Book study: #ChoralCounting and #CountingCollections – session 1 #TrinityLearns

In Making a Case for ‘Timely, Purposeful, Progressive’ PD, Brian Curtin writes

Want to maximize professional-development opportunities? Provide specific content that suits teachers’ most pressing needs—when they need it most. In order to ensure relevancy, teachers must be able to use the new insights they’ve gained right away.

As a community, we are focused on high-quality instruction that leads to deep understanding. The teachers of our youngest learners take action to develop young, strong mathematicians. Together, we are studying Choral Counting and Counting Collections: Transforming the PreK-5 Math Classroom to deepen and strengthen our understanding of learning and teaching early numeracy.

Prior to our first meeting on February 4, 2019, 16 teachers and administrators committed to learning together by studying the first chapter of Choral Counting and Counting Collections. The plan for the Feb. 4 meeting is shown at the end of this post and included time to discuss what we read as well as practice together.

We started with this collection.

And ended up with this:

How might we anticipate ways students will show their thinking and record their work?

Were teachers able to use the new insights they’ve gained right away?

The authors of Choral Counting and Counting Collections: Transforming the PreK-5 Math Classroom tell us:

These activities help us enact our commitments to equity. We know that a sense of belonging and investment, of being seen, known, and heard by teachers and classmates, is fundamental to creating schools where children and families feel welcome and where they flourish. Because these activities foreground student sense making and cultivate a joy for doing mathematics, they can be powerful tools for teachers to counter narrow views that only a few can identify with mathematics or that mathematics is disconnected from students’ home lives, their communities, and their own interests.

We are motivated and driven to learn more so that we continue to serve our young learners in the spirit of our mission and vision:

Trinity School creates a community of learners in a diverse and distinctly elementary-only environment, in which each child develops the knowledge, skills, and character to achieve his or her unique potential as a responsible, productive, and compassionate member of the School and greater community.

Celebrating the present and preparing our students for the future within a nurturing and caring educational environment, we: