I realized this morning that in my math lesson plan that I wrote for teaching “Doubles plus one” I wrote that after the game I planned, I also planned for them to come back up to the Smartboard and do an activity. I realized that I never actually designed an activity for this on Smart Notebook. I did, however, make copies of a worksheet for them to do, so I think I’ll be using those instead. I have no idea what Smartboard activity I was thinking of, but while they are working on their worksheets, I may take a look on the computer and see if I can find one online to play with them afterwards. We’ll see how that works. I do wish I could access the internet on my laptop here because then I’d be able to do that now before the kids get here.
A little later this morning: I decided I did want to have a Smartboard activity to use in case the class finishes the worksheets early and just as a follow-up activity. I think I will have them do only side 1 of their worksheet and then do the Smartboard activity. Since I can’t get onto the Internet, I figured out how to create a quiz using the Smart Notebook software. It’s actually pretty cool and I think it’ll work well. I’m wondering if I should record myself doing my lesson today just to have as one choice to submit – I need to submit one video taped lesson (or audio recorded lesson) at some point. If I can figure out a simple way to do this, I may.
Now we are planning for next week and my Cooperating Teacher will be out on Thursday, so she is writing up plans for a substitute. There is also an assembly that day, so it sounds like it will be pretty crazy. I will teach math and handwriting and also word work for the first time, so that will be interesting. I think I still need some clarification of what word work entails, so I will ask about that soon. My Cooperating Teacher explained it to me and I know the students know how it works too, so it should go ok.
We just had the kids in for about 15 minutes. We did morning meeting and then it was time for recess and then lunch! It’s a pretty strange day. When they get back, it should be a little more normal. They’ll have a spelling test and then pit and math and then it should be time for specials (art today) and dismissal! I think it’ll go fast. I must admit, I was kind of hoping for a snow day today so I could do a little more planning and other chores around the house that I’ve been putting off, but it’s also good to get a day in. I don’t know how many extra days we have built into our schedule before we need to make up days. We have some but my university doesn’t tell us how many. So if we can get the day in, it’s good news in the long run.
Afternoon: I did my next math lesson – doubles plus one. It went well, but the class was chatty again. I got some great pointers from my cooperating teacher. She said she thought my pacing was great and that I seem to have a really good sense of when to move on to the next thing. I was doing a lesson on adding “doubles plus one” and we had a cool dice game to play with it. They take turns rolling a die and doubling the number then add one. Then they mark their square with a crayon. They seemed to understand pretty well when I explained it but when I sent them back to their seats it seemed to turn into chaos. I tried to get their attention using “bum buh de bum bum” but they didn’t respond. I thought I needed to be louder so I clapped and they clapped back. I did a few clapping patterns that they repeated and finally I had their attention. I asked for a show of hands to see who knew how to play the game. Only a few raised their hands. I asked one of them to tell me what would happen if I rolled a two and he explained it correctly. I repeated this and the class seemed to get it. I told them to try again. They did a pretty good job and the rest of the lesson went pretty smoothly. The tips my cooperating teacher gave me were good though. Instructing them to put their hands on their head and then praising one of the students that does it helps because with everyone’s hands on their heads, they can’t continue working when they should be listening. The other helpful suggestion was to have the pictures we used to remember doubles up in the front of the room so they could refer to it. That would have been helpful throughout the game and lesson and I wish I had thought of that beforehand. I even realized during the lesson how helpful that would have been. That is definitely something I will remember for next time.
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