not.
3. End the inappropriate use in kindergarten of standardized tests, which are prone to serious error especially when given to children under age eight.
4. Expand the early childhood research agenda to examine the long-term impact of current preschool and kindergarten practices on the development of children from diverse backgrounds.
5. Give teachers of young children first-rate preparation that emphasizes the full development of the child and the importance of play, nurtures children’s innate love of learning, and supports teachers’ own capacities for creativity, autonomy, and integrity.
6. Use the crisis of play’s disappearance from kindergarten to rally organizations and individuals to create a national movement for play in schools and communities.

Magnetic Marbles

Zaria using magnetic marbles in KIDS club this afternoon.

We worked on subtraction problems this morning. After teaching them that they can be called "minus" or "subtraction" or "take away" problems, we learned how to read them and then how to use fingers or other manipulative materials to do them.

A really good manipulative material are the magnetic marbles shown in this photo. They are colorful little spheres of plastic with magnets inside just strong enough to make them want to stick to each other in a most pleasing way.

When used as materials for "take away" problems they give a real sense of something being taken away. If the student began, say with a little chain of 8 marbles and then takes 3 of them away the remaining 5 seem to call out to the marbles that have been pulled off.

They're also wonderful when teaching addition problems. When a student combines two a little chains of marbles, they join together with some enthusiasm and integrity as a new combined group.

By the way, if you want to generate your own math worksheets get acquainted with Math Fact Cafe. It allows you to customize your own math worksheets. Free.

Kindergarten News

Faithful readers of the Mr. Kindergarten blog will be the first to get this news, straight from, well, me:


I will NOT retire this June after all.

On May 4, the Dunham School Board approved Mr. Gurney's request to stay on the Dunham teaching staff.

Kindergarten Garden

A recent center activity was to paint the letters to name our planting box in the garden. Each of the letters was painted by a student. Some of the letters were formed by painting little trains of flowers or bugs. I like the final result of their work.

1969 Olympia Typewriter

Machines like this make a satisfyingly loud smacking sound as the keys hit the cardstock.

I can remember preparing to go off to college in the fall of 1969. My parents needed to equip me with a typewriter. We went to a typewriter store and learned all about the pluses and minuses of manual versus electric typewriters. Back then, the fanciest machines were IBM Selectrics that had a typeball and featured variable spacing. Most machines used the Courier font and had non-variable spacing.

My dad, ever practical and frugal, decided a West German manual typewriter made of steel would be the best choice. His $129 investment would pay off by giving me a typing machine I could use for the rest of my life. The machine you see here did get me all the way through college and graduate school. I used it to type a few articles on sailing back when I fancied myself to be a free-lance writer. I did earn a little money that way, but I think I was paid something like $0.10 per hour.

Well, I still have the Olympia and I still use it occasionally. It's fun to use a machine like this.

The kindergarten kids enjoy it. Most of them have never seen a manual typewriter before. We're using it to make little books out of index cards with words or short phrases typed on them. Whatever I type, the rewrite in their own hand, for practice writing and reading.

Real Mail

The first graders have been busy writing real letters. You know, the kind of mail that's written by hand, comes in an envelope, is stamped, and you keep forever. This afternoon my wife and I took a walk out along the Rodata Trail. On our way back home, we stopped by the Sebastopol Post Office to check our Post Office Box. It was full of letters!

One of the perks of being a kindergarten teacher is getting a lot of real mail.

Morning Drop off

The cars in this photo are innocent.
I took this photo the afternoon after the morning congestion.

Mrs. Wilding asked me to remind everyone on the blog that the front of the school is only for dropping off or picking up students. Evidently one morning last week a few people parked along the curb and the result was traffic congestion that backed up onto Roblar Road.

If you need to park when dropping off your child, please use the west parking lot. Thank you!

Ms. Brice's Lesson

Today Ms. Brice took the class from 10:35 to about 11:25 for a lesson on rhyming words. She did a masterful job in planning the lesson and preparing the materials. She displayed great control of the class.

