Transcription
At the top of every teacher's hit list, we have the copier, the Wi-Fi going down. Micromanaging admin, and then we have small groups at the very top. It is the bane of every teacher's existence. Reason number one being, duh, behavior. Two, we're under supported. Small groups are also so tough because all of our kids that are out there in the great white ether while we're working with our small group, they're all below level. They're all struggling. It's just like a recipe for disaster.
Look, here are my credentials for helping you get your small group life together. One, I learned how to do small groups when we were teaching Lucy Cawkins and using LLI kits in a super needy, super underdupported district. For example, the year that I came in, five kids had passed the math star the year before. If Lucy Cockkins and LLI mean nothing to you, just know that it's super abstract, super subjective, super lofty, no support for small groups. So, I had to come up with a system that was going to work for me and my kids. My second year, the classroom teachers were then in charge of tier 2 and tier three, math and reading. Then I started using differentiation in all the subjects, science, social studies. Then I was volunte-driven instruction, a DDI intensive for three days during my summer break. We took all of that like blah blah lofty PD stuff and made it work in our actual classrooms. Out of all the new initiatives, all the new programs, all the new rollouts, this is the one that I actually kept and used for years.
So if you're new, welcome. We are just like you. We are teachers who want to love our jobs. We just know that something's missing. We need to get our classroom management lives together, but we don't know how. Because add that to the list of things that we were never taught in college. We want to build a classroom that feels good, that's productive, that feels right, that works for us, that works for our kids, that feels happy. I have 13 years experience in a very tough environment. I've gotten really good at giving other teachers advice, telling them what works and how to make it work in their classroom.
So, by the end of this video, you will be able to create an environment where you can actually teach small groups. You'll be able to lay the groundwork during your lesson so that you can pull small groups. You'll be able to give expectations for your students during work time. You'll be able to enforce those expectations. You'll have a format for how you're going to send your kids off to work so that they're supported and on task. You'll be able to keep your whole group from needing you while you're working. You'll be able to keep your whole group on task and working while you're with your small group. You'll be able to keep that behavior in check while you're working with your small group. And this is all going to be like an efficient plan that works for you.
Now, I would be remiss if I did not address the elephant in the room. A lot of us are carrying a lot of political rage right now. And here we are talking about small groups, but you know what? That is such the nature of our jobs. We're great teachers because we're empathetic. We're caring. We have big hearts. We care about the injustices of the world. And then we have to get out of our cars at 7:00 a.m. teach fractions. Break up fights at recess, open cartons of milk at lunch, pick up the random loose tooth that fell on the carpet, do a readaloud, go do library checkout, all while pretending like nothing's wrong. So, as that is the nature of our jobs, it's inevitable that we have to go into work and pretend like nothing's wrong, whether or not we feel like our world is coming to an end. So, we're going to have to hold both truths right now. We are full of political outrage, and we have to go to work and teach small groups regardless. So, let's do it.
So, let's address the obvious that no one talks about with small groups. Out of all the trainings, all the meetings, all the PLC's, all the staff meetings, everything that I've been to about small groups, no one talks about what to do with your whole group. And that is where the problem lies. No teacher's problem ever lies with the kids at the table, the small group that they're meeting with on the carpet. The problem is the whole group. How to manage that? So that's what we're going to do is, like I said, create an environment where we can teach small groups. We got to get that whole group under control. We got to get them working. We got to get them on task, accountable, engaged, and learning so that we can pull a small group.
So here's our key for that. We have to stop relying on consequences. We have to lay a foundation of instructional expectation. On my channel, all I do is talk about expectations, routines, procedure, how to create a structure that feels great. What's very slept on, what a lot of people don't talk about is instructional expectations. What I mean by that is all the routines and procedures for doing your work, how to do a lesson, how to learn. No one really talks about that, right? So that means part of our plan is every day whenever we have a lesson where we're going to have to pull a small group, we got to make sure that our whole group's task is designed to minimize behavior. When we're planning out our students task for the day, we got to anticipate what behaviors are going to crop up, what problems are going to crop up, and we got to plan for that. Because if kids can't do the work, if they get stuck, we all know the slightest barrier, they're going to start cutting up. That gives them a reason to look up, look over at their friend, take something out of their desk, open a new tab on their Chromebook. If they get bored with their work, they're going to start cutting up. They're going to open that new tab on the Chromebook. They're going to throw something at their friend.
