Ms. Cotton's Corner

This post focuses on how I begin the year in a physical classroom. Be sure to check out my series on starting the year with distance learning. New posts will be coming out every week about how I will do that this year!

I start Day 2 as I will begin every day – standing outside the classroom, smiling at each child and telling them with my words and my actions that I am happy to see them. I’ll tell you a secret. I’m terrible with names. Always have been. So, on the first day of school I snap a quick picture of each student, and later that night I give myself a quiz until I know everyone’s name. I hang the pictures in the room somewhere, and I am able to greet each child by name as they enter the classroom on the second day.

On day 1, the kids and I began getting to know each other. I really can’t stress how important it is to build those relationships as quickly as you can. That’s one of the reasons I don’t worry about the rules on the first day – I’m focused on building relationships and helping kids know that school will be focused on academics. I think it’s important to show kids what you value on the first day, and every day.

On day two, we continue in the same way. The focus is on learning and relationships, and I bring in another goal – student voice. Here’s how I do that.

We begin with Independent Reading time. On the second day students again find piles of books on their desks. Many have a book from yesterday, and the ones who don’t go for a book dive in the pile. I rotate from group to group to help kids find a book, and we settle in for quiet reading. I haven’t told kids my expectations yet, but I model them in the way I praise kids who get settled quickly and quietly. We try for 15 minutes of quiet reading. Then we gather on the rug for a discussion. I say, “This year we will spend a lot of time reading. Right now, I’m getting to know you all as readers. I noticed that many of you chose adventure books. I also noticed that some of you chose mysteries. Two of you chose books by Gary Paulsen. I want to get to know you as readers even more. In this class we will often use Turn and Talks. When you Turn and Talk, make sure that you talk to a person near you, and that everyone has a partner. I will give you a signal to finish your conversation, and then count down from 5 to 0. Finish and look at me by the time I get to 0. Turn and tell your neighbor one thing that helps you focus on reading during Independent Reading time.”

As the students Turn and Talk, I listen in to gather information about them as readers. I have given them a few of the expectations of Turn and Talk, and we will continue to practice and adjust this procedure until it is a smooth routine. For now, I put my hand in the air and put my fingers down one by one as I say, “Finish your conversation in 5-4-3-2-1-0.” As everyone finishes, I give a thumbs up to the students who turn to make eye contact. I do not continue the conversation until ALL students have made eye contact. I don’t give a verbal reminder, I just wait. Invariably, they all figure it out eventually, maybe with the help of their neighbor! ALL means all. No excuses.

Then I say, “As you were talking, I heard some people talk about noise level, I heard other people talk about space, and some of you talked about finding the right book. Those are all great things to think about when trying to focus on reading during Independent Reading time. Let’s make a chart and record some of the things that help you as readers.” I deliberately set the stage for students to focus on those important ideas. It’s entirely possible that they didn’t mention some of those things. But I get those ideas into the conversation because they are going to be important in setting the right environment for reading success. I then randomly call on students, and ask them to share their idea or their partner’s. After a Turn and Talk I will always call on students randomly, and I want them to know that now. It’s part of their accountability for Turn and Talk time.

We work together to make an Anchor Chart about things that help us as readers. Those then become the expectations for Independent Reading time. This is pretty much the same process I will use for developing procedures for math, science and writing. Over the next few days we will follow these steps to collaboratively develop procedures for every academic situation:

1. Students do an activity (writing in journals, a science experiment…), Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t.
2. We debrief the activity, and how we can help each other to do our best.
3. We co-create an Anchor Chart.
4. Most importantly, we revisit the Anchor Charts every time we do the activity, and modify them. These are living documents, and for the first few weeks we will add, delete and modify them. They will not be beautiful, but they will get the job done.

Building classroom routines using a structure like this keeps the focus right where I want it – on academics, on building relationships and on building students’ belief that they can, and should, manage their own behavior.

On Day 1, I focused on modeling my expectations and praising students for following them. On Day 2, I ask the students to set the expectations for themselves. Occasionally a student will try to derail this process. They will say something like, “I focus on reading best when there is loud rock music playing.” The best way to handle that is to put out an open-ended question to the class. Something like, “How would that be for the rest of you? Would you be able to focus and read if there were loud rock music on the speakers?” Other students will shake their head no, so then I say, “Well, that might be hard for some of us. We need to make sure that all students can do their best. What if we play quiet, classical music while we read?” Of course, don’t suggest something you are not willing to do. If you want it silent, suggest that. When we begin tracking reading stamina, if you need to, you can do a controlled experiment where one day you play loud rock music and the other day you play quiet classical music. Even stubborn students can’t argue with data (although they may try)!

Just as I did on Day 1, I will make sure that there are plenty of academics on Day 2. We will have a reading lesson, a writing lesson and a math lesson. I gathered data on their writing stamina after my crazy Intro to Writing on Day 1. I use that information to plan Day 2 and to set a goal for Writing Stamina. Sometimes, it’s just 10 minutes. If I have a lot of reluctant writers, I will provide a funny picture prompt or an inspirational quote. I usually give a Writer’s Interest Survey or a Reader’s Interest Survey to continue building relationships and help me use students’ interests to guide my instruction all year. We will continue to get to know each other by reading Two Truths and a Lie, which we began on Day 1. And students will continue to organize the Book Nook in a way that makes sense for them and that they can maintain all year long.

Day 2 is all about building students’ understanding that they are in charge of themselves. That is a pretty novel idea for many learners, and one that we will work on together all year long. I continue growing our relationships, setting the expectation that school is about learning, and building classroom routines and procedures.