Last Day!

I can’t believe it’s my last day today. I’m not exactly sure of the plan for the day except that I am observing Kindergarten at 2:30. I have mini lessons ready to go just in case and I will be ready to do morning meeting since it’s Friday and the kids get to choose the greeting and activity. The afternoon should be easy, and I have a feeling there is some sort of surprise planned for me at some point, from some of the things kids said throughout the week. The principal came in this morning to see how I was doing and gave me the write up from when he observed me. My CT seems to be busy this morning and hasn’t been in the room much.

The morning went by as usual. My CT ran morning meeting and all of the lessons, so it was pretty easy. Lots of kids gave me hugs when they came in today and one girl even got me a sticker book. It was really cute! I wore a blue star since today is class color day and our class picked to wear the color blue. It’s pretty cool because everyone came in wearing blue today.

In the afternoon, my CT told me to go make copies of something. When I came back, the class was all hiding and they surprised me with cupcakes and a huge bag of gifts. It was adorable and so much fun! I was really touched ☺ This experience has been amazing and I can’t wait to have my own class.

Last Thursday

Today I did some teaching in the morning and observed the rest of the day. I went over to observe another first grade teacher during the morning as well. It was interesting to see how she worked her Daily 5 and guided reading. I feel like her guided reading style would probably suit me better than the way my CT does it. Instead of having them all read the same book at the same time, she had each group member reading a book at their level silently. When they were stuck on a word they let her know and she would work it out with them. After they finished a book, she would have a book talk with them asking who was in the book, when it happened, what happened, where it happened, the problem and the solution. If they couldn’t give a good answer to anything she had them reread it. The kids seemed really focused. I asked her how she knows if they skip words or if they are really reading it. She said they have to be able to answer the questions, and they know that they have to ask themselves if the words match and make sense. If not they need to go back. They practice those strategies a lot in the beginning of the year.

I did two mini lessons this morning and ran yellow group. My minis were on the y sound at the end of words and on fantasy vs. reality. They went really well. The kids liked these fantasy vs. reality task cards that I had. I didn’t print them out; I just used the pdf file and put them up on the Smartboard. It worked really well and if I do a mini tomorrow, I may use other task cards in the same way. I have some more for fact vs. opinion that are really cool.

I can’t believe tomorrow is my last day. I’m excited but also kind of sad about that. I love the kids in my class and have really had so much fun being here. I can only hope to have a class as good as this one when I start teaching.

Quiet day

I wasn’t quite sure which lessons I’m doing in the morning today, so I over planned a little bit. It was lucky because my CT did think I was doing all of the mini lessons. I also came in early to work on guided reading and grab a few more books for that. That was helpful today when I pulled two guided reading groups. I did a lesson on cause and effect using the Smartboard, one on summarizing a story using the book we read on Monday, and one on Fact vs. Opinion. They all went well and the class was pretty good for me today. My CT needed to leave the room and go on a conference call so I had another teacher in the room with me for a bit and they were great. I don’t really understand it, but they seem to behave better for me when my CT is not in the room. This is frustrating because I feel like she sees more of the bad than the good. But, I got my evaluation from her today too and it was really glowing, so that was really nice to read. She also wrote me a letter of recommendation that is fantastic. I’m really relieved about all of that. She is going to email it to me so that I have it.
It was nice to observe most of the afternoon today too. I got to see how my CT does Problem Solving, which is a math program we do on Wednesdays. I started it, so I hadn’t seen her do a lesson with it yet. She did it the same way I did, but added a few helpful hints. She also reviewed homework with them, which was something I hadn’t done. They have all been doing well on their homework anyway, but it probably was a good idea to expose them to it first. The problem is just like the two examples done in class.

My favorite part of the day was writing young authors books. The class started publishing their first few pages into their real books from their dummy books. They are looking really great. I like the way they are working on them. Now they will start doing 3 pages at a time in the dummy book, then publishing three pages, going back and forth until they are finished.

At the end of the day, we were coming back from music. Music is outside in the trailers so we always have trouble coming into the building without running. I told them that if they could walk all the way back to the classroom without running, we’d play a game. Luckily, that worked and we resumed out game of 7-up that we didn’t get to finish yesterday.

