Friday Fill-In for October 4, 2012:
Whoa, this was a rocky week for our class. As you may have heard, I was out on Monday and Tuesday due to illness. (This is why there was no Practice Packet or Spelling Words.) I was finally feeling a little better on Wednesday and mustered up enough “voice” to come in to school. When I returned I heard stories of teachers having to come to the classroom asking the students to quiet down, Mr. Petersen had to speak to a few students, pillows were flying across the room, etc. As a class we discussed this behavior without mentioning any names. We decided that we were not following our Code of Conduct and needed to have some consequences. We would lose our “couch and pillows” for a week, our rocking chair for a week, and our special writing center for a little longer. I will slowly introduce parts of that center back into the classroom. I was a little sad and disappointed to hear about all this upon my return.
In the literacy block this week we practiced our Daily 5 and had to review a lot of what each element looks like. In math the students worked on addition number stories (word problems) with the substitute. To save my voice on Wednesday I used an a program that had animated stick figures to teach the lesson on simple addition and a game called “Beat the Calculator”. I think they enjoyed hearing some other voices and watching the stick figures as they learned. I am excited to use this more often!
I hope you all have a fun and safe long weekend!