Talking is like
playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hands on the strings to
stop their vibration as in twanging them to bring out their music.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
At the parent
coffee on Tuesday morning, I spoke about the Habits of Discussion that we are
teaching our students. What are Habits
of Discussion you may ask? Well, last
spring I went to a workshop in New Jersey to learn more about a particular
reading program being used by some successful charter schools on the east
coast. In this workshop I was introduced
to the Habits of Discussion. Habits of
Discussion are the things we want to teach our students so they can both learn
to have intelligent conversations and learn to listen in order to be able to contribute
to a discussion or conversation. We are
teaching these Habits of Discussion in all grades at this point. Ideally, you start them in Kindergarten and 1st
grade and they build as the students progress through the grades. Below are the first four Habits of Discussion
and how students would demonstrate them in the classroom. These are things you can practice at home, as
well.
|
Core
Habit of Discussion
|
Ideal
Student Actions
|
|
Listen and Talk only in turn
|
·
Track the speaker
·
Hands down when someone is speaking
·
Not interrupting
|
|
Speak Audibly
|
·
Students speak loudly and clearly
|
|
Speak in Complete Sentences
|
·
Restate the question in the response
·
No incomplete sentences
|
|
Interact Peer-to-Peer: direct answers to the group
|
·
Looking at every group member when giving an
answer, not just the teacher
|
If you are
picking up your child from school early, please make sure you leave enough time
for packing up their belongings once they are called to the office. We do not call students to the office until
parents actually arrive for pick up, as we want them to miss as little
instructional time as possible. Also,
please remember the left carpool lane changes to a pick up lane each day at
2:45.
Since we had
school on Monday, our teachers made great connections with Presidents’
Day. Kindergarten students talked about
President Washington and Lincoln and made some images of them to hang in the
hallway. Second grade analyzed the
similarities and differences between Washington and Lincoln and created Venn
Diagrams to show those.
Tuesday was the
100th day of school. This is
a day of much excitement in grades K-2.
In math classes in these grades students keep track of the number of
days in school as a counting and patterns exercise. Different classes did interesting things to
acknowledge the 100th day of school, as you can see from the
pictures below. From 100 thoughts of
kindness in 1st grade to the 2nd grade things they want
to do before they turn 100 years old, the hallways have hundreds of great
things to see.
Have a wonderful
week!
Mrs. Baier