Observing 4th and 6th

I did lots of observing today, which was a nice break and extremely interesting. The day started with a great meeting and presentation about using vocabulary in lessons, especially for ELL students, but really for everyone. She gave some fantastic ideas about how to do that. Her presentation was fantastic and it will be on the intranet. I plan on downloading it while I have access to it and saving that. After morning meeting this morning, I went to 4th grade to observe a math lesson. They are using a new math program in the upper grades so that was interesting to see. It is a Smartboard integrated program called enVision math. The lessons are done step by step on the Smartboard, with a vocab, a lesson, guided practice, and individual practice. The focus was much more on content than on management, which is a big difference from 1st grade. I like the way the tables were organized – clusters of desks. I noticed that she differentiated by letting anyone having trouble with the individual assignment to come work with her in a guided practice at the board. The only trouble was that the students that finished early had nothing to keep them occupied after so the room got a little loud.

In the afternoon, I observed a 6th grade math class. I think it’s funny how all the teachers seem to want me to observe during math time. This was a class mixed up of all the 6th grade students, who have different homeroom teachers. It seems like they start mixing up the classes a bit to get them ready for Middle School. The 6th graders were using laptops for math class. The teacher instructed them using the Smartboard on where to go and how to play a few of the game she wanted them to play – on angles, measuring with a protractor, and symmetry. Then they were called by row to go get a laptop from the laptop cart, which is shared throughout the school. They all worked individually on their assignment. All of them seemed to be on task and the teacher circulated around the room helping students, giving pointers, and asking which games they liked the best and why. I was impressed with her use of technology, though I wish I had gotten to see a little more instruction.

When I got back, our first graders were doing pattern blocks for math. I helped check work as they went along. Then we all took a picture, which I am using as part of my gifts to the class, before I took them to library. When they got back, we played 7-up until buses were called.

Monday with a 2nd Grade Observation

The day started off slightly better. Morning meeting went pretty well and I ran the first few mini lessons. It was good to finally be back to a normal schedule this afternoon, now that PSSA is over. The afternoon was interesting because I observed a second grade math lesson. It was really nice to see how another class was set up and how it worked. I liked her classroom setup with desks instead of tables. I also liked the class marble idea. The teacher started with an empty jar of marbles, and if the class id doing well, they can add marbles. If they are not, they take away marbles. If the jar gets full, the class wins a party. It was also interesting to see how she differentiated activities and handled giving multi-step directions. She repeated the three steps, had them repeat it 3 times, then had two students stand up and recite the directions. She put on some quiet music while they worked, that seemed to keep them a little calmer. She had 3 different activities. The first was a quiet game in pairs. The second was an individual worksheet and the third was another worksheet, which she had differentiated. She placed two different worksheets on the ground and put Popsicle sticks with students’ names underneath the one that they should be doing. She also explained that if one seems easier than the other, it’s not because some people are not smart or not good at math, it just means it’s what’s right for them. I asked her why she explained it and she said she got a letter from a parent saying that her student came home saying that he always gets harder papers than everyone else. She asked what would happen if she got a paper that was too hard – they’d get frustrated. What if it was too easy? They’d zip through it in a second. She said this is the paper that is right for you. I also liked her technique when the Smartboard wasn’t working of asking them to send positive energy to the Smartboard as she was working on it. They all held out their hands at the board. It gave them a thought to think about and something to occupy them until it worked. I also really liked her energizer activity that she did before the lesson. The class is making up a class dance and they add steps to it every once in a while. They just count and on each number they have another dance move that they do.

St. Patrick's Day

This morning went well! The kids seemed to be in a good mood and they were calmer. My CT had green chocolate coins that she put on everyone’s desk for St. Patrick’s Day. They were excited and I was worried that it would start the day off on a crazy note, but it actually was fine. I reminded them that they needed to do all of their morning jobs if they wanted to eat their chocolate. They did a really good job and all of them were working on their morning work when it was time for them to meet for morning meeting. They all go into the circle quickly and we did a fast “Top of the Morning” greeting for St. Patrick’s Day. We played 4 Corners for ST. Patrick’s Day too since our 4 corners are St. Patrick’s Day related. We have spring, flowers, leprechaun, and 4 leaf clover. The game went well and they were good. We did two rounds before it was time to line up for art. At that time, one girl pushed to get to the front of the line. She fell down and go upset. She is already in trouble for hitting and hurting other kids and she knows she needs to be at the end of the line all week anyway. I told her this and she got angry. She hid in the corner of the room. My CT didn’t step in this time, and I was proud of myself that I got her to move. I told the class to go ahead to the first stopping point, and I was glad she followed the class after they left.

