How I Plan a Year

Are you having trouble figuring out how to get started? Here's how I do it. Take what you like and leave the rest. :)

First, I choose the calendar. The state requires me to conduct school on a regular schedule and to keep a record of instructional days. Normally we start a new year on Labor Day and have school almost every weekday until the end of June (with a separate summer session for July-August). I like to use a spreadsheet, with each row being one week; if you prefer, you can rotate yours 90 degrees and make each column a week instead. I make note of when holidays and other special events are likely to fall that year--for example, one set of grandparents always visits during a certain week--and code those weeks purple. Timeanddate.com is a helpful page for looking up dates in years ahead. I also pick a week for standardized testing (required in North Carolina) and turn it orange, and then go back a couple of months and make myself a note to order the test.
In the far upper-left corner, which is otherwise wasted space, I note four weeks when it's time to take stock of the child's progress and write up a narrative progress report for the past quarter. This process helps me to see growth over the course of the year and from one year to the next.

Why don't I use a hand-written planner? If we don't get to something this week, I don't want to erase or white-out what I have for next week and squeeze it in. I don't want arrows from a sick day to various places on other pages. I like the neat look of typing. And if I waited until, say, Sunday night to write down my plans for the week, it might not happen at all, or might not be done very well: What was that other book we were going to read next? How far did we get in science last time? Game night took longer than I expected, so I guess I'll do it in the morning.... No, that's not how I want to do things. (INFJ, can you tell?) There's nothing wrong with an off-the-cuff style if it's working for you, but I know from experience that it's not for me.

Since I plan by the week, it's important that I not choose more than we can do in a real week--one with a piano lesson a half-hour away, probably a homeschool activity or field trip, a library visit, a trip to a park, a scout meeting, the housework, and so on. I like to have enough margin that we are not frantic when there's something extra going on as well. Why set myself up to go to pieces when there's a wait at the dentist's office?
If you look at the spreadsheet, you'll see we don't have a lot of breaks planned. That's because my child thrives on routine. A couple of hours of school a day, about 220 days a year works a lot better for our family than 175 jam-packed days.Your mileage may vary, especially if you go away for the summer, for example.

Now that I have my calendar, I know my limits, and this will help me avoid over- or under-planning. Next, I make each column a subject (math, history, science...), keeping work we'll do at the table to the left and the "couch subjects"--those without written output--on the right, since that's the order that works best for us.
I can't do anything more until I get my hands on the curricula I choose for each. That's why I often order everything in late winter or early spring for the following fall. When I see or hear about something interesting that I may want to use in a few years, I make a note of it in my spreadsheet so I don't forget. Sometimes I buy something I'm sure I want to use, but not yet, and start filling in pages for future years--tentatively, of course, but it's so easy to cut and paste that I'm not worried about wasting my effort.

Work in progress

Once I have my materials, I look through one subject at a time and consider how much we're likely to be able to do in a week. I type chapters, page numbers or topics in the correct squares on my spreadsheet. I make notes about supplementary activities, too, so you'll see some links or comments like "See Pin." By June, I've filled in the whole thing.

Each month, I print out anything needed for the next month and ProClick it together into booklets, one for the table (currently mostly language arts materials) and the other for the couch (memory work, etc).

On Labor Day, I promote my child to the next grade and preview the year's materials with him. We talk about what our typical week will look like this year.

During the school year, as we complete a subject's work for the week, I turn it gray on the spreadsheet. If there's a subject we're not doing very consistently, I can see that clearly. Am I avoiding something that's messy (read: art), that the child complains about (again: art), or that I don't find worth the effort? That tells me I need to either choose another resource or be more disciplined with what I have--or perhaps drop something that is just not useful right now.

When my student is older, I may use more complex tools--some people choose Trello or OneNote and have the student do more of the record-keeping, for example. However, the spreadsheet has worked very well for me for preK through third grade, and I might keep it as an overview even if I use something else in addition in the future.

2014-2015 Round-Up

For the legal school year July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015, we completed 249 days of school. There were twelve holiday/vacation days and one sick day. The rest were weekends (except that we did use one Saturday as a school day.)
We took over three dozen field trips, not counting duplicate visits to the same museums. We saw Jupiter's four largest moons through a telescope, gathered eggs from a hen house, ice skated, picked strawberries, and admired two-thousand-year-old sculptures.
We read about Alexander the Great as well as Gerald and Piggie. We measured rainfall; we threw paint-filled eggs at a canvas. We traveled out of state twice, north and south.
How magnificent time can be, when we set our own schedule. Yes, there was time for piano lessons and swimming lessons, but also time to climb a tree, explore a stream, dig in the sand with friends. Time to meditate, and time to make a raucous noise. There was time to ride roller coasters. Time to mess around with magnets.
It was a year of abundance. Next year will not be the same, but a new series of adventures. Whatever the future brings, we had a great first-grade year.