Teaching kindergarten is not as easy as it may appear to be. There are ten million ways to lose your way and descend into chaos. Ms. Brice navigated the waters like a harbor pilot. Cool, collected, smiling. It isn't as easy as she made it look.

While she taught a half dozen of her student teacher peers, the principal, the university professor overseeing the student teacher program, the regular teacher (me) and Mrs. Frech looked on. That's an audience of adults large enough to put butterflies in the stomach of all but the most confident of teachers!

At lunch we met to debrief her lesson and offer our praises and suggestions to improve.

She did a fabulous job, and I felt happy for her success.

Monday Doings

This is the first day of STAR testing at Dunham. We don't do STAR tests in kindergarten, but we are affected by them because the morning schedule changes to accommodate the testing schedule. Our mid morning recess is pushed back until 10:15.

A longer schedule gives us more time to delve into interests. The kids in the writing center made newspapers. Here, have a look:













In the block center, students built refuges large enough to crawl inside.




We also went outside to admire the improvements to our garden area.

May/June Snack Calendar

This calendar will be coming home tomorrow or the next day.

Here it is online for your reference should it get lost. Click on photo for a closer look.

Friend to Friend Conspiracy

As I was carrying the bag of recycling to the big blue bin outside first grade where it's collected, I passed by Sophia's mom, Tonia B. and greeted her as she passed by me. She was headed home her two daughters.

I dumped my bag out into the recycling and headed back to the classroom. Looking up, I saw Tonia coming back looking as if she had something to say to me.

"Mr. Gurney, I've been wanting to talk to you for some time," she began.

"What about?"

"About how you inspired me about six months ago to get rid of our TV. We've got no cable, no satellite. All we can watch is DVDs."

"Sounds like me: I use a computer to watch the DVDs," I said. "I've got the minimum Netflix account: two a month."

"Well, the surprising thing, Mr. Gurney, the most surprising thing is this: my girls don't miss TV at all. They don't ask to get it back. They play outside. They have fantasy play again. They read. They draw. Our house is so much more peaceful and happy. I don't even miss the news. I can get the internet news on my iPhone." Tonia went on for some time like this. She was a fountain of happy stories about their lives free of TV. When I had a chance to respond, I said,

"It's funny, Tonia, that you're telling me this. Just yesterday a mother of a first grader told me the same thing. Practically word for word. When they moved, they didn't automatically hook up a cable or satellite dish. They discovered a much happier family life when free of TV. I am so happy for you. Your kids will grow up from the inside out, happy, whole people. Our national nightmares won't be brought into your house. Katrina. 9/11. Columbine."

"I know, I remember my kids begging me to shut off the news reports about Katrina." she said. "Thank you for inspiring us."

"You're welcome. Now do something for me. Pass the free of TV favor on. Find one friend and inspire them to get free of TV. And when they thank you for inspiring them to become free of TV, ask them to pass the free of TV favor along to one of their friends. We'll start a movement."

"I will, Mr. Gurney, I will do that," she smiled.

Luke's Good Answer

It takes a watchful eye to manage 28 kindergartners. For everyone to be happy, the teacher needs to know when and how to intervene when students need help getting along.

This morning Zaria and Sophia were playing in the Lego area. Zaria had a little Lego monkey, but she did not want to share it with Sophia. Sophia clearly wanted it and explained that it had been her monkey first. I could see they needed help. I explained to Zaria that having a friend is better than having a toy. I suggested that she share the monkey with Sophia with the request that when Sophia was done that she would return it to her. This worked and they played amicably the rest of the play time.

Later, I used the incident as a simple math lesson.

"If Zaria had five toy monkeys and she gave three of them to Sophia, how many monkeys would Zaria have?"

"Two," came the answer everyone knew.

"And" raise your hand if you know this answer, "How many friends would she have?" I asked. A sea of hands went up for this easy answer. I called on Luke.

"Twenty eight," he said.

Cutie, Isabelle's Pet Goat

Isabelle shared her pet goat Cutie at the end of kindergarten this morning. Everyone had a chance to pet her.