So, let's talk about what to do when you are wrapping up your direct teach. You're wrapping up your mini lesson. You're wrapping up your lesson with your students and you're going to go send your kids off to work. It's time for them to go do their group work, their workshop, their independent work. Here's how we do this part is key. So, when you are sending your students off to go work, you are going to get 100% of their attention on you. Nothing in your hands, eyes on me, voices off in five. Waiting on two more. Three voices off in two eyes on me in one. You're not going to move on until you get 100% of your students. Nothing in their hands, eyes on you, and silent. And then you're going to lay out exactly what your expectations are. If this is going to be brand new for your students, you never told them exactly what you want to see, hear, feel, smell, taste during reader workshop, then you're going to have to set aside some time to do that. If your students don't know how to work with a group for their science lab, you're going to have to carve out some time to do that. I love doing it during a morning meeting in elementary school. That works really well for us. There are tons of anchor charts that you can find on Pinterest online. I have some available that show expectations for math workshop, reader workshop.
Let's say that this is reader workshop and you're going to go send your students off to go do an independent reading task while you will be pulling small groups. I would say something like, "Our expectation is that you are working the whole time." I'm going to show them what working the whole time looks like. Working the whole time is eyes in my book. My pencil is writing on sticky notes. I'm filling in my reading log. I'm following our success criteria up on the board. My body looks how it should and I'm staying in my seat. I'm silent. And don't forget those non-examples. Working the whole time is not staying on the same page for 10 minutes. Working the whole time is not doodling, having other materials out, making faces at my friend across the classroom, feet kicking my tablemate under the table, shuffling around, messing with all of my materials. Same thing for math. Same thing for group work. Same thing for science. Think about what things you do want your students to do. Think about what behaviors come up. Think about what you don't want to see. And write out a list of expectations. Once you teach that to your students, that's what you need to stick with all year. You won't have to go through that list every time you teach a lesson. But if your students do not know these things, if this is new to you, you are going to have to find a 10-minute chunk of time, a 20 minute chunk of time to introduce these new expectations to your students. Then, just like all of your other routines, your packup, your morning routine, coming into the classroom, you're going to have to practice that. Find some time in your schedule. It's worth it. Even if you're going to be a little bit behind for your lesson, you're gonna have to run a little test a day or two in a row. 15 minutes of showing me that you guys can follow these expectations. You're not going to pull a small group during that time. You're going to monitor and you're going to watch to see that your students are meeting those expectations. You're going to positively reinforce. You're going to give narration of what you see. You're going to redirect what you don't want to see. After practicing, you guys are going to check in. How did we do? What was hard? What do we need to do better on? It's like training students on a new skill.
Like I said, if you don't already have expectations that you have explicitly gone over with your students for math workshop or whatever you call it, independent reading or whatever you call it, tutoring, partner work, etc. That is your first priority. That's the first thing you need to do. Write out a list of expectations for your students during that time. If you are confused or need support or you're like, "Girl, I don't know what my expectations are. I have this huge document called example breakdown. My viewers, my teacher besties were begging me to list out all of my expectations. It took like a year of people commenting saying, "Brittney, please tell us what you do for all these things." And I was like, "No one's going to want to see that." They do. People really, really, really find a lot of value in this. So, I took every routine that I could think of, every expectation that I have in my classroom that I could possibly think of, and I listed out exactly what I've told my students to do. This is 13 years of classroom management from my brain in a big document. For example, some things that I've listed out, my expectations for math workshop for independent reading, accessing math manipulatives for workshop, my expectations for whole group work, expectations for coming to the carpet for mini lesson, what to do when a classmate is off task and we're supposed to be working, what to do when other students are talking when we're supposed to be silent. These are the things that are going to derail your whole group time. These are the things that are going to derail your classroom. Number one priority is getting those things figured out.
So now the rubber meets the road. How are we going to set up our whole group for success? So I have a super clear format for how I send my students off to work. Whether it's we're getting up from the floor from morning meeting to go do intervention time. I just wrapped up directions for my science lesson and they're about to go start a science lab. I just taught them for the first time how to do long division and they're going to go practice from their workbooks. My super clear format is this. You're going to want to come up with a super clear format for yourself. Here's what I do. It's got four parts. One, I get their attention 100% on me. Two, I tell them their task. Three, I give my expectations. Four, I send them off to go work and I monitor.
