I had my observation on Monday and I think it might have been my worst behaved class of the year. I was nervous and tried to do a bit too much teaching and the students who were already figity ended up even more boisterous. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I scheduled my observation with one of the most challenging classes in the school. It was a third grade class, and I was asking them to do a few things. The objective was that they log-in to XtraMath, assess/exercise with basic math facts, and then once complete, they were to choose between practicing keyboarding “home keys” or choosing a “Just Right” math game using Everyday Mathematics Online (EDM). I knew going in that the launch should be less than 10 minutes, but between the constant interruptions and too many teaching points, the launch took almost 20 minutes. Way too long, and I know that.

I recently had the opportunity to read Don't Swear with Your Mouth Full by Cary S. Chugh, Ph. D and child psychologist.  His book introduces behavior-limited discipline, which he explains below.  Before you even read his book, you should be able to walk away with the basic idea that children should not be given "punishments" which allow to continue anti-social behavior, though cool-off time may be needed.  But instead, they need to practice pro-social behaviors.  This discipline, like Chugh's book, is very accessible to both parents and teachers. He discusses "difficult" children as making up about 10% of children.  More importantly, he explains that these children often aren't "difficult" due to their parents poor parenting, but rather the child's temperament and desire for control.

 I'm planning on having a reading unit on responding to literature in the coming month or so.  Now, I'm trying to decide what unit to follow.  I've tried a few units now including a Teacher's College reading unit and parts from our Pegasus curriculum.  

It has been almost 6 months since my last blog entry. I really had no idea how busy the end of year would be as a first year teacher. I took on a "video club" where we produced an end of year video for our school. While this was a blast, it really added just one more thing to my already over filled plate. I also had to support staff as they prepared for a new computer rollout by helping them make sure all of their files were saved in a networked folder etc. Though, perhaps the most overwhelming thing for me was not related to teaching.

At our first VES Professional Reading Group 2009-2010 meeting we covered a great deal in a very short period of time. 

The main highlights of our first meeting studying Units of Study were:

• Covering the lessons the first time around seems to take much longer than expected
• We decided we needed to create a mentor text list per grade level. Please Check this out:and THANK YOU Seattle!

http://www.eledblog.com/content/writers-workshop-book-lists-units-and-comprehension-strategies#comment-190

For my beginning readers, around levels A and B, I try to start out with the following teaching points or content objectives in the first few sessions:

  point to all the words
  get your mouth ready
  use the pictures
  does it make sense?

Because I have struggling readers at this level in 1st and 2nd grade, I try to infuse shared reading into our guided reading sessions by making strategy chants or songs.

I would really like to thank Laura for all of the hard work she puts into our reading group.  I enjoy meeting with everyone and getting great ideas.  I think in the future, one of our goals should be to gather touchstone texts and place them somewhere so everyone has access.  What do you  think? 

Lori