Day 6

This Tuesday at Crompond Elementary School was Teq Tuesday. One Tuesday a month, the teachers from each grade have two hours to learn about useful technology in the classroom. For the first two hours of the school day, the fifth grade team went down to the computer lab to learn how to use google docs. After learning about the topic of the day, I grew very excited because I knew a great deal about google docs, therefore I could show my cooperating teacher all the knowledge I have using this technology. During the class I even learned a few new things such as, nutmeg education.com and we transfer.com. Nutmeg is a website equip with excellent lessons for math class and we transfer is a website you can use to send large files to other people such as SMARTboard lessons (you can also send them through google docs). In conclusion the training lesson on technology was extremely frustrating for the older teachers.

Once we got back into the classroom it was time to get work done. Immediately we had the class sit down and listen to what they will be doing during this period. Each student was asked to do three things. They were asked to finish their Donavan's Word Jar story, once they finished that there was a review worksheet for their government vocabulary quiz, if they finished that then there was a science classification sheet (o prepare for their test next week) they could work on independently. Each assignment is tailored to every students individual needs this way they can complete the work without any help. All of the students are also encouraged to use their resources when they are completing these assignments. 

While each student is working quietly and diligently my cooperating teacher and I will be testing each student using the DIBELS oral reading fluency assessment. When the period ended, we escorted the students to art class. While the students were at art we prepped for the afternoon then went to lunch. 

After lunch is our ELA block.  When the students entered the room they read the directions on the board: 1) Sit quietly, 2) close your eyes, 3) reflect silently on your day and think about being grateful.

When the students have been quiet for five minutes they were asked to go back to their seats and to take out their writing notebook. It was time to go over the word of the week, analyze. Each student was given a graphic organizer that allowed them to write the word, the definition, write it in a sentence, write a synonym, and draw a picture. We filled out the graphic organizer as a class. 
The remainder of the day was dedicated to context clues, prefixes, suffixes,and root words. All of these topics will help increase all of the students comprehension. To reinforce all of these topics we watched brain pop junior videos on context clues and prefixes. 

With five minutes left in the period, we decided to stop what we were doing and to have each student sit on the rug. Ms. Barber took out this book called Kid Chat. Inside it was filled with thought provoking questions interesting targeted towards elementary school students. The first question asked, what kind of animal would you be and why? What would you do during the day? One student answered saying they would be a lion and they would chase turtles all day, whereas another student said they wanted to be a shark because they would be the top of the food chain. Since we had time for one more, the students chose another question. This time the question was, are you afraid of anything? With thirty seconds left in the period, one student answered saying they were afraid of being alone. Hearing this student's answer made everyone think about how grateful they are to have such a great support system at home. Everyday these students are becoming more grateful :)

Teacher tips:

1) Always post your learning target where the student can reference it easily.

2) Always reference your learning target throughout the lesson to keep your students on point.

3) Asking for help can be very difficult, but you will not regret it. 

Tomorrow

January 27,2014

I will be debriefed on the school's behavior policy called PBIS. It stands for Positive Behavior Instruction. We will also administer the Daze to our students.