This week was only a four day week...but it seems that it felt ten times longer than a regular week. It was pumpkin week...so we did alot of pumpkin themed activities. I did the same thing with reading...we did not read the basal story (it was super boring anyways!) Instead we read Pumpkins by Mary Lyn Ray. It fit in well with the week's theme and it had a good message (be giving, not greedy). We still focused on the skills and phonics from the basal, just read a better story. We had some extra time this week because we could not go to the computer lab because of the testing for the older grades. This meant we had more time in the afternoons to do our math activities. It was nice because we were able to work more with the students who really needed the extra help (we just had to keep the others occupied) I wish there was enough time in everyday to give those students the extra help they need, and still allow use to get to the computer lab. Just an extra half hour in the day would be nice.... On Thursday, we did our Pumpkin Math activity. It was alot of fun!! We had one parent donate a pumpkin for each student (that is a story and a half in itself..lol) I was so surprized at the amount of parent volunteers we had that day. We were able to have just about one adult for each student. The activity was totally parent-run. We gave each adult an instruction sheet, asked if there were any questions about the instructions and just set them loose with the students. The had to help the students estimate how tall and wide the pumpkin was; how much it weighed; how many ribs; how many seeds they could get in one handful....Then they had to find out the actual measurements for all that. It turned out really good. If only we could keep that amount of parent involvement up throughout all the grades... I cannot believe that I have been in this classroom for 10 weeks already!! Its crazy...I am already starting to plan when the responsibilities will go back to Mrs. Heaney. Now my next big thing is to figure out my contract hours...I want to work with collaboration...Maybe I can come back in to this classroom for part of my hours (collaborate on some sort of unit?) Next week is kinda boring...back to the regular olf stuff...no more themed weeks for a while. Believe it or not, the regular weeks are harder to plan for than the themed weeks.
Themed weeks are always more fun to plan and participate in. It is much easier to get a grasp on what you want to do. The flip side of it is that the kids remember all of those weeks of themed activities more than the non-themed activities. I firmly believe that the higher ups are sucking the life out of our children and the curriculum. By using "fidelity to the core" with our textbooks, it really limits our creativity.
This week was only a four day week...but it seems that it felt ten times longer than a regular week. It was pumpkin week...so we did alot of pumpkin themed activities. I did the same thing with reading...we did not read the basal story (it was super boring anyways!) Instead we read Pumpkins by Mary Lyn Ray. It fit in well with the week's theme and it had a good message (be giving, not greedy). We still focused on the skills and phonics from the basal, just read a better story.
ReplyDeleteWe had some extra time this week because we could not go to the computer lab because of the testing for the older grades. This meant we had more time in the afternoons to do our math activities. It was nice because we were able to work more with the students who really needed the extra help (we just had to keep the others occupied) I wish there was enough time in everyday to give those students the extra help they need, and still allow use to get to the computer lab. Just an extra half hour in the day would be nice....
On Thursday, we did our Pumpkin Math activity. It was alot of fun!! We had one parent donate a pumpkin for each student (that is a story and a half in itself..lol) I was so surprized at the amount of parent volunteers we had that day. We were able to have just about one adult for each student. The activity was totally parent-run. We gave each adult an instruction sheet, asked if there were any questions about the instructions and just set them loose with the students. The had to help the students estimate how tall and wide the pumpkin was; how much it weighed; how many ribs; how many seeds they could get in one handful....Then they had to find out the actual measurements for all that. It turned out really good.
If only we could keep that amount of parent involvement up throughout all the grades...
I cannot believe that I have been in this classroom for 10 weeks already!! Its crazy...I am already starting to plan when the responsibilities will go back to Mrs. Heaney. Now my next big thing is to figure out my contract hours...I want to work with collaboration...Maybe I can come back in to this classroom for part of my hours (collaborate on some sort of unit?)
Next week is kinda boring...back to the regular olf stuff...no more themed weeks for a while. Believe it or not, the regular weeks are harder to plan for than the themed weeks.
Themed weeks are always more fun to plan and participate in. It is much easier to get a grasp on what you want to do. The flip side of it is that the kids remember all of those weeks of themed activities more than the non-themed activities. I firmly believe that the higher ups are sucking the life out of our children and the curriculum. By using "fidelity to the core" with our textbooks, it really limits our creativity.
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