Brandon's first tooth

Brandon came in from recess telling me he thought his tooth might come out. He said it was bleeding. I asked him if he wanted me to pull it out. "No," he said, "I'll do it." And with that, he gave his tooth a tug and out it came.

We put it in an envelope for safe keeping till he gets home, and then he posed for this photo.

Building Blocks

Give kindergarten students a set of wooden blocks and some time and they'll build things. Amazing things.

This is the proper work for five year old children. We're developing literacy in the building blocks of building trades. The best part is students have a natural interest in this work. No force-feeding, coercion, or discipline applied from outside is necessary.

Provide a set of wooden blocks and enough time to do something.

Too bad this sort of work is overlooked by No Child Left Behind reformers. (I hate that name. As if schools were deliberately leaving children behind!) To my knowledge, no one is giving students multiple choice computer scored fill-in-the-bubble tests on building freestanding towers six feet high, so achievements like this go unnoticed and unappreciated by the powers that be.

Henry made a Zoob creature Wednesday.

Weaponized Toys

Toy manufacturers seem to have a penchant for building dystopian nightmares and calling them toys. This remote controlled car arrived last week for sharing time. It had an army look to it and, against my better judgment, I allowed it to be demonstrated.

The car drove around the rug forward, reverse, and able to make turns. Nothing new.

Then, suddenly, it stopped and transformed into something altogether different. Its top lifted and it began firing rubber-tipped rockets from a launcher concealed in the cockpit.

Oops! End of sharing for that day.

April's Snack Calendar

The snack calendar, pictured below, will come home with tomorrow's homework. But here it is in electronic form for those of you who have my genius for losing papers. Click on it to zoom in.

Homework: Science Experiment

Thank you to all of you who sent photos of the homework!
Here, as of about 9:00, they are.

Homework Starts Monday

Spring has arrived, and with spring comes homework!

But don't worry, homework in kindergarten is fun.

And it comes with a no-fun guarantee. If it's not fun, you don't have to do it. Kindergarten homework is optional. I'll send it home Mondays through Thursdays from here to the last week of school.

That said, I try to make it both educational and interesting. A lot of it is designed to require the assistance of a parent, grandparent or older sibling.

Rules, Rules, Rules: No kissing!

In response to a book about a classroom of out-of-control aardvarks, we asked our students to draw a picture of the kindergarten when the rules are being broken.

My favorite one is this one showing some against-the-rules kissing:

I presume the long-necked bird on the right is Ms. Brice getting ready to intervene.

Retirement

Here, in electronic form, is the letter that went home today with the students in kindergarten. The letter didn't actually state this, so I state it clearly here: my retirement will occur in June, at the end of the current school year.

Dear Parents,

After 34 years of teaching—28 years in service to Dunham School—and with both my daughter and son graduated from college, I've decided to retire from classroom teaching while I'm still enjoying it. I decided to retire from the classroom before I'm too old to begin a new and varied part-time career outside of public education.

I look back with fondness, satisfaction, and gratitude for the opportunity to have taught here for so long. You have entrusted your children to me and given me the support I needed to teach each of them with individual attention and care.

Along with the rest of the country, Dunham faces economic, cultural, and environmental challenges in the years ahead. Responding to these challenges will require creativity and dedication. Fortunately, the Dunham School Community has effective leaders, talented and dedicated staff members, and a parent community offering generous and ready support.

Dunham was a fine little school when I first came on board in the fall of 1981, and it has improved since then. In the years ahead I believe it will continue to provide an exceptional educational environment.

In closing, I'd like to offer a thought. Above all, I've learned that kids don't care what you know until they know you care. Show your children that you care by giving them plenty of your undivided nonjudgmental mindful attention. Give yourself plenty of the same, too.

Sincerely,

Mr. Gurney

Thought for the Day

I lifted this poem from Pal Alden's blog, Stream of Consciousness. He didn't write it; he found it on the internet and passed it along, same as me. This may be a useful parents whose kids aren't all grown up yet, as Pal's and mine are.

Hindsight

If I had my children to raise all over again,

I'd finger-paint more, and point the fingers less.

I would do less correcting and more connecting.

I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.

