Rachel Sreebny’s
weekly reflections for Week 20 (Feb 27 – March 2, 2012)
This
week I started teaching all subjects and leading the classroom in place of Mrs. Cake. It was very challenging, but I had
a lot more fun each day and the hours seemed to melt away between the first and
last bell of the day. I had used a great
deal of mid-winter vacation to plan for Reader’s Workshop, CMP II: Bits and
Pieces for math, Space Colony Storypath for our content and writing subjects,
spelling, vocabulary, and general daily items like cougar of the month voting,
transitioning, and supervising on the class field trip to the EMP.
Reader’s
Workshop is a lot of fun to teach, but was challenging in that I had to present
a lot of information quickly and still ensure that students had plenty of time
to build their reading appreciation and stamina. This was particularly difficult
coming back from a week of vacation! I enjoyed the curriculum a lot and was
able to adapt it effectively so that all students were able to use reading
strategies and think about unifying ideas in their personal reading selections.
I am looking forward to starting Writer’s Workshop next week because of the
similarity and connections between the curricula.
Math
was interesting because the CMP curriculum was originally designed and
implemented in 6th grade classrooms. While the subject matter of
fractions, decimals, and percentages is nothing new or impossible for the minds
of 5th graders, the tasks set forth in the text books were indeed a
bit challenging for the majority of students. The most effective way that I was
able to teach this curriculum was to have students practice daily on their
white board, which Mrs. Cake advised, and I scaffolded strategies through which
to solve tricky problems on the board and then let students practice these
strategies on their homework. I believe that giving the students opportunities
to work on homework in class was a deviation from the norm, but the effect was
clear: all students attempted to complete their homework. When we switch back
to Everyday Math next week, I will be glad of the 5th grade friendly
directions and workbooks once more.
The
Storypath: Space Colony was my favorite part of the week. Although I always
felt rushed for time, I chose to look at it as “teaching with urgency,” which
was something we were advised to do in our teacher preparation program. I
brought in sample books of wallpaper and upholstery and created skin tone paper
dolls of all skin tone colors. The students set forth to create their own
individualized space colonist dolls, representing multiple nations, ages, and
occupations. Students also filled out job applications for their characters,
wrote in personal “Travel Logs,” and gave self-introductions in front of their
class. It was challenging for students to be heard during their introductions
because of the general noise of the open-concept classroom, but I didn’t
observe any real nervousness or shyness as I watched the students, and I
believe this speaks to the progress they are making as students and as young
people. Travel log writing was successful in that this group of students who
usually hates writing anything down
on paper seemed almost eager to put down their character’s story, feelings, and
hopes for the space colony future. My shining moment was when I read ELL
student Tam Ta’s travel log, in which she had included the phrase, “See you
later, Earth!” It was the most creative her writing has ever been, and I feel
confident that student buy-in has been achieved this week in our content and
writing areas. I am enthusiastic to start next week with more attention to
science - particularly to the solar
system and attributes of its 8 planets.
My
greatest challenge this week was in classroom management. I am not the seasoned
teacher that Mrs. Cake is, and so students often took their time during
transitions, as if to test how patient Ms. Sreebny could be. However, I believe
that my patience and rationale for any reprimands or corrective actions I took
were understood as necessary by all of the students. I also had students
practice their classroom transitions during the first few minutes of recess;
students were timed and judged as they lined up, came to sit down, and returned
to their desks. We practiced as many times as we needed to until it was
perfect, and I have noticed a small but significant change in their transition
behaviors. I will continue to work on my classroom expectations with the 5th
graders this following week, and I look forward to reflecting on strategies
that are effective so to add them to my own classroom management tool belt.
No comments:
Post a Comment