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we
are certainly not teaching experts but along our teaching travels we
feel like there have been some big AHA! moments that have helped shape
our thinking and enthusiasm towards workshop teaching. We often say, i
wish I knew that years ago, and it would have impacted my teaching.
our goal for tiny tips and teeny tales is to share some of these AHA moments that have shaped our thinking toward workshop teaching. when we say workshop teaching we mean those times every day when five, six, seven and eight year olds spend chunks of time actually reading and writing in joyful ways.
the one thing that does stay consistent in our classrooms is our relationship with kids. we believe that even the best curriculum will fall apart if we do not take the time to build meaningful relationships with our kids. we always want to make the best decisions based on the students right before our eyes and we want to foster a love of learning in each one of our students.
in this blog we want to share about the struggle with workshop teaching and the tips we have found along the way that have made all the difference in the world. these tips come from professional books, tcrwp curriculum, fountas and pinnell resources, workshops and from the teachers we work with every day. often these ideas are not created by us but rather someone else. we will always do our best to give credit to the person who created it.
this year we were fortunate to hear lucy calkins speak. one of the things she told us was that whenever she works with a student she always asked them if she can give them a tip. naturally, children always say yes (we know this for a fact because we have been using it with our kids).
she went on to suggest that we, as adults, would obviously feel better when we meet with our principal and he/she sits down next to us and rather list all the things we should be doing, he/she asked " can i give you a tip?"
the truth is, lucy is right… it feels so much better to be asked rather than told… “hey you should be doing this and this!” wouldn’t it feel better too if your principal gave you one important thing to work on rather than a list of things?
we think the same holds true for our kids.
tips are really teaching points and a tiny teaching point is so much more effective than a giant to do list. we hope you come along on our learning journey with tiny tips and teeny tales and hopefully along the way, you’ll share some of your tiny tips and teeny tales, too!
