Project Child????

Recently, I was a guest blogger on Learning to be Awesome and I had several ask about what Project Child is and how it is ran in my school. Today I thought I would tell you about it and give you the pros and cons of this framework.

1. What is Project Child?

1. Project CHILD (Changing How Instruction for Learning is Delivered) is a research-based teaching and learning system for grades K-5. It emphasizes reading, writing, and mathematics. The triangulated design of the model focuses on: grouping three teachers over three grade levels

2. How it is suppose to work?

I am a Writing Teacher with the homeroom for 2nd grade. I spend half the day with my 2nd graders. I spend 90 minutes with 1st grade and 90 with kindergarten. For Writing and Math, they are to have 60 minutes for their subject area and the other 30 is suppose to be for Social Studies or Science. Reading has 90 minutes of uninterrupted time. Each subject area is to have stations.

3. How does it work in your cluster?

Math does stations, RTI, and Whole group time. Reading does the same. I do stations, then whole group, sharing time, read aloud and RTI. In my room my ESL teacher comes and works with her students as well. SS and Science has fallen to the waist side bad. I have made Friday to be my Friday Science day. 

4. Pros

The pros to this to me is that when you have a rough behavior class then you only have 90 minutes and there is a break. The next pro is that you are only planning for 1 subject. Another pro is that you have a team to work with. 

5. Cons

a.) It is very hard to build an authentic relationship with my students. 

b.) The students who have behavior issues in other places tend to do well with me. This means that if I had them all day, I would be able to maybe stop some of that behavior. 

c.) Conferences are a nightmare because I am talking to over 60 sets of parents.

d.) When a parent calls me upset about reading or math, I hate having to tell them that they will have to contact the other teachers. I like to know everything about my students.

e.) Reading and Writing should go together. It is too hard when I see issues they are having in reading that effect them in Writing. 

f.) Some staff members get very upset if you "teach something in their subject area."

I truly this would work well in a school that is not deficient and whose climate is positive. There are some schools that are very successful using this model. If you want to know more about how it runs with them. Just click here.