Jan 4^th- In-Service

Jan 5^th—First day with students.  The instructor has a very unique approach but one that seems to be a very intuitive method of teaching all students.  The schedule is very fluid with a blend of home class instruction and heterogeneous groupings with students from many other classes for common school-wide thematic subjects.  This past quarter’s theme has been science focused and various activities in different rooms include: chemistry exploration, physics, scientific method (our room), rocket building, etc.

Jan 8th—The week with the students has flown by. I am becoming more familiar with the school’s schedule.  I wouldn’t refer to it as a routine because each day is unique and different.  The only commonalities to each day are the opening and closing time, math time, and the lunch/recess time.

I’ve been asked by my cooperating teacher to teach Math each day at 8:45.  She has done a bit of each day’s class but left the bulk of the time with me to explore algebra.  This particular group, which I have for  two weeks, is using hands on manipulatives to explore single step equations.  This will soon lead  into two-step equations.  SO far students have been focused on manipulating their pieces and using guess and test. Today will introduce them to a way to eliminate the guessing and testing.

Jan 15-  I’ve completed my first 2 week Algebra unit with this particular group of 6^th and 7^th grade students.  The next group to come will receive largely the same instruction of using manipulatives when solving variable equations.  However, I expect the next group to be more advanced in their understanding of algebraic concepts since they have had two weeks of instruction already.  I am anticipating the need to accelerate the instruction and get to newer and more difficult concepts early.  Monday and Tuesday will largely determine where the class is so the following 8 lessons can be adjusted.

Jan 18-Presidents day-No school

Jan 19- Today marks the end of the last and the start of a new 8 week “qwest” for the students.  This one will be focused on our National Parks.   Our park is The Great Smokey Mountain National Park.  We will have one group of 5^th-8^th grade students for 4 weeks and two groups of K-4 for 2 weeks each.  I was asked by Ms. P. to create the activities and centers for this unit.  I planned for 16 class sessions for 5-8 and 8 sessions for the K-4 students.  This planning is cross curricular: including, language arts, science, history, art, and technology skills.   I will formalize the plan with all of the benchmarks being covered and likely use something very similar in my own class in the future.  The end goal is to create a functioning park “information center” that other students and their parents will tour.

Jan 20—January 19 classes were cancelled and today’s classes were delayed until 10.  Because of the delay there was no math instruction the past two days.  I will have to evaluate the new group of students in math tomorrow and Friday and use the following week for instruction.

Smokey Mountain “Qwest”—Teacher had a selection of Appalachian music in the background as students arrived.  As they listened the students were given a 20x30 piece of paper to fold into a book.  (hot dog fold, hamburger,hamburger—then a folded in half and a half tear to create the book.)  She set the theme of being transported to another part of the country. –see my created unit plan for day 1 and two.

Students were at homebase between 12:30-3:00.  They are working on finalizing their NM history unit.  We hope to move on to the Civil War unit next week.

Jan 21 & 22—Classes cancelled again.  What a long storm.  The break has been okay, but I really miss being there.  It feels just like we began. Getting the students back into classes next Monday might be a challenge.

Jan 25—Day one with a new group of math students.  We are waiting on the decision from admin as to whether we will have the students one week or two weeks since we lost all of last week’s math times due to delays and cancellations. We are also waiting on decisions for Quest and Exploratorium for the missed week.

The new group of math students are , as usual, a pretty mixed bag.  It seems that quite a few have the basics down pretty well, but a few still need some extra assistance.   After defining their purpose for the day,

 I spent a lot of extra time on our daily calendar bingo.  Students seem to need the most help on addition, subtraction, and multiplication of positive and negative numbers, LCM/GCF, and exponential notation.

Jan 26—Ms. Pierce and I spent time talking about when I should take over in order to get my teaching time in.  The way the calendar works out she believes February 15^th will be a good time to take on the all day teaching.  We went through a calendar with information on when this would happen.  She also will need a one week period where she steps in for a part of the day just before state testing.

History—thematic unit is the American Civil War—Persuasive essays, personal letters, will be a focus.  Personal values and thoughts will introduce the unit with tubs designed to allow them choices on the aspects they want to explore in a cross curricular way.