Engagement.

No, not a wedding engagement. Highly engaged. Attentive. Excited. Enthralled. 

I work with amazing people, and I see great things in classes often. Yesterday, I walked through a 4th grade class reviewing poetry vocabulary. Hmmm. For most 9-10 year olds, poetry isn't much more than "I see London; I see France..." 

Not this time. There was yelling, high-fiving and smack talking - if you can smack talk poetry vocabulary. 

The class was using Kahoot (www.getkahoot.com). They competed against each other to recognize various poetry vocabulary like cinquin, free verse, and limerick. It was beyond the regurgitation level of understanding; it was actually the conversation and excitement that intrigued me. 

When students discuss - and even argue about meaning and use and provide examples, they are gaining an enormously deep connection and understanding of that concept. 

After they finished and the winner gloated in his glory momentarily, they asked to "play again." The teacher laughed and said there wasn't time and they'd already done it twice. 

Amidst the loud groaning and pleading, I heard a sweet girl in the back say, "we have 14 minutes." 

I laughed. Really? You're begging and whining to do poetry vocabulary?! Are you kidding? I laughed. Seriously. Who cares about iambic pentameter and AABBAA patterns? 

Apparently, when paired with a great 2.0 tool, 4th graders do. 

Now, if someone could find a tool to make paperwork more exciting....

Meanwhile, I think I'll just hangout in 4th grade and enjoy the excitement. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmXIAwEwRd4

Field Trips

Field trips. I love them. I know they are a complete pain to put together: getting parents on board, jumping through the hoops of getting a P.O. together, making sure we know who takes what mess, double-checking background checks on volunteers, remembering who is allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, balloons, ants, soy, gluten oh, or the sun... Field trips are just daunting. 

However, once you're there, and students are making, building, experiencing life around them, the hours of preparation are forgotten. It's all about the eyes lighting up and the smiles filling the faces - and that's just on the adults! Watching the kids is way better! Their faces explode with excitement the gestures become huge and animated, and their voices boom with giddiness of their newfound knowledge! 

Our fifth graders recently spent the night at the Perot Museum in Dallas. Highly recommended. None of us will ever be able to walk the crowded halls of any museum and wait to see something or to try an interactive exhibit. We are spoiled. Each hour brought the moans of having to move to another floor. Museum officials swept behind the groups gathering the stragglers who needed "just one more minute" to complete their experience! 

That's highly engaged. 

After the last sweep was done, sleeping bags were rolled out & the lights were down, that's when real learning happened for me. Walking the floor, stepping over the little wild things, listening to them breathe quietly- still & silent for the first time, that was awesome.  Curled up in little balls in their sleeping bags, holding their favorite animal or hiding the blanket they didn't want their buddies to see, their innocence and potential revealed. 

They were little sponges - deserving the best, expecting to conquer the world, ready for the next big thing. 

How do we prepare them? What are we doing to build their confidence? How can we make sure we don't allow anything to stifle their creativity and enthusiasm? How do we protect them from drugs, alcohol and depression? 

Maybe just planning a field trip isn't so daunting. 

They were protected, at least for that one night, by the dinosaurs they could only envision from television, books, and their dreams.