Fun with Facts Transcript

Hello. My name is Susan C. Anthony and this transcript is of my workshop "Fun with Facts" which will cover lots of ideas for using reference books. The handouts for this workshop are available in portable document format (PDF) on my web site: www.SusanCAnthony.com.

The purpose of this workshop is to share ideas that made my teaching a lot more fun and rewarding! I can guarantee that when you see your kids make objective progress in their education, you will be happy. You will be more motivated to teach. Your kids will get the best you have to offer and seeing objective progress will motivate them, too. There's an upward spiral that builds on itself. On the other hand, if you do not see objective progress, you begin to feel discouraged. You might doubt your ability to teach. You might get a frustrated when the kids aren't learning and begin to push them, which brings up their resistance and starts a downward spiral.

In this session, I'll be sharing ideas to get the upward spiral started. We have only a short time, so I won't go into great depth. I'll present a number of ideas. Your job is to select and sort those ideas and try to find at least one to take home and use. Think of each of the ideas as a jigsaw puzzle piece. I do not know what each of your puzzles should look like, so some ideas that may really fit one person may not be especially interesting to someone else. You know your kids and you know yourself. Look for one or two or maybe three things you will actually be able to use right away. If other ideas sound like they might be useful in the future, you can refer back to your notes, go to my web site, or read my books at your leisure.

My background

Before we go too far, I should tell you a little about me. I grew up in the Colorado Rocky Mountains 35 miles west of Denver. We didn't have a library or reference books until I was in 6th grade. A lady in the community had a Denver library card so would sometimes check books out and lend them to us kids. Other than that, I just looked forward to getting a books for Christmas and my birthday. I read them again and again throughout the year.

In 7th grade, I went to a different town, and the school had a small library. One of my teachers gave us an assignment to find the answers to a list of questions in a reference book. About the time I found the name of the 17th pope in the World Almanac, a light went on. I could learn anything I wanted to know if I knew where to look for it in a book. That gave me a sense of power and fascination, and that moment of inspiration led to me wanting my own students to have the same experience, and eventually to my Facts Plus almanac.

I moved to Alaska in 1979 and began teaching 6th grade in the Anchorage School District. One thing I wanted the kids to know before then went to 7th grade was how to do a research report. We had several lessons with the librarian, I did several activities in the classroom using worksheets and standard materials, then came the big day. I thought the kids were fully prepared. They had chosen countries and were going to the library to look for information. Within minutes they all had their hands up, and the librarian and I were racing around trying to get to them all. It was obvious that what they seemed to have learned on the worksheets didn't transfer. As I reviewed what had gone wrong, the idea came that what we needed instead of worksheets was a reference book for each student. Almanacs were an obvious choice because they're inexpensive, one-volume reference books.

So I got a class set, one for each student and one for me. We prepared again to do our reports, this time by using a real index, graphing statistics, and making time lines. The kids learned quickly and easily, and began to independently refer to their almanacs whenever a question came up in class. This was a great idea!

A few years later, I was transferred to a 5th grade classroom. I started the year with a short activity on the presidents. The children were supposed to look at a chart in the almanacs, find an assigned president, then find the date of his birth, place of birth, dates in office and date of death. I gave them index cards to help them track straight down the columns and across the rows. But despite their best efforts, some could not succeed in this activity. The index cards went every which way. The type was too small; there was too much confusing extraneous information on the page. They were frustrated and "didn't like" reference books. Again, I evaluated what had gone wrong. It was clear the kids were trying, and I knew it was a good activity. The problem was that the books were too difficult for them. Why not an almanac especially for kids, especially for teaching them how to use reference books? I was certain that such a book already existed, but it did not.

General Objectives

I read in a book titled Information Anxiety that the amount of information in the world is doubling every five years. We are overwhelmed with information and it's impossible to learn everything. So I decided to sit down and list what three things I most wanted to have given my students by the end of a year. This is what I listed:

1. Nurture the excitement of learning.
2. Build confidence through early success.
3. Build a framework of knowledge and skills to which new learning can be connected throughout life.

Nurture the Excitement of Learning

My husband gave me this little sparker to carry with me, so in case I ever get lost in the woods in Alaska, I can make a fire. You probably know, though, that I could generate all the sparks in the world and they would just fade away unless I set up a place to catch them. We use cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly to catch the spark, and then add dry tinder material, small sticks and larger sticks. Your kids' interests and questions are like the "sparks". They will just fade away unless you have a place to "catch them." When they're interested in something, it's what we call a "teachable moment." You can get a lot of learning in while the spark's hot if you are ready. I'll be showing you later how I set up my classroom to do that.