I went to go pick up the class at art and it was a madhouse. There was a volunteer in from Art Goes to School and they were writing a story about a painting. It seemed fun but they were all yelling and calling out and screaming! The volunteer read me the story they created and it was really cute. We got them in line and after a few minutes, finally got them to quiet down. I told them they needed to be really quiet in the hall because PSSA testing was going on. I was glad they seemed to calm down quick and I read them a story for the 6-7 minutes we had until it was time for recess.

The rest of the day was kind of a blur. We did Daily 5, which went well except for one round. I met with red group and two students on either side of the table were giving me trouble. I gave them a book about a crab and one said it made him seasick. The other one was just looking for attention so he kept hitting the book on the table and saying “ow.” Then I said we needed to get through the book and they both sat on the floor. I gave them the choice of sitting on their chair or reading it in time out. One sat up, the other didn’t. He then got upset saying we always read and never do activities in that group. I told him we never do activities because we can’t get through a book first. I said if we got through the book, we’d do an activity. Instead, he got really upset, and went to time out, saying he was going to stay there forever. My CT went to talk to him but he didn’t tell her why he was upset. I talked to him afterwards and her too and he finally came back when we started writing. We did a fun writing exercise where they got to write about either finding a four leaf clover or a leprechaun.

At the end of the day, we went out with the rest of the first grade classes to play dodgeball. It was so nice outside! That was really fun and we all had a great time. When we came in one teacher asked me to sit with her class for a few minutes because she needed to do something. I did and I was proud to go in and get them involved playing a game of 7-up before they called buses. When the teacher came back, everything was quiet and calm. She thanked me. That was a nice end to the day.

Wednesday

This morning was interesting because the school had a staff meeting with the superintendent about next year’s budget. It wasn’t a big surprise that there is a deficit and there will be cuts throughout the district next year. I was noticing my problem with time outs a little more. I have trouble because every student starts talking at once and I’m not sure who started it. Then if I redirect them and get them all quiet, they are usually all doing the right thing until it breaks down again. It seems like it’s all or nothing and I have a hard time getting it to a point where they are mostly good with only a few calling out for a sustained amount of time. I do feel like a I would use a slightly different behavior management system. I have been reading about a bunch of other ideas on some teacher discussion boards online and I feel like some of them may work better for me than the system in place in my current classroom. I would like to try new things, but I feel like my last 1 and a half weeks here is not a good time to start a new plan. I plan on mapping out my own plans and coming up with a system that will fit my own teaching style better in my own classroom.

Meanwhile, my CT was filling out my final evaluation form throughout my class and it was nerve-wracking. My morning was better than yesterday morning but I felt like I was being watched the whole time. When they all came in from gym, they all wanted a drink of water. I told them to line up quietly and get one drink then go right back into the classroom. My CT was impressed that it worked so well, but she gave me some tips for next time – to have a teacher helper go back and count, giving them each 3 seconds, then by calling them to go one row at a time. I didn’t think of that at the time, but I’m glad it didn’t lead to chaos.

The rest of the afternoon went pretty smoothly. I ran my last pit lesson today on the American Flag and it went really well. The kids were fascinated by the pictures of old flags and how it has changed through the years. They also really liked learning about the rules for the flag and how it needs to be raised and lowered and things like that. I also had a flag concentration game that they loves, as well as websites that show the flags for every country and every state. They were amazed to see all those flags. I emailed the websites to all of the teachers so they could look more closely in their own classroom.

The day came to an end fast. We played a shape song about 3D shapes that I found on YouTube. It was great! It’s a catchy song, but not annoying, and all the kids were singing it by the end. It was posted by a kindergarten teacher, and lots of teachers commented how they liked it. Finally, we made 3D shapes together out of paper. The kids had some trouble with them at first, but we all did one together in a circle first and that let them get the hang of it. Once they figured them out and finished one, they were able to come up and choose another one to do independently. They had fun and figured out that they could put a triangular prism on top of a cube to make a house. One student even started to make a stage and a band playing on it with his 3D shapes. That was impressive, especially because we was close to tears a few minutes before thinking he couldn’t do it. The day ended quickly and we needed to clean up fast!

Long day

Today is just a regular day, with a schedule change for PSSA. We had specials right after our morning meeting at 9:35, and when we came back, we only had 10 minutes until lunchtime. After lunch, we did our 3 rounds of Daily 5 before it was time for snack and pit. We had one student arrive late today. Yesterday he was out of school because he had broken his clavicle and he came in in a sling. He also got a haircut. When he arrived, my CT explained what had happened, and that we need to be careful not to bump into him. A lot of students were surprised because they noticed his haircut and not his sling.

