Transformative Teaching - Step 3

Transformations, Immersions, Experiences, Oh My!

Transformations.. We’ve all heard of them! We’ve all had that one coworker that goes above and beyond for a dress up day, decorates their classroom, and pulls out all the stops for a learning experience… sometimes making us feel inferior and incapable. You’ve either had that coworker or you’ve BEEN that coworker! If you *have* been, you may have been on the receiving end of negativity from coworkers saying you’re over the top and they don’t need all that extra fluff to make a lesson work. Basically what we’re saying is: transformations are not all sunshine and roses. For multiple reasons.

Now before we lose you here let’s explain. When we began transforming our classrooms we were young, just married, two income families. Our jobs were a big portion of our lives. So did we spend money on our transformations? Yes. Did we dress up, bring crafts/experiments/discoveries, and decorate? Yes. Did we enjoy it? YES! But it definitely wasn’t perfect. We stayed late, we spent too much sometimes, and we definitely got the side eye from some of our co-workers now and again. Fast forward to later in our teaching careers and we’ve learned A LOT about transformations, immersive experiences, and ourselves. We’ve sent husbands back to school, we’ve had kids, moved (like 5 times), and taken on more and more responsibilities in the process. Time, money, and ability became a problem. So… we changed.. and we did it better.

Main complaints we hear about transformations are (a) the planning required (b) the time it takes and (c) the money involved. Well we’ve had all these problems and we’ve adapted some strategies to help! Let’s share:

(a) On planning: Begin at least two weeks in advance.. Just formulating ideas inside your head. Pick your theme, do some research, and decide how large of a transformation you’re interested in. Don’t doubt the power of changing just one wall or just hanging something from the ceiling! Once you have your idea make sure you give yourself time to tie it to your curriculum. Decorating and dressing up sure are fun but of course we have to tie this back to learning!

(b) On time: It may sound ridiculous but here it goes. When considering whether to do a transformation or not based on TIME– simply decide how much time you are willing to give. What is reasonable for you? If fully decorating your room will cause burn out, cut it down. Try one wall instead. Or no walls but rearrange the desks and add plastic tablecloths or paper to them. It all comes down to how many minutes you are willing to give to your transformation. We tried to create one transformation a month when we were both teaching. They WERE NOT all full transformations on every wall. One month we would do 3 walls and ceiling and hallway! Another month we would do the area just by the SMART board and call it a day! It really is less about how *large* you make the transformation and more about the experience you’re creating for the kids.

(c) On money: Do transformations sometimes need a little extra cash to make effective? Sure. But again, it’s all up to you. Over the years we decided we didn’t much feel like spending our money on transformations anymore. You know what we discovered? We could make beautiful transformations with PAPER, HOT GLUE, and SCISSORS. We got all of these things free from our school. Some months we’d also hit the dollar store for table cloths or to see if there was anything reasonable that could really make a difference.. But for the most part our most recent transformations have been $0-$20. We also decided that the kids could be doing some of this work for us as a part of their learning goals (Hey that saves time too! Add that to the above.) Also don’t forget that some parents are an untapped area of expertise and supplies! Ask for donations (sparingly) and save yourself some $$$. Just think of it as a bonus for teaching their darling angels! We also tend to dress up for these immersion days.. But really we make what we have in our closet fit what we need. And again.. We use paper to make hats, crowns, necklaces.. You name it we’ve done it! Basically paper is the best and can be reused and recycled for more experiences in the future!

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So if we follow this logic using the 100th day of school as an example, it would go something like this: Around 2 weeks before the 100th day of school make a decision about how much time you have to put into it. What are your realistic goals for decorating and dressing up? Will you need parental help or will you need to notify them of anything? Let’s say you don’t have much extra time on your hands so you decide to keep it small with some hanging 1,0,0s, balloons, and fringe in the doorway for when the kids walk in. Your school probably has paper.. If so, use it! Cut out your 1,0,0 yourself as well as your door fringe! Don’t have that kind of time? You can spend a little money to buy those gold balloons from the store. You could also grab 100 regular latex balloons for very little cost. Imagine yourself as the student walking into the room through a wall of fringe and being greeted by 100 balloons on the floor? Magic. Memories that will last a very long time! Ask yourself if your school would allow the STUDENTS to dress up as little old people on that day. If so, take this time to notify the parents!

Now that you’ve decided what you can handle immersion wise you have to work on the learning part. What standards do you need to hit that week? Immediately, counting, skip counting, equal groups, even/odd, multiples, graphing, and multiplication come to mind in math. Letter writing as your 100 year old self or writing how you would spend 100 dollars would also fit for ELA. Work out 100 heart words, phonics words, or find 100 syllables. Use 100 things to create a STEM tower for science. Study a person who is or has made it to 100 years old in Social Studies. Decide what works best for your curriculum and your year. There’s always a way to tie it back to learning!

The week before the experience make sure you order or grab any extra supplies from the store. Make sure your school has the color paper you need or ask them to order more! Then plan your outfit! Fun!

The weekend before you might choose to come in for an hour on Sunday.. Or you may choose to come in just 20 minutes early for 4 days to prepare the decorations and activities for the day. Spreading it out is sometimes the best option. Sometimes we just got up at 5 and did it all the morning of! Decide what works best for you.

On the day of the experience, really take it all in. Don’t get overwhelmed by the busy-ness of the day or the responsibility of making it perfect.. Look into the kids' eyes and realize that they’re thanking you for this memory whether they are doing it with their words or not. Take pictures because you’ll want to remember this! Transformations are supposed to be fun! Sit back and watch your hard work play out. If there’s issues.. Roll with it. You’re a teacher- you’re amazing!

You know who’s never complained about us doing a transformation? The kids. Or the parents. Or really our administrators. Yea our coworkers have good naturedly given us a hard time but for YEARS after - kids come back to us and say, “Remember that time we made a forest in our classroom for Johnny Appleseed and folk tales? Remember how we made applesauce and did the experiment for floating or sinking apples? That was so fun!” Those lessons hit. Those lessons made connections. Those lessons weren’t perfect.. For example, on the day we made applesauce we forgot our knives and ended up cutting the apples with scissors…. But we did it and they learned and it was special all the same.

So you’ve been through an overview of our steps to transformative teaching! What’s next?? Take a look around for more ideas on transformations, learning strategies, or professional development! If you’re still wanting more, check out our offerings on Transformation, Active Learning, and Immersive Environment Coaching sessions! We’re here to help!

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