Several people have wanted more details about the “Birthday Cluster” exercise which is Appendix A in Yardsticks. Here are some excerpts that may be helpful.
Once you have your birthday list created, the next thing you’ll want to establish is the mode of the class–the place where most birthdays cluster, on any given date you pick –say on September 1st. You can count the birthdays (in Appendix A it is a fifth grade class) and find that the greatest number of children are at 10 years, 4 months, on September 1st (6 out of 21) with another 5 at 10 years, 5 months, on the same date. This means the birthday “cluster” in this classroom–which represents about half the children– is the mode and is somewhat older to start the year..
What do you do now?
Plan for a fifth grade class beginning the year with mostly 10-year-old developmental characteristics. Look back at the classroom implications for ten-year-olds. Think about your room arrangement and about the curriculum activities that will most engage this class as a whole. Think about potential problem areas, especially socially, for the much younger children in the classroom as well as the older.
Think about how the class will be different in the second half of the year when most (nearly three-fourths by March) will be exhibiting eleven-year-old developmental characteristics. You’ll need to adjust approaches to classroom organization, instruction, classroom responsibilities, homework, and many other areas by paying attention to shifting development. Teachers who do not pay attention to the developmental shifts within a given year often wonder why they have more trouble with a class in the second half of the year or may comment about how pleased they are with how much the children have grown under their tutelage. But more attention to changing their own practices according to developmental needs (based on the changing needs of the birthday cluster) can help any teacher make a little more progress with the class as a whole.
Consider the potential needs of the children on the younger and older ends of the spectrum and how you will accommodate them as you see how they fit in the mix of the classroom. Creating a histogram, or vertical bar graph, on September 1 and March, as shown in Figure 2 in Appendix A, can be a useful way to help you keep in mind the developmental needs of the class before you.
Julie – See my comment to another Julie on the “Getting Ready For School” post on the home page of my blog. You’ve taken the first step, now you have to find where most birthdays cluster and use some of my suggestions from there. Chip
Hi Chip,
I have just leveled my 2nd grade class by birthdays and the range is from 6 years and 9 months to 8 years and 3 months. There are currently 30 students in the class. What is the best way for me to group my students?
Any suggestions you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
Jeanne – You can start with Temporary Rules or Rules Under Construction that you write up and post for the kids. You might say, “Here are a few rules I always use at the beginning of the school year before I’ve had a chance to hear about your hopes and dreams for learning this year and we can make some rules together that will be awesome enough to help make your hopes and dreams about learning come true!” (Or something like that ) For safety, Keep the Temp Rules few and simple.– Chip
I had the opportunity to participate in the Responsive Classroom School Wide Conference last month–what an amazing event! I attended your breakout session on using developmental strengths to guide instruction. I am a new principal this year and would love to use some excerpts from the materials you gave us on that day in my newsletter to parents. I would of course reference you and “Yardsticks,” but wanted to get permission to do so. I think adding some highlights from your book is a great means to engage parents and teachers in thinking developmentally about their children so that they can work together successfully. Please let me know your thoughts on this!
Chip,
I read and reread Rules in School each year before the the first day, but I’m still unsure of how to take care of behavior problems before we make up our own class rules. Can you give me any ideas?
I am curious about how to integrate recess more with curriculum. I’d like to set up more problem-solving situations for the children to explore on their free time.
Do you have suggestions? I appreciate the Responsive Classroom ideas on how to set up constructive, safe, recess time but I am hopeful to find a way that the children can practice skills of followership and leadership more independently. Suggestions?
Naomi – I left a response for you before going away for a conference only to discover on my return that it didn’t post. Hope you find this! My first suggestion is to have your principal and a group of you read RECOGNITION WITHOUT REWARDS which you can find on the Responsive Classroom website at their bookstore. This is a great resource for the issue your are rightly tackling.
