My notes from 4/30 visit to observe Susan Kempton

The following were the notes I took from our visit on 4/30 to Sue Kempton's classroom. I have not organized or checked them for mistakes or even if they make sense. They were line of thought things that hit me while visiting. I am still digesting.

• Keep AM in tact. No specials in morning.
• Book check out is daily homework. This means parent or other person reading to child not the child reading.
• Nonfiction is really important.
• Inference is huge right now. 2 year olds can infer. Use word clues and picture clues.
• Don't pick the book apart the first time you read it.
• Song and movement throughout the day.
• No chairs.
• Workshop model - Mini lesson, guided instruction, independent work.
• Pay attention to questioning.
• Hugs and talks individually to every child as they enter the classroom.
• Who's absent chart.
• Book check out
• Math board- twelve is the answer. What is the story (inferring)
• A lot of choice to start with free exploration
• Shape cards hung from ceiling
• IA helping student with sight words on the go.
• Beautiful bird art work displayed. All displayed work is art – no writing or other curricular work displayed.
• Transitioned to all students reading independently, with partners, and with teacher
• Lights off signal to get quiet
• Teacher gives directions very quietly
• Whole nonfiction shelf animal theme
• No staff name badges
• No visitors badges required
• Turns off lights to transition.
• Slow transitions
• Each child gently urged to join transition
• Can you help him? With spelling on crown
• Does anyone have anything to share?
• Shared stuff they discovered in the books they read.
• Asked inferring questions
• Pointed out vocabulary
• A lot of white noise competing
• Connect to previous learning
• Bunny roams around freely
• None of the kids raise their hands during some discussion times – they are allowed to popcorn out with their responses
• “Rich” words
• Connected learning to previous learning again.
• Say it in a loud voice because I know you know this. -empowering
• I want you to look at these pictures because I am going to ask some of you to do this.
• No teacher desk
• I want you to do some thinking about why poachers would want to kill a cheetah.
• What do they want from the cheetah?
• Kids identify kids who are absent
• Not full participation when given direction
• 9:00 How do we know it is Thursday
• Because it starts with th
• I am glad you said th and not just t because that would be tursday
• Picture of twin towers displayed and labeled
• Morning message-
• I want to see the first part of the year – how dis these kindergarteners get to this point?
• Discipline handled very publicly sometimes.
• What clues did you see that said we are having cupcakes and juice today?
• 9:25 first movement break - song played on CD player
• Finished with a sit down movement song
• I have a new book to read to you.
• Pay attention to the word and picture clues
• The author does not tell you who Charlie Anderson is and how they got her name. Can you infer who Charlie Anderson is before we start reading?
• Stopped top discuss and practice purring
• 9:40 shared student writing from yesterday
• Would you refocus please - student left to tape spot - raise your hand when you are ready to come back
• Go ahead and get your writing
• Reread your piece first.
• Plays music softly during writing
• What do you want the reader to infer from your writing?
• IA stayed at back table the whole time – Sue roamed around other tables
• Does not focus on case, buy does work on punctuation and spacing but mostly on content.
• Reread your writing and listen for your stops
• You're going to show with your words that you are going to have fun but you are not going to come right out and say that
• Always starts with - will you read your writing to me?
• Can you infer how he is feeling- during I message?
• Back table with IA needed more help with sound spelling
• 10:20 We need to stop now.
• I am going to have Jade share.
• Sue is OK with transitions taking longer and urging them over quietly and individually.
• What can you infer from her writing
• Nursery rhymes are very important
• Public handling of disagreements builds confidence to speak up for themselves.
• Her and here - what do you notice about the difference between these words.
• Rearranged the words and asked what letter is missing.
• MCSD teachers tell me we need more books - lots more nonfiction.
• Use inference to decide words at word level not just concept level.
• Uses metacognitive vocab with students- even major units of study (schema, inference, visualizing, questioning
• Did break into leveled groups
• Sight word work, partner reading or independent reading with others
• Sue individually conferences with students reading like writing.
• Independent readers were very actively engaged.
• Used song to transition from reading to lunch.
• Many song books read independently and shared.
• 12:30 shared read from song book
• Mathematicians job is to answer shared math problem
• Math consists of building numbers in all the ways they can. Starts with the hand game. All about number sense/ concept. She calls it numeration?
• A lot of independent work is done worth teacher doing lots of conferencing in all curricula.
• I have not seen any of the students do the I messages on their own.
• Workshop process is the same for all subjects (reading, writing, math)
• Not much in the way of labeling evident in the classroom

Questions that I had (many were answered later in our conversation):

• What would be most effective - 2 IAs in the morning or 1 all day?
• Where is the word wall?
• Where is the alphabet chart?
• Do you have other book tubs not out?
• Respect and caring only character/ rules displayed?
• What is the purpose of the tape on the floor?- I want to learn more about "refocusing"
• Did any of your kids start with no English?- they all seem quite fluent now
• What is the reasoning behind no erasers?
• What did the boy do to get his word cards picked out?
• Do you do leveled groups for lit block?
• What resources do you recommend in terms of helping us with inferring? (List of books, philosophy, lesson plans/ing)
• Do you get a classroom budget (how much)? How do you spend it?
• No nap time- do you do nap time earlier in the year?
• Is it this way all year? How do you get them to this point?

Question Sue asked us:

• What will you do away with?