Today is Music Monday. It is a nation wide celebration of music and music education, always on the first Monday in May.
Schools celebrate Music Monday in a variety of ways. Some schools go outside and have a sing along in the great outdoors. Others have a sing along over the announcements. Some go to a special celebration in a city park designed to bring schools together.
Our Music Monday celebration today was a mini concert with a variety of students speaking, performing and singing. Below is what we did and hopefully it will give you some ideas for a Music Monday celebration at your school next year.
First up, we had our choir present two songs that they have learned in April. One was a Tamil Lullaby and the other was a great jazz piece from Doug Goodkin called “Step Back Baby”.
Next, I introduced my student who spoke about my teaching partner and the impact that her teaching has had on him.
Some grade four and five students then led the school in some actions to go along with the Music Monday song “We Are One”
Our school had raised some money in honour of my music teaching partner, Ms. Lynda Wulkan, and we had a presentation to Brampton Animal Services. (Some of our grade 2 teachers made the cheque. They used bristol board and markers and it looked fantastic.)
Next in our presentation we had groups of grade two students do movement pieces to go along with the Carnival of The Animals. There were…
Kangaroos
Lions
and the Aquarium
We finished up our presentation today with an excerpt from Peter and The Wolf. The students acted out a part of the story and showed the instruments that are used in the story.
I hope you had a great Music Monday! It is a great way to bring community and school together to focus on the importance of Music Education. Music programs are vital to creating vibrant, creative and successful communities.
You know that feeling you get when you sit in a meeting with a parent and it all becomes clear as to why your student/their child behaves the way they do? Or when after meeting with the family, you would like to recommend the parents for parenting courses, or worse, you feel you may need to call for the support of CAS? We know we must do everything we can to protect our students from abuse by reporting when we have reason to believe that they are in harmful situations, but what do you do when the behaviour is inappropriate or harmful to the child in more subtle ways? The chaos, the disfunction, the stress in certain homes is out of our reach but it is what is ‘normal’ in the child’s life, and it will present itself in some way in our classroom.
We have such a student. Doctors are inconclusive in their diagnosis of Tara (not her real name), although ADHD and spectrum disorder are part of her treatment profile. In her home, there is discord between her parents which may or may not have been present before Tara was born, but which currently translates into a push-me-pull-you situation with regard to the way she is being brought up. To expect this child to easily switch gears as she enters our classroom and leave any emotional baggage at the door is a huge expectation. All we can do is offer the opposite of her homelife – a calm, safe, predictable environment. But the physical environment is not enough to bring Tara around and we are constantly trying new ways to ‘keep the lid on’ because what worked last week may not work this week. Usually we know within the first 15 minutes of our outdoor learning what kind of a day she is bringing with her, although, a good start does not necessarily mean a good end to the day. At the age of only 5 years, diagnosis of behavioural problems is still unclear, although a series of potent medications have been tried to help her bridge the turbulent episodes with the beautiful, calm, smart, kind child that she is most of the time, without too much success. Tara’s home life is inconsistent and so is her behaviour, to the point where aggression is surfacing. Thankfully, there is a big support system for her at school and good communication with one of her parents. It takes a lot of human power to help Tara manage each day – but it is worth it. If she is having an off day – we ALL have an off day.
One of our strategies that hasn’t changed is to have a quiet conversation with her every morning to remind her of how valued she is, see how she is feeling inside, and ask her what she’s looking forward to in her day. I recently saw an inspirational video of a teacher who does just that, making a point of connecting with each of his students in his behavioural class each day for about 5 – 10 minutes. It may seem like a lot of time directed away from instruction, but if you think about it, the learning environment is so much richer when our students feel comfortable and safe. For students who are riding through stormy seas, whether behaviourally or developmentally, a calm and caring voice can be an anchor for them. Rather than feeling lost and out of control, they can feel connected to something bigger than the storm, because, as we have seen with Tara, when she is lost in the storm, it is nearly impossible reaching her. So the only time to make that connection is sometimes a small window of opportunity when she is calm.
Tara’s awareness of her situation is heartbreaking because, after the fact, she knows when she has gone too far and she is not proud or happy about it. While the event is tumultuous and we need to ensure her safety, evacuate the classroom to ensure the safety of the other 25 students, and try to contact the administration for back-up, our approach is consistent, nonjudgmental, and calm. We try to help her and the rest of the class by remaining calm during an episode of throwing chairs, emptying shelves, and yelling.
Of course the parents love their child, but we cannot underestimate how stressful it must be on them to hear, almost daily, that their child is causing serious problems at school, as well as continuing this behaviour at home. Tara needs to feel the consistency of attention and love in a calm and caring environment, as well as a unified approach to behaviour so that school and home are synchronized. This may not help her through everything in her troubled life, but it would help her brave her stormy times. It seems so easy for us because we only see Tara at school, but it is what we would love to be able to say to her parents.
This past December, my teaching partner of the past five years passed away from the horrendous disease ovarian cancer. Ms. Lynda Wulkan taught me a million things throughout our time team-teaching music together that I couldn’t have learned through an AQ, a workshop or printed resources. She was an incredibly gifted oboe player and a brilliant musician. Her ear for music was unlike any I have or likely ever will encounter and she was a walking encyclopedia of classical music knowledge. She cared deeply about her students and truly loved the Orff philosophy and all that it helped students to achieve.
I was thrown into the music room with Lynda as a drummer with a limited number of skills to ensure success on day one. However, Lynda believed in me. Believed from the very bottom of her gut that I would be successful. She didn’t mince her words in telling me I wasn’t quite there yet but that I could truly do this if I set my mind to it. She talked incessantly about my natural talent and the fact that I could sing in tune if I just opened my voice and made a sound above a whisper. She looked me in the eye every day and believed. As teachers, we give 150% to our students every day and this sometimes leads us to forget to prop up and support the other adults around us. Lynda showed me how that support can feel to those who receive it.
Lynda also taught me that when you are excited about a topic the kids will feed off of your energy. She loved classical music and would talk passionately with me and all of our students about Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, Mozart and Prokofiev. The students enjoyed asking her questions and sharing in her joy of this kind of music.
She also taught me to get out of my comfort zone. In our last concert together Lynda decided to include a play put on by her grade fours. This was not Lynda’s area of expertise, however, she threw herself into the planning and preparation of this event by using all of her break time to practice with the students. She purchased all of the required props – suspenders, shovels, hats and all to ensure that the props were realistic and that the final performance was polished to her standards. On the night of the concert at Red Willow, the students performed beautifully and the parents were overjoyed at being able to see their children showcased so wonderfully. Parents and students still reminisce about this performance.
Overall, this year has reminded me that our time with our students is very precious. It will not go on forever and can be disrupted at any time. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. It has reminded me to slow down the pace and take time to really laugh with the students when they say something funny by accident in class or when a sound comes out of an instrument that was totally unintentional. It also has reminded me that after the students we adore graduate, the people that we will reminisce with are the ECEs, EAs, principals, custodians and other teachers at our school. These people are our second family and our time with them is very precious too.
The second part of the arts curriculum, which is all about reflecting, responding and analyzing the arts, can be a bit of a bore. Some of the resources available are structured so that a teacher plays a CD and the students listen to a piece of music and complete a chart in response. This type of activity is a good way to evaluate students’ initial reaction and description of the elements of the music. It is also are a great way of informing the teacher about the prior knowledge that the students already have. However, I have not found these types of activities to be successful in capturing a deep level of analysis and interpretation. I have also never heard a student cry out in glee about the prospect of completing one of these activities.
To really get students to analyze music and critically reflect about what they are hearing, students need to engage with the piece of music more than one time. But how do you keep their attention and focus over multiple listening experiences? The answer is do activities that are fun and have built in time for changing thoughts and opinions.
Activity One
Ceiling Flashlight show.
This first Unit stemmed from an idea that was presented in a workshop by the OMEA president Gena Norbury.
The students create light shows on the ceiling of the classroom to go along with a classical piece of music. You can buy small hand held flashlights for fairly cheap and take some Sharpies and colour the lens with a variety of colours. Next, turn off your lights, lie down and watch the ceiling light up! I usually create one example with the class where we identify all the elements of music that we hear, the form of the music and our initial reaction. We then choose the colour, formation and shape we want our light show to take so it matches the music. We test it out and come back and change it until we are happy with the end result.