As a principal in my last school I encouraged and reinforced the use of HAPPY MAIL which was handed out at All School Meetings to students chosen by teachers for their academic achievement, but also for courage. Courage awards were given to students for specifically identifiable acts of friendship, assistance and bravery that had been observed by teachers or other students such as standing up to acts of bullying for another student or talking to a whole class that was not following the rules for a substitute teacher or helping a classmate with their homework or helping them find a ride home one day. Parents and kids told me often how much it meant that someone was paying attention to hard work in subjects and citizenship. Happy Mail adorned refrigerators all over town and over the course of the year there wasn’t a child who didn’t receive recognition that was real and heartfelt. Chip
Recently at a Faculty Meeting my principal expressed that he would like to find more ways to recognize students accomplishments school wide. The only thing is it is always the honor roll students or straight A students being recognized. We also have 1 child each week that gets “terrific kid” from their teacher in each class. Just recently all the honor roll students got a special party with treats and bounce houses. Those kids earned it, but it was hard for the others that did not get to participate. It may make them work harder to achieve that, but I have some that work even harder and do not get the reward.
As a resource teacher, this gets frustrating, so I brought up the idea of recognition for behavior, citizenship, or effort. an attainable goal for our ESE population. He was all for it. Then he asked for my ideas. Well I think it should be something as spectacular, but I need ideas on how to decide who, and how the student would earn such recognition. My students are so individualized, I am thinking they would all have to have individualized goals. This would be an huge/time consuming task, so I was going to ask if you know of any ideas, or other schools, or if you could direct me to a site that could help me organize this. It is quite overwhelming, but I do not want it to pass us by when it is being offered. Thank you,
We are just beginning to launch the “responsive classroom” preK-3 district wide. Could you suggest an organized approach to address the social/ emotional development of students? In other words, what needs to be taught in what timeframe that would capture the teaching of feelings, decison making, etc.?
Thanks for these wise words, Chip. You’ve offered a way to let children know that their true beauty consists in who they are, not how they look, and that they are all beautiful to us because we love them for the unique people that they are. You also point the way to helping children understand that norms of external beauty are not only culturally conditioned but also changeable over time. As such, those norms are not really worth worrying about. The reflecting with children that you suggest would help them see that–as the old chestnut has it–true beauty comes from within, and it’s the inside beauty that we need to cultivate in ourselves and see in others.
And the same goes for material wealth–we can help children see that it’s not of much use if your heart and soul are sad, mean, or impoverished.
Elizabeth – What an important question! And, yes, such questions often have their source in children’s anxiety about self image. Young children play out their sense of beauty or good looks in their imaginative play of super heroes and heroines, princes and princesses ,,, of course that’s not all they are playing out, but it is a central subplot, at least. Even without media stereotypes of such images, children are constantly imaging themselves as they watch the significant adults or especially older siblings in their lives.
As a parent or grandparent I can answer the question you pose with an unequivocal “YES! to me you are.” because the child is beautiful in my eyes and I want them to know that. Note how children will sometimes say “I love you” to a parent or grandparent as a way of getting an “I love you, too!” response… I call this a “safety check” that relieves some current anxiety or perhaps guilt the child is carrying… quite normally.
As a teacher (but also as parent and grandparent) I want to let that question allow me to pose other questions for the child’s reflection …”I think you are beautiful because there is no one else like you in the world, what do you rhink about that?” and … “What do you think Barbie calls beautiful? (Or Disney in general? to an older child).” “What do you think other kids in your school call “good looking”? “Why do you think that?” “What would you say good looking inside might mean?”
I believe letting children explore the feelings behind their questions or safety checks helps them form deeper understanding about their self-image.
Chip, a few days ago I read that many more high school and college students (and I imagine younger children, too) are now suffering from anxiety and depression than did even just a few years ago. Some researchers think that one of the causes is our culture’s focus on externals, such as money (“you can never be too rich”) and physical appearance (“you can never be too thin”). I’m wondering how you might answer a child who asks, “Am I pretty (or beautiful or handsome or good looking)?”
Thanks, Chip! It’s going much better now.
Several people have wanted more details about the “Birthday Cluster” exercise which is Appendix A in Yardsticks. Here are some excerpts that may be helpful.
Once you have your birthday list created, the next thing you’ll want to establish is the mode of the class–the place where most birthdays cluster, on any given date you pick –say on September 1st. You can count the birthdays (in Appendix A it is a fifth grade class) and find that the greatest number of children are at 10 years, 4 months, on September 1st (6 out of 21) with another 5 at 10 years, 5 months, on the same date. This means the birthday “cluster” in this classroom–which represents about half the children– is the mode and is somewhat older to start the year..
What do you do now?
Plan for a fifth grade class beginning the year with mostly 10-year-old developmental characteristics. Look back at the classroom implications for ten-year-olds. Think about your room arrangement and about the curriculum activities that will most engage this class as a whole. Think about potential problem areas, especially socially, for the much younger children in the classroom as well as the older.
Think about how the class will be different in the second half of the year when most (nearly three-fourths by March) will be exhibiting eleven-year-old developmental characteristics. You’ll need to adjust approaches to classroom organization, instruction, classroom responsibilities, homework, and many other areas by paying attention to shifting development. Teachers who do not pay attention to the developmental shifts within a given year often wonder why they have more trouble with a class in the second half of the year or may comment about how pleased they are with how much the children have grown under their tutelage. But more attention to changing their own practices according to developmental needs (based on the changing needs of the birthday cluster) can help any teacher make a little more progress with the class as a whole.
Consider the potential needs of the children on the younger and older ends of the spectrum and how you will accommodate them as you see how they fit in the mix of the classroom. Creating a histogram, or vertical bar graph, on September 1 and March, as shown in Figure 2 in Appendix A, can be a useful way to help you keep in mind the developmental needs of the class before you.
Julie – See my comment to another Julie on the “Getting Ready For School” post on the home page of my blog. You’ve taken the first step, now you have to find where most birthdays cluster and use some of my suggestions from there. Chip
Hi Chip,
I have just leveled my 2nd grade class by birthdays and the range is from 6 years and 9 months to 8 years and 3 months. There are currently 30 students in the class. What is the best way for me to group my students?
Any suggestions you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Chip for allowing me to share such a great resource! I will send a copy to RC!
Jessica
Jeanne – You can start with Temporary Rules or Rules Under Construction that you write up and post for the kids. You might say, “Here are a few rules I always use at the beginning of the school year before I’ve had a chance to hear about your hopes and dreams for learning this year and we can make some rules together that will be awesome enough to help make your hopes and dreams about learning come true!” (Or something like that ) For safety, Keep the Temp Rules few and simple.– Chip
Jessica – Go for it! Just give attribution as you said you would and send RC a copy if you can, Thanks, Chip
Hi, Chip!
I had the opportunity to participate in the Responsive Classroom School Wide Conference last month–what an amazing event! I attended your breakout session on using developmental strengths to guide instruction. I am a new principal this year and would love to use some excerpts from the materials you gave us on that day in my newsletter to parents. I would of course reference you and “Yardsticks,” but wanted to get permission to do so. I think adding some highlights from your book is a great means to engage parents and teachers in thinking developmentally about their children so that they can work together successfully. Please let me know your thoughts on this!
Sincerely,
Jessica
Chip,
I read and reread Rules in School each year before the the first day, but I’m still unsure of how to take care of behavior problems before we make up our own class rules. Can you give me any ideas?
Thanks,
Jeanne
Hi, Angela – What age children? And what are they doing at recess these days? Chip
I am curious about how to integrate recess more with curriculum. I’d like to set up more problem-solving situations for the children to explore on their free time.
Do you have suggestions? I appreciate the Responsive Classroom ideas on how to set up constructive, safe, recess time but I am hopeful to find a way that the children can practice skills of followership and leadership more independently. Suggestions?
Naomi – I left a response for you before going away for a conference only to discover on my return that it didn’t post. Hope you find this! My first suggestion is to have your principal and a group of you read RECOGNITION WITHOUT REWARDS which you can find on the Responsive Classroom website at their bookstore. This is a great resource for the issue your are rightly tackling.
As a principal in my last school I encouraged and reinforced the use of HAPPY MAIL which was handed out at All School Meetings to students chosen by teachers for their academic achievement, but also for courage. Courage awards were given to students for specifically identifiable acts of friendship, assistance and bravery that had been observed by teachers or other students such as standing up to acts of bullying for another student or talking to a whole class that was not following the rules for a substitute teacher or helping a classmate with their homework or helping them find a ride home one day. Parents and kids told me often how much it meant that someone was paying attention to hard work in subjects and citizenship. Happy Mail adorned refrigerators all over town and over the course of the year there wasn’t a child who didn’t receive recognition that was real and heartfelt. Chip
Recently at a Faculty Meeting my principal expressed that he would like to find more ways to recognize students accomplishments school wide. The only thing is it is always the honor roll students or straight A students being recognized. We also have 1 child each week that gets “terrific kid” from their teacher in each class. Just recently all the honor roll students got a special party with treats and bounce houses. Those kids earned it, but it was hard for the others that did not get to participate. It may make them work harder to achieve that, but I have some that work even harder and do not get the reward.
As a resource teacher, this gets frustrating, so I brought up the idea of recognition for behavior, citizenship, or effort. an attainable goal for our ESE population. He was all for it. Then he asked for my ideas. Well I think it should be something as spectacular, but I need ideas on how to decide who, and how the student would earn such recognition. My students are so individualized, I am thinking they would all have to have individualized goals. This would be an huge/time consuming task, so I was going to ask if you know of any ideas, or other schools, or if you could direct me to a site that could help me organize this. It is quite overwhelming, but I do not want it to pass us by when it is being offered. Thank you,
Barbara – Contact Allison@responsiveclassroom.org She can get you in conversation with people who can answer your questions. Best wishes, Chip
We are just beginning to launch the “responsive classroom” preK-3 district wide. Could you suggest an organized approach to address the social/ emotional development of students? In other words, what needs to be taught in what timeframe that would capture the teaching of feelings, decison making, etc.?
We are on the quarter system.
Thanks for these wise words, Chip. You’ve offered a way to let children know that their true beauty consists in who they are, not how they look, and that they are all beautiful to us because we love them for the unique people that they are. You also point the way to helping children understand that norms of external beauty are not only culturally conditioned but also changeable over time. As such, those norms are not really worth worrying about. The reflecting with children that you suggest would help them see that–as the old chestnut has it–true beauty comes from within, and it’s the inside beauty that we need to cultivate in ourselves and see in others.
And the same goes for material wealth–we can help children see that it’s not of much use if your heart and soul are sad, mean, or impoverished.
Elizabeth – What an important question! And, yes, such questions often have their source in children’s anxiety about self image. Young children play out their sense of beauty or good looks in their imaginative play of super heroes and heroines, princes and princesses ,,, of course that’s not all they are playing out, but it is a central subplot, at least. Even without media stereotypes of such images, children are constantly imaging themselves as they watch the significant adults or especially older siblings in their lives.
As a parent or grandparent I can answer the question you pose with an unequivocal “YES! to me you are.” because the child is beautiful in my eyes and I want them to know that. Note how children will sometimes say “I love you” to a parent or grandparent as a way of getting an “I love you, too!” response… I call this a “safety check” that relieves some current anxiety or perhaps guilt the child is carrying… quite normally.
As a teacher (but also as parent and grandparent) I want to let that question allow me to pose other questions for the child’s reflection …”I think you are beautiful because there is no one else like you in the world, what do you rhink about that?” and … “What do you think Barbie calls beautiful? (Or Disney in general? to an older child).” “What do you think other kids in your school call “good looking”? “Why do you think that?” “What would you say good looking inside might mean?”
I believe letting children explore the feelings behind their questions or safety checks helps them form deeper understanding about their self-image.
Chip, a few days ago I read that many more high school and college students (and I imagine younger children, too) are now suffering from anxiety and depression than did even just a few years ago. Some researchers think that one of the causes is our culture’s focus on externals, such as money (“you can never be too rich”) and physical appearance (“you can never be too thin”). I’m wondering how you might answer a child who asks, “Am I pretty (or beautiful or handsome or good looking)?”