Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Coleytown!

Scenes from the day...

Town Hall Meeting: Developing a Growth Mindset

We had a Town Hall Meeting this afternoon at Coleytown.  Our Town Hall Meetings are community building activities where we explore different topics.  This year our focus for the Town Hall Meetings is growth mindset.

A mindset is a set of personal beliefs that influences your behavior and attitude towards yourself and others.  Carol Dweck, researcher from Stanford University, has described two types of mindsets: fixed and growth.  A fixed mindset is a belief that one’s intelligence (personality, etc) is static.  It can’t change even with hard work and effort.  A growth mindset is the belief that one’s intelligence (and other qualities) can be developed.  We can grow our brains and learn new things!  Click on this link to view a great TED Talk by Carol Dweck for more insight into her work.

At Coleytown, we have learned that one way to support the development of a growth mindset in children is to teach them about the brain.  At our Town Hall Meeting today, we learned that your brain is a type of muscle, and it can grow and get stronger with exercise!  The children watched a video of a cartoon character named MoJo who was frustrated when he couldn’t do his math problems at school. (This video series is a collaboration between Class DoJo and Stanford University’s Project for Education Research That Scales).  He immediately decided that he “wasn’t smart” and gave up on his work. He cried, “You are either born smart or you are not!”  MoJo’s friend Katie corrected him and said, “Anybody can be smart but you just have to work at it!”  She describes how your brain is like a muscle.  When you try challenging things, you give your brain exercise to help it grow.  She likens it to a baby learning to talk. Babies aren’t born with the capacity to talk, but with practice (and exercise) they eventually do learn this important skill.  We also learned that mistakes are part of the learning process.  As we make mistakes, our brain is growing. (Here is the link to the video Your Brain is Like a Muscle).

The Student Leadership Council then guided the students through some brain exercises as a CES community.  Ask your child to show you some of the fun brain boosts that we tried today.  Follow up discussions in the classrooms this week will give students opportunities to share on the following prompts:

• What does the phrase “mistakes can make you smarter” mean to you?
• Think of a mistake you made recently.  What was it and what did you learn from it?
• If you were working on something and kept making mistakes, what would you do?

We will continue to explore the concept of developing a growth mindset at CES in our Town Hall Meetings this year.  In addition, we will be reading some wonderful stories in our classrooms that support this work.  I have compiled a small list of wonderful read alouds for families interested in this topic.  

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty

Your Fantastic, Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It by JoAnn Deak

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires

What Would You Do With a Problem? By Kobi Yamada

Have a great evening!

Writing Workshop

We are so fortunate to have a partnership with Teachers College Reading and Writing Project this year.  Two staff developers, Valerie and Alissa, visited Coleytown last week to work with teachers and students.  They visited classrooms in kindergarten through fifth grade to model lessons for our teachers.  In addition, they worked with grade levels to discuss current writing practices and analyze student work.  

What did we find as we joined Writing Workshop in all grade levels?  

We are all writers.  Students from kindergarten through fifth grade were engaged in the writing process.  They were generating ideas, drafting and revising their work.  Kindergarten students were orally telling stories and then writing them in their booklets.  Second graders were elaborating their small moments by using strategies seen in a mentor text.  Fifth graders were adding internal thinking and experimenting with word choice as they elaborated their narrative pieces.  Across all grades, students had set their own writing goals such as developing their craft or adding interesting endings.  

The staff developers modeled small group work in each of the classrooms.  They worked with students to support their goals and challenged them to include the new learning into their pieces. Teachers were energized after the visits to integrate this new learning into their instruction.  This week, as I visited classrooms, I saw evidence of the impact of these visits across the grade levels.  

I was thrilled to visit Ms. Buskey’s room today when Mrs. Hawkins’ first graders were in for a writing celebration.  The buddies were reading their pieces to each other and giving compliments on all aspects of the writing.  I spoke to many students who shared how they had revised their own writing. “I was trying to add detail to my story so I used dialogue,” “I wanted to show, not tell, how I was feeling in this part.”   It was exciting to see how proud the first and fourth graders were of their original pieces.

I encourage all parents to talk to their children about Writing Workshop and what they are writing in school.  Some possible prompts for the dinner table:

• What did you write about today in Writing Workshop?
• What is one goal that you have for yourself as a writer?  
• What is a favorite story or book?  What does the author do as a writer that makes you enjoy the book?

Have a great weekend Coleytown!

Ms. Pape and Valerie modeling oral storytelling.

Valerie sharing her writing with a second grade classroom.

Second graders working in a small group.

The Coleytown Chronicles

The Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with one step.” My first step towards enhancing home-school communication this year is to begin blogging again.  Welcome to The Coleytown Chronicles!

The main goal of this blog will be to highlight the amazing teaching and learning that occurs at Coleytown across all curriculum areas.  The blog will also showcase many events at Coleytown that occur during the school year. In addition, I hope to provide resources for CES families to support their children.    

Next time you ask your child, “What did you do at school today?” and the answer is, “Nothing,” you will have a variety of topics to discuss!

I look forward to another successful year together at CES.