There is No "O" in Number

There is no more important academic task, I believe, than teaching students to be metacognitive. Teaching them to think about their thinking. To succeed in life, you must know yourself as a learner. Knowing how you learn best, knowing whether you understand something or don't, knowing how to frame your questions, knowing who or what is the correct resource for finding out what you want to know.

To me, there's no such thing as a K-W-L chart. What you know. What you want to find out. What you learned. Add another W section! K-W-L-W. What your new questions are! I even had someone make me a custom K-W-L-W graphic organizer, which I'm happy to share if anyone is interested.

Today my student was putting the date (November 29) at the top of the page in his plan book and I noticed that he abbreviated November in his own way and wrote the date as "No 29." I explained to him that No is already an abbreviation -- for number -- and that Nov. was the correct abbreviation for the month of November. And he asked me, "Why is No the abbreviation for Number? There is no "o" in Number." And I said, "I have no idea. That's a great question for Structured Word Inquiry!"

In countless areas of education, you find this as the goal. Teaching students to ask their own questions. Modeling asking the questions to which you as the teacher truly don't know the answer (Junior Great Books). Our Puddle Questions books, which score student responses on how clearly they explain their mathematical reasoning and not on whether their calculations are correct. Approaches such as Reggio Emilia, which center on emergent student-led curriculum projects, focusing on process and not product, observing the child and documenting her process of inquiry in great detail, requiring profound teacher professional growth. So many projects at Project Zero (such as Artful Thinking) have this as the goal... the entire discipline of Philosophy has this as the goal... and so does the lovely Waldorf math question "What is the most beautiful way to make twelve?"

COLLEGE has this as the goal. Right? You go into college and you are supposed to pick what you want to learn about. You're expected to try everything, figure out your interests, plan your program of study for your major, write your thesis on a topic no one has chosen before...

So how to we get kids college and career ready? We help them learn how to think and we support the development of inner drive and perseverance.

We support question asking.
We support risk taking.
We support mistake making.
We encourage creativity.
We encourage collaboration.
We encourage reflectiveness.

I was thrilled when he asked me why No is the abbreviation for Number... and I can't wait to research the answer to this right alongside him!

Yesterday we finished up the main lesson books for our one-week Math block from before the Autumn Break. The Math Gnomes book-in-a-box project came out splendidly! The older students are making their own cookbooks. One child has an unusually-sized vintage three ring binder and he has to painstakingly measure and cut out 9 inch x 7 inch sheets and measure and hole punch the holes with a single hole punch. He's used a lot of paper and made mistakes in his measuring over and over. But practice makes progress and he's very pleased with his book!

In our homemade calendar projects, we have to create art for 13 months (fun!) but we also have to write the names of the months, the names of the days, and every single number of every single day for 13 months (hard!). However, since the children are making something that is a point of personal pride (whether it's a handmade main lesson book or a handmade gift), they persevere. My little girl who still reverses some letters and numerals is working HARD to make sure not a single thing she writes is in Backwards Land. And she is happy to do the work!

(I am VERY VERY happy with the blank calendars we purchased. Not only are there 13 months, so that the gift recipient can hang it on the wall immediately on Christmas Day, plus still have all 12 months to enjoy next year, but there are 6 rows for every month. This means that children don't have to struggle with the awkward 24/31 you sometimes find on a Sunday in that odd month that has six weeks. Children can better understand creating the calendar when there aren't those abstract shortcuts! It makes this work extremely age appropriate for first, second, and third grade. Even my middle schoolers love making the calendars. $9.99 well spent.)

More notes from last school week and the start of this:

New Read-Aloud Story - David and the Phoenix

Art - calendar project (my previous blog post here contains all 14 art ideas)

Handwork - sewing beanbags, knitting, weaving potholders

Philosophy - topic Friendship, philosopher bell hooks (also the subject of her own blog post)

Circle Time - poem (last week a blessing from In Every Tiny Grain of Sand, page 19; this week it is "Travel Plans" from Animals Animals, page 32)

Math Gnomes - we introduced these stories and acted them out whole group in the "math facts" part of our circle time last week. Oh, my gosh, we had so much fun!!! Followed by making the little MLBs. I just added an entire Math Gnomes page to the website in the First Grade section. There you will find our stories word-for-word.

Baking: Time, Temperature, Weight & Volume - this is traditionally a third grade block but everyone enjoyed making the recipes together. We had some hits and some misses. The Chai-Infused Pumpkin Pie Smoothie, Carrot Ginger Soup, and Oat Soda Bread were the best. We also enjoyed The Story of Clocks and Calendars as well as some science experiments on Heat. We will incorporate more practice with Weight and Volume into Extra Lesson.

Extra Lesson - symbolizing sentences in Grammar, independent math practice (Order of Operations Dice Game, Order of Operations Riddles, Middle School Bell Ringers, and I am a Veterinarian)

Second Great Lesson - the final highlight of last week, November 14-18, was the Montessori Second Great Lesson. This is the beautiful story of life... from its humble bacterial beginnings all the way up to the mammals, and stopping right before the evolution of humans (this is the topic of the Third Great Lesson). Students love the dramatic display of silk scarves on the floor, and the pictures and fossils and artifacts that come out as I tell the story across time. I highly recommend watching the Franz Lanting TED Talk if you have not already:

I also am always on the hunt for more fossils and artifacts to add to my telling of this story. I'm in search of a larger trilobite fossil, some reptile and amphibian pictures, and a insect fossilized in a drop of amber. Azoka also makes a beautiful Timeline of Life classroom material for student independent follow up work. The things I've already purchased for this lesson: Geologic Periods Book Set and Timeline of Life Fossil Collection.

To introduce the Third Great Lesson, the Long Black Strip is often used to help show to scale how long the Earth existed before humans evolved. It is quite humbling to unroll this strip outside and walk its entire length! You can easily make a homemade one, however. I personally love the calendar analogy best (from Early Humans by Michelle Breyer), so I'm going to take our extra blank Calendar and make myself a Timeline of Life Calendar! I CANNOT wait to draw, paint, collage, etc. the story of life on our planet into a compressed scale of 365 days. I think that anything that helps students get a concrete idea of how much TIME has passed between one event and another is a valuable tool. And I only have to make this calendar once and I can re-use it every year when I give this lesson.