Week Eight

On Monday there was an ISE day, and we got to sit in on the meetings with the principal, superintendent, and counselors. Kallie presented to the teachers on Google docs. I thought she did an excellent job! During the meetings, I learned a little bit about grant writing and the website donorschoose.org, where teachers can post project ideas online. Individuals can then pick projects that they want to help fund. This is an awesome website to help teachers who are underfunded (which is probably most of them!).

This week, we discussed folk tales, tall tales, and fairy tales. I read The Paper Bag Princess aloud to the students. We talked about how this story didn't follow the normal elements of a fairy tale. We also talked about idioms and figurative language. I encouraged the students to see if they could add some idioms to their stories.

This week the students also did WV Writes, previously called Writing Road Map. They did a pretty good job with focusing on the assignment. However, I don't really like this program because I don't think it scores properly. Some kids that I know are good writers were scoring twos and threes, while students who were poorer writers (some didn't even write about the topic!) were scoring higher. I think it's a useful tool for teaching kids how to pay attention to what is expected of them as they write. They can see that they need to include certain things to get a higher score. However, I do not feel it is an accurate measure of students' writing abilities.

Week Seven

This week the students were reading a story about Roberto Clemente. He died while trying to get supplies to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. This past summer I went to Costa Rica, which is right below Nicaragua, so I created a PowerPoint that introduced the story and also included some of the pictures I took in Costa Rica. It really got the kids interested in the story, and I think it helped them get an idea of the setting. One student commented on how we went from baseball to Costa Rica. It was an opportunity to discuss personal connection with a story and reader response. I talked about how I could relate to the story because of my trip this past summer. Then, students were just about bursting to talk about their own stories. I love how enthusiastic they are to share with the class; however, they can get out of hand quickly if I don't stay on top of things.

The "chatter" that occurs during discussion is one issue I have been struggling with. The students excitement to share makes them impatient while others are talking. They can also just be flat out rude...whispering to their neighbors and talking out of turn. One strategy my mentor teacher and I have implemented is to take a minute off of their recess time for each minute I have to wait while they get quiet. This seems to be highly effective. All I have to do is glance at the clock, and a student will cry out "She's looking at the clock guys!" After which, the students quiet down almost immediately.