Next, the students are responsible for identifying the form, elements, and initial reaction to their own piece of music and for creating their own light show to perform for the rest of the class. I would rate this as my favorite unit for a grade 4 or 5 class to develop their listening skills. Each group listened to their piece dozens of times through their preparation. This really allowed them to develop opinions, thoughts and feelings about the piece of music.
Each group should have access to their own music player for their piece (yes, this is noisy) and I block out my windows in my class during this unit. When the students designed their own light shows in the past they used Bizet- Toreador Song , Beethoven- 5th symphony ,Prokofiev- Romeo and Juliet (Montagues and Capulets), Vivaldi- Four seasons- fall. You can really use any music that has an easy form to follow and fairly straightforward elements to identify.
Activity Two
Create a story that demonstrates the music.
I start this lesson with a jigsaw activity where each group becomes an expert on one music term. Each group receives one of the posters from the music room and reviews it and quizzes the other members in the group. Afterwards, I reorganize the groups so that there is an expert on each vocabulary term in the each new group. Their first job is to listen to the music and share their initial reaction to the music using some of the vocabulary they have just learned. If groups are having trouble, I approach them and ask some simple guiding questions such as “What is the feeling of the music? What does the music bring to your mind?” We share some of our thoughts in a whole group discussion and then each group decides on a story that the music could be telling. The group then begins to act out the story with mime to try and capture the feelings and themes of the music. Students share their creations with the class and I have students give feedback. Each group goes back and revises their initial creation. My favourite piece of music to use for this activity is anything John Williams but especially “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. That long crescendo to the very loud accented note make the kids laugh every single time.
Activity Three
Draw it and pass it on.
Have students listen to piece of music and have them draw whatever the music makes them think of. At a certain point have everyone in the room switch papers with someone else as the music continues. The next person continues the pictures by adding their own ideas. Make one more switch and have the final person add colour to the piece of art. When students are able to do this task successfully use a piece of music that clearly changes feeling in the middle. This allows the pictures to evolve as they are passed around.
My students tell me that these are some of their favourite activities all year.
What does it mean to learn? For me, learning is the trajectory between not knowing and arriving at new understanding. What, then, does it mean to teach? Teachers have long been grappling with this question and exploring the best way to define this through the study of pedagogy. Pedagogy is the method one engages to facilitate learning. It makes the difference between those who know a lot of information (content knowledge) and those who know how to skillfully craft learning experiences that will facilitate the acquisition or construction of information. Thus, to teach means to employ pedagogy.
So beyond big words, what does good teaching look like? This is something that I consistently reflect on to see how much I’ve grown and developed as an educator. Seven years ago, as a new teacher, my enthusiasm around teaching revolved around how much knowledge I could share with my students. This was usually demonstrated by how much I spoke. Since then, my vision of teaching and practice of pedagogy has drastically shifted in that now I believe a good day of teaching takes place when my students do much of the talking and we all engage in the learning. Effective teaching, though ultimately reflective of student learning, is the intentional construction of experiences that invite curiosity and nurture the construction of new understandings. In other words, good teaching nurtures the conditions necessary for learning to occur rather than the teacher saying a lot of “stuff”.
As a math teacher, I get excited when learning opportunities arise that provokes dissonance and ignites curiosity. The careful blend of the familiar and not yet known motivates students to embrace challenges that have a low threshold but a high ceiling. Students are engaged in a real life problem that causes them to arrive at many stumbling blocks of previous understandings and must harness perseverance in order to proceed forward in constructing understanding. In such cases, I often encourage my students to “embrace the struggle” as the the inverse reaction to dissonance is learning. This way, students become motivated learners not because of a sticker or a final grade, but simply for the joy of learning. Bottle up this experience and you get good teaching – the intentionally crafted growth-opportunities nurtured by teachers. These experience don’t happen when teachers do all the talking, these things happen when teachers allow students to experience their own journey between what is known to that which is understood. This is what it means to learn.
“We come to work for our students but isn’t it nice when we get along with the adults? (Heart and Art Book of Teaching and Learning, pg. 12)
As teachers, we are so careful to nurture positive learning environments for our students to learn and thrive in. We are mindful of the social, emotional, physical and mental well-being of our students and work diligently to ensure that they are safe and secure in our care. Our families are grateful for the love in which we care for our learners and they are resolved in knowing that the adults in the building are committed to their personal well-being of their children. How then, do we nurture this same kind of environment for ourselves and our colleagues? After many years of working with many different educators, I’ve come to realize that adults are super comfortable addressing the needs of students but act in ways that are incongruent with how we take care of ourselves. Collectively, we are intentional about teaching students to be respectful and cooperative, but how might we nurture these great habits amongst ourselves? The following, though not an exhaustive list, are some things we can try tomorrow to foster healthy working relationships amongst our colleagues:
Send a thank you note or email to express gratitude.