So, let's talk about what that looks like. I said, I get their attention 100% on me. That sounds dumb and obvious. This is where I see a lot of teachers accidentally not put a lot of work into this piece and then like right off the jump, they're already like unraveling. They never got a strong grasp right from the get-go. So, like I said, what that looks like is, okay, notebooks on the floor, voice is off, eyes on me. Five, and I'm monitoring. Four, I explicitly give them their task. I used to just do it like this. Hey, you guys are working on page 87 in your workbooks. I'm putting 20 minutes on the timer. Go. But then I saw a mentor that I really admire do it like this today. You are using your textbooks. You are working in partners. You are using the model problems that we just did in our math notebooks to answer questions 1 through 7 on page 58 to practice our fraction skills. My job I am pulling students in small groups to come work on certain tasks with me. See how there's a little bit of difference in like the clarity there. And now, bonus. If someone walks into your classroom, if admin walks into your classroom and says, "Hey, what are y'all doing?" They're going to say, "We're working on, and I bet you'all can repeat it right now, questions 1 through 7 on page 58 to practice our fractions."
Now, I'm going to give my expectations. This is silent independent work. Or, we are working with our partners only. We are both working and we are using each other for support. We are working on this task the whole time. We are choosing one place to work and we are staying there. So, choose your place wisely. We have everything we need. We have sharp pencils. We have our manipulatives. We have our workbooks. So, no one's getting out of their seat. We have everything we need. When we're done, we're going to choose a can do with our partner. You may play the fraction game that we started yesterday. Your materials are up here so you can come get what you need once you're done. You may work on the fraction choice board that's posted in Google Classroom. Or you may work on imagine math facts. That's like our digital program that we use to practice like fact fluency. Yes, you need to decide with your partner. Yes, you're sticking with that same activity for the whole rest of your math block. See, I've learned from experience that students like to flip-flop around and then they don't really get anything done. That's why I said pick one and stick with it.
So, more expectations. If we get stuck, what's our expectation? Yes. See if the model problem that we just did in our notebook can help us. Two, we can think of an estimation strategy, try to solve and see if our answer is close to our estimation. We can skip it and come back to it. You can save it and come ask me whenever I call your group. Those are things that I've set up with my students ahead of time. We've talked about what to do when we're stuck. Some more expectations. Give them a time constraint. Okay, you guys have 30 minutes to answer questions 1 through 7 and then choose a can do to work on. You guys know I like my must do, can do format. You're listening for your group so that you can come join me at my table as soon as I call you. Always give them some accountability. Always give them some way that you're going to hold them accountable for getting that task done. One of my rules in my classroom, one of my rules with my teacher besties, if you say that you expect your students to do something, you have to have a way to double down and get a receipt from them that they did it. So, if that's not part of like your daily structure, your lesson structure, add that in. What's your accountability piece? How are you going to hold your students accountable for completing questions 1 through 7 on page 58 to practice their fraction questions? Here's what mine might look like. Okay, the last 5 minutes of class, we're going to come back together. I'm going to draw a random student to walk us through one of those questions. So, everyone needs to be ready to explain their steps for any of those questions on our workbook page today. See what I mean by accountability? Now, while the students know, they just have that little inkling in the back of their mind that says, "Oh crap, I need to make sure that I actually do questions one through seven." They're going to spend that extra 10 seconds to make sure that their answer actually is correct. They're going to spend that extra 10 seconds to make sure that they actually can follow their steps in case they need to explain it to the class. Okay?
And the last step is that you're going to send them off to go work and then you're going to spend a few minutes monitoring them. Mine looks and sounds like this. Okay. What questions do you guys have? If there are no questions, then you guys can all get to work. Go. I always do some positive narration. Yes, yellow table already has their notebooks open. Oh, I love how quiet so and so and so and so got right to work. If we're moving a little slow, I always give like a little a little sense of urgency. Okay, everyone's workbooks are open and we are working in five, four. Like that's going to push those kids who are just dragging their feet. It's going to push them to pick up the pace and get started. Some of our kids struggle with task initiation, actually starting their work. Here's a little bonus step for you. If this is all new for you, this is something that you want to try tomorrow in your classroom. This will be new for your students. When I roll this out to my students at the beginning of the year, I always use some type of positive reinforcement for students who get to work right away, for students who follow my directions, for students with that sense of urgency. Maybe I drew a popsicle stick with students names on it and I have like a secret student that I'm watching. I want to see them get to work right away. I want to see them on task. I want to see them working the whole time. I want to see them collaborating with their partner. I want to see them knowing what to do if they get stuck. Maybe I'll give a sticker to literally every student who was on task and working by the time I counted down to zero. Just little light, fun, quick, easy ways to positively reinforce what I'm looking for. Okay.
