A Conscious Connection

Throughout this year I have been committed not only to the Minneapolis Residency Program, moreover my continued Master's studies in Holistic Health at St. Catherine University. While I have sometimes briefly mentioned my work in that program and the parallels I have witnessed from that work into my classroom, in this blog post it is an overt bridge and recognition of this research work I have been conducting in collaboration with two phenomenal teammates for the past year and a half. This work has been creating a new language for me--both awareness of the academic language of research, and literally new words and phrases in Ojibwe. Being a bi-lingual learner and a seeker of various perspectives is a life-long skill and it has profoundly impacted the way I which to teach children. I know before reflecting on the power of language, I need to create the context about our research work. The following are excerpts from our Master's thesis: the abstract and my personal lens. I hav...

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity  there is beauty and there is strength." --Maya Angelou  I love children's literature! Since I was a kid I enjoyed reading--and some of my favorite memories are about getting lost in a good book and feeling like I was in an adventure. I saw myself in the characters. I dreamed about the faraway settings. My world expanded because I was interested. Even though I knew loving reading helped me go through school--I didn't realize the impact of those books on my success until I became a teacher, realizing that my students also needed to see themselves--needed to get lost in a good book. Near the beginning of the our MRP year, we were introduced to the concept of mirrors and windows. While this wasn't a new concept for me, I really wanted to take on actively seeking diverse children's literature throughout the year. My desire was/is to find books that represented and interested ...

This year has been a wonderful learning experience to integrate vocabulary in many ways. In our kindergarten class we maintain vocabulary learning in many routines (new daily American Sign Language, a word family each week, two sight words each week to add to our sight word wall, and a content word wall). It is amazing to me how quickly the children absorb larger words and have a hunger to learn and repeat these new vocabulary words in the fitting context. For me this year, I am seeking to be versed well in academic language in order to provide the best language instruction. As research demonstrates, it is vital to provide proper language instruction and intervention if students have gaps in their vocabulary knowledge. This year we have been assessing student vocabulary knowledge since the beginning of the year. We have seen tremendous growth for some students and then for others we are continually working intentionally to provide effective intervention. Specifi...

Recently, I have been investing time in really using assessments to improve communication--and provide rigor in the classroom by providing valuable feedback. By using assessments as a way to build and strengthen classroom focus on learning, I am also seeing how organizing data is extremely useful in developing meaningful lesson plans. Lately, I saw how my students were engaged in opinion writing--and I wanted to connect that with the standard regarding author's purpose. I developed a mini-series within our Reading Workshop unit: Why do writer's tell stories;  there were three trade books we focused on to understand and illustrate author’s purpose. For each book students created a writing/illustration piece that I used for assessment. The following was a mini book they created (defining themselves as authors/illustrator) in response to Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter.  For this specific summative assessment, students were to illustrate the...