As the year winds down…

It’s May! There are 20 instructional days before summer freedom.  The kids and I will start the official count down Monday; as long as swine flu doesn’t shut down the school, it should be an easy countdown.  

I am beginning the official end of year process in the classroom.  We are required to pass along to the second grade teachers a cross-curricular portfolio, the reading level of each student and the results of the state approved standardized reading test for first grade.  These give me standard and measurable benchmarks for each student. Based on these results, second grade teachers will be able to better meet my students where they are and take them to where they need to be at the end of next year. It is very civilized and it is very standard.

It is also very dull. If I relied simply on the results of the portfolio (too numerous to be useful to anyone), the reading level of the students (useful only to teachers who are going to teach reading the way I do) and the results of the state standardized reading test (in first grade? Who are they kidding) I would have to pull my eyeballs out and find a new job.

Luckily, I know better. After ten years in the classroom, I know that phonemic awareness is important but that it develops with time.  I also know that portfolios are useful only if everyone agrees on why the items included are important. No one outside the rubric- writing committee can tell you why the items included are important. The reading level is very important if one knows how to parse out useful information.  For example, if the reading level is given without an analysis of miscues, the next teacher won’t understand  why a child is at a particular reading level.  We might as well use Reading First and Harcourt as actually teach reading in that instance.

At the end of the year, I measure success based on student conversation.  I’d like to share snippets of conversation heard since Spring Break with you.  Some of these will sound like pale renditions of “Kids say the darndest things…” but to me they  aren’t cute so much as they are evidence of hard-won academic growth. Remember, they are 6…

During Reading…

“I wrote a sticky note in the book.  It says, ‘I think Tikki Tembo fell in the well because he slipped.’ It doesn’t tell you that in the text, but I inferred it by looking at the picture and thinking about the last time I fell down.”

Student: “Our poster is funny. This is our favorite part in the book.  The witch starts out all black and mean and at the end, she’s learned her lesson and so she is wearing colors and her house is pretty now. She’s nice now.”

While holding up a non-fiction frog book and a fiction story about a frog: “Look at these books, this one tells you all about the facts.  This books tells you a story using facts.  That’s what I do when I write. I use facts.”

and my favorite quote from reading: “I love this class because we read and read and read.  That’s how you learn. When I grow up, I am going to read just like you do.”

During Math…

“This is math and science together.  When we studied deserts, we measured sand.  We used this <measuring cup> but I didn’t know what to call it. Now we are using the measuring cup to measure capacity. Did you know that we can have math and science together?”

Student 1 : “That can’t be a subtraction problem! <looking at a problem where the starting number is unknown> It says, ’some more rabbits came’ and that means addition. ”  Student 2: “That’s why you have to think about what’s in the problem.  It is subtraction because we only have the biggest number and another number.” Student 1: “Mrs Nguyen, can I build it to find out?”

and my favorite…”I like math because you never guess.  We aren’t playing the lottery, you know!”

During science…

“This is where I drew the male and female ducks.  And  here, this is where I drew the nest. I know we didn’t see the nest, but that is where it would be safe from predators and close to the duck’s prey. They eat bugs.”

Pointing to a poster that they made showing a forest turtle’s life. “It says: ‘The Galapagos turtle has elephant legs.’ That’s a good connection I made there. The turtle is a reptile but he has a mammal’s legs.”

“Snakes aren’t mammals. They lay eggs. The doctor doesn’t go to their house and tell the mom to breathe hard and he doesn’t make the dad wait in the living room. Just think of a snake doctor trying to catch the baby! He wouldn’t go into the living room of the madriguera to tell the dad snake that everything was okay.”

There are a lot of other conversations that go on during group work times. I sometimes wish that I could record what they say because I know that I forget more subtle comments. As the year winds down, I have to remind myself that they are six and not 8 because they have worked so hard and learned so much that I am startled by the academic conversations we have. 

I love this time of year. We kicked academic tail all year and now they are soaring. I am just watching them go and enjoying them. Reading and science are real to them.  They interact authentically with text and with the science experiences that are available to them.  

What about your students? As you all start to plan your summers and the time that you desperately need and deserve to recharge, take a moment and look at each kid in your room and consider how far they’ve come. Enjoy them, you’ve all earned it.