So, now our students are out there working or at least they're starting their work. They're giving the illusion that they're on task. We're going to kind of reverse a little bit because while our students are working on this task, remember at the beginning I said that the task students are working on needs to have some proactive things put in place. We have to like anticipate what problems are going to come up, anticipate those tough problems, those tough questions. Anticipate where students are going to get stuck. Anticipate what students are going to need support. So, while you're planning this lesson, while you're planning any lesson, it's just a good rule of thumb to always be anticipating those things. Who is going to need support? What's going to trip them up? What misconceptions are going to come up? And plan for it. And if you're like, great, one more thing I have to do during planning. This is like the number one thing, number two really, that we should be prioritizing during planning. This is going to give you a lot of bang for your buck and make your life so much easier once you're actually in class.
So, in my examples that I'm about to give, I'm going to use more of like a math lens just because I have more experience in that. And then there's also, I think, a lot more, in my experience at least, a lot more room for students to get stuck, get frustrated, give up, get off task, and cut up. Reading, you know, kind of differentiates on its own a little bit better. So, here's some examples of ways that you can anticipate stuff that's going to go wrong during their work. Maybe you saw a tough problem for them in their independent work and you want to go ahead and do that with them during your direct teach. Maybe the format you want to use during your direct teach is I do, we do, you do. Maybe they're independent work. You already looked through all the questions and solved them and you only want to do certain problems. Skip certain ones that you know are going to trip them up and maybe save them for the end and do those together. Maybe only give those to certain groups of students as an extension. Maybe you modeled during your direct teach a common misconception that you know students are going to make and you kind of did like a think aloud where you looked at your notes as like a reference point to solve that tricky problem.
Another way you can anticipate problems is by having visual supports for your students to use. And I know that sounds dumb and obvious, but this is what it's actually going to look like in the classroom. That tricky problem that we just solved together, I'm going to leave that up on the board. Even though my students should have it in their notebooks, I'm going to leave that up on the document camera while my students are working. I have a list of those expectations that I gave in case students think that getting up out of their seat to come talk to me is how they're going to solve being stuck on a tricky problem. We use fraction pieces or certain math manipulatives. Whenever we're solving these problems, we practice using them during my direct teach. My students are already going to have access to those. That way, they don't have to raise their hands and ask. That way, they don't have to go around the classroom looking for them. I have my list of can do activities listed on the board, so they're not asking me what to do when they're done. I already went over it and there it is. And I always have a visual timer. And what I mean by a visual timer is not just the numbers, it has some like representation. I always use a circle timer and the perimeter of the circle is colored and it's counting down. That helps students with time management. That's one of our executive functioning skills. That also personally helps me a lot. Okay.
And now that you've sent your students off to go work, they have everything they need. You've anticipated problems. Your expectations are super clear. Now, we got to enforce those expectations. We got to make sure that we are following through. We are doing what we are saying. All that pre-work that we just put in should make this so much easier. And obviously, if this is all new to you, take this slow, baby steps. This is going to be spread out over the course of several days, weeks. This is like a process. Remember, I said once we send our students off to work, we're going to spend the first few minutes monitoring, positively reinforcing, redirecting. When you catch somebody off task, you catch somebody not meeting one of your expectations. How you're going to react is this. What's our expectation right now? We're always calm and neutral. If the classroom is quiet and working, pull them to you so that you can say it quietly. Don't yell across the classroom. We don't want to like be inflammatory. It's quiet and my students are working. I'm going to pull them up to my table. Okay. What's our expectation right now? Okay. And can you do that for me? You're stuck on a problem. You looked in your notebook and it didn't help. I know that that might be correct for this student. Remember, our expectation is that we just skip that problem and then you can ask me whenever it's time for me to pull your group. Can you do that for me? Okay. If you continue to be off task, I'm going to have to pull you and you're going to have to come sit back here by me. I don't think your partner's going to be very happy about that to lose you. Huh? I could go off on a whole tangent about reacting to behaviors, doling out consequences, classroom management. I have a whole video about that. I'll link it in the description for you guys. Okay, moving on.