What was missing from my education?

I'm thinking back to my K-12 education--what I remember of it. While it was adequate in that I finished twelfth grade reasonably well prepared for college, I didn't like it much (especially grades 4-8), and I want to avoid making some of those same mistakes with my own child.
I went to school in three different districts in two states. What was missing? This is a draft, as I'm thinking 'aloud' here.

1) A sense of direction.
I didn't feel that I had any kind of road map, that there was some intentionality behind the daily assignments. This was especially true when the assignments were required without regard for whether I had already mastered the skills or content they were intended to reinforce. I'm not sure that many teachers, districts, or states had given deep thought to why we were marching through the curriculum--but if they had, it was not shared with the students. Consequently, I was disengaged. Some candor about purpose, some framing, some throughlines, some drawing attention to recurring themes would have been so nice. I feel that if we want kids to connect the dots, we have to let them know that the dots are intended to make a big picture.

2) Tinkering.
Nearly everything was a closed-ended question: monkey see, monkey do. I got very good at providing right answers, fast, with no creativity. The purpose of any activity was predetermined and generic, and any "what ifs" were considered a distraction. When I eventually had a chance to create my own project in a gifted pull-out program, I had no ideas. I had neither had enough input nor been encouraged to build the skills to generate something of my own. (However, I did very well on the SAT.)
For student-owned project time to be effective, students must have access to generative topics on a regular basis, and there must be time to delve into material and then allow it to sink in before we ask for output.

3) The physical world.
I sat and was lectured to in class; I sat and read books (my main hobby); I sat in front of the TV. I did little with my body and little outdoors. Half an hour of PE once a week only confirmed my sense that I was clumsy. Now that screens are everywhere, the danger of being disconnected from physical reality is all the worse.

4) Genuine inquiry into other places and peoples.
I didn't get to start a foreign language until seventh grade, and then it was at a 'lite' level. Anything we did with regard to other countries and times was superficial; there was no serious attempt to understand viewpoints significantly different from our own, much less how they evolved or unfolded. Of all the ways in which my education was shallow, this might be the worst, in that it subtly devalued other human beings.

5) Community.
There was no sense of being on a team working toward a common vision. There were rules, but they did not emerge from a consensus of our values; they were merely imposed. Achievements were for one's own sake, mostly in that they increased one's status with adults. We were not in it to change the world, not to benefit our neighbors, but to get a good report card. Especially as kids get older, this is patronizing; it's no wonder that so many eventually decide the hoops are not worth jumping through.

6) Reflection.
There was no time set aside, when we finished something, to consider honestly what we had gotten out of it and whether it was any good. Like #1, if this was being done, it was not done by the students. As with many of these missing items, the lack of planned reflection indicates that students do not have the authority to shape their own learning.

Links to look at

I love the Information Age! It's so easy to find people who can inspire and inform my teaching. If you're not familiar with any of these resources, by all means, take a look:

• Lori Pickert, author of Project-Based Homeschooling. Great post here on DIY for kids.
• Teacher Tom, lead teacher at a play-based preschool. Great post here: Plastic Hammers.
• Amy Night, kindergarten teacher. Great post here on behavior management in kindergarten.
• Dan Meyer, math teacher. Interesting post here on digital textbooks.
• Geoff Krall, math teacher. Post on getting kids to be willing to work hard.
• Jose Vilson, math educator/activist. Post and interesting comments on open doors in classrooms.
• Audrey Watters, education writer. Thoughts on ed tech and politics.
• Alfie Kohn. Even if you haven't heard of the others, you probably know of Kohn--but if not, here's a link to some of his articles.

Happy reading!

On Math

First, some observations:
1) An awful lot of people are intimidated by math.
2) Many people are rather bad at math. I don't mean in the haven't-done-trig-in-twenty-years-and-would-have-to-do-it-over sense, but in the never-really-understood-fractions sense.
3) Groups 1 and 2 overlap quite a bit.
4) A fair number of elementary school teachers fall into group 1 and/or 2. If you don't believe that, please read Liping Ma's book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics (some libraries will have it as an e-book).

It wouldn't be surprising, then, that having parents and/or teachers who fear, loathe, or lack skill in math would lead to kids' lack of confidence and competence.

What to do?