The day was kind of a hard one. Our schedule has been very crazy with PSSA and we had a long afternoon in the classroom today. By the end of the day, the class was pretty restless. I have been trying out some new strategies to deal with this, but it is something I really want to work on more. I also feel like when I have my own classroom with my own rules and procedures it will be a little better because I can set up my own rules. I also get the feeling they don’t consider me as a full teacher…they know I’m a student teacher. I’ve even had one student say that to me – but you’re still a student too. That drives me crazy.

I met with the principal after school today to talk about the lesson he observed yesterday. The meeting went well and he offered some great advice and suggestion while he also explained what he liked about my lesson. He liked seeing my interactions with kids and he was impressed with my lesson planning. He gave me some suggestions on how to engage everyone fully and how to redirect if a discussion veers off topic. Overall, it was a tough day, but productive. I am hoping to start the day off well tomorrow with a good morning meeting using a new greeting I found.

Principal Observation

Today was pretty crazy. The kids are wired for some reason. We also have a weird schedule because of PSSAs. We had lunch really early – 11:00. The morning went by quickly because we had morning meeting and only 2 rounds of Daily 5 before it was time for recess and then lunch. After lunch, we did our last round of Daily 5 before we moved on to writing.

The principal came in to observe my writing lesson. It wasn’t bad, but I wish it had gone a little more smoothly. The class was a little bit chatty but they were all pretty much on task and working well. I needed to focus more on writing conventions and somehow having the ability to get them to do free writing some more. The principal told me he thought it went well and he’ll look forward to reading my reflection, which is on a form I need to fill out and send to him. I’m interested to hear what he has to say, though I’m nervous about it too. It is nice to be done with observations at least.

After the writing lesson, we had pit, so that was nice to get a little breather after the observation. And right after pit, we had snack and music and recess, so we had another pretty nice break before math and dismissal. The weird schedule made the day seem to go really quickly.

Last Friday

Today was a half day for students and a full day for teachers. We attended a workshop this afternoon on a new click response system that works with smart boards. The day went fast and the workshop was interesting, and the Smartboard click response systems are great – they allow quick polls or assessments mid-lesson, by having students type in responses on individual clickers. It reminds me of the “Ask the audience” questions of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. I hope to try them sometime soon.

After our workshop, my CT and I just did some planning for next week. The principal is observing me on Monday, so I wanted to be all set for that. It was a great first week teaching and I’m looking forward to next week – especially after the observation is over ☺

Better Wednesday

My CT was out today and we had a sub. He was a student teacher here last fall. It was interesting talking to him about his experience student teaching in 3rd grade. The kids responded well to him. I was a little worried, but the kids knew him because he was their sub in library yesterday, so at least it was a familiar face.

My observation in the morning went well. My supervisor came in and sat back at my desk while I was doing guided reading and Daily 5 mini lessons. He didn’t come up front with me to hear guided reading, he was more interested in watching the rest of the class do their individual work, so I needed to be sure to keep a close eye on the entire class while I worked with the guided reading groups. They were doing a good job and were pretty much on task the entire time. I needed to give a few time outs and reminders, but that also showed that I was watching them – both to my supervisor and the class.

The afternoon was pretty good too. We got through writing pretty easily. I was excited about doing a Fancy Nancy activity with the class. We read a book about Fancy Nancy’s favorite fancy words. Then we wrote down a bunch of the words on index cards to display on a bulletin board. We talked about what each fancy word meant and then the class wrote in their journals for a few minutes, trying to use some of the fanciest words that we talked about. We had one student share and then it was time for pit.

I ran the pit lesson today – we did a Second Step lesson. Second Step is a program that the school has that goes through a bunch of social situations. Today’s lesson was about sharing and taking turns. The lessons are simple – they are basically reading from a card and doing some role play exercises. I also had a book I was thinking about reading to them, but the other teachers started talking about some things they’ve noticed related to sharing during recess that they wanted to bring up, so that took up some time. Then we previewed one of the songs that they will be learning for the 1st and 2nd grade play.

We came back for snack and math. During snack, I had some students share from their journals since so many wanted to share. After snack, we did our usual Wednesday Problem Solving. This went well and we got through both problems really quickly! Sometimes we only get through one, but today, we did both and still had about 25 minutes to spare. Still, many students wanted to share, so I had them sit in a circle and we had a few more shares. Then we played around the world for the last few minutes. I am hesitant to play that sometimes because one student gets particularly angry when she loses. I tried to give her an easy problem, but she still lost. She did a little pout, but it wasn’t too bad. She seemed ok afterwards too, so she wasn’t holding a grudge.

