The most fabulous word

Because

I had the chance to join in on the live webinar (webcast) where I was able to learn about how to help my students reach their full potential in the common core.  My district has been in Common Core mode for 2 years now and truthfully it is all I know.  It is challenging, the standards are more or less the same each grade level.  In Kindergarten it starts with prompting and support, then the support decreases as they move up and a other things are added in. 

Example: Opinion writing standard states that our kinders should be able to "Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book".  By second grade they are asked to use linking verbs and additional support. 

So much of common core is about evidence and explaining your thinking.  The word Because ends up being the key word in this instruction.  I have been working with my Kinders for a few months on how to use to the word because and they are now answering in this format right away!  Do you know how awesome it is to have a 5 year old say "The book was nonfiction because it told me true facts about families. " or "The main idea of the story was friendship because all of the important information was about friends helping each other."  Now imagine an admin was in your class for that- you would be feeling like a rock star. 

Coach B takes it a step further with scaffolded instruction using this fab word.  There is the double and the triple goal- in which they are using three different pieces of evidence to support the because.   I had the chance to try out this thinking myself in the webinar and it was remarkable!  What's more is that Kinders can do it!  We can take it then a step further for some oral to shared writing of using our golden because sentences and adding supporting sentences following! 

Bonus- watch the video, then be able to download lessons to use in your own classroom- Coach has done all the heavy lifting for us.

Share out with your teaching teams- this really is one that works from Kinder to College. 

Watch the video Here