Ep 40: Closing Circle For A Strong Math Community!

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dismissal can be a crazy time. So I'm going to share with you today what I like to do

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for a smooth and how overall it helps our learning community so that when we're involved

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in problem solving or just day to day, it makes the whole classroom just feel like a place

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that people want to be and are working together and translates well into every other area of

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academics that we're doing throughout the day. Hello and welcome to making number sense

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makes sense a podcast for elementary teachers specifically early elementary teachers looking

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to really make an impact in the number sense of their students. I feel like when we were

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learning how to be teachers, they talked a lot about the importance of routines and we

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need routines for classroom community, but never really talked about how one would go

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about setting up those routines and what it would actually look like in practice. A while

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back I shared a five math games for morning meeting episode that you guys really seem

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to like. So I thought I would bring in this dismissal or end of the day routine that isn't

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necessarily math related really helps to build a community of learners. The end of the day

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can be crazy. You're trying to pack up get folders, make sure nobody forgot anything

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and get everybody to the bus on time and the whole way that it set up especially if you

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have a special right at the end and you're just transitioning back and trying to get

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everything together, it can just be a lot and kids feel that like nervous got to get

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it done energy. So that was just not working out and we needed a way to end the day smoothly.

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You start the day with morning meeting, we're having a good time and we end the day the

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same way with a little bit of fun, but calm like we're still in school. It's not time

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for us to go crazy and dismissal is definitely a crazy time, especially with a staggered

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dismissal. You have half your class, you don't have half your class. So this is the routine

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that worked for me and I'd love to share it with you. The first thing is our packing

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up routine like who's going to go when like are you sending kids one by one? Are you sending

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them by table? Whatever works for you is the way it works. How it worked for me is I would

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have tables go at a time, they get their folders, they get their backpacks and bring everything

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to their desk. So it wasn't a pile of kids in the closet trying to get their stuff. After

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they packed up, the expectation was that they would leave their their backpacks at their

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desks and they would all come to circle for our closing circle. Now closing circle, I

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first heard of it from responsive classroom and it's just a way to reflect on the day

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and see what went well, what we can do better next time or just share things that they had

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a good time with that they really enjoyed. You can ask questions like, like I just asked

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what was the best part of your day or you could be more specific like what was your

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favorite thing you did in math today? What was your favorite thing you did in art today?

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It can also be a great opportunity to bring up any difficulties that we were having. So

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maybe you noticed that your kids were having a hard time in the cafeteria. It's a time

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that was removed from the cafeteria so they can actually think back and we can try and

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fix it. Also, if you noticed kids are doing a great job with something. I liked to bring

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in what they call the kindness tree. So it helps kids think about the things that other

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kids were doing that were kind for them that might be so and so pushed in their chair for

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me. So and so saw my water bottle and gave it to me and just things like that to encourage

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kindness and a caring and thoughtful community to close our time together. We would do something

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called and I love you ritual which is from conscious discipline but it's basically a

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way for us to have a little bit of fun together and in an appropriate way like lots of giggles

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with a song or a poem and just a way to connect with each other in the classroom. A lot of

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times it would be like a nursery rhyme with little movements that you would do in a pair

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or something like that. There's a lot of them and you can definitely Google those things.

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There's definitely older kid variations but this is mostly like a young teacher podcast

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because I feel like that wasn't something that we were seeing especially math focused.

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So we pack up in a calm way you think through like really think through how this routine

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is going to work the same way you would think through any routine. How is this going to

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work in your classroom with your students and then like I said the expectation is they

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come to the carpet. You can have them come with their backpacks or without their backpacks.

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It's really up to you and then we get engaged in this closing circle. We have a reflection

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question. We talk about what kind things we saw our friends do today or people did for

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us today and then at the end we do our little I love you ritual for some fun and connection

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at the end of the day. Now at this point I would get my have my kids go get their we're

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like ready to go but this is the point where things can descend into chaos because we're

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not doing anything structured at this point. It's not a great time to get things out because

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we don't have time to put them away because the person who would be putting that stuff

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away is yours truly and at the end of the day I'm done. They're done. We just want smooth

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sailing especially in my case where my school had a staggered dismissal. So if you were

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on this bus you would go this bus you would go and so half your kids are there half your

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kids are not there. So there are some videos that my kids enjoyed and just kept everybody

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chill. The first one is Ragnolies or sand art. I found this out 100% by mistake. We were

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learning about Diwali and I showed them a video of this beautiful sand art someone creating

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this beautiful sand art with this calming music. They were entranced. They loved it

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so much and they would just sit there and be like wow look at them do that all the colors.

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They'd have fun making predictions of what it was going to look like at the end. So that

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was definitely a favorite of ours to watch this at the end of the day and the music was

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always really calming so it was just a calm environment to leave the classroom. Kind of

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along the same vein they liked to watch aquarium footage like all of the fish and all of the

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colors they really liked that too. Sometimes they would go for something a little more

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but they liked to watch this is so random. They liked to watch these like elaborate hamster

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mazes and they loved to watch number blocks and alpha blocks mostly number blocks because

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the students who I had at the end of the day knew that I was their quote unquote math teacher.

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So they if I did something language arts related in my class they were kind of looking at me

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like you're not in the right lane that is not your lane go back to what you should be

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doing and not in a bad way. They were just so confused that I would even know anything

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about language arts because I didn't teach that. Anyway that would be the one little

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mathy thing that they might see which they also really enjoyed and finally the last thing

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that they really liked is the mini baking. When people would make mini cakes and mini

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anything they really loved that. So all of those things are completely random all over

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the place but for a variety sake they like to switch it up and like I said at the end

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of the day school is really quote unquote over we're just waiting to go home. It was

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a way to set up a calm way to enter the to leave the classroom after we've done all that

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work at the beginning of the day to have a calm entry into the classroom. I hope those

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ideas were helpful like I said not necessarily a math related episode but an episode to keep

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our sanity at the end of the day. So if you have any questions feel free to message me

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on Instagram you can always follow me there send me a DM. I love hearing from you I love

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hearing things that you want to learn about things that you're like oh I actually didn't

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need that maybe focus more on this. I'm always open to ideas. There's also going to be a

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link in the show notes for a Google form if you have something specific you'd like me

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to do an episode about I am happy to do that as well and until then I will talk to you

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next time.