Day 4: Making Progress

The title of this entry refers to me...not the children!  :-)  Your kiddos are so well-behaved, patient and motivated.  It's a SUPER class!!!!  Me?  Well, my plans and intentions are good but teaching the routines and expectations is taking a bit longer than I had hoped.  LOL!  But...I am making progress!!

This morning we began our day by sharing half of the "All About Me" bags.  It was a lot of fun to learn about our new friends.  We will share the rest tomorrow.

After that, we did a Go Noodle brain break.  Unfortunately, the class didn't like the one I chose.  Oh well!

Next, we began our math block.  I had such great plans....we did get to some of it, nut not all.  First, I explained the way I run my math block.  We do three rotations each day.  Using pre-assessments, I group the children.  These groups are FLEXIBLE...they WILL change and you won't necessarily be notified.  Changes will be based on class observations and written assessments.  Each group will meet with me for 20-25 minutes.  While I am with other groups, the students will go to a technology  and a guided practice rotation.

The technology rotation will involve the Chrome books.  It may be to watch a lesson conducted by me or another teacher or it might be to visit a web site to  play a "game" (educational, of course).  Sometimes the students might create a slideshow or poster that solves a word problem.

During guided practice the students will usually practice skills using manipulative materials such as number cards and dice.  They will also write about math in their math journals.

Following the explanation of math rotations, I demonstrated the expectations for using math journals.  Then the students took notes, in their journals, about identifying numbers as odd or even.  My expectations for math journals are simple; begin each new task on the next clean sheet of paper in their journal, put the date in the upper right hand corner, and give the task a title on the top line of the page.

Finally, I had planned to allow the students to visit the third grade web site and use their new Sumdog logins to explore that site, but we ran out of time.  :-(  So...the students have been given logins.  They are taped inside the front of their binder.  I did show them the site.  They are more than welcome to visit it tonight at home, but they do not have to.

After lunch and recess we continued working on the Daily 5 structure.  We began by reviewing and practicing "Read to Self".  The students read for over 13 uninterrupted minutes before I stopped them.  :-) Then we revisited the criteria for "Check for Understanding".  Next, we practiced the third way to read a book, retell the story, using the book, The First Day Jitters.  Finally, I introduced and modeled, a new reading  strategy to help expand our vocabulary, tune into interesting words.  I did this by thinking out loud as I read the story, The Teacher from the Black Lagoon.

Before ending our day in art class, with Mrs. Daniel, we used the Chrome Book to continue working., in collaborative groups, on the My Job, Your Job, Our Job chart.  While we did get further today, we still haven't completed this activity.  This is because, along the way, we have had many "teachable moments". For example, today the students learned how to make a copy of a document, rename a document and they learned about wrap around text.By the way, Back to School Night is Wednesday, September 10 from 6:30-8:30 pm.  There will be 2 sessions.  :-)