A nice short week
That's how I would describe it. It was a short week, and it has been a nice week (overall).
Monday brought about a day of reflection. At the elementary school, we were given some time to visit other classrooms in order to help one another on design and organization in our classrooms. It was a nice opportunity (which is sometimes difficult to really do during the otherwise busy school day) to really look closely at my colleagues' classroom and reflect on how I can make changes within my own classroom. If you have been following my blog since its inception, you will know that I have a rather different classroom arrangement than what is typical. It was nice to share my input with other teachers on the benefits that I am seeing from my classroom setup and also reflect on what I would do differently. I had an additional conversation with another teacher today about how I don't know if I would ever see myself going back to the previous setup I had. By no means do I consider it perfect (I don't really see how any classroom arrangement could be, as it is always dependent on the users), but I think it provides wonderful opportunities for the students to learn "soft skills": identifying what works for them, making good choices on who they surround themselves with, and self-regulation. I also took some time this week to have the students offer some feedback on the classroom arrangement as well as what we have on the walls that they don't really feel like they use. It was nice to hear their thoughts.
Tuesday and Wednesday were good days in the classroom. The students were working hard, being (fairly) respectful to one another, and we got to try out a few new things. Last week Monday my team worked on improving some of our science curriculum in the area of forces and motion, and I started the lessons this week. I think the work that we did was fantastic. The students have been very engaged in the activities, and what I like most is the discussions we have and questions the students ask. Sure, the questions and discussions end up adding a lot of time to the lesson, but I think that where the students do some of their best learning. Plus, the stuff you don't get to can always be done tomorrow :-)
This morning was a little frustrating for part of the time. I tried a new math fact activity with the students, and some of the students had a hard time following directions. We played a game where I clipped name badges on the students' backs with math division facts in one set of cards and the quotients in another set. The students then needed to find their partner cards to complete the division equations and then write down the equations to keep track and see how many different equations they could make. The students would then randomly switch cards with another classmate and repeat the process. My plan was to do several rounds of this. I felt that I had explained the directions well, but some of the students were "overly confident" with the directions and skipping steps, not waiting for the whole group to be done, which is vital for the activity to work. So we needed to pause, regroup, and work through everything slowly until the whole group was able to carry out the steps to completion. It was the first time, and next time will be better. But the kids said they really liked it!
Mindfulness thought for the week: Be nice to each other. It's all that really matters.
Monday brought about a day of reflection. At the elementary school, we were given some time to visit other classrooms in order to help one another on design and organization in our classrooms. It was a nice opportunity (which is sometimes difficult to really do during the otherwise busy school day) to really look closely at my colleagues' classroom and reflect on how I can make changes within my own classroom. If you have been following my blog since its inception, you will know that I have a rather different classroom arrangement than what is typical. It was nice to share my input with other teachers on the benefits that I am seeing from my classroom setup and also reflect on what I would do differently. I had an additional conversation with another teacher today about how I don't know if I would ever see myself going back to the previous setup I had. By no means do I consider it perfect (I don't really see how any classroom arrangement could be, as it is always dependent on the users), but I think it provides wonderful opportunities for the students to learn "soft skills": identifying what works for them, making good choices on who they surround themselves with, and self-regulation. I also took some time this week to have the students offer some feedback on the classroom arrangement as well as what we have on the walls that they don't really feel like they use. It was nice to hear their thoughts.
Tuesday and Wednesday were good days in the classroom. The students were working hard, being (fairly) respectful to one another, and we got to try out a few new things. Last week Monday my team worked on improving some of our science curriculum in the area of forces and motion, and I started the lessons this week. I think the work that we did was fantastic. The students have been very engaged in the activities, and what I like most is the discussions we have and questions the students ask. Sure, the questions and discussions end up adding a lot of time to the lesson, but I think that where the students do some of their best learning. Plus, the stuff you don't get to can always be done tomorrow :-)
This morning was a little frustrating for part of the time. I tried a new math fact activity with the students, and some of the students had a hard time following directions. We played a game where I clipped name badges on the students' backs with math division facts in one set of cards and the quotients in another set. The students then needed to find their partner cards to complete the division equations and then write down the equations to keep track and see how many different equations they could make. The students would then randomly switch cards with another classmate and repeat the process. My plan was to do several rounds of this. I felt that I had explained the directions well, but some of the students were "overly confident" with the directions and skipping steps, not waiting for the whole group to be done, which is vital for the activity to work. So we needed to pause, regroup, and work through everything slowly until the whole group was able to carry out the steps to completion. It was the first time, and next time will be better. But the kids said they really liked it!
Mindfulness thought for the week: Be nice to each other. It's all that really matters.
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