Strength in Numbers: Building Community

So it is a typical day in third grade with too much to do and the kids are showing the signs of stress.  Or maybe that's just me!!!  You know what I mean, nothing earth shattering, but the "feel" of the room just isn't right.  No it isn't time for a vacation, the kids just need to learn to work together.

Today I made an effort to work on our sense of community.  In the morning we always start with a community circle; I'm a Tribes trainer, believe in it and live it everyday.  I know they have a sense of inclusion (togetherness), but we haven't done enough work on how to work together in pairs and groups.  The CORE has lots of group and partner learning so it will save time in the long run to get them functioning in different situations.

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During math we've be working on 10's and a strategy to learn 5's as half of 10.  Some of the kids understood this concept right away, but haven't internalized it.  Other kids were still exploring the concept of multiples and what it means.  I pulled the kids together into what I call "purposeful partners".  I explain that some days I pick random partners and other days I have a reason I want them to work with a certain person.  Today my purpose was to help the kids make positive connections and to have one of the kids with a solid understanding working with another who was still building their foundational understanding.  I modeled how to make an array for a ten's fact and how to fold it into a five's fact.  Their task was to build all the ten's and five's facts up to ten.  Before I sent them off to work we talked about sharing the job, deciding on colors and planning designs together so partners will learn and be satisfied.  At the end of the math time partners were encouraged to give appreciations to their partner.  All the groups finished the task successfully, had experience seeing the relationship between tens and fives and learned from each other.

After lunch, I decided to delve into discourse and polite conversation.  Up to this point, I've been monitoring who shares and who doesn't.  That is an awful lot of power to wield for one teacher.  I shared with the kids my idea about sharing our voice and ideas.  Again stressing that we are stronger together than we are by ourselves.  I set up the expectations for the kids to reflect back what the other child was saying and politely agree, add on or respectfully disagree.  I let them know that this is the way most people have conversations.  Our read aloud, Rock River by Bill Maynard piqued their interest and encouraged the conversation.  Once the first few cautious voices chimed in the floodgates opened and ideas flowed.  I'm not saying all was rosy, but the kids were empowered and they got into a variety of topics.

Since my family is needing me (it's good to be needed), I'll save the rest of the day for another entry.