Teach Off Trail

I am so excited to announce that my book, tentatively titled Teach Off Trail, will be published by Redleaf Press at a time to be determined. This book will encapsulate my educator evolution and detail how I incorporated my 4 P's philosophy to create and coordinate a nature kindergarten program in my public school.

Here's a little preview.

Markers and glue sticks are strewn across the floor. A cardboard box has been transformed into a jetpack, paper towel roll rocket boosters and all. Pieces of felt and clippings from old magazines have been collected and attached to various projects, each serving their own very important purpose. Minutes before, celebratory applause amongst hoots and hollers echoed throughout the room as the Math Championship belt changed hands. A couple of incomplete puzzles and loose pieces cover the counter. The drying rack is overflowing with coffee filter turkeys, bingo dauber trees, and marker cap pattern trains. A quick scan around the rest of the room shows a swimming pool of stuffed animals, a bookshelf of nature artifacts, a large storage tub of baseball cards, and a menagerie of dress up clothes and housekeeping items. Anything and everything you can imagine can be found throughout this classroom. Except students.

Where are they?

A quick look out the window and the mystery is solved. A few students scale the fallen tree. A few more check in and make changes to their mouse houses. Still others are using sticks to make dirt drawings. A pair near the rock pile add bark pieces and dried leaves to their stew. A couple more hanging out at their Sit Spots tally the birds they observe in their nature notebooks. A trio of boys turned their constructed shelter into a pirate ship and before searching for treasure. Their treasure chest is bursting with acorns and seed pods, but the hunt for more loot never ends.

Neither does the play.

But it wasn’t always like this . . .

Rewind a few years back and you would see a more traditional 21st Century kindergarten classroom. Bright colors illuminated every wall, except of course where the interactive whiteboard was hung. There’d be chairs neatly surrounding rectangular tables with color-coded supply storage bins neatly organized and inventoried at each table. Tablets, laptops, and other state-of-the-art technology were loaded with the latest reading and math fact apps, charged and ready for action. The classroom library was organized by reading levels. The stoplight pocket chart clearly showed the behavior infractions observed that day. Everything and everyone had their place. And they were expected to keep it that way.

            Morning equaled literacy. Period. A structured reading lesson gave way to specific word work with a big book or poem. Writing time provided a guided lesson followed by some silent work time and possibly some sharing time. Phonics drilled and killed letter sound associations, rhyming, and phonemic awareness. Sight words were introduced, practiced, searched for, practiced again, used in a sight word game or activity, and practiced again. Eventually, they became part of a weekly assessment along with words utilizing the sound and/or chunk of the week. During stations time, teacher-selected worksheets and phonics games were assigned to groups also chosen by the teacher. While those groups worked on their task, small guided reading and/or pre-reading skill groups were pulled for more intense instruction. Any time during the morning, students who didn’t reach a predetermined data point in a certain skill left the room for more direct instruction and practice with a paraprofessional.

            After station time, it was time for recess. Of course, if anyone was unable to complete their work for any reason, they could just take the first five to ten minutes (or longer if needed) of their recess to finish up. No big deal.

            After some recess and lunch, the march back to the classroom led into math time. After a brief look at the calendar, the interactive whiteboard led a lesson on various math topics including numeral identification, numeral formation, patterns, measurement, number sentences, counting strategies, and addition and subtraction. After completing the lesson, the students broke into predetermined groups to review the aforementioned skills. Some stayed at the board for their activity. Others practiced math facts using flashcards they prepared earlier in the year. A few other groups used worksheets to continue digging deeper into the skill of the week. One group may have played a math board game if a particular worksheet wasn’t available. Once the math groups concluded, students gathered around the whiteboard again to copy down numbers and really master numeral formation and/or addition and subtraction.

After math, the class traveled to specials. Usually two a day. Music. Art. Technology. Guidance. Fitness. This was crucial planning time for the teacher. Time was needed to go over the literacy and math worksheets collected that day and copy new ones for the next day.

            After the class returned from specials and scarfed down a snack, intervention block arrived. If students didn’t complete their daily work, needed extra support because they didn’t complete it correctly, or lagged in some skill according to collected data, they had some time to finish their work and possibly even get some time with the teacher.

If time remained, the class might work on science or social studies, but usually in a condensed format. Lots of experiments required setting up and preparing ahead of time, so they were usually skipped, though the teacher might talk about them and see if students can figure it out. If the experiment was completed, rarely did the class really discuss the results or troubleshoot anything that might have come up during the implementation process. There just wasn’t time.

It was time for each student to complete their end of the day jobs, fill out their stoplight chart, review the standards and academic objectives of the day, and play during what was called choice time.

Of course, if work was incomplete, choice time wasn’t an option.

            And if your name wasn’t on the green portion of the stoplight chart clearly visible to everyone at the front of the room, choice time wasn’t an option.

And if the class needed more time to practice sight words, review math facts, practice lowercase letter formation, preview the next day’s lesson, review another skill, or discuss the upcoming assessment, choice time wasn’t an option.

            But who needed choice time anyways? It was usually loud, messy, disorganized, and full of bickering and disagreements. Some days, the decision was made to have the class prepare for dismissal by sitting quietly to think about the mistakes they made and what they would to fix it.

            Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. The pattern continued. The students never truly figured out how to fix it.

            However, the teacher did. Well, actually, to be quite honest, he had some help.