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.