I would care to know less and know to care more.

I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.

I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.

I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.

I'd do more hugging and less tugging.

I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.

I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.

I'd teach less about the love of power,

And more about the power of love.

Why Choice is Important

I found this in an email sent to me by Marvin Marshall who is the author of Discipline Without Stress, a book which lays out the system of classroom discipline that I adapted for kindergarten at Dunham.

In a classic study, scientists put two rats in a cage, each
of them locked in a running wheel. The first rat could
exercise whenever he liked. The second was yoked to the
first and forced to run when his counterpart did.

Exercise usually reduces stress and encourages neuron
growth, and indeed, the first rat's brain bloomed with new
cells. The second rat, however, lost brain cells. He was
doing something that should have been good for his brain,
but he lacked one crucial factor: control. He could not
determine his own "workout" schedule, so he didn’t perceive
it as exercise. Instead, he experienced it as a literal rat
race.

This experiment brings up a troubling point about stress.
Psychologists have known for years that one of the biggest
factors in how we process stressful events is how much
control we have over our lives. As a rule, if we feel we're
in control, we cope. If we don’t, we collapse.

New Table Groups

Monday morning the students will begin Ms. Brice's second week of the takeover....

And new table groups.

Ms. Brice and I worked Friday afternoon to come up with new table groups. We washed the blue mat and wrote the names in fresh washable ink on each place.

Take-Over

Ms. Brice has been taking over teaching duties from me this week and will continue to do so next week. It's going very well. I want to thank the students for helping Ms. Brice as she tries out her ideas and finds her voice as a teacher.

Her efforts have permitted me to find the time to give complete individual academic assessments to each student. The results of these assessments will be reported on the winter trimester progress reports which are scheduled to be delivered in the Friday folder the day after tomorrow.

Kindergarten Happenings

After centers, we had 20 minutes to invest in choice time. Lots of block building and beading and writing.

Jack, Nate, and Nicky collaborated on this structure.




Kids' Clubbers took a break at the creek.



There were sow bugs under the bark of a tree.



Gone fishin'


A look over the back fence.





Back to reading, refreshed from the outdoors.

Pasta Feed Attire

I was asked what should the students wear for the performance on Saturday at the Pasta Feed.

The answer:

Island Wear

Bright solid color or floral (Hawaiian) Shirts, and Blue Jeans

I'm planning to wear a Hawaiian shirt myself.

No Kindergarten!

As many are aware, California schools have to cut budgets for next year.

Some school districts are looking at eliminating kindergarten as a cost-saving measure.

Really. Here's a link to an article in the Orange County Register.

I'm happy to report that as far as I know, Dunham School won't be looking at that option.

Dr. Seuss's Birthday

In celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday, the Cat in the Hat came by our classroom today.

We drew "his" portrait with the help of the Art Attack lesson. This was our second time through that particular lesson. I like their curriculum so much that I brought my own TV/DVD system (my only one) to the classroom specifically to use this art program. Here's a link: Art Attack.

Tomorrow we start a new round of centers.

Also, swing over to my Soundabet blog to see a new video of Brandon doing his second trimester Soundabet assessment. It's pretty cool.

DIBELS: It Doesn't Make Sense

David Schwartz, a friend of mine who is an author of some note, emailed me to ask if I would fill in for him as a guest author on a blog he contributes to called Interesting Nonfiction for Kids.

I wrote a piece about DIBELS. Here, in slightly modified form, is what I wrote.



DIBELS—a reading assessment system in widespread use across America—is changing the kindergarten curriculum for the worse. It is moving the kindergarten curriculum away from its original purpose, namely to promote the social and emotional development of children in their first year of school. In response to the influence of DIBELS, the kindergarten curriculum is becoming increasingly focused on teaching early literacy skills.

What is DIBELS?

DIBELS is the acronym for a collection of reading assessments given three times a year to kindergarten students called Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy. Kindergarten DIBELS uses timed tests to measure four discrete skills:

• initial sound fluency,
• letter naming fluency,
• phoneme segmentation fluency, and
• the ability to quickly decode nonsense words.

