Please remember to bring “Secret Friend” Gifts in on Monday.  Check your directions and remember to keep the secret and the surprise. 

Wasn’t it November just a minute ago?!  It’s hard to believe that we have reached the middle of December already and that in just five more school days we’ll be done for 2012.

What is Success?

SEL  – Developing Self-management and awareness skills along with social awareness

We continued our conversations about success.  I’ve been trying to understand why so many of the children are not following directions to do work that feels pretty straight forward to me.  There are enough of the class who are not completing the work that I know they do not understand it is as I do.  I have been teaching long enough to know that they aren’t trying to be incorrect or incomplete and so I asked them:  “Can you be successful without trying?”

The two options to sign in under were “yes, I think you can” and “no, I don’t think you can.”  13 signed in saying “yes”, 5 signed in saying “no” and one forgot.   Not what I was expecting and so I asked them to be ready to explain their choice.  At some point in between one day and the next I got it – LUCK!  You can have lucky, serendipitous breaks.  The next day I asked:  “Is there a difference between success and luck?”  19 of the children signed their names under “yes.”

When they wrote their tales of success with or without trying and they were indeed about the time the shot went in or the goal was scored or they found something unexpected.  In our conversation most of the children agreed that the kind of success we were talking about for our class was a lasting, building success.  We were talking about developing habits that will build and grow, that we can count on using all the time.  We all agreed that being lucky is great – we’d like that more of the time, but success is something we could and would work for.  To complete the work we have to check directions, slow down and make sure the assignment is complete and meeting expectations.  It is important to remember first and fast are always best.

What the Research Says

SEL  – Developing Self-management and awareness skills along with social awareness

            I am reading How Children Succeed by Paul Tough.  In it he is exploring the question:  Why do some children succeed and others don’t?  One section shares work happening in different schools to assess habits for success along with academic growth.  They have a character report card along with the academic one. After long years of study the habits that have been identified as consistently leading to success are: grit, self-control, social intelligence, curiosity, gratitude, optimism and zest.  In class we looked at this list and compared it to the 12 habits we had defined the week earlier.  Most our habits fall in the self-control area with some hinting at social intelligence and grit.  We like optimism and zest especially.  This list feels happier than ours and we’d like to have time to combine the two.

The Magic Hula Hoop

SEL  – Developing social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making

Our challenge with Mr. Caron this week was deceptively simple.  We were divided into two teams and asked to hold out our pointer fingers parallel to the floor.  We were asked to hold our hands as though we might be clapping so we wouldn’t be tempted to hook our fingers around the hoop.  With those directions the hoop was balanced on the outstretched fingers and the direction as given to lower the hoop to the floor.  The hoops went up – accusations and directions were called across the groups.  Mr. Caron restarted the groups – the hoops went up.  Finally with much determination, focus, and calm supportive comments to organize the movements that hoops went down.  It was a perfect illustration of how optimism, zest and grit do lead to success, while blame and put-downs do not.

At first Mr. Caron told the class that the hoops had sensors in them and could feel when the group wasn’t working together.  Later he let them know that that magic was within them and the choices they made.  It is a class story that we will use throughout the year to remind us of the positive habits and actions that will help us become more successful as we work throughout the year and beyond.

3E Wonders of North Hampton

           

We have had a challenging time selecting our top seven Wonders.  Five of them were easy to select – they were clear class favorites.  The remaining three were all tied – and remained so after three different votes.  The children worked in three groups to develop persuasive paragraphs explaining why their site should be selected as a wonder.  They had a short amount of time to collect and organize the facts in a way that would convince the majority of the class to vote for that site.

The final vote was only off by one so it remained close right up to the end.  Our list is:  Centennial Hall, The Green and Mile Marker, Drake’s Farm, The Depot, The Fogg family cellar hole and cemetery, Ogden Nash and the Little River Cemetery and the Fish Houses.  We will put our final list in with the other two classes to see what the grade’s top seven are.  It will be interesting to see how the list changes as the stories are told.  That is our last part of this project – we are working to tell the stories of these sites and so we can share that information with you.  Our goal is to create a post on our blog that will show you to wonders and tell the stories so you can go on a virtual tour.

Bits and Pieces

• Mrs. Sherouse showed the class how to access some of the ebooks that are available to the children through the library.  She gave them a sheet of user names and passwords for the many resources we have available through the eboard.  It was bright pink – if you didn’t see it you might want to ask for it and put it in a safe place.  It will allow you child full access to the eboard information resources and materials because they can login from any computer.
• In planning for our Museum in January we made a list of things we know make museums interesting and fun to be in.  Along with those we listed things we would like to make sure we are prepared for.  “Make people inspired” was first on our list.  I think our class’ ideas and effort are inspiring.
• Ask your child about symmetry and sewing and Wildwood.