A Calvin cartoon illustrates the "sparks" kids questions can generate:

Calvin and Hobbes cartoons on "Why Does the Sun Set?"

Build confidence through early success.

Your kids will stay a lot more excited about learning if they build confidence from the very beginning. Self-confidence is better than self-esteem. Self-esteem is a favorable opinion of oneself. Self-confidence is a firm belief or trust in one's ability to handle situations and challenges. Whenever you do our first lessons, in anything new you introduce to kids, are crucial, like first impressions. If kids succeed in the first lesson of something unfamiliar to them, like fractions, they'll be favorably impressed and feel comfortable with it. They'll begin to build a positive attitude toward the subject that will later carry them through frustrations that arise. In the beginning, especially, most kids need about a 90% success rate or they will become discouraged. By the way, if you ever notice your kids shutting down or getting frustrated when you're trying to introduce something new, back off quickly and try again later with a better lesson. Think it through and plan it so they will succeed. The first lessons in anything should be as good as you can get them.

An example of this is my attempt to learn to play chess. My husband homesteaded just south of the Alaska Range, and we spend quite a bit of time in our cabin up there. Once we got in just before a big windstorm. We were pinned down in the cabin for days, with -30° weather and 60 mph winds. I read to my heart's content, but after a few days, we started to get cabin fever and Dennis suggested that we play chess. I don't know why I never learned to play chess when I was young, but it soon became obvious that he would have to teach me. He explained the pieces and how they moved. I thought I understood the object of the game. We played some practice rounds where he advised me what to do and told me why. Before long, I was making some good moves myself. I was feeling pretty good about it! I liked this game!

But he had wanted to play chess, not teach me to play chess. So as soon as I seemed to have the gist of it, he began knocking my pieces off the board with glee. Now, I'm an adult. I have a fair degree of self-confidence based on years of experience. But I wanted to cry. I definitely did not want to play chess anymore.

It's rare that we adults try to learn something that's completely new to us. We avoid situations where we might have to learn something new. It's scary and uncomfortable. But if we get through that fear and succeed in learning, we get a great feeling of satisfaction and well-being that inspires us to learn more and more. Remember, you are asking your kids to step outside their comfort zone almost on a daily basis as they learn. Don't be afraid to do that yourself, and be sure you do all you can to ensure their early success.

Build a framework of knowledge and skills to which new learning can be connected throughout life.

Most kids have a lot of knowledge in their heads because they've watched a lot of TV. But that knowledge is often unorganized and inaccessible. Whenever we read or hear something, we draw on a fund of background information in our heads that helps us understand and interpret the new information. For example, if I tell you I went to Baja in 1997, what comes to your mind? Anyone see a long skinny peninsula? Anyone think of desert and ocean? Has anyone been there? If you have, you'll have a lot come to mind. If you know someone who's been there, if you've read a book about Baja or seen a show or movie, all of that will almost automatically come to mind. Kids don't have that fund of information. We have to build it.

It's like organizing a filing cabinet in their minds. You don't want to just keep throwing in more information. You want to help them label the drawers, create some empty folders and places to put things they learn. In the old days, when kids had a lot of time to daydream, this process happened automatically. Now, you need to train kids how to organize their own minds, or all that they know will be useless. Maybe worse than useless. It's easier to work with an empty, fertile field than one overgrown with weeds. Too much information, unorganized, interferes with learning.

Why Use Reference Books?

There is so much information in the world, especially with the internet, that we cannot possibly learn everything. Besides, "facts" keep changing! There's no need to store everything in our minds when some of it can easily be found in books. Consider carefully what kids need to commit to memory. It may be less than you think.

Five Ways to Organize Information

One thing they do need to memorize is the five, only five, ways of organizing information. Then, whenever they survey a book, they should determine what method is being used.

1. Alphabetical -- Examples are the dictionary, encyclopedia, phone book, index
2. Time -- Examples are history, fiction, chronicles, time lines
3. Place -- Examples are maps, atlases, travel guides, some Social Studies books
4. Category -- The yellow pages, school subjects, the three kinds of rocks, and the five ways of organizing information are categories. Categories are often color-coded.
5. Continuum -- This is sometimes called numerical. Race scores are organized in a continuum, from fastest to slowest. Tallest to shortest and largest to smallest are other examples.

I set up my classroom, to make the "nest" for catching kids' sparks of interest I spoke about earlier, using the five ways of organizing information as a theme. I recommend you have the following things available for the times sparks are flying:

1. Alphabet cards.
2. Time line of world history, 3000 B.C. to 2000 A.D.
3. Maps -- large world map, map of the United States and map of your state.
4. Category lists -- have kids memorize categories when they exist. These are like labels for file drawers or file folders.
5. Continuum -- number line.