I propose a math refresher course to reinforce not just procedural, but conceptual math for adults. The main ideas:

• Math is not here to confuse you, but to help you make sense of things.
• All of the operations are variations on counting. Addition is counting more; subtraction is counting backward; multiplication is counting groups; division is counting how many could go into groups; exponents are just faster multiplication, and roots are the reverse of exponents.
• Understanding place value matters.
• When you have a good sense of a number, you know how to compose it and decompose it for your convenience (e.g., sometimes when dealing with 17, we will think of it as 10+7 or 15+2 or 20-3 for easier computation).
• Likewise, shapes can often be broken down into simpler shapes for ease of understanding.
• Units matter.
• You should not ever make math cute if the cost is inaccuracy or distraction. Do not let Pinterest lead you astray here. Present concepts and examples in a way that makes sense.

Misplacing Education

One Parents' Night about eight years ago at the excellent private school where I then taught, a parent asked me an interesting question. I had explained to parents that many homework assignments would be uploaded to my class website and could be readily printed at home, and even reprinted for extra practice when students were reviewing. Mr. Y, who I believe is a businessman, expressed concern: If I put my materials online where anyone could have access to them, wasn't I giving a [very expensive private school] education away for free? Why could someone from [a different school] not just take my materials and use them?
I reassured him that there were no trade secrets in my worksheets--everything I made was, if not common knowledge, easy to find out in a book. The important part of a [name of our school] education was what happened in the classroom.
He appeared to be satisfied with my answer, but upon further reflection, I realize that it was incomplete. Mr. Y was mis-locating or mis-placing learning in written materials. This is a reasonable mistake: excellent books and other materials do make a good education much easier.
However, the imprecise answer I gave him was also misplacing education. You might suppose my reference to "what happens in the classroom" meant instruction: my explaining ideas, telling facts, and demonstrating processes. This is also a reasonable mistake, because well-thought-out instruction is likewise a valuable component of education. But if I watch you do brain surgery and you narrate what you're doing, am I a brain surgeon? If I watch the Olympics and listen to the commentary, am I an athlete?
 If I had thought better of it (which I did not with an unanticipated question and only a few minutes with that audience), I would have told him that I could likewise videotape my instruction and put that online--and still not be giving a [school name] education away! I suspect that many teachers, as well as students and parents, misplace education by thinking of it in terms of instruction.

Learning, though, is the process of developing thought and performance, of changing from an incorrect or incomplete process to a better one. To answer Mr. Y precisely, I would have had to explain to him that the education happens when I have his daughter try doing what I just showed her how to do, she gets it wrong, I talk with her to uncover the error in her thinking, we correct the error, and then she tries another example and gets it right. And of course, there is no way to replicate that without feedback, the interactions between the student and teacher that indicate what is going well and what needs improvement. There is nothing I could put on my website that would replace that process.

How else do we misplace education?

• In urban and high-poverty schools in particular, we think of discipline as education, because discipline is necessary for instruction and feedback to occur uninterrupted. Some principals like discipline enough to overlook the fact that it is not education.
• We often think of standards and curriculum as education, but it is clear that they are not--especially when standards are not met and we keep marching right on through them, year after year. This is an error that might be associated with the Common Core. Setting clear and high standards is valuable, and well-aligned curricula make teachers' work easier, but if it were that easy, American education would be very different  right now. You might say that I should be able to run an eight-minute mile, but since I can't, obviously I need more than a "should."
• We think of assessment as education, when in fact good assessment is merely an indicator that education is or is not happening (and poorly designed or administered assessment does not even do that well). This is the error of No Child Left Behind. Okay, you test my mile time and I run too slowly. (I could've told you that!) What then?
• Class size matters, but it is not education. Like discipline, small class size helps education. In a class of fourteen rather than thirty-four, I'm much more likely to notice Miss Y's error and have time to talk through the process with her.

These errors in thinking are along the lines of supposing that if you gave me a scalpel, a video of a brain surgery, a great med school textbook, and a standardized evaluation afterward, I'd be a neurosurgeon. Anybody want to sign up to be my first patient? :)

Points I'm Pondering

Point #1: Among the axioms of education is "Every teacher is a reading teacher." It should follow that every teacher is a reader, and that every education major is a reader. This is not being enforced.

