This year, I forced myself to write out the the rules and procedures the students need to master for our class to be successful. I was stunned by how long it was! So, just like yesterday, today was about learning some of those procedures AND mastering content at the same time. It is intense, but I'm happy to say our students are doing a phenomenal job.
We began today with silent reading. We just worked today on picking books and reading quietly. Next week we will start with reading logs and reading conferences. We take it one step at a time. We also started with Open Court reading today. I think there is a lot of value in having a single, sequential reading series. But a straightforward Open Court program can be pretty boring. So I try to do everything I am required to do for each story and supplement it was more fun activities. We usually spend four days on a story. The first two days are, I must admit, the dull ones. We work on the phonics and the vocabulary and the initial reading of the story. We also work on specific reading and language skills. That's what we did today. We began with what is called "Blending." That is the skill readers use to sound out unfamiliar words. The words we had today were almost absurdly easy, but we used them to figure out CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) and related patterns in phonics and spelling. Our story, which begins our theme on "Friendship", is called Gloria who Might be my Best Friend. It is not a literary masterpiece, but it helps get students thinking about why people are friends with other people, and why sometimes they aren't.
After recess, the students made portraits in oil pastel of the student that they interviewed for their first composition yesterday. I taught the students who make guidelines for placing the eyes and the mouth and the ears, and we discussed the proper way to try to draw noses. Some of the portraits displayed real powers of observation, and many were full of rich, saturated colors. It did, however, take longer than I hoped it would, and we had to postpone our first music lesson until Monday. Art is a hard thing to just stop and start again.
After lunch, students went out to the yard to learn about PE procedures. Ms Caruso and I have done PE together for many years. She brings a great deal of zest and enthusiasm for what is one of my less favorite subjects. Having always been the fat kid nobody what on their team as a child, I developed a dread of PE and sports that has followed me to current neat dotage. Ms Caruso actually knows the rules of basketball and soccer. It's a great help and we make a good team.
We finished up, as we usually will with Math. We are starting our unit on number theory and place value. This is a hard idea for the children. They do not naturally see that 345 is 300 and 40 and 5. They just see it as one number, and have trouble figuring out all the stuff with expanded notation and questions about "What is the meaning of the 2 in 32,567?" We have to come back to this stuff over and over again before the "Ah ha!" sets in.
Homework: I highly suggest that students complete the first three assignments on their math sheet by Monday. Most of them took the answer sheets and the book home with them. If they do not get those done this weekend, it will be hard for them for finish the page my Wednesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment