Chapter 4 In This Chapter In The Curious Classroom, the author defines “soft start” as, “not rigid, but gentle, individualized, and peaceful beginnings, driven by personal choice, not ordained by someone else’s agenda or requirements.” It’s about how you start the day with kids, using intentional openers that slowly ease them into the day.Since many […]
Curious Classroom Book Study: Capture and Honor Kids’ Questions
Chapter 3 In This Chapter While the first two chapters of The Curious Classroom encourage us to create a classroom culture of inquiry, through Demonstrating Our Own Curiosity and Investigating Ourselves and Our Classmates, chapter 3 explores frameworks for working with children’s questions. Author Harvey Daniels says, “If we are going to build our instruction […]
Curious Classroom Book Study: Investigate Ourselves and Our Classmates
Chapter 2 In This Chapter This chapter is about the relationships that need to be developed and sustained in order to create a collaborative environment for inquiry. It’s about providing structures to “work explicitly on both identity (Who am I?) and acquaintance (Who are we?).” The author reminds us that, “We can take affirmative steps […]
Curious Classroom Book Study: Demonstrate Your Own Curiosity
Welcome! I hope you enjoyed the first two chapters of The Curious Classroom by Harvey “Smokey” Daniels and have a few new ideas that you might want to try in your classroom. Listed below is a super quick summary of the introduction for those who are interested. Beyond that you will find my thoughts on […]
The Curious Classroom Book Study
For those of you interested in The Curious Classroom book study, you can find the details above. Each chapter outlines a different structure for teaching with student-directed inquiry and includes: Chapter 1: Demonstrate Your Own Curiosity Chapter 2: Investigate Ourselves and Our Classmates Chapter 3: Capture and Honor Kids’ Questions Chapter 4: Begin the Day […]
The One Thing You Should Tell Yourself to Find Contentment as a Teacher
Inside: Is teacher contentment even a real thing? This post explores the possibility that teachers can find more joy and contentment in their teacher life by changing their mindset. Contentment and Teacher Life Of all the words I associate with myself, contentment is not one of them. Growth mindset, lifelong learner, over-achiever – I […]
The Magic of the Happy Teacher List
Inside: Make teacher self-care a priority by creating a happy teacher list for brighter, more balanced days. Don’t forget to download the free template to create your own list. I had a perfect teaching day last week. Say what? Yup – you heard me – a perfect teaching day. I’m pretty sure I’ve NEVER said this […]
Playful Encounters with the Reggio Emilia Approach
I recently went to Rochester, NY to attend a conference at the Strong National Museum of Play entitled, Playful Encounters with the Reggio Emilia Approach. Keynote speakers included Lella Gandini (United States Liaison for the Dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education and coauthor of […]
