Bus Safety & My First Day of School

9/14/10

Half day schedule (every Tuesday) means that we skip SS & Science and substitute in Spelling and Grammar. Math happens everyday because math is awesome!

The SMART board wasn't working in math, so Dr. Morse was improvising on here feet, and did a great job! She had the students talk about what they liked and didn't like about math, and continued to go over routines for math class. I was sent on a xerox copy run, so I missed a chunk of the period. When I came back, the students had gathered information about what states students had visited in the US. They were then plotting this info onto a graph. This was an interesting choice of activity - one student had been to 48 states! I would be careful to do this activity in certain schools...varied socioeconomic could create awkward feelings for some students.

Grammar - the study of the structure of our language. Holler. Let's hit these students with some knowledge! Ms. Conrad gave an assessment (quick) to see where the students fell in their knowledge of grammar. I have to be honest...when I was correcting their classwork, I was totally second guessing myself! I can write well, but I can't diagram a sentence...yikes!

Grammar was split in half so that the students could learn about bus safety. We headed outside and learned how to properly exit the bus during an emergency. I even got to jump out of the back with the students!

Spelling - went over the history of spelling, which was pretty interesting! Lots of countries have had a say in how we spell things! 26 letters make up 44 sounds. 44 = Syracuse. It all comes back to the Orange!

Staff Meeting - went to the staff meeting, which was pretty interesting. Teachers presented ideas about the Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and it sounds like a great program. I think I'm going to be able to incorporate this into my Inquiry project (dun-dun-dunnnnn!). The focus shift is from teaching to learning, with a focus on team elements: interdependent relationship, common goals, mutually accountable to each other. To fully implement the program, it will take lots of collaboration. Teachers who attended the workshop shared this quote: "One teacher cannot meet the needs of all of the student in your classroom." YES! Thank you for being realistic. We can try, but it's kind of impossible. It can take 5+ years to be an effective PLC teacher, so patience is key.

Another teacher talked about homework - how it's not worth it. It's a trend that goes in and out of style about every 20 years, and it's on it's way out. The theorist Alfie Cohen suggest that the only homework that should be given in elementary school is reading.

First day of Class!
I met my professor, Audrey Friedman. She totally put me at ease about the inquiry project - plus she's from Attleboro, so she's got to be awesome! It looks like my idea of "girls and math" is going to be a good topic - and Audrey is psyched that we're using PLCs. Count it.