Your next step in like coming up with a new plan for yourself for your whole group is those can do choices. If you use that format, the reason I love a must do, can do format is because can do, I give a list of choices. If you give your kids choices, the chances of them getting bored are going to go way down. They immediately just have more buy-in if they get to choose what task that they're working on. That's going to keep our group on task is going to be realistic, calm, independent choices. Independent meaning they're not going to need you. First rule in my classroom is that we are always working. We are never doing nothing. I left that behind in like year one of my classroom. We always have a clear task that we are working on. That being said, probably the second most common question that I get, first being what do you do about consequences? My second most common question that I get as teacher big sister is what are your can do options? First of all, at the beginning of the year when I'm rolling out to my students how to do a must do can do, how to follow my must do can do format. Yes, that's an expectation that I teach. It's an instructional expectation. I always start with two or maybe even one can do option. It's not really an option if it's one, but keep it very small and manageable at first. You guys can do this or you can do this for your can do options. When you're done with your must do, these are your two choices. Like I said, you want it to be something that they can do without you. It's usually something that they need extra practice with. They need a little review with you. You haven't taught this for a while and you know that you need to go back and like kind of brush up on this skill. I do a lot of that for my can dos. Maybe it's an extension. They're reviewing some ongoing task that we've been working on in the classroom.
So, some of the main choices that I give for can do, not all of these. This is like some things that I choose from. I don't like giving homework, but I've had years where admin required us to give homework. I say that if you are giving homework, you have to give your students time in the classroom at some point during the week to work on the homework. So, I'll usually do a day or two where homework is a can do option. For math, maybe it's an extra page in their math workbook that's extension problems. Maybe it's spiraling back to something we did at the beginning of the year and I want them to get some extra practice with it. I usually give an online program like Dreambox, StMath, Imagine Mathax because we know if our district spent their precious budget on these programs, they want those students to actually use those programs. If your curriculum uses math games through a unit, I'll throw one of those math games in there. However, my favorite option, my students favorite option is digital choice boards. I started using these during COVID. My kids absolutely loved them. However, they started running dry after like a month of month or so of using the same choice boards. So, I started making my own. They're these digital menus that have links to activities that don't require a sign in, don't require a student account. They're usually accessible in most districts. They're fun. They're seasonal. They're very contentheavy. Grammar games, prefix and suffix games, readalouds, interactive websites. I have like hundreds on my website. They're $2 a piece. I'm going to give you guys a coupon code in the description of this video if you want to use that and go grab some choice boards for yourself.
Okay, now let's talk about formatting our small groups, actually pulling the small groups because now we can, right? So, first of all, this video was getting so long whenever I was drafting it out. I'm going to do a whole separate video on content, how I assess for small groups, organize my small groups, what content I do in my small groups, my assessment cycle, my schedule for pulling small groups. I'm going to do that in our next video. However, here I am going to give you guys a framework for how I do that. So, most importantly, as far as the order of things goes, I'm going to pull my lowest group first. Why? Because I know they're going to need support right from the jump. They're probably going to need help. No matter if I'm doing targeted skills and instruction or I'm helping them with the task they're currently working on. Either way, that's who I'm pulling first 99% of the time.
So, some options for that depending on what my lesson is, what standard it is, what type of lesson. My very lowest group is either going to get different work like modified work. We're doing fifth grade level work, they might be getting second grade level work on that same standard. If we're multiplying fractions, they're working on representing fractions with fraction pieces. We're working on classifying triangles. I'm going to choose a more heavily tested standard and we're going to work on addition story problems or something that's going to give us like more bang for our buck. Maybe it's not that serious and we're not doing math or language arts, some kind of smaller task. We're just going to start the work together. I'm going to get them started. I'm maybe going to send them with my master notebook and then I'm going to send them off to go finish on their own. Maybe they're only going to do half the problems. Maybe I gave them a word bank to choose from. Maybe I gave them sentence starters that I want them to use. We're starting work together and then I'm giving them some kind of support.
My next group of menopole is going to be that tier two medium level group. And by medium level, I mean medium below level cuz that's realistic for what's actually going on in our classrooms, right? My tutoring kids, my tier 2 intervention kids, they're struggling with this specific standard. What I give this group is really going to vary depending on again what subject what our lesson looks like. Again, more on that in the next video. On level above level kids. They're usually last. They're usually less frequent. Sometimes I'll grab them first and give them something different to work on. Remember, we're always very careful not to add more work for our above level kids. They're getting deeper work. We're going deeper, not wider. I might have them skip certain math problems that we're working on and give them different problems that are more advanced. Luckily, our math curriculum always offers like an extension differentiation in our lesson plan, so I can usually use that. It might be something at the transfer or teach level of, you know, new learning. Maybe they're making a poster, an anchor chart to represent this new skill that we're doing. Maybe they're doing a mini project based learning where they're solving real world problems using this new skill. So, in a nutshell, my lowest level is getting modified work. On level is getting support with the work. Highest level is getting extension or I should say extension deeper not wider. My goal is usually to pull three groups per class. That's my goal. Does that always happen? No. My lowest group. I pull them every day. They're SOS triage. I am prioritizing that lowest group. Again, full breakdown in my next video.
