Go with the Flow

Word Work

• Today was very interesting when it came to word work. I did not feel especially comfortable with the word sort, but I did my best to make it work. My teacher thought that I had gotten confused with the categories, so she changed them. This made things a little tough because 2 out of the 3 columns on my cheat sheet were no longer correct. I am still grasping the concepts of open or closed sounds and long or short vowels. It felt like a train wreck. Eventually, my teacher realized that I orginally had the correct categories, so after the students returned from the computer lab, so quickly retaught the lesson. One of the students asked what had happened. She replied with, "I threw Ms. Lynch a curve ball." The student asked if I hit it. I said no, but my host teacher answered that I had hit the curve ball, but she fumbled it in the field. The student and I both laughed at that. Sometimes in teaching, things happen, but life goes on. In the future, I will cut out the word sort and have it clipped to the board so that it will be easier to see. I had the uncut word sort and a copy of the page of the book with the description and the answer to the words sort on the board, but the completed word sort was too small to comfortably see.

Monday Lunches

• I think that it is cool how the teachers decided to bond on Mondays. Every Monday, a different teacher brings either a soup and a dessert (in the winter) or sandwiches (in the warmer months). I like that they bring copies of their recipes. I would suggest that they put together a recipe book/folder. I might suggest this activity to my coworkers in the future. 

Circuits Review Day

• I asked my teacher to download Plickers today because her class iPad is connected to the school internet and mine isn't. As soon as her ap opened, I deleted mine. Soon after, her ap repeatedly crashed. I guess her IOS isn't updated. I decided to pass out an index card to each student for them to write their answers on. This took longer because I couldn't automatically see who had answered, I had to rely on students putting their thumbs up when they finished. I had planned to review the answer after everyone had answered with their Plickers. I still reviewed, but I worry that students may have changed their answers, which may sway my results. The students did pretty well at answering the questions. Another downside was how small the questions were on the screen and that students in the front row may have been able to see the light green circles around the correct answers. Students were also less engaged than if the Plickers ap had worked. 

Are boys supposed to be afraid of girls?

• Some of the boys were misbehaving on the way to the busses, so one of the teachers separated the boys by placing the between sets of girls. A boy in the back of the line asked me if boys are supposed to be afraid of girls. I replied that many of the kids his age don't like to be with children of the opposite gender. He said that most of his friends are girls. I laughed a little at that one. 

Planning

• I was supposed to take over math this week. We are learning about comparing fractions and about equivalent fractions. My teacher changed her mind, so I sent her my brainstorming doc full of ideas. I'm glad that I still get to contribute. Fractions are so abstract anyway. I'll just teach math later.