End of 1st week

Lots to update on. Enjoying getting to know the students and finally know my way around the school!


GREAT math lesson: Introducing a check book
1. Ask, "Who has to do chores?" Go around room and allow everyone to share their chores. Explain that some people earn money by doing chores. In order to keep track of money, adults use checkbooks.
2. Use a magnet to place vocab strips on the board:
      -Balance
      - Transaction (can be a):
            -Deposit OR
            -Withdrawal
      -Interest
    Strips are color coded. Vocabulary that earns you money is green (+) "put it in", while vocabulary that "takes it away" is red.
3. Ask for volunteers to explain each of the terms to the class. Help class get an accurate definition for each.
4. Do an example on the board.

• Beginning balance is $32.11. Say, "This means, 11 out of_____?" (100) 
• Write $32.11 on the board.
• Ahead of time, create strips of paper with actions that earn and lose you money. Put all the strips in a bag. During the lesson, go around the room and have students pull a strip from the bag and read their action out loud. For example, the strips might say "shoveled snow, earned $15.25"
• Ask, "is this a deposit, withdrawal, or interest?"
• Write it on the board, get new balance, show all work.
• Repeat until everyone has read their action strip
• Ask guiding questions along the way, such as "why am I not subtracting this?", "why should I add this?", "What do you notice I am doing every time I write a number down?" (lining the decimals up).
• *Let students keep their action strips so you know who hasn't gone yet.

5. Collect cards. Say, "please put your cards up in the air and I will come get them."
6. Hand out checkbooks (worksheets) and write instructions on the board for what they should do when they finish.

The kids LOVED this lesson. They got extremely into it and would get happy/upset depending on what action was drawn from the bag. They were genuinely concerned when their balance was getting low! It shows that it is okay to let the kids have fun during a lesson as long as you can keep them controlled as wel!


Math lesson: Using base 10 blocks 

-Students were learning about tenths, hundredths, and thousandths, and how to convert them into fractions. Instead of throwing the students directly into their Everyday Mathematics Journals, she took them to the floor and demonstrated each problem with them using the base 10 blocks. This provided them with a roadmap of how they should be thinking when they do the problems.
-When students "got it" they were allowed to go to their seats. The rest could stay and receive more help. Ask these students, "what do you not get?" to allow for specific instruction.


*When teaching this, start by introducing each part as 1/1,000 instead of 1/100. It will make it easier when you need to learn about thousandths.

Behavior management strategy: 30 second blurt!

-During a period of individual work, my teacher could not get the class to settle down and stop talking. To fix this, she said "I'm giving you 30 seconds of talking. When the time is up you will give me ten minutes of silence. GO!"
-The kids LOVED this! Most of them just turned to their neighbor and said "blah blah blah!" but it gave the students who were really talking to get it out of their systems!


Behavior management strategy: Classroom conga line!

After a long morning meeting, the kids were feeling tired and drained and it was only 10:00 AM! To fix this, my cooperating teacher ordered everyone to stand up in the circle,  turn to their right and look at the back of the persons head in front of them, and follow Alex. (I changed his name). She allowed the class to go around the room a couple of times before they voluntarily came back to the circle and sat down. It got their energy going and was funny for us to watch!!

Highlights


Every Friday, students record "highlights" in a black composition notebook. They are required to write:
  1. One thing they learned this week
  2. One way they were kind
  3. One thing they didn't understand
My teacher reads them over and responds to every entry. It is a great way for students to communicate with her.

Buckets 
Better explained on this website: Bucket Fillers


The idea of "filling buckets' is based on the book by Carol McCloud called "Have You Filled A Bucket Today? (A Guide to Daily Happiness For Kids)". The book uses buckets as a metaphor for how a child is feeling. When you hurt someone (by saying mean things or being unkind) you "dip into their bucket" and hurt them. In contrast, when you make someone feel good about themselves (by helping them do something, saying something nice, or being kind to them), you "fill their bucket".


In order to keep things simple, my teacher uses this form: Bucket filler form


"Filling buckets" will be an activity during morning work sometimes, or during free time, or when a student finishes work early. It is a way to build community because it allows students to really see the impact they have on each other. There are white slips to be used when you want to "fill someones bucket", and pink slips to be used when someone has "dipped into your bucket". It is a way to open the communication between students. If a student said something to another student that hurt them, this person will find out when they read their pink slip. The problem can then be addressed and the students can learn from the experience. The goal is that by the end of the year there will be no more pink slips, or no one dipping into each others' buckets. 


My teacher used a hanging shoe rack with plastic sleeves where you would normally insert shoes. Each student colored a picture of a bucket and wrote their name on it. This picture was taped to the sleeve and, voila!, each student has their own bucket. 

My Fun Teacher, 2012. Karen Powell. Accessed 21 Jan 2012 from <http://myfunteacher.com/bucketfillers.htm>