Thinking and Learning Together: Curriculum and Community in a Primary Classroom

Bobbi Fisher's book describes a very special classroom. It's a place where trust is fostered and the daily schedule, classroom space, and materials are all organized and orderly . . . where the teacher demonstrates and children participate in shared literacy . . . where children practice and share what they learn . . . where literature, reading, writing, math, science, and social studies are explored for authentic purposes. Where children pursue their own interests and areas of inquiry and parents' participation is encouraged. She describes a sharing classroom community where children and teachers think and learn together.

In Thinking and Learning Together, Bobbi begins by setting the theoretical framework for her classroom organization, then outlines the strategies she's employed, the committees, daily moderator, and class meetings she's implemented, and the materials, classroom space, and daily schedule she's used. She explores all the disciplines, devoting chapters to the different uses of literature; the reading process; the writing process, evaluation, and portfolio assessment; spelling; math; social studies; and science. Each one is filled with plenty of classroom examples explaining what to do, how to do it, and why to do it.

Because Bobbi believes that parents can be teachers' best advocates, she has included a final chapter on communicating with parents. In it, she describes a variety of ways to involve and include parents in ongoing positive dialogues.

Throughout Thinking and Learning Together, Bobbi shares what she does best. She offers suggestions, not prescriptions, and encourages teachers to use their own voices and styles, based on sound theory, to create their own thinking and learning classrooms.

Thinking and Learning Together's strong theoretical base and examples of classroom practice are useful to teachers in pre-K through grade three, reading specialists, and administrators.