What Makes DIBELS Stressful?

Ask any kindergarten teacher with a DIBELS-issued stopwatch hanging from her neck what she thinks of DIBELS. If she works in a school where it is in full implementation, she’ll likely roll her eyes in exasperation, sigh with frustration, and say something to this effect, “DIBELS is stressing me out. It’s meaningless. It doesn’t tell me much I don’t already know. It’s demeaning. It presumes that I’m not competent to make instructional decisions. And it's keeping me from teaching the traditional kindergarten curriculum.”

When fully implemented, DIBELS tests are used to screen entire student populations three times a year, fall, winter, and spring. These tests are intended to ferret out kids headed for reading trouble. DIBELS computers classify students into three categories: “Benchmark,” “Strategic,” and “Intensive” which mean, respectively, “OK,” “Borderline,” and “You’re in for it.”

Students who are classified as “Intensive” undergo “Progress Monitoring,” DIBELS-speak for on-going, preferably weekly, DIBELS testing. DIBELS scores are uploaded to a national computer which generates individual student charts and saves the scores to an enormous and growing national database. If the DIBELS computer deems any student’s progress to be inadequate, the computer will prompt the teacher to apply new instructional activities.

Scrutiny like this might have been just the ticket for banks and investment firms on Wall Street. But kindergarten classrooms?

Nonsense

Careful monitoring like this might make sense if what was being monitored was meaningful. But it’s not. It’s nonsense. Literally nonsense. If this sounds like hyperbole, consider this: DIBELS calls their final test in kindergarten “Nonsense Word Fluency.”

Not that I’m against nonsense. If nonsense is used to lighten us up, to take ourselves less seriously, I’m all for it. But DIBELS nonsense has a darker purpose: to sort and classify kindergarten students into high and low achievers.

DIBELS records this information in a nationwide database.

On this test, kindergarten students are expected to demonstrate fluency in reading consonant-vowel-consonant nonsense words like “sim” “lut” “vaj” and “fol.” Student progress is thus measured. (Sadly, some of UNK’s “nonsense” words are actual words. “Wan” is one example. If a precocious, imaginative, or curious student should pause to ask her examiner why a real word is inserted among the nonsense words, her fluency score would drop.)

Because teachers are likely to teach the skills upon which their performance will be evaluated, DIBELS influences the way reading is taught in ways that may contribute to the emergence of a generation of students who may well resent reading as difficult and meaningless work.

It Doesn’t Make Sense

Slipping in almost unseen is an important premise of DIBELS: that formal reading instruction focused on decoding skills is appropriate for five year-old children in their first year of formal education.

When I began teaching in the 1970s, a kindergarten teacher’s job was to teach manners, develop social skills, generate generosity, and, yes, to ignite imaginations. We read books—interesting nonfiction books—to inform, to entertain, and to inspire sustained investigation.

If we were feeling ambitious we might have introduced the ABCs at a leisurely one-letter-per-week pace. Back then, we educators waited, patiently, wisely, compassionately, until after kindergarten before we expected students to master letter sounds. Back then, students didn't come to school so stressed-out from our culture gone mad with violence and competition.

I'm not sure I would have gone into teaching if I had I imagined that someday I would be expected to teach stressed-out young children—many who lag in listening and speaking skills—to read nonsense quickly.

The Day's Doings

Yesterday I talked about how some God's Eye weavings are really carefully done. Here's an example of what I was talking about. Mia made this one by herself.


Blocks are among the best toys available. Every day some new idea is built.


I was "arrested" for speeding while riding (slowly, I swear!) around the playground on litter patrol. I went along when they told me that I would need to pay a fine of 10 hundred dollars.

"10 hundred dollars!" that's a lot of money. "I don't have 10 hundred dollars, but I have a thousand dollars. Would you take that?" I said.

They thought it over. "O.K. We'll take a thousand."

"Great! Let me pay you," I said.

And I produced a pretend wallet and doled out 10 one-hundred dollar bills, counting, "one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred, nine hundred, one thousand! One thousand is 10 hundred."

They shrugged their shoulders, and we rode off.