They went to recess and music after math and the day was over. It was definitely a much better day than yesterday. I hope tomorrow is the same way.

Crazy Day

This morning was definitely more difficult than yesterday. The class was super chatty and off task from the get go. I talked to them in the morning, once we sat down for morning meeting, reminding them of their morning jobs and what they need to do. I asked if anyone was not sure what they needed to do in the morning, and no one was. I told them I’d be watching tomorrow morning to see who is doing the right thing. My CT thinks that they are testing me to see how far they can push and that I need to stay firm. I went into the afternoon prepared to be firm in my rules.

The afternoon was all right. It was definitely a harder day than yesterday. I am trying to think about what I did differently today than yesterday that would have made a difference. I think yesterday’s math lesson was a little easier because we sorted items on the Smartboard, which usually gets them to be a little calmer for some reason. We went through poetry and handwriting pretty easily. They always seem to be pretty good during handwriting. They complete their pages neatly and they are quiet while they work.

In math, the geoboards were a great manipulative, and we used them with rubber bands. We talked about the rules for rubber bands first and luckily there was no flinging of rubber bands during the lesson, but there was a lot of excessive play with the boards. After 3 tries and 2 warnings, we stopped and worked on a worksheet at their desks instead. This worked well. We went through the worksheet together. Luckily, it was this moment when the principal came in the room, so they were all calmer and focused at that time. They did seem to understand the concept of congruency, so that was good at least. For the end of math, I had them use their extra dot paper, which we were using for congruency, to play a square making partner game. This worked well to fill about 7 minutes I had left until they went to recess.

Tomorrow, my CT is out and I am being observed, so I hope they are better behaved.

First Full Day!

This morning went very well! This week I am teaching everything and my CT really stepped back and let me handle everything. Morning meeting was a little rough and I gave a bunch of time outs, but the group seemed to settle down a lot and during Daily 5, everything went smoothly. We started a March craft – drawing a rainbow with a clover and pot of gold on each end. They are looking very cute. We didn’t have a ton of time to finish them, but I will try to squeeze this in asap. Daily 5 went very well. I felt better about keeping an eye on the class while I was working with the guided reading groups.
The afternoon was pretty fun too! I felt really calm and it seemed to flow well. My CT’s notes were helpful and she also told me that I seem to be doing a great job. We did a fun writing project where they had to think about what they would do if they were invisible. We did that and after quick mad minute and then it was time for pit. Pit was nice because I wasn’t running it, so I was just watching the kids and making sure they were focused. Later, in math, we did a fun symmetry project. I introduced the concept of symmetry and we talked about how we would fold a shape in half to check to see if it is symmetrical. I had cut out symmetrical pictures in magazines and pasted them to papers. I had them pic a picture and they had to go back to their desks and color in the other half. They came out pretty good! I am going to laminate them and make them into a class book. When they finished, I let them finish up their pot of gold crafts, so now everyone is done. After that, they could read. When everyone was done, I collected the symmetry papers and then I had them all come up to the floor. We did a fast recap of what symmetry means using a little Smartboard game I found. Then it was time to pack up and get ready for recess and gym. It felt good to get a complete day from start to finish under my belt and I am pretty excited to do it again tomorrow!

Last Friday

I felt really good about last Friday. I didn’t have much time to reflect after the day because I was heading out of town for the weekend, but I was glad to end the week on a good note. I am pretty well-planned and well prepared for next week, and some for the week after as well. The day seemed to flow well and I felt like the timing and pacing of everything worked out. We did a lot of fun activities. The superintendent even stopped by quickly and I got to say hello and introduce myself.

Loud Thursday

I am tired today. I taught pretty much all day again and it went well. The class was chatty from the get go, so we were all having trouble getting them to focus. The morning lessons were probably the best, but all of them went pretty well. By the end of the day they had started getting really crazy, but I felt calmer and ready to deal with it. I gave a bunch of time outs and each time I did, they would shape up and pay a little more attention until it broke down again. During math, I had set up to play a few probability games with different math stations around the room, but the class was getting too crazy. I pulled everyone back and told them that we can’t handle playing games today and we’d just sit up front and do the lesson regularly. We played a Smartboard game and I had them stand up and sit down for different answers to try to get them moving in a more controlled manner. I told them I was really sad that we weren’t going to get to play the games and that maybe if everyone is shaped up throughout the rest of the lesson we could play. I am planning on playing the game tomorrow instead, since we originally scheduled two days to teach probability anyway. Hopefully we can play the game because I think it would be fun. It’ll give me a way to start the lesson tomorrow – telling them that I hope we can play our game today and that they need to remember their self controls.

