menus

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2004 : June : 30

menus
By RC

ddd, one day last spring the principal came to my class to speak with me and had to step over three children sprawled on the floor on their stomachs with a globe, map and some reference material between them. They were working
quietly together, sharing information amd finding out what they needed to find out together, totally engaged in learning. They were finding information specific to the curriculum, would have information recorded and would later be assessed on their knowledge. The information completed during menu time was in their duotangs for me to check whenever - probably at end of the week. At

this time there were a few students at the science table working and talking quietly together trying to make their circuit light up and recording in writing and with a diagram what they had done according to instructions, this activity part of our unit on light, which includes electricity and intro circuits. All activities coincide with the curriculum, I do not include activities that are not for a purpose. What I do is look at the outcomes to be met for the next few weeks and decide how they will be met - an activity on the menu with a morning meeting minilesson or a whole class activity. I assess the written material, the projects completed and sometimes presented, and - since I am free to move around the room - by observation and interview, quick chat with students while they are working to assess their understanding/ skill. One week I interupted individual students for about one minute to ask them to show me with pattern blocks "If the hexagon is 1, show me 1/3. If the trapazoid is 1, show me 1/3" as I quietly moved around the room with a basket of pattern blocks and a record sheet. That day the principal came by I was sitting in a chair doing nothing - actually I was kid watching, looking around the room to see individual students and how they were working - alone, with a buddy, were they engaged, were there any problems, were the activities going well or well chosen, were particular students reading their menus independently, was anyone showing signs of frustration and in need of assistance, etc. The principal is quite supportive though of new ideas and methods, and I don't have students frequenting the office regularly due to behaviour problems.
Planning was time consuming at first, but now I am so used to it I can come up with menu activities to meet the outcome needs quite quickly. I do a lot of long term planning but in turn need not do as much short term planning. I have my menu ready and printed off on pretty bordered paper (dollar store)for Monday morning, at menu time students hand in their old menu from last week and receive their new menu - they also get 'money' if their menu was completed to use at our class store on Friday, but that's another story. I look at outcomes for the week in Social Studies, Science, Math, Art, etc. and include these activities on the menu. During the rest of the week, I do not have to plan for menu time, for these subjects. In Social Studies, I may have Students using clay on a cardboard map of the province covering the area with a thin layer of blue clay for water and using green clay for the forested land using the big wall map as a reference to see where the mountains are so that they can build up the land in those areas of their clay map (some working at desk, some may be working at another table with a buddy discussing things as they work, which is wonderful). I would have introduced this activity at one of the previous morning meetings discussing the big map and showing the coloured areas that show where the land is elevated. Perhaps we would do a short activity in which students would take a little piece of clay and build a 'piece of land' that I have drawn a simple map of on the board. The following week I would continue on the outcomes, perhaps having students label the rivers and mountain ranges on their clay map with little flags, or perhaps use a printed map of the province to colour and label. The next week I would see where I needed to go with the curriculum, if I were to get into industries I could have them research to answer questions and perhaps look at the clay maps to see why fishing is an important industry or why there is such a large forestry industry. Perhaps I would want them to spend one week of Social Studies menu time guessing, like answering questions such as 'Where do you think the best ski resorts would be located? or Why do the Cruise ships always visit Saint John and not the other cities? I like to do this as I feel that research the following week after these guessing activities would be more meaningful. If I were going to follow the intro map activity with a history focus from the curriculum, I may want to ask questions on the menu activity that require the students to study clay maps to decide where the best place to settle would be if it were two hundred years ago and they planned to cut trees for a living, or fish.with no cars,etc. , have to travel by horse, walking or by water, need to move lumber to ships by water,etc. Then next week when studying location of cities and towns may reveal reasons as to why they are located where they are. At this point I would probably tie in my read aloud time with some reading over a week or two from social studies text or a story about a child growing up in this period.
Once I have the menu ready for the week and materials out at the center areas, I can relax on planning for the week. I try to keep in mind the different learning styles and include eg. learning about the province in different ways - tactile clay maps, visual, auditory discussion, problems such as the questions about where you would settle, some artistic links. On my daily schedule I would have a minilesson plan for the day at meeting time, a lesson for math and writing, maybe phys ed and a plan for my reading group.
I have been teaching only four years but I went back to school to do education as a 'mature' student after having worked at various jobs including an afterschool activity program and after haaving had a little experience with my own children. I started in a multiage classroom , taught by a good friend of mine and multiage became of great interest to me while doing my degree and after. This led me into methods of teaching children as individuals which is well supported with the method of guided reading groups, writing workshops, spelling workshop, menus. I am quite new and still putting things together so would love to hear some of your ideas, I find I keep trying things, some work and some don't. But I find that these methods that I like fit my style - I am not comfortable with long periods of teacher directed classes. As for e-mail I think that's a great idea. I will have a scanner soon and could scan menu and send, send digital photo of classroom. What country are you in?