On the Ground

In an early childhood classroom I observed students spread out among all dramatic play areas. My assessment was that all were fully engaged in play with their classmates or teachers. There were a few students in the kitchen area making French Toast and serving sides of apples. They negotiated who “microwaved” the toast and who served. One student taught the other two about maple syrup and tree tapping. There were students in the block area working on a bridge design that would keep their cars off the “soupy, scary ocean” and were having difficulty with the current design that made the cars fall off the ramp. I then watched as one teacher sat with several students working to support their puzzle work with brief and subtle reminders about turning the pieces and taking the time to really look at the shapes to connect them. Finally, just before leaving, I stood behind the other teacher who was working with a child at a table in a more structured manner. The student was forming letters using special blocks from the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum and let out an excited cheer of pride.

I then walked through the halls of Kindergarten through 3rd grade into a Kindergarten classroom where I observed the class working as a whole group on the carpet. A teacher was sitting beside an easel and was writing in large manuscript the words and spellings the students were providing. They dictated a sentence and then used both their knowledge of phonics and the research-based practice of inventive spelling to tell the teacher what to write. Once their sentence the written, they read it aloud and then the teacher demonstrated the corrections to the invented spelling words modeling how to fix “kande” by thinking of the two letters the /ck/ sound makes and that the long e sound at the end of a word is made by using the letter y. There were a few “ews” and “ahhs” after that little tidbit of knowledge was shared and the word was corrected to read as “candy”.

In another lower school classroom, I arrived to find the students spread out all over the room with clipboards and pencils. The teacher was sitting on the floor next to a student and it looked like they were conferencing. Most all other students were engaged in their work and did not notice my presence. One student however looked up when I entered the classroom and then back down again at their clipboard. A few moments later that student got up to get a tissue and then sat back down, and then a few seconds later they were up again and headed toward the cubbies area. At that moment the teacher intercepted the student and I overheard the invitation for the student to grab their clipboard and meet at the table near where I was sitting. Once seated together, the teacher began assessing the student on their understanding of the differences between adjectives and verbs (which was the content on the practice page on their clipboards) and quickly realized this student was lost and therefore was avoiding the work. The teacher immediately began re-teaching the content and asked if I would help by getting some materials from the closet. I returned to hand them a bin of laminated picture cards and title cards labeled “nouns”, “verbs”, and “adjectives”.

I was then off to another Renbrook classroom which drew me in because of the sounds I heard coming out of their classroom as I walked down the hall. There was a brief period of ruckus followed by a longer period of almost silence. When I entered the classroom, I learned that the students were practicing their math skills by playing a game where they needed to make their way through the classroom tables completing a math problem correctly before moving to the next table. The level of engagement and perseverance was palpable, as well as the focus that immediately ensued when the students made it to the next table. The teacher smiled brightly as they rang the chime signifying when students could move on to the next table and as I walked out of the classroom I overheard a student say, “This is the best math lesson ever!”

Finally, I made my way down to the 4th and 5th grade hallway.  I was greeted in that hallway by one student holding the door open for me as I passed through, and another student acknowledging my presence by saying, “Hello Mrs. Schlossinger. How are you today?” The amount of students at Renbrook who greet me first and who engage in conversation with adults is a true testament to the modeling and coaching by our teachers and staff at Renbrook School.