I started the day with a morning meeting of my choosing. Inspired by a run-in with my friend Andy, a local UPS driver on campus yesterday, we did a fist bump greeting. A couple students shared a culture interview they completed on our of our ESL teachers, we did the "Question Ball" activity, and I had students add a colorful snowflake to a piece of paper to brighten the classroom a bit.
Literacy time went smoothly, except for a couple of students who STILL aren't getting their reading group work done. I heard, "I forgot about reading this book" more than once today. After several (and I do mean several) conversations about how important it is for students to get their book group reading done, we talked about it in the large group. I reiterated that listening to reading and buddy reading are second to finishing reading group work and word work. Hopefully simplifying it in this way will help them get it done.
While the kids were at specials today, I went to an SSIT meeting about one of my students. This is a "building team" meeting with classroom teachers, the school nurse, the principal, the speech/language specialist, CC teachers, the school psychologist, as well as any available IRTs. As part of the RTI process, the classroom teacher refers a student who has an exceptional need that cannot be met by the classroom teacher. In this case, the student was lagging academically despite double doses of literacy instruction. It was exciting for me to see a whole group of staff members pooling their knowledge and resources to help a child. We created interventions and set measurable goals for our next meeting. In this case, we want to increase the student's text reading level from a 10 to a 12 and his sight word writing from 66 words to 75 words in the next six weeks. It's a lofty goal, but with extra instruction from a CC teacher and other classroom interventions, I think we can make it happen.
In writing, students finished up their Winter Simile Poems and continued to publish previous poetry. I did a read aloud about a little girl who celebrates both Hannukah and Christmas. We had a nice conversation about how Hannukah is celebrate by people of the Jewish faith, and Christmas was originally celebrated by people of the Christian faith. We talked about how today, there are non-Christians who also celebrate Christmas traditions. It was nice! Math was pretty standard, with rotations and math groups going well. I wrote a warm-up problem that included my niece's names... just because I miss them! One of the perks of being the one writing the math problems, I suppose ;) Two of my kids came up to me during math and said, "Miss T! We have a surprise for you!" Each of them wrote a note to be about how they love me as a teacher and as a friend. Melted my heart! Those are certainly going in the "Happy Teacher" file for the future when I'm feeling down and out in the classroom.
At the end of the day, we did a lesson on sound for science. As a teaching team, we adapted the FOSS science "Drop Chamber" lessons into one lesson. The kids got really excited about it, but with that comes a really high noise level in the classroom. There is a strange phenomenon in schools- where a high level of noise in the classroom seems to bring out the "silly" and "overconfidently funny" in some of my kids. I wish I knew how to do something loud and silly and then transition kids back into quiet, settled learners. All I can say now is that it takes a lot of time and a lot of practice. It took us around five minutes to move to our closing circle. Because I have had incessant issues with getting kids to sit down and calm their bodies and mouths, I told them we must really need to practice that skill. It literally took them six tries to do it without talking or moving like the silly gooses that they are. If they take forever to settle in at morning meeting, we'll practice again. I feel bad for the handful of kids that do it right all the time, but I had to do something to make my point. I said, "If it takes us 4-6 minutes just to sit in a circle, how will we have time for games, activities, or directions?" Hopefully they understand where I'm coming from!
I'm spending tonight working on my e-portfolio. I'll feel so, so good when this is done.
Tomorrow is Friday :)
-BJT
No comments:
Post a Comment