And then remember when you are wrapping up your workshop, you are wrapping up your lesson. You are wrapping up that work time. You're done with your small groups, you have to have a way to hold your kids accountable for the task that you gave them. Like I said, I am cold calling a random kid to walk us through some problem up on the board. We are turning in, we are tearing out that workbook page and we are turning in whatever we got done. The expectation is that you made it through one through seven. Maybe I'm coming around with my marker to check check plus check minus to see if you made it through 1 through 7. Maybe I'm going to come around and check to see that you drew a model of the fraction like I said to something. You're doing something to hold them accountable because if you don't follow up, you guys already know they're not going to do it. And eventually, you won't have to do that every day. Eventually, they will learn that you're about that life. If you say that you want something done, you're going to make sure they're getting it done, right?
So, to wrap up, here's your to-do list. One of our goals was that we wanted to create an environment where we can actually pull small groups, aka get that whole group's life together. So, you need a system or a format for that whole group work time. Get their attention. Explicitly state their task. Tell them your expectations. Tell them what to do when they're done. Tell them what to do if they get stuck. You're giving super clear expectations for your students work time. Write out your expectations. Write your role versus their role. What they should look like and sound like, where they should be in the room, who they're working with, what materials they need, etc. One of our other goals was to keep the whole group from needing us. That way, we can actually pull our small groups. So, that means on your to-do list, when you're planning out that independent work, that partner work, whatever they are doing, be thinking ahead about what supports your students are going to need. What are you going to have on the walls to support them? What's going to be in their math notebooks to refer to the reader notebooks? What's going to be up on your document camera or up on the board? Where can students look? What can they use? Who can they turn to for help? And then one of our other goals is to keep our whole group on task and working. We have very clear expectations. We're going to get those kids off and working with the support they need. We're going to hold them accountable for staying on task. We're going to make sure that work gets done.
Now, let me clarify. This took me years to master. So be easy on yourself. This is like the whole goal. Big picture, everything we want to have nailed down. Are you going to have that on day one? Absolutely not. So be easy on yourself. Be easy on your kids. This is not an overnight process. If your group struggles with doing independent work, you're going to have to start very, very small. Like I said, get your group working on their own. Don't even pull any groups. Stay and practice getting your kids to be independent. Getting your kids to do what you taught them to when they get stuck, getting your kids to work silently, getting your kids to follow the must do and can do on their own without asking you, "What do I do? I'm done." Once you have that mastered, then you can pull one group. Then maybe the next two weeks, the next month, you can start pulling two groups. And remember, next time we're actually going to talk about contentwise, how do I do my small groups? What do I suggest for doing small groups? How does that actually look in our classrooms? And you guys already know, now I'm going over to my post-dismissal debrief where I'm going to give you guys a sneak peek of two strategies I use for planning out and teaching my small groups. I'm going to talk about how I actually do my small groups. I'm also answering this very juicy question that we have all experienced from a lovely YouTube viewer. I just started midyear in a coverage role. One group is extremely efficient and on task even when I plan something fun. However, my home room class literally cannot sit still, cannot quiet down, cannot focus, follow directions. Sound familiar? I feel worried because these students are already used to this pattern, and I am having a hard time getting it on track. It's fourth grade. I feel like this should be a lot easier. Friend, this is hard work. I cannot wait to answer this question because this is so real. This is so real. And I will tell you exactly what I have done in the past and what that might look like for you. That is over on Patreon in our post-dismissal debrief. And if you cannot join us, I hope to see you guys next time when we actually talk about what do our small groups really look like.
It is a snowy day here in Dallas. We are frozen. We don't have school for two more days. So, I hope if you guys are in the same situation, you stay warm. You stay safe. You call your senators. You demand political action. You're holding friends and family members accountable. You're using your voice. You are not staying silent. I hope you guys stay well and I'll see you all next time.