Point #2: Another axiom is "All children can learn," or as Adler's Paideia Proposal phrases it, "All children are educable." This one kind of creeps me out, because the assertion suggests that not everyone thinks so. (Contrast "Schooling takes place in buildings," which is such a commonplace idea that no one bothers saying it, though a lot of science, PE and art can be done outdoors.)
As differentiated instruction advocate Jim Grant points out, not all children learn at the government rate (45 minutes a class, 180 days a year, 13 years until you're done)--certainly kids don't learn by merely being present when instruction takes place. One of my concerns about schooling is the amount of time being wasted. Why does kindergarten, which forty years ago was thought unnecessary, need to take seven hours a day? How much time in those thirteen years does a child spend traveling to and from school; standing in line; waiting for administrative items to be in order, for everyone to find the right page and a pencil and paper, for a disruption to be over and instruction to resume? How little time is spent thinking about big questions (or "throughlines" as they say at Project Zero)?
And for all that, if all children can learn and they are each spending 14,040 hours in school (less a few sick days) at a total cost of over $100,000 per student, why are so many finishing school with so little evident education? Right now there are about fifty million American children in public schools. If you add in the teachers (and I'm not including principals, support staff or those in post-secondary education), something like eighteen percent of Americans are going into school Monday morning.
Yet for all the investment of time and money, the average U.S. eighteen-year-old, by all appearances, is not so full of information as to name the capital of Canada (in some cases, I'm afraid, nor that of the United States), not skilled enough at reasoning to find the logical flaw in a letter to the editor, not good enough at math to compare the prices of different sizes of pizza, not engaged enough in civics to go out and make an informed vote for governor, not physically conditioned enough to run a mile, not law-abiding or health-conscious enough to have avoided binge drinking, and not sufficiently exposed to the fine arts to hum along to any classical music that hasn't been in a TV commercial lately. She or he has not learned to speak a second language fluently, is not ready for college math, and doesn't read any books that aren't required. A quarter of teens drop out before graduation. Of those who have a diploma, a fifth can't get into the military because of their low ASVAB scores.
So all children can learn, but many of them don't seem to be learning much in school. Is it possible to get the American system of education to a point that most people will find satisfactory?

What's the big idea?

School is commonly divided into subjects, and educators try to teach each subject in a systematic way. But it might be wise to look at the core ideas (and perhaps assumptions) we have about each subject area before deciding when and how to pursue knowledge.

Here's a draft of the Big Ideas at WHA.

English language arts and foreign language: Words are how we connect with others.What we say matters; how we say it matters, too. Books are awesome, and new ones are being written all the time.

Math: Numbers, as labels of quantity and measurement, help us to understand the world around us. Solving problems with numbers is fun and useful.

Science: The universe is driven by natural laws and processes; it has a history, and that history is still happening. We can learn about the universe using the scientific method. It's our responsibility to work safely and to use our knowledge ethically.

Social studies: Humanity has a history, and that history is still happening--we are part of it. History is affected not just by individuals, but by places and by groups and their cultures.

Arts: Beauty comes in many forms. We can seek it out, and we can create our own.

Character and life skills: Image is nothing; vision is everything. We value doing what's right. We value being competent.

Preschool Pitfalls

Whether you run a preschool or your own child is enrolled in one, here are six common issues to be aware of in preschools.

1) Too much emphasis on academics in the name of school readiness. A person who cannot share three dolls with two friends does not need to practice counting to 100. A person who cannot wipe his own bottom does not need to be pushed to write his name. And for pity's sake, do not try to teach your 3's class the Pledge of Allegiance--that's conceptually appropriate for second grade. Organizing a game of Duck Duck Goose is a far better use of your time!

2) Too many children per adult. NAEYC is trying to be realistic with regard to money. If you come at it from the viewpoint of child development, there should be a cap (with two adults) of 6 children in the 1's class, 8 children in the 2's class, 10 in the 3's and 12 in the 4's.

3) Lack of modeling and direct instruction in social interactions. Children who can barely talk cannot "use their words" effectively without support. Do not wait until two children are in tears and tell them to stop! Think out loud and invite them to think with you. ("It looks like you two are having trouble agreeing. What could we do next?")

4) Crafts mislabeled as art. First, if the goal is that everyone is making the same thing in the same way, that is by definition not art. Call it fine motor practice if that's the reason you're doing it. But do we have to make something every day or week that matches the theme? Children know the difference between something that will be used because it's functional or loved because it's beautiful--something with an authentic value--and decorative trash.

5) Excessive dependence on, and presumptions about, holiday or seasonal themes. Let me tell you, I was none too happy to spend the beginning of December trying to explain Christmas as a joyful celebration of Jesus' birthday to my son, only to have him come home from his church-based preschool singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." If you are having Valentine's Day exchanges among children who can't recognize their own names, having to explain how spiders and bats are related to pumpkins, or trying to explain the winter Olympics to children who have never seen a real snowflake, put down the activity book and ask yourself what would be truly interesting and valuable to the kids and their families. Early childhood education is not about filling the schedule.

