If I never hear "I don't have time to do that", again (from a teacher) it will still be too soon!

     I have been observing and documenting much progress with my 1st grade group, some of it reading based, some of it social/emotional based. I'm not sure which one excites me more.

      The other day all three of them were bickering over who was going to sit in which chair. I said that I was pretty sure that 3 very smart kids could figure out how to work together as a team to solve this problem without such a noisy fuss. Surprisingly, they said yes they could and suggested rock, paper, scissors! Well, yea I thought and was quick to praise their solution. A few days later they were again debating (loudly) who would sit where, when one of them said we are not acting like a team, let's solve this with rock, paper scissors. Amazing. I told them I was proud and I was!

      And so the learning continues but not always in the way you'd predict. I guess the sad part of the story for me was when I shared the story with the general ed teachers, they were not impressed. These three kids are all at risk for behavior issues, they just figured out how to solve a problem and you're not impressed? All right then ...

      Last week was the end of this session and my three had some nice growth. Two of the three now know what the five short vowel sounds are. I know the focus of this session was blends but I simply found not teach blends withou teaching short vowels. No, they're not proficient yet but they are moving in the right direction and they're learning. Good for them.