Because our group is so small, the age ranges vary so widely, and because the children themselves decide a great deal of how that day will be spent, it is difficult to provide a specific, daily, weekly or even monthly description of our curriculum. (Click here or scroll down to see a Sample Day.) However, there are constants in place that serve as the backbone to the year and which we consider together – facilitator and student - as we organically grow our curriculum. While traditional subject matters are covered (Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies) they are not covered as discrete units unrelated to one another. Explorations of our interconnectedness – be these scientific, artistic or social/cultural – are the building blocks of theme project-based learning. They are the tools that we use to consider and establish our place in the community and the world.
LANGUAGE ARTS (Reading/Writing/Oral)
MATH
SCIENCE
SOCIAL STUDIES (Geographic, Cultural and Social Awareness)
ARTS
MOVEMENT & PLAY
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
LOCAL COMMUNITY CONNECTION
NATURE
(Please scroll down for more specific information about Language Arts, Math and Conflict Resolution)
LANGUAGE ARTS
Creating a literature rich environment, where words are read, spoken, written, researched, played with, and used on a daily basis is the most important pre- and entry reading activity we as teachers and parents can provide. We are all very different kinds of learners, with different abilities to acquire and perform reading and writing. For some, reading and writing acquisition and use comes early and easily. For others, it can be later and/or more difficult. I teach decoding and encoding (reading and writing) using a systematic approach based on phonemic awareness and its relationship to our alphabetic "code" (Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It: A Scientific Revolution in Reading, Diane McGuiness, PHD). This more rote method is seamlessly integrated into literature and real-life reading and writing, with the overall approach adjusted to suit the individual style of the learner. Typically, even children who acquire the skill of reading and writing later, rather than earlier, nonetheless progress rapidly and have soon caught up to or exceeded their already reading peers. Children with learning disabilities can also learn to read and write and manipulate alternate tools skillfully enough to be able to get what they need. Motivation is everything: the “need” to read is one that follows desire – either the desire to enter the world of fiction on one’s own, to perform an activity that requires reading, or as a means to acquire information on a topic that is important to the child.
My first job is to role-model a positive relationship with reading and writing; that is, to show that not only do I personally love to read and write, but to actively point out how much I use reading and writing in my daily life. My second job is to provide easy access to the world of reading and writing via books, magazines, signs, pamphlets, libraries, the internet, etc. Finally (!) my third job is to facilitate the process of the actual skill acquisition: to help the child navigate the tricky worlds of reading (decoding, gaining fluency and accurately reflecting comprehension) and writing (creativity, mechanics, structure, audience, etc).
The ability to orally reflect comprehension of what one has read is an integral part of Language Arts. How to ask high-quality questions, how to make high-quality comments in a group, and how best to present what we have learned or are learning is a constant focus throughout our day, for all ages!
READING ACTIVITIES
* Teacher and/or student “performs” daily reading of a book (novel and/or picture book)
* Phonemic and alphabetic code acquisition
* Researching (internet, library, reference books, etc)
* Reading aloud to or with a peer
* Reading (or looking at books) silently
* Reading “self-published” works (from sequential drawings, to dictation, to own writing)
* Directions
* Signs
* Listening to and /or creating
* Books on Tape
* Reading back one’s own writing
WRITING ACTIVITIES
* Letter formation
* Italics cursive book
* Dictation
* Daily journal entries (with writing prompts)
* Creating lists
* Notes to each other
* Email
* Friendly letters (TO someone and mailed!)
* “Business” letters (TO someone and mailed! - e.g., op-ed, to mayor, to a business, to inquire about necessary information, etc)
* Cards: invitations, thank you’s, occasions
* Signs, Flyers, Pamphlets
* Creative prose and poetry
* Books – alphabet, fiction and non-fiction
Reviews (of books, movies, art, etc) – posted on-line and/or distributed (to peers or wider audience)
Essays
Directions
ORAL ACTIVITIES:
* Formal and informal presentations to the group
* Response to presentations
* Dramatic play
* Oral readings
* Phone inquiries
MATH
I use the Math-U-See curriculum for the sequenced portion of math. When I homeschooled my son, I looked at quite a few different programs; this program was not only inexpensive relative to other more well-know programs, it was superior to them both in manipulatives offered, sequencing and ease of use for both student and teacher. We were very happy with this program! I agree with Math-U-See’s stated goal: “The reason we study math is so we can apply what we learn in everyday situations. Learning and understanding math is much more than committing a list of facts to memory. It includes memorization, but it also encompasses learning the concepts that are critical to problem solving. Math•U•See's goal is to help produce confident problem-solvers who enjoy math.” (http://www.mathusee.com/faqs.html) You can watch (or order a free) demo video and brwose through the workbooks and manipulatives at their site.