Visit the staffroom for lunch at least once a week. Sharing a meal lends itself to conversation that allows you to get to know those you work with and appreciate the diversity they bring.
Start a wellness club that encourages physical, social and mental well-being through physical activity and healthy eating.
Escape your “divisional cubical” and reach out to those you may not have the opportunity to work with. We have more in common than we think.
Start-up a book club. My favourite thing about reading a good book is talking about it. Why not explore a text together and see how much that ignites collegiality amongst the staff.
Say “please” and “thank you”. Manners just makes the world a better place.
Presume positive intentions but also be honest when an offence has occurred. Talking it out with the presumed offender will invite a learning opportunity, as opposed to engendering future conflict and harbouring resentment.
Smile wide and laugh loud. The radiance of a smile and the joy of laughter always makes for a welcoming.
As the adults in the building, we really need to take care of each other. We are growing the adults of the future and the model we set is read more nuanced than the one we say we expect. Let our actions speak volumes in our commitment to serving our learners. Let us serve the community. Let us serve each other.
Aaaaah, fresh air! It’s like the earth turned on an air purifier and sun lamp to awaken us from our annual hibernation. There is excitement all around and almost everyone at my school seems to have a bounce in their steps. This is probably because we are not getting weighed down by clunky boots, toques, scarves, mittens, snow pants, and parkas.
Spring has arrived, and the classroom has come alive again.
Is there anything like a fresh breath of air that comes with Spring? From our class window we watched a stubborn, dirt-laden snow pile melt into oblivion. We beat you this year Winter! And now we wait for the field to dry so we can, once again, run free over our own school savanna without fear of a mud bath.
Now that it’s official, it means there are a little more 9 weeks of school left for 2015-16. Thoughts of changing classrooms, grade assignments, or moving to a new school are popping up like the buds on a tree and returning Canada Geese. And then it hits – the sudden realization that reports cards are due in 7 weeks…or less.
This post is not intended to scare you, but to encourage you through what are some of the most incredible chances to teach, learn, and grow your classroom community. Have you taken advantage of planning some lessons that include the great outdoors?
One of my favourites is called Survivor – School Perimeter. In this lesson teams of students must complete Math challenges for a chance to win the choice of measurement tool they’ll use to find the perimeter of our building. Tools range from a broom handle, ruler, metre stick, rope, and Popsicle sticks. Students get to enjoy the time outside while sharpen their measurement and team skills in a large scale task. The activity culminates with students drawing scale diagrams of the school based on their measurements.
photo by Nero K. used with permission
The great weather has also lead to community service projects. Last week our school celebrated Earth Week and spread out through our neighbourhood collecting trash from the lawns, sidewalks and side streets. Students were given gloves, a few trash bags and a half hour to tidy one block of our subdivision in Markham. This activity promoted civic pride, community outreach, and good environmental stewardship. Students could see the visible difference of their collective efforts and felt a sense of ownership and pride by their actions.
So with the weather warming, and the instructional days flying by faster than geese with jet packs heading north it’s time to get outside, take a deep breath, and enjoy some incredible outdoor learning opportunities. Thank you.
By Muffet – flickr.com, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16416451
Do you have a favourite outdoor activity or go to lesson now that the weather has improved? Please share it in the comments section below and help keep the conversation going. See you out there.
If there’s one thing I’m constantly reflecting on, changing, and rethinking, it’s my assessment practices in the classroom. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like I’ve found a way to track my students’ progress that works for me 100%, but I’m getting close! I’ve spent some time recently chatting with colleagues about how I assess my students, and based on the feedback I’ve gotten from them, I decided I would share my general assessment practices here in case anyone might find them helpful.
My assessment binder has a variety of components: class lists with a bunch of little checkboxes where I track completed work, marks, and so on; class lists with a comment box after each student where I write anecdotal notes about specific tasks; a large table where I keep sticky notes with anecdotal observations throughout the week; other pages I find helpful along the way. I’ll try to address these all specifically in this blog post.
