Kidzban Around the Web #1

Highly Visible Family Kidzban

Around the web people are sharing their experiences with Kidzban.  This is the first post of the series - Kidzban Around the Web.With families becoming busier and busier it can be overwhelming keeping up with everything we need to accomplish in each day.Steve Hamilton tackled this problem with his Kidzban.   Steve's wife was away for 3 weeks, and while she was away he wanted to keep track of their two children's activities so he decided to set up a Kanban board on the sliding glass door. Steve explains "This is the single most visible space in the entire house — it is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door."Each Sunday they planned out the coming week - homework, activities, practices, etc. The cards were color coded for each child. Every night they would spend a couple minutes planning the next day. That's when they would move the cards from the top section into the today section.

Steve went on to add "We are now one full week in and so far it has been smooth sailing. No missed homework, no missed practices, good meals each night and the house is reasonably clean!"

Please head over to Steve's Blog to read his Kidzban post in it's entirety.Photo credit: Steve's Blog.There often are things we don't get done before we go to bed each night. Tim Wise came up with a perfect solution for his 6 year old son with his Kiddie Kanban: The Going to Bed Kanban Board.Tim begins by noting "My 6 year old loves responsibility. He loves being able to know what he has to do and getting it done himself.  He does not love when his dad tries to bark commands."They decided to write everything that needs to get done before bed on sticky notes and put them on the wall.  A few tasks were - change clothes, take a shower/bath, read a book, brush teeth, learning new prayers, etc.  His son mentioned "This is like a Todo list for bed." So they labeled the first column TODO. He also said, "We need to be able to tell when I am done." So they then added a Done column. They added the Doing column so they could see what was being worked on.  After the notes went up his son began rearranging them putting them in order. Tim mentioned to his son that was prioritization.Tim finishes up by stating "We said some prayers after reading together, and we learned a new one together. 'Thank you for today. Amen'  So we accomplished learn some new prayers along the way. Unfortunately, we never fit in the bath, so I guess we'll be stinky together tomorrow."You can read the entire Kiddie Kanban: The Going to Bed Kanban Board post on the Agile Dude Blog.This is the first post in the series - Kidzban Around the Web.  You can read the second post here.

The ABC's of Personal Kanban in the Classroom

Personal Kanban in the classroom is one area that I am highly passionate about.  Why? I have seen it in action, first-hand in the preschool classroom.  As a teacher it is exciting when your students are excited about learning.The first Personal Kanban we introduced at preschool was an ABC's Kanban.  We used this for 26 weeks, each week introducing a new letter for the students to learn.

Preschool ABC's Kanban

 When we began on our evolving classroom journey we had just a few simple goals:

• We wanted to the classroom Personal Kanban to easily understood by parents and the teachers alike.

• We wanted the students to excel at what had traditionally been a very unappealing and difficult part of the preschool classroom activity-learning to write the letters. We wanted to excite the children about learning not think of it as a chore.

Using this Kanban with our students we learned that theexcitement from the children grew every week with each letter they completed on their task card. Students were excited to share their work with other children in the classroom.  Students wanted to collaborate on the chalkboard writing their letters, teaching other studentshow to write letters. The students were waiting at the board before their name is called to come over with their task card, in anticipation of receiving a sticker reward for a job well done.  We had a completely engaged classroom environment.We had many, many retrospective talks about the board, we had more Kaizen moments than I can list. It was like standing back watching a puzzle magically come together piece by piece every week.Week after week students began going above and beyond, even turning their task cards over to more work!

Preschool alphabet learning task cards

We realized we didn't have to write the students names on the cards anymore because they began to write their names on their own on the cards.

Examples of student written names ABC's Kanban

We were amazed by our ABC's Kanban and how much the students embraced their learning experience. When we were wrapping up our parent-teacher conferences, when speaking with the parents I heard the following statements, “My child loved working on her task card it made her feel important.”“To have all the cards for my child to be able to look back and see all the letters he learned, I wasn’t just telling him, I was showing him, he was able to see all he’s learned.” And finally one parent remarked to me “He was so excited to get into class to show you his card, week after week his excitement grew, he’s been so proud of his work.” The 4 & 5 year old preschool class continues to use this ABC's Kanban successfully.

This an updated post that originally appeared on the Nothing is Out of Reach blog.

WIP: The Kidzban Book

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My dad was magical.

When I was growing up, he turned everything into a game - studying, yard work, even combatting my fear of the Wicked Witch of the West. "Life should be fun!" he'd insist, invoking his own father's optimism, a dictum in broken Italian dialect I struggle to remember but have long since forgotten. I can't say if it was by way of nature or nurture, but there’s no doubt the DeMaria men believed in enjoying life. When situations that were decidedly unpleasant presented themselves, they simply viewed them as opportunities to get creative.And creative they got.Whether it was setting the seemingly interminable list of prepositions I had to learn by rote to the tune of Pop! Goes the Weasel (

About, above, across, after, against, among, ar-rou-uuund!

), or sending me into the science class I struggled with carrying a Tupperware container filled with a freshly butchered calf's brain (can I still distinguish between the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata? you betcha!), my father believed life was too short not to make even difficult tasks enjoyable.And then came the bane of my existence: Mr. Pittman's history class. I despised it, and the 10 pound textbook that I'm still convinced was written to combat chronic insomnia. All those foreign names to pronounce! All those dates to remember!