6) A regimented, fragmented day. If children's free play is in blocks of only fifteen or twenty minutes, why is that? Are some kids objecting to moving on to the next activity? Really engaging materials absorb children, especially the older ones, for longer stretches of time.

Preschool ideas

Looking for alternatives for TV for your one- to five-year-old for these cold, wet days? Got a kid who's over the usual coloring books and fort-building? Here are some ideas to get you started! You might keep some of these things grouped together as workboxes or busy boxes.

1. Pouring and transferring: Gather up assorted little containers, and little items to play with-- craft pom poms, beans or lentils, uncooked rice, or water (if you're brave enough, get out the food coloring). Set them on a table and let your little one try it out. Little tongs, tweezers, spoons, or scoops add to the fun. Make sure your child helps you clean up!
2. Magnets: Do you have little alphabet magnets and/or magnetic trains? Paperclips? A cookie sheet? There you go.
3. Lacing: Punch several holes in a piece of heavy paper. Provide a length of yarn with a button tied at one end or a child's shoelace with a knot in one end and show him/her how to "sew."
4. Stick stuff into things (yeah, technical educational term): Raw spaghetti through the holes of a spice jar, pipe cleaners or straws into a colander or through toilet paper tubes, etc.
5. Make sock puppets.
6. Find a dance or yoga video you can do together. I do recommend previewing and bookmarking any YouTube video before showing it to kids, or you may already have a DVD that will work.
7. Make playdough or slime together. Google for easy recipes.
8. Write a letter to send to a friend or family member.
9. Try order games. Cut out the letters in your child's name or the numbers in your phone number and have your child unscramble them. Play Simon Says with a whole sequence of actions. ("Simon says hop twice on one foot, tickle someone, and then touch your chin.")
10. Bake something together. Muffins are easy for a young child to help with.
11. Drive the alphabet. Use a Matchbox-sized car or truck. Help your child learn the correct way to form letters by driving the correct path--on big foam letters if you have them, or with the letter just written on paper on the floor. Use alphabet printables to save time if you want to do all fifty-two (uppercase and lowercase).
12. Play with light and dark. Do you have a flashlight? Maybe a glow bracelet left from Halloween? What about a prism, suncatcher, or LED candles? A hand mirror?
13. Read a big ol' stack of books together. Go to the library if you're tired of the same old stories.
14. Make a yarn maze by running yarn around and through furniture.
15. Make music. Put beans into plastic Easter eggs or empty jars. Let your kid try blowing into the empty teakettle. Pretend the flyswatter is an electric guitar. Set out assorted pans, lids, and wooden spoons.

What should I be doing with my preschooler?

Many parents with young children ask, "What should my child know before starting kindergarten?" or "What should we be doing now?"
Here are some helpful skills for the under-six crowd, in approximate order of importance:
Independent toileting, including good hand-washing;
Using good manners, especially with regard to keeping one's hands to oneself and sharing objects;
Following simple directions;
Recognizing and avoiding hazards (e.g., putting away an item that could be tripped on), and observing one's environment in general;
Waiting quietly for a moment while the teacher pays attention to someone else;
Listening to a story and talking about what happened;
Being aware of time and routines (not necessarily telling time);
Putting things back where they belong when finished with them;
Putting on one's own coat, shoes, hat, etc.;
Expressing choices and preferences;
Playing cooperatively with other children;
Eating and appreciating nutritious foods, preferably with a willingness to try new things;
Recognizing basic shapes and colors;
Using/manipulating classroom objects (such as crayons and blunt scissors);
Recognizing letters, especially one's own name, and saying/singing the alphabet;
Recognizing numbers and counting to ten;
Categorizing items (by size, shape, color, etc.).

Beyond that, enriching experiences are great. If you can take your child to the beach, the forest, a big city, a farm, and so on, these activities will provide background knowledge that gives him or her context for stories as well as subject-area learning. But there's a lot you can do in your own home! Cook together. Plant some seeds and see what happens. Ask your child to predict what happens next in familiar and unfamiliar situations. Talk about the reasons behind some of the choices you make. Cuddle up and read library books on a rainy day.

It's Giving Week!

We hope to celebrate Giving Week each year by giving both time and money to those in need. We can't give as much as we would like, but we know that it is nonetheless good to give what we can.
Our donations will benefit fourteen different organizations this year. We hope that by choosing to make our gifts now, we can help these groups to provide their services while the need is high and donations are low.
Of course, older children can take a more active part, but we believe in including little ones as much as possible. Even a very young child can help pack bags of food and clothing to donate.

Thought for the day: "Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you." ~Robert Fulghum