Daily/Ongoing Assessment
I start every day with a discussion or a small task designed to reinforce something my students learned the day before. Discussion questions provide my students with the opportunity to practice their language skills in a relaxed way. Questions range from silly what-if situations to more serious topics like bullying. While my students are discussing the topic, I make notes about their speaking and listening skills on small post-it notes (one per student). These notes not only record students’ strengths and areas of need, but also inform my teaching in the sense that I can target my lessons to common areas of need or errors being made by many students. I try to focus on different students each day so that by the end of the week, I’ve noted something about every student in the class. When I have a moment, the post-its go on a laminated table I have.
The table has a box for each student in my class. Throughout the week, as I write down notes about students, I keep the post-its on the table in my assessment binder. At the end of the week, I transfer those notes into an electronic document for each student. I have one document for each student, which allows me to look back over the year and see my observations for that student all in one place. After I’ve transferred the notes to my computer, I usually shred the post-its. Sometimes the post-its are about specific subjects rather than learning skills or behaviours, and in those cases I may choose to keep them elsewhere rather than my computer files. I have an area of my binder for each subject, so it’s easy to keep the post-its in the appropriate part of the binder when necessary.
Sometimes I have a question or two on the board which I ask students to answer in writing rather than having a discussion. For example, this past week I have been teaching my students about light, so occasionally when they come into the room in the morning I have asked them to answer questions about what we’ve learned. This shows me who is understanding the material, who needs a bit more guidance, who is totally off-base, etc.
Task-Specific Assessment
When I want to keep notes about students’ achievement relating to a specific task, such as a project or presentation, I use a class list with a comment box next to each student’s name. I keep notes on feedback I provide to students, collaboration with peers, etc. in those boxes. This way, when I provide feedback to students, I still have a copy of what I said to them on-hand and can see the whole class at a glance. I keep those sheets divided by subject/strand in my assessment binder. They’re used for reporting and evaluation of student progress in specific subject areas.
Reading Assessment
I do GB+ evaluations (the French equivalent of PM Benchmarks) every two months with my students. These running records get placed in alphabetical order in a section of my assessment binder specifically for them. I like to keep all of the running records from the beginning of the year to the end.
Those are the three primary ways in which I track student progress. It works reasonably well, though there are definitely improvements I could make to my system. I find it easy to find information when I need it, which is handy when meeting with students’ families or trying to look back on the feedback I’ve provided to a specific student over the past few months.
One last piece of advice, regardless of what system you use to track student progress: back everything up. Whether you use a paper system, an electronic system, or a combination thereof, make sure you have a copy of your notes somewhere. You never know when something might go awry with your binder, your computer, your files… speaking as someone who has lost a term’s worth of data unexpectedly? Don’t be that person who has to scramble to figure out student marks and comments at the last minute when your hard drive fails!
When my students arrive into my alternative behaviour classroom in September, so do their parents and families. The family’s beliefs and attitudes about school have been shaping ever since their child became a part of the formal school system. For the family of my students, that means that most communication from the school has almost certainly been a negative scenario that had unfolded. So when I complete my first call home in September what do you think the response is from the parent who answers the phone? You are right, “Okay what did my child do now?”
Just as it takes time to build relationships with your students, so does it take time and effort to connect with families. This is especially true for families of students who have struggled in school or have had difficulty adjusting to school and classroom expectations. For me this starts with an onslaught of ‘Sunshine Calls’. A Sunshine Call is a strategy that I use to gain the confidence of my families by showing that I care about their child, I believe in their child and will balance the type of information that comes home and not dwell on the negative (attribute based approach).
The best analogy I can use to explain the benefits of this strategy is to compare it to banking. The more positive deposits that I put into my account (compliments, sunshine calls) the stronger that balance will be. When I do have to make a withdrawal (call home about a negative scenario) my positive balance will hold me over and the relationship will remain stable and the family will be more likely to support me knowing that it must be concerning for Mr. B. to be calling home about it.
What is exciting for me, is when my students start to understand and realize that their best efforts and positive changes will be shared often and ongoing with their family. I start by asking them if they would like me to call home and tell their parents about some positive scenario that took place that day. They 100% of the time say an astounding yes. As they come to realize this is a regular part of our classroom, they begin to ask me to call their family and let them know about their math work or reading. That is the time that I know why I will always look to see the glass as half full.