Boooor-ring

was my justification for coming perilously close to failing an exam. But my father assured me, "they're just stories," after which he proceeded to re-create tales from Greek mythology casting all my friends as characters. Thousands of "stories" and two history degrees later, I couldn't agree with him more. Life - even the tedious parts - should be fun. With a little creativity in fact, they can be fun

and

educational.That's why I had to write this post. And why Kidzban is so important to me.

For the past year and a half, Jim and I have heard from countless people - some from as far away as South Africa and Japan - all excited to share inspiring accounts of how they use Personal Kanban (and a little creativity) to inspire their children. Among the most common uses for “Kidzban” (as we’ve affectionately come to call it) involves visualizing and tracking progress as it relates to household chores, family projects, homework and exam prep, extracurricular activities, religious pursuits, and even confidence building initiatives.

Lately however, another group of Kidzban practitioners is emerging. Increasingly we’re hearing from teachers and home educators who are using it with great success in and beyond the “traditional” classroom. In an attempt to maximize student performance - and make learning fun - they are utilizing Kidzban to establish course goals, visualize homeschool curriculum workflow, track progress (relative to the student’s personal best as well as to that of their peers), identify strengths and weakness, and implement and monitor solutions.We look forward to sharing many of their stories with you in the upcoming publication from Modus Cooperandi Press

Kidzban

, the follow-up to our recently released

Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life.

So why all the enthusiasm about some sticky notes on a whiteboard, you ask?Personal Kanban creates a narrative of  “work” comprehensible to people of all ages and learning styles. Work ceases to be a collection of unrelated tasks and instead becomes a series of events that impact each other and flow from one to the next. With just a glance, users see the things they do well, identify areas that cause them to struggle, and gauge the distance from their goal. In the context of Personal Kanban - or Kidzban, in this case - struggle is not construed of as a failure but rather, as an opportunity for improvement. As a visual radiator, Personal Kanban lets the user know their success simply requires an alternate path. When that happens, they can look for root causes and then going forward, they can adjust their actions to suit.Personal Kanban transforms our “work” into a system. It takes even the most tedious tasks and turns them into a game that’s appropriate for all ages.Consistent among the stories we’ve heard is how children become excited about taking on even the most unpopular or even boring tasks, like picking up their toys or writing the letter “G” until they perfect it or making sure Fido has enough kibble in his bowl.Not only is this "game" a simple one, but it’s an evolutionary one, too. Because Personal Kanban reflects our ever-changing context, it creates a game with an ever changing board. It’s a game we can improve upon, so boredom is kept at bay.Children “beating” their siblings (and even their parents) by completing the most chores becomes commonplace. Students “compete” not only with their classmates but with themselves, finishing their lessons quicker and with less error. In both cases we’ve discovered that upon task completion, kids often seek additional tasks, incentivized by the satisfaction they get from moving yet another sticky note into the “Done” column.Games can assume myriad forms, from head-to-head battles, to problem solving, to role-play. Depending on the circumstance, kids can find themselves besting their brothers and sisters in individual performance, or they can team up - “swarm” on a problem to solve it quickly and effectively. Parents and educators alike are using visualization to build creative games aimed at specific outcomes and to reward specific behaviors.In the end, the games themselves become an education.Whether it entails chores or schoolwork, being able to visualize and focus on the task at hand as part of a system - with immediate and ultimate goals - allows kids to see their action’s trade-offs while learning the best way to exercise their options. They take responsibility for their action (as well as their inaction), and feel pride in a job well done, establishing their independence and buttressing their self-esteem.Kidzban curtails arguments, energizes families, and leaves kids empowered.As a visual radiator, the board offers reinforcement for their efforts. Every member of the family can see that they’ve been effective, that they contribute value. When one person gets hung up, they know where help is needed.So tell us - how are YOU innovating with Kidzban? Are you interested in sharing your experiences or visualizations, or just want to hear more from other practitioners? Whether you’re a parent or educator or even a kid, we invite you to become part of the emerging Kidzban community of practice.On Facebook:“Like” the Personal Kanban page on Facebook to meet and engage with others interested in Kidzban.On Twitter:Whether you have questions, ideas, or experiences you want to share, be sure to add the hashtag #kidzban to your Tweet to ensure other members of the Kidzban community can join in on the conversation.In the interim, be sure to check out some of our favorite Kidzban practitioners:For an innovative approach to chores, see Janice’s

One Kid'z Kanban Board

For ways to use Kidzban throughout the home, see Maritza’s

Becoming and Agile Family

For incorporating Kidzban in the classroom, see Patty’s

Not Out of Reach

And last but certainly not least...Recently I had the extreme pleasure of stumbling upon the most delightful yet profoundly insightful videologs from two of Kidzban’s most perceptive practitioners: siblings Jillian and JoHanna - ages 8 and 11 respectively who, later with the help of 3 year old Joy - are Kidzban rockstars (and agilistas in the making). Don’t miss their dad Joseph’s

Saturday Chores with Kanban

series, part I and part II.

Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part I

Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part II

And it's just a hunch, but judging by the fun these young ladies are having helping out with the housework, I'm fairly certain they feel their dad is magical, too.

Image by Sprezzatura.