Jack B. rides a bike!

Jack B. learned to ride a bicycle today, and I was able to catch it on video:



Yeah, Jack!

Drama and Dance Workshop for Kindergarten Kids and up.

Sonoma State University's Center for Performing Arts Press Release

Drama and Dance Workshop For Children Offered At Sonoma State University ROHNERT PARK -- Children from 4 to 10 years-old will have the opportunity to participate in a five week Theatre or Dance Workshop for Children at Sonoma State University designed to have them experimenting in storytelling, improvisation, movement and dance. This is the 30th year of this wonderful program for children. Under the guidance of Theatre Professor Judy Navas and Dance Professor Nancy Lyons, youngsters will be taught by Sonoma State University theatre and dance majors. The cost for the five week class is $10. If a second child in the family participates in the workshop, the cost is $5 for that child, or $15 for both of them. If a child takes both the dance and drama class, the fee is $15. If a second child in the family does the same thing, the cost for the two children is $20. The theatre classes will be broken down into two sessions. Classes begin on Thursday, April 23, and meet for consecutive Thursdays through May 21. Youngsters ages 5 and 6 will meet from 4:15 to 4:45pm. The older group, ages 7 to 10, will meet from 5:00 to 5:45pm. The dance classes will also be broken down into two sessions. Classes begin on Wednesday, April 22, and meet on consecutive Wednesdays through May 20. Youngsters ages 4 and 5 will meet from 4:15 to 4:45pm. The older group, ages 6 to 9, will meet from 5:00pm to 5:45pm. All the classes are held in Ives Hall at Sonoma State University, 1801 East Cotati Avenue in Rohnert Park, CA. Dance for Children, according to Lyons, is a creative rhythmic movement class with live music. Children are encouraged to jump, gallop, twirl and dance with each other in a large open dance studio. The accompanying musician will play piano and percussion instruments, giving the children a vibrant experience of live music and dance. Children that participate need not have prior dance background. The Dance Workshop will be held in room 80 in Ives Hall. Dress for the class is casual. The purpose of the Theatre for Children class is to have fun, says Navas, but to also introduce youngsters to the art of storytelling, the creativity of improvisation, the enjoyment of puppets and artistry of masks. The instructors have established an environment where all the young students will be free to express themselves in a caring and nurturing way. The Theatre Workshop will be held in room 76 in Ives Hall. Parents are encouraged to participate in the last class with their children, viewing their performance and progress. To register your children for the classes, contact the Center For Performing Arts at 707-664-2235. Class enrollment is limited, so don't delay. Checks can be made payable to Sonoma State University, care of Theatre Arts, 1801 East Cotati Avenue, Rohnert Park, CA 94928.

Improving God's Eyes

We've reopened the God's Eye weaving center. Going back to projects like this is well worth doing.

Student teachers and new teachers take note: don't make the mistake I made for years and years. Revisit lessons and activities. Your students will improve dramatically. These kid-made God's Eye weavings are a vast improvement over the first efforts made last month:



A few of my students can weave them with as much skill as I can. I'll try to grab a photo of one of those and put it up here on the blog soon.

Supersoccersaurus

Some years ago while on a West Coast book tour, my brother Jim stopped by my school to do a presentation on the life of the artist. He captivated that audience of young children (now all grown up) with a demonstration of his sketching skills. I don't know anything that holds an audience of young children more firmly than a drawing emerging from the pen of a skilled artist.

I ran across the drawing the other day and push-pinned it to the wall.

A day or so later, kindergartner Jack S. left this drawing on my desk:



I'm encouraging Jack to draw, draw, draw. I let the principal know about Jack's work, and she has joined me in celebrating his work and his talent. And his mom and grandma are part of his cheering squad, too.

Jack's work shows enormous promise. I should know. My memory stretches back 45 years to a time when Jim Gurney discovered his talent for drawing in kindergarten.

Jack's got similar ability.

Pajama Day Wednesday

I keep forgetting to bring my camera home from school to post some pictures for the blog.

Oh well! I hope I remember tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, is Pajama Day.