Discipline is to teach

Punishment is to shame and control

Tip: Everything within reach of a child should be open to them. You can't get mad at a kid for using something that appeared to be within reach and for their use. If it's not for them, put it up/away.

Standard alignment: presentations, speaking and listening skills, social studies (various standards). In this example, you can see alignment to writing standards as well, as she was working to add letters to communicate her message and that held meaning for her.

Books, morning work, stations, all of it was about chicks/chickens.

Phase 1: draw prototype and draft statement

Phase 2: revise statement (teacher feedback, elaborate, fix grammar/spelling.. mini lesson in small groups or single here)

Phase 3: Final. Big emphasis on making it look good because others would be reading it and we take pride in our work, and what is the point of writing if not to convey a message and people can't read your message if it's messy/doesn't make sense.

Phase 4: Using various materials, create their prototype in real life out of a box

Phase 6: Practice presentation skills/public speaking with partners

Phase 5: Art show where they present their work to school members (we invited everyone on the morning announcements)

1st line: I am (name)

2nd line: I am (adjective for their skin color)

3rd line: I am (adjective about them as a person)

Then we made self portraits using skin color paint and talked about how everyone used/mixed multiple colors to get their skin color the right shade, and how we're all many colors, unique, and beautiful.

This was powerful for the white students to see there is no such thing as a skin with only "white" and we all have varying shades of color.

For older kids this could stem into conversations about the cultural construct of race. When does "white" stop being white and become "black"? It's all made up.

All supplies were "class supplies." They belonged to the community. When students brought supplies in at the start of the year, they all went into one group. There were no individual supplies. We spent much time at the beginning teaching them how to share class supplies, get supplies, put them away, etc.

The farmer donated pumpkins at halloween so we practiced getting the seeds out, students arranged them to be roasted in the cafeteria, then they seasoned them, roasted them, had them for snack, and we decorated the pumpkin at our halloween party.

1. community walk around school

2. students named problems they noticed

3. students decided on a problem to solve as a class

4. Students brainstormed ways to solve that problem/created a plan

5. Teacher facilitated curricular spaces to work on the plan

6. implement plan/productive end