That said, when do we use the math “shortcuts” that we are learning in our sequenced program? Everyday! In addition to our formal math program, we pay attention in our activities to the fact that we are “using” math all the time. I make sure that the children are thinking through and using the math principles on their own as much as possible.
MATH ACTIVITIES
* Creating art that explicitly focuses on patterns and geometry
* Playing games
* Logical puzzles
* Cooking
* Measuring
* Building
* Dividing and Sharing
* Planning
* Arranging
* Figuring tips (!)
* Estimating
* Saving and Spending
* Budgeting
* Patterning
* Examining nature
* Understanding and Using Statistics
* Telling time
* Graphing
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
I have successfully used a formal approach to Conflict Resolution for 18 years now, both with my own children and with large groups of children, ranging in age and ability (and even with kids with severe and aggressive anger issues.) When there is a problem, big or small, we handle it either as a group or just with the people who are involved. A truncated version of this process tends to be good one for regular consensus group decision-making as well. The five step process I use is as follows:
- Clarify the problem. Everyone is safely heard, without interruption.
- Brainstorm solutions together. WRITE THEM ALL DOWN! All solutions, no matter how extreme or goofy are entertained. (Everyone tends to laugh when I suggest that we all just stay alone in our rooms for the rest of our lives so as to prevent the possibility that we might engage negatively with another human!) I find that suggesting something extreme is often an icebreaker. It also serves to let people get an emotion off their chest without having to actually to do something extreme. The first few times that we use this process I have to throw the first few solutions into the pot. After that the kids are much more creative at coming up with workable solutions than me! More importantly, they are invested in the solution, and much more likely to try and make it work.
- Eliminate solutions that cannot be lived with by any member party to the problem. Give reasons. I have never used this process without coming up with one or two final solutions that everyone agrees on. If we did, we would go back to clarifying the problem – maybe we got it wrong!
- Agree to a specified amount of time that we will try this solution to see if it works.
- Revisit the situation at a later day and re-evaluate. Is the solution working? Why or why not? Re-evaluate if necessary.
http://www.studygs.net/conflres.htm - great site!
SAMPLE DAY
8:15 - 8:30ARRIVAL / SETTLING IN
ARRIVAL / SETTLING IN 8:30 – 8:45SETTLING IN / GREETING FRIENDS / PREPARING FOR THE DAY
SETTLING IN / GREETING FRIENDS / PREPARING FOR THE DAY8:45 – 9:15MORNING MEETING – used to review the day before, share, and plan the day’s
MORNING MEETING – used to review the day before, share, and plan the day’s activities. An example of something that might come up could be that more kids want to use something than can use it at a time. We would take this opportunity to employ conflict resolution together to come up with a solution that everyone is happy with. http://www.amazon.com/Morning-Meeting-Book-Strategies-9:15-9:35? MORNING WALK / OUTSIDE TIME
MORNING WALK / OUTSIDE TIME 9:35 – 11:15 PROJECT TIME:
Several kids might have developed an interest in ants from an observation earlier in the week of a growing ant pile in the yard. They remembered that some of them saw the movie “Ants” but a disagreement developed over whether or not that was really how ants operated. It was decided that a little research about ants might tell us what was nature and what was fancy. We had gotten our bug identification book out, and figured out what kind of ants we thought we saw. Looking in the book was a perfect opportunity for alphabetizing (which prompted some kids to create an alphabet poster with bugs for the letters), sounding words out, mapping, measuring and cross referencing – among others that we didn’t explore, like macro photography, life cycles and entomology as a profession. Some great ideas for projects came out of the encounter and the kids divided them amongst themselves. An alphabet poster, for those still young enough that letters could be confusing. The creation of “A Day in the Life of an Ant” book was proposed, and a pair collaborates on illustration and story. It is decided that more research needs to be done, and this pair turns to the internet, with teacher and an older reader to help guide them. “Get library books on ants” is added to the list of books to get from the library, and they explore on-line what books are available on the Pines library page. It is discovered that there is an audio book on line we can download, and a small video on line to watch. I prompt “What kind of book will it be – fiction or non-fiction? How will you start your book? End it? What will the middle be like? Who is your audience? What kind of materials will you need to “publish” it? Should we make a list, or just get started? Etc….” One child is much more interested in just watching the ants. I tell her about ant farms, and we decide to order one…after she comes back in from her observation!
