Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites Book Study: Ch 1 and 2

Lindsey Nagorski
Mar 1, 2015
2 min read

Well, so far so good! My hubby and kids granted me a morning of sleeping in and being lazy (and it wasn’t even Mother’s Day!), so I got the opportunity to read the first two strategies in the book since I didn’t quite make it last night. Similar to what Elizabeth Hall said over at Kickin it in Kindergarten, the first two chapters were very confirming and affirming, like a “pat on the back”. There were actually a lot of things that I had just talked about with my student teacher in the last week or so! Here is my take on the two strategies: Brainstorming, and Doodling.

(Graphic organizers provided by Kickin it in Kindergarten)

For this math tub activity I simply gave these two a bucket of cubes, my latest dollar store find, and a dry erase grid and told them to record the data that they sorted. They each sorted the cubes and graphed their results a little differently- this picture shows them spontaneously explaining what they did to each other 🙂

For our 100th day celebration one of our stations was “Build a 100 cup structure”. I simply told each group that they had to work together to build something out of all 100 cups… some groups struggled with this concept more than others, but this group certainly had it figured out!

At some point in my teaching career it became somewhat of a faux pas to do art projects in the classroom. Well, gosh darnit I’m going to bring it back, and if anyone has anything to say about it they can kiss my paintbrush! While I’m not going to rush out today to stock up on tempura paints ( I am on spring break after all ), I am going to start focusing more on how to use “doodling” purposefully in my classroom. I have been piloting 3 new math curriculums this year and one of the things that I have loved is that they all encourage students to draw pictures and “show their work” (does that phrase make anyone else cringe with horrible flashbacks?).

Here is a video of one of my mathematicians using drawing to help him add!

Strategy 3 is Field Trips, I already know this is going to be somewhat of a hot topic for me to read about. We have seen a severe decline in the number of field trips we take (like we have 0 planned for this year…;-/ ), so I can’t wait to see what she says about them! Rest assured I will be back on Tuesday ready to discuss it.

The rest of the readings schedule can be found below:

Chapter 3 discussion over at Mrs. Wills Kindergarten on Tuesday (March 3)

Queen of the First Grade Jungle Chapter 4 (March 10th)

Fabulous in First Chapter 5 (March 14th)

One Extra Degree Chapter 6 (March 17th)

Mrs. Jump’s Class Chapter 7 (March 28th)

The First Grade Parade Chapter 8 (March 31st)

In April, you will be visiting these girls for the remainder of the study:

Mrs. Ehle’s Kindergarten Chapter 9 &10 (April 4th)

What The Teacher Wants Chapter 11 (April 7th)

First Grader At Last Chapter 12 (April 11th)

Erica’s Ed Ventures Chapter 13 (April 14th)