Week 6

Monday and Tuesday

This week I added teaching math, story time, and began my action research. Monday, I did calendar as usual. I feel it went well. I also added a phonemic awareness activity. We did "one Potato, Two Potato"; one student would walk around the circle and bump a fist for every potato and when a fist got bumped it was out. When both fists were out, the student were out. The students all sang the song. This was a little difficult to get going but it got progressively better and I am doing it again on Wednesday, so we will see how it goes. My math lesson went alright. My transitions were kind of choppy and my closure was lacking. So I worked on my one for Tuesday. My action research started well. Things are going as I planned them and I have yet to make any alterations. Then I read aloud at the end of the day.

Tuesday morning Mrs. VanHorn did morning calendar. I sat back and observed. This gave me the opportunity to get a refresher and look at what I was doing in comparison to what I should be doing. I found that I am doing quite well and feel like I am getting better daily. It was kind of nice to have the morning off. I taught my math lesson this afternoon. I tried to focus more on my transitions and closure. I felt that my transitions got better from yesterday and I plan on working on that still. My students were all going at different paces and focused on Mrs. VanHorn and therefore my closure wasn't going to well. I decided it was better to move on to the next task at hand. That is this week thus far.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

Wednesday morning things went well with calendar. My math lesson went alright. We were doing estimation in pairs. One of the difficulties with this lesson was keeping everyone on task. I continued to work on my opening, transitions, and closure. I feel that everyday I am getting better and learning more.

Thursday morning went as usual. The afternoon was a different story. Laura had left and we had a substitute. For math I introduced paper folding and then rotating groups. It probably wasn't the best day to introduce to new methods but its over with now. Most of the kids had no trouble folding the paper, there were a few glitches and well it probably would have been a lot worse had Maryann and Mrs. Shaw not been there. I think I did quite well explaining the directions for the moving stations. I demonstrated what I wanted them to do and tried to be as clear as possible. The stations were a little chaotic. Some students completed all with eas whereas others did not come close at all. Thinking back I think the next time I will use a timer and then everytime it dings the students will move to the next station in some order. Overall I thought it went ok. I believe the students have the idea of what i wanted them to do and the next time I will make sure to use a timer and be stern on the order of rotating. The kids were ok for the rest of the day. There were times when they got to loud but we got things back in order.

Friday is fun Friday. I tried to introduce the fun Friday dance, but it did not go over well. The kids were not nearly excited as I was. Shared reading was quite humorous. It was kind of difficult trying to find all the songs, so that is definitely something I need to practice. I also had the most difficult time singing "Willaby Wallaby Woo." Thank goodness for Maryann she helped me a whole lot. Seeing how it was Fun Friday, the rest of the day went well. There were just a few instances of being too noisy during stations but nothing too outrageous.

Well this week I am adding shared reading and I am a little nervous but we will see how it all pans out.