In the afternoon, instead of going to computers, we visited our buddy class – a 4th grade class out in the trailers. Each 4th grader had a 1st grade buddy. They did buddy reading. I was amazed how different it can be in the trailers. I remember being out in the trailers myself and how much I loved those classrooms. I still like them now. The class got very loud, but it was ok because there weren’t other classes in the same room or next door that would be disturbed. I think I like closed classrooms better than open. In a closed classroom, I wouldn’t want to be loud all the time, but when we do activities, it would be fun to not have to be as incredibly conscious of the noise level. The only problem was, after the buddy read, walking back to the classroom, out class was crazy. They were running and yelling when we went outside to walk back. My CT spoke to them when we got back in the building and we didn’t play silent ball like we usually do at the end of the day because they were acting too crazy.

Short Blog

I felt like the day today went very well. I went through the whole day with no real issues at all. I taught everything except for one mini lesson in the morning, and I feel like I am prepared for teaching the next two weeks in full. I planned out my lessons for next week and I am excited for a lot of them, especially some of the writing lessons. Towards the end of the day, one student in the class kept coming up to me during math to talk about something unrelated. I explained to him that he needed to save his story for after the lesson but I can’t talk to him during a lesson. After the lesson was over and they were packing up I went over to him to tell him he could talk to me now, and he got very upset and started to cry, saying no one ever listens to him. I explained to him again that I will listen to him, but I can’t do that while I’m teaching, and he needs to not get up and start talking in the middle of a lesson. My CT said I did the right thing and that he needs to learn that he can’t do that. We are going to try to think of some strategies to help boost his confidence a little though, because he has started to do things like this often over the past few weeks.

All Day Tuesday

I taught for a full day today. We started out with morning meeting, which ran pretty well. My CT was out of the room but I had another teacher with me who helped me run the meeting. I did a greeting where they needed to greet each other by last names (Mr. or Miss ____ ). A lot of them didn’t know each other’s last names, so they had to ask each other. It was ok, but we may practice that again. The activity I had them do was to get up and march in place, jog in place, swim, dance, etc. Then I would tell them to freeze and write a spelling word in the air. This was pretty fun. Then I had them take a few laps around the room and come back to their spots. I did a few mini lessons with the class on main characters. We talked about rays and a girl who went to a pet shop. We used clues from short stories to answer questions about what they learned. I met with green and yellow guided reading groups today. The green group was a little less squirmy and they enjoyed the new book I chose for them about two dogs. For my second mini lesson, I read a story called “If Dinosaurs Come Back” which they really seemed to enjoy. We will be doing some more activities with this book later in the week too.
I thought the afternoon went pretty well. I did poetry, handwriting, making meaning, and math. Poetry, handwriting, and making meaning were great. I was really impressed with the class during making meaning because they really enjoyed the book we read. It was about a boy who helped out at his father’s pizza shop. Then his father expanded the restaurant and hired more people. He couldn’t help out in the new restaurant and was always in the way. It seemed like a lot of kids could relate to feeling in the way.

In math today, we covered thirds and we did a “fraction person” activity that told the students to color in a blank person a certain way, according to the fractions. It said eyes ½ blue and ½ green, so one eye needed to be blue and one needed to be green, etc. We did it all together, one step at a time, in a circle. They started off doing really well, but when it got to doing fifths toward the end, they got confused. I modeled it for them and showed one that was done right, but it got a little confusing. Also, their crayons were mixed up and some kids didn’t have the right colors. This created a lot of chatter about sharing crayons and who had which colors. We finally got through it and I had them all turn in their papers. They put everything away and then I was going to have them sit quietly at their desks but I forgot a “mystery reader” was coming, so my CT had them all come back to the floor. Unfortunately, the “mystery reader” (a parent) didn’t show up, so my CT read them a book instead while I reviewed the homework with some students who were absent yesterday. I am really liking the “Making Meaning” lessons we do with reading comprehension. They are some of my favorites. The books are really fun and the kids really seem to get into the stories. I am looking forward to picking up writing lessons tomorrow.