This week’s blog post is a follow-up to last week’s commentary. I have continued to struggle with an end of the year tradition—"The ABC Countdown.” Particularly with the fact that the countdown seems to emphasize getting out of school to begin the summer, instead of emphasizing ways in which we can continue be curious joyful learners over the summer as well as during the school year. I also struggle with the loss of valuable instructional time once the countdown begins.
Instead of just reflecting on why I struggle with the tradition and possible options for change next year, I decided to do something about it now while it is fresh in my mind. This week, I am attaching a link to my Google Drive where readers will find the working draft of my new end of the year countdown—"The ABCs of Summer Learning.” Feel free to steal any or all of the resource.
“The ABCs of Summer Learning” will include a list of summer learning opportunities to continue to be curious joyful lifelong learners over the summer. Hopefully, it will help students make authentic connections between what we do in school and how it can be applied in the “real world” outside of school. My thinking is, I will contribute some of the ideas for a few of the letters, the whole class can add some options, and this is a great research activity for some of my early finishers in class (the kids who finish an assignment early and are looking for something meaningful to do).
To add an additional level of rigor to this activity, I am going to model the countdown after a book recommended by Dr. Steven Layne during a workshop of his I attend in the fall—Q is for Duck: An Alphabet Guessing Gameby Michael Folsom. As the title suggests, what is unique about this alphabet book, the person creating the alphabet page must know the attributes of a topic and be able to explain them in order to create the alphabet page.
I am excited to try this activity in the hopes of creating a new tradition that promotes not only summer learning, but lifelong learning. Hopefully, you will find the activity helpful as well. Any additional ideas and/or feedback is welcome.
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