This is the second post in my word series in spirit of circling the bases of baseball and education. I’m back at the plate to take another swing. Click here for an instant ‘read’play of my first at bat.
It’s the 7th inning, and your back at the plate, again. So far you have popped out to short stop, struck out looking, and are starting to regret getting out of bed today because you are sitting on 2 strikes already for this at bat; and the pitcher is feeling pretty smug about setting you down for the third time in a row.
photo by jcclark74 CC0
You shake off the crowd noise and focus on the pitcher itching to make you look bad, again. Here it comes. The moment that defines you, validates you, and proves to the watching world, and yourself, that you deserve to be here. Your focus is Zen like. You want to hit one out of the park so badly, and leave the doubters gawking in awestruck wonder of your talent, and requisite, albeit, controversial bat-flip.
Here’s the pitch! Muscles tensed, eyes trained to the ball, hips and hands executing the swing in a fraction of a second, and in your mind play the immortal words of Jerry Howarth, “There she goes!” But the sound you hear is more of a thunk! You make contact, and the ball leaves the bat with barely enough force to escape the infield. Somehow, you are on base with a blooper, and after 2 failed attempts to get on base, you take what you can get. Time to make the most of it.
The classroom, like the baseball diamond, is where learning gets ugly and messy. Mistakes are going to be made, and that’s ok. Thoughts of perfection on every play only lead to frustration and disappointment. They are also unrealistic and can come at the detriment of the learner/player.
In baseball, like education, the goal is to get better every day. Results may often not be a result of what was planned or prepared for, but they allow us immediate feedback to keep our heads in the game. Do we quit when things are not going our way? Of course not. A perfect lesson in education, like a home run in baseball or pitching a perfect game, may be moonshot goals that should not keep us from swinging for the fences anyway.
Funny how life is like that too. The sweetest victories usually come after the most difficult times. As long as we are willing to be learning we are capable of achieving something. Success will look different from day to day. Are we preparing our students to stay in the games, step up to the plate, and take their swings? How we prepare our students will make all the difference. This comes through coaching, practice, resilience, and confidence. There is only one way to make this happen and it comes from believing in our students.
In a sport loaded with statistics, it is easy to glean relevant information about everything in baseball. Did you know that the last person to hit 400 was Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox. It was in 1941 and few players ever since have even come close to attaining, what is arguably, the most illusive achievement in professional baseball. Education has been known to keep stats too. Between government standardized tests, and need for assessment metrics from JK to infinity in the classroom, there is no shortage of data. But what of it? Are we using the data to its fullest? Are there better ways to measure success in the classroom like Sabremetrics I mentioned in my first post?
Baseball Player by Paul Brennan little paul – Public Domain
Imagine that since 1941, not a single player has been able to hit the baseball 4 times out of every 10 at bats. That’s a 40% success rate! What if we looked at our students that way. Would any of them be in the hall of fame with a success rate like Ted Williams? What would are world look like if our students were lauded for their swings and misses as much as their hits?
To some, it gets worse. In the modern era, if a player is able to hit the ball 3 times out of 10 over lengthy career he too has a good chance of being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame*. That’s by being successful only 30%. This got me thinking. How are you celebrating the success of your students? Are you finding them stressing over their last at bat(test result, essay, project)? Are they able to learn each time they come to the plate and take a swing without losing confidence when they get out?
In her incredible TED Talk Every kid needs a champion Rita Pierson shared how important it was to celebrate success in learning, even if it was a failure by all standards. I often lose track of this myself and need to take stock of the little victories that happen in the process. As teachers, if we are greeting students heading back to the dugout after an out with disappointment or derision then we are missing a chance to build confidence in them, and a chance to help reflect and prepare for what needs to happen for success next time.
If we can share this with our learners then success is possibly only a few innings away. In this way we can encourage and equip students to be ready for when their turns in the batting order come around again.
all home and tell their parents about some positive scenario that took place that day. They 100% of the time say an astounding yes. As they come to realize this is a regular part of our classroom, they begin to ask me to call their family and let them know about their math work or reading. That is the time that I know why I will always look to see the glass as half full.
