Being it is Thursday, and Chugach has an early release tomorrow, I am writing now about my week. Topmost on my mind is the transition from a full day to a half day and not being there on Monday at all. I do feel I miss things like the Connected and Respected lessons that I will want to model and support. Reading groups are just getting started after Kass has taken the first few weeks to get to know the students as readers. I will also miss the progression of calendar.
I have continued to teach in the afternoons. Yoga everyday and we share a 30 minute block of time to read to a group of kids from all three classes. I really enjoy this opportunity to read five or six books in a row, connecting with kids from the other 1-2 classes. I taught the whole group how to play and then make a game for our Penguin Math unit. I used the projector and screen. We do not have a smart board. The next day I led a math and science activity exploring water temperature around the world and then the whole group worked to get a bowl of water to 60 degrees. Penguins prefer 60-30 degree water. We had ice and hot water as well as a medium thermometer and a large display thermometer. This activity went well for all of us. No spills! Karen was able to see me teach yoga and transition to this math and science activity. I appreciated her feedback and look forward to her visiting more.
I have spent my mornings either at home working or in the classroom early. I went in today for the hour and a half planning block the team has together at 10:15. I want to spend time seeing other teachers as well as copying resources Kass has made available to me. Tomorrow I will go in for the morning time. An early release for Chugach means kids leave at 11:15 and staff then meet or have training, planning and prep time. They have a longer day each day of the week, banking time for these scheduled early releases on Friday afternoons. As a parent I appreciated this extra time with my children. Many families will go to the fair this time of year and, depending on the season, community members will often play together on these afternoons.
Next week I will likely go in early to watch Kass administer DRA tests. I will also take time to look through all of the students reading folders so I can see how to support and encourage them. We will continue in the afternoons with Penguin Math. Looks like I will mostly support whole group lessons with Kass so I can see her introduce lessons that in the future I can then lead.
I am collecting books from our librarian Alice and collecting titles from teachers so I can read more new books. At our planning meeting today Kass brought a resource that Alice gave to her. She really liked it, so much that she is planning on using it. The title is very descriptive of the product. "Creating 6-Trait Revisors and Editors for Grade 2", Vicki Spandel. This is actually the second book, the first is "Creating Young 6-Trait Writers" I am adding them to my Shelfari database here on my blog. Look to the top left hand corner of my blog to see the link. (Unfortunately, I can't figure out why, the neat display of a bookshelf won't come up.)
Speaking of Shelfari, this is an easy database to use if you don't already have something like this. All you do is enter the title and even old and obscure titles come up! You can create tags to sort books. To find the books on my shelf that I am entering for this internship just use the tag "hilary" in the list of tags at the bottom of my shelf. You can also befriend people and share books more easily.
I hope you all have had a nice start to your year of becoming a teacher.
See you in class on Monday.
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