Also, try to have available a set of encyclopedias (they don't have to be current), a dictionary, an almanac, an atlas, globe, phone book and calendar.

Introducing Alphabetical Organization

If you're teaching a group of kids, it's ideal if the teacher and each student have identical dictionaries. I used the HBJ School Dictionary. We spent about ten minutes a day for a about three weeks until nearly all students could consistently locate ten words in ten minutes in the dictionary.

1. Survey the dictionaries -- front matter, back matter.
2. Locate the largest sections, smallest sections.
3. Locate the section with the beginning letter the teacher chooses.
4. Locate the page number for any guide word the teacher chooses.
5. Everyone go to a particular page. Locate any word on the page the teacher chooses.
6. Locate any entry word the teacher chooses: open close to the right section, check the alphabet cards if you don't know which way to go, go that way, check again, and gradually "zero in" on the word.
7. Find 10 words in 10 minutes.

Introducing the Time Line

I posted a large time line high on the wall and left it there all year. Unfortunately, I do not know of any commercial time lines I could recommend for this purpose. Most have too much on them. It's best to start simple and clear.

The major divisions were Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Birth of Christ, Middle Ages, Columbus, and USA Began. I posted photos on the time line for each of these eras and events and briefly talked through the march of Western History, sometimes showing slides or sharing some stories. This is like creating Pendaflex folders with labels in the kids' brains, or giving them pegs upon which to hang new learning. I required the kids to memorize the timeline, and gave them the same test week after week until it was fixed in their minds. The test I gave is in the handout. Once they memorize this, keep the time line up in plain sight and relate everything historical to it as it comes up throughout the year. Doing this "anchors" new learning.

Introducing the Maps

I strongly recommend that you find a place to post a world map, USA map, and map of your state so that they are visible from where your children most often study. I got mine from National Geographic and the U.S. Geological Survey. After we finished with the time lines, I started a 5-minutes-a-day map activity. First, I defined "continent" and outlined the continents on the globe and defined, then we looked at them on the wall map. I said the name of each continent while pointing to it, and allowed time for students to repeat the name after me. Soon I began pointing to continents at random and having students name them. After a few minutes' practice, we went on to another activity. We did this every day for a week. At the end of the week, there was a test--a blank world map outline with names of the continents. The students' task was to label each continent, correctly spelled. I deducted half credit for misspellings.

The next week, I introduce the oceans, first on the globe, then on the map. I pointed to each ocean at random and they named it. Then we reviewed continents. At the end of the week, they had to label both continents and oceans on the outline map. We kept adding 5-6 more locations each week until they had a pretty good map in their heads, always adding the new locations to the long review list. Then we started a new map and learned some well-known countries on each continent, the states of the U.S., and geographical areas in our own state. The children loved this activity. Even if they didn't do well on the test one week, they could study and make up for it the following week.

As with the time line, use the maps to connect and "anchor" any new learning that has to do with geographical location and continue to do so throughout the year until your children do it automatically on their own.

Once the kids can find 30-40 place names on the map, you can start a game. Make a slip for each place they know. The game is to pull a slip at random and find it on the map within 10 seconds. My students really enjoyed this and asked if they could learn more places. Some of my 4th graders could locate any country in the world!

Reinforcing Categories

Whenever you find clear categories in an area of study, they're probably worth memorizing. They're file folder labels. It takes a long time to commit something to memory so that it's mastered. It's important to systematically require that students recall what they've memorized once in awhile throughout the years, so that it's not just "learned" and dropped, never to be recalled.

I used a "Facts Game" to make this process enjoyable. Any game or game board can be adapted. I made up cards with questions about things I wanted kids to know "by heart." Examples are: "How many inches are in a foot?" "What are the four types of clouds?" "What is the biggest country in the world?" "Name the nine planets."

To earn a turn, each player has to pick a card and give the answer. If he doesn't know the answer, he can look it up. It's best to only include facts they've already practiced so the game moves along quickly. The beauty of this game is that it is flexible. You can remove cards when they become too easy for kids, and you can add cards with key facts and categories that you want the kids to memorize.

Introducing the Number Line and Continuum

I made my own number line. It stretched all the way across the room and went from 0 to 1000. You can make it longer or shorter, or include negative numbers. Reference books are great for integrating math into other subject areas. Kids can make up their own problems comparing statistics, for example.

Hopefully, you already have one or two ideas you plan to take home and use immediately with your kids. If so, you can rest your mind while I share some more ideas. If you later want to recall some of the other ideas, you can go to my web site or my books and review them at a much slower pace.

Use the Almanac or Encyclopedia in a Cross-Curricular Unit on Space

Remember Calvin and his questions about the sun? That was an excellent opportunity for dad to teach him something useful. How big IS the sun, really? We all know it's big, but how big?

