Reflection 12/14/08

This week was another great week. I spent a lot of time in front of the class and it felt great! I had two really great teaching moments this week. On Thursday, I played a game called Sparkle. My first class did wonderful and made it through the whole word list. My second class was noisy and talking during the game and didn't make it past the first side of the page. They were getting outs because they couldn't hear and it was all because of their peers. When they went back to their seats I had a discussion about how they were affecting others with their actions. They identified the problem and seemed pretty ashamed that they screwed up a game. My second teaching moment was that I started a really good discussion about bullying. I put up a journal about the topic in the morning and it spiraled into my CT getting chart paper and talking about what bullying looks like and how to prevent it. In the afternoon I read a story and had them journal about it. We then discussed everything and it was really eye opening. This was a totally unplanned event, but it was necessary. I am impressed by their involvement.

I am looking forward to break, but I am not looking forward to all the giddiness that is going to be in school this week. They have been off a lot lately but I think this anticipation for break and the holidays is going to be a lot to deal with. Thank goodness for ending with a party this week! It should be an interesting week!

Reflection 12/7/08

This past week was great. I had my first real subbing all day long day and it went awesome! The kids really respected me as the teacher and it went by without any problems. I also started book clubs. Some students really enjoy the silent reading time and others seem to hate it. I feel like I'm pulling teeth with a lot of them and its frustrating to me that they won't do their work. Some of the incentives I have come up with, rocking chair, managers, and pillow people seem to working wonderfully. The kids like to have rewards :) and I like that they see reading in a different spots so fun.

Something I struggled with this week was modeling my reading journals since they are leveled and are 3 different prompts. I did not want to show one on the ELMO because I was afraid they would catch on or some students would get angry that they have so much to do when other kids don't have quite as much. The first day I sort of realized that problem right before I modelled journaling and ended up just talking about questions. I thought about the problem a lot and came up with a solution. For each entry I have been doing a mini lesson beforehand that relates to the journal. Since connections is something I am focusing a lot on, I spent two days already on connections and they have not had that journal yet. On Friday, I had them write their connections to Jumanji and tomorrow when I do day 4 (connection day) I will show some student work so they know what I expect them to do.

This week I am going to work on doing more modelling of the journals in this way. I wish that I had thought of it sooner!