In the meantime, two other students not involved in the AntBook Project are at work independently on a Math Project. It began as a Lego activity, but morphed into a study on perimeters, as they wanted to know if we had enough blocks to outline a play space they were creating. Their job was to see how many ways they could figure out how to do this. It was OK to use their Math-U-See workbooks as a reference. They both got involved in the lesson, and completed two of the four pages of the lesson before checking their work to see if they had gotten them right. One answer was really confusing, and they came to me to explain it.
11:15 – 11:45 SNACK TIME
At about the same time, everyone’s stomach started rumbling and we headed to the kitchen for a snack. We chose some music and the kids each turned to their assigned job for the week. There was a bit of a tussle about whether two of the kids could switch jobs, and the group took a quick vote on “job switching” before anyone could get too upset. This handled, they moved on, taking their snacks outside on the porch to eat. The ant watcher headed out to see how big a morsel she could get an ant to carry off, and the two math students followed her to check it out.
11:45 – 12:45
After snack, the two math students declared they wanted to help make the book. The kids making the book felt a bit possessive. It was suggested by me that maybe they could help Ant Watcher by creating some kind of graph with which she could record something interesting about the ants. The Book Kids get started on their book, the Ant Watcher decides to look at books then draw for a while, and the Alphabet Poster child begins her drawings while I head off with the Math kids to help them think about graphs. I asked “What kind of information does Ant Watcher think is important to record? Why? What kind of time period will be reflected? What kind of graph (bar, pie, etc) do you want it to be? Why is it important to clearly label your information? What materials will you need? Think about presenting the information to the rest of the group when you are done: what visual do think would be best?” They get started collecting the materials they will need.
12:45 – 1:45ish
The projects start slowing down, and one group decides they need to run around a bit. They head out to the back yard for a game. The rest of us settle in for a short book on the porch. Before we know it, it is lunchtime. We pull our lunch duty, eat, talk, listen to music, and clean up.
1:45 – 2:00 Group Meeting
By now we’ve all been pretty intent on one project for a while. We have a quick meeting, sharing with each other what we’ve been doing, organize our projects, and put things in a safe but convenient location. The alphabet poster is displayed as is, to be added to on another day.
2:00 – 2:45
Everyone decides they want to paint for a bit – except Ant Watcher! She wants to sculpt a mini ant family from playdough. Halfway through the painting, a Math Kid gets sleepy and lays down for bit. We hang our paintings (lots of ant portraits!) and clean up.
Then we chill with a story book reading again, this time the next chapter of the book we are reading. Inspired by the ants, I make a mental note to get Harry the Centipede or Nicholas Cricket to read with them next. We are particularly struck by the flowery language the author is using, and make a note on the board to find out what this is called. A quick vote confirms that everyone wants to keep reading now, and look it up tomorrow! After the book, I round-robin reading with some of the kids individually. As I do this with each child, some continue to read without me, some write or draw in their journals about their day, and some play Legos. Ant Watcher straightens the library.
2:45 – 3:00
The day is coming to an end, and we come together for an afternoon meeting. We sort through the highs and lows of the day, and start thinking about what direction each wants to go in the morning. We marvel over the interconnectedness of everything – can this ever be said often enough? Then once last pick-up of our space, and we get ready to go home. A Book Project child privately comes and complains that Ant Watcher isn’t doing her fair share of picking up, and we put on the agenda “How to Make Sure We Are Pulling Our Fair Share” for the Group Meeting in the morning. Moms and Dads arrive, we wave good-bye and the day ends.
AN ORGANIC CURRICULUM