Whenever you teach a unit, it's good to start with making a list of what the kids know (or think they know) and what questions they have about the topic. You might put these lists on a big sheet of paper and refer to it periodically as you study.

Then spend some time learning how to read a chart. Most almanacs and encyclopedias will have a chart of the planets. A fun activity is to have kids make their own solar system by coloring and cutting circles the size of the planets and gluing them on black butcher paper in order. Instructions and a reproducible master are in the handout. It's amazing to most people how much bigger Jupiter is than Earth! On this scale, the sun is six feet in diameter. I made a "sun" that size with yellow butcher paper. You might want to draw a circle with chalk on the driveway.

Obviously, the planets are not as close together as they are in the model. So imagine that the sun shrinks and shrinks until it is just 1/8 inch in diameter--just a speck. Then pace out the distance between the planets in a park or on a football field, perhaps planting a stake where each would be. Directions are on page 2 of the handout.

More Activities

I'm going to share a few more examples of activities you can do with almanacs or encyclopedias. These overheads are reproduced from my Facts Plus Activity Book, but you can prepare the same activities for use with any reference book.

• Scavenger Hunt. Examples: "Find the name of a president born in Texas." "Find a state whose state bird is the robin." Kids can make up the questions.

• Crossword Puzzles. Use a computer to make up a crossword puzzle that requires kids to look up information.

• Perpetual Calendar. I was fascinated with the perpetual calendar when I was a child. You can find the day of the week that anything happened or will happen. There are only fourteen possible calendars, seven for regular years and seven for leap years. So with a key that tells you what calendar was in use each year, you can find out whether your sister was born on a weekend, when your birthday will fall on Easter, etc.

• Fact-a-Day. I found what I thought to be the most interesting thing that happened in history on each day of the year. Kids have to look up the answers, and will perhaps be interested enough in the event to do some more research. Many books have similar lists of "Fact-a-Day" questions.

• Memorization challenges. In the classroom, it can be a challenge to keep everyone working happily and productively because some children work much faster than others. Memorization challenges give the speedy learners something to strive for that they don't consider just more work. I made a list that included the Gettysburg Address, the phonetic alphabet, the preamble to the Constitution, Morse Code, and the names of countries by region. Students could earn $20 classroom dollars for each challenge. The money could be spent in a classroom auction. Since everything they needed to do this was in the almanac, it took the pressure off me to be always thinking of something interesting for them to do when they finished early.

• Passport activity. The passport activity works similar to the memorization challenges. Each child gets a folder with a time conversion circle, a currency exchange chart, an outline map of the world, a list of questions or requirements, an application, and a passport. There is a reproducible passport available on my website. We do the activities for the first country together, then children choose their own countries and "visit" as many of them as they want. Their passports can be stamped with a rubber stamp, or filled with stickers of the country flags.

• Invention time lines. A reproducible vertical time line form is in your handout. Make lists of inventions related to transportation, communication, or health and look up the dates. Place the inventions on the time line next to the year of invention, perhaps using the sticky part of 3x3" post it notes. Then look for patterns. What inventions led to other inventions? How do ideas grow and change? You can use the same reproducible time line to build a time line to accompany any unit of study. Vertical time lines can be placed side by side on a large wall so patterns can be seen horizontally as well as vertically. For example, build a time line for each country in Europe if that's what you're studying. Post them all at the end for review and comparison. This type of activity does a great deal to "anchor" children's learning.

• Country Graphs. This was one of the first activities I did with almanacs. Each child charted and graphed a different set of statistics: per capita GNP, infant mortality rate, population growth rate, etc. Then the graphs were placed side by side and the students looked for patterns or anomalies. Higher level thinking happens naturally with activities like this.

Remember I told you at the beginning that in the world today, all or most of us are suffering from information overload. I apologize that I've contributed to it! Remember that my goal is that you actually use one or more ideas you heard tonight. Don't even think about trying to implement them all.

But on the subject of information overload. Did you know that 25 years ago, scientists estimated that by now we'd have so many labor-saving devices that we'd only be working 22-hour weeks, and our biggest challenge would be to find ways to enjoy all our leisure time. Amazing, eh?

I'll close with a little story from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Alice and the queen had been running like mad when Alice discovered they were still under the very same tree.

"Why, I do believe we've been under this tree all the time! Everything's just as it was."

"Of course it is," said the Queen. "What would you have it?"

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else--if you ran very fast for a long time as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do just to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Life can be crazy and frustrating, sometimes. You'll have better success if you focus on one or two new things at a time. Later, when you're comfortable with those, add one or two more things. All my best to you. You're doing a very important job. Keep up the good work!