The Day After

Surprisingly normal for the day after Halloween. Nobody felt sick; nobody fell asleep in class. You must be fabulous parents (and children, of course).

Today I felt like we really put it all together in reading. We read together the story "Eddie, Inc." from the Open Court reader. It's not the best story in the world; in fact, it's pretty lame in parts. But it gave the students an opportunity to use their post-it notes to do "predicting", "connecting", and "questioning". We shared these as we went along to keep everyone focused on naming and using the strategies. Then, after we had finished reading, students had to use two additional strategies -- "summarizing" and "visualizing". For the latter of these two, I just had them draw a picture from the story. I did not forbid them from using the book, but I did encourage them to pick a scene other than one the illustrator had created.

We also had music with Mr. Lawton today. He was working with the students on understanding I-V harmony and to start to get the idea of the circle of fifths. It's pretty tough stuff, but a surprising number of the students really seemed to connect. They are getting used to the Orff instruments, and I'm glad that Mr. Lawton is the one to introduce these so that when we use our own Orff instruments later on the students will be used to it. He gave them a challenging assignment for next week to write a blues song; I'll be helping them with that.

The rest of the day was pretty routine: checking homework, correcting homework, doing journals, recess and lunch. But in elementary school routine days are the ones which make a difference. They're not the days that the students remember, but they're the days when learning really happens. So a good day.

Home Studies: (1) Subtraction with regrouping worksheet. (2) Science, page A 63, numbers 16-25. Answer in complete sentences! (3) Open Court reading packet.

Continue work on the blue math packet (due Monday) and complete the "Eddie" summary and picture if it has not yet been turned in.