March 27 (Mon.)

Today was the first day for a couple of things in class, making me think that video taping would probably be useless, but another teacher who has a student teacher this semester offered to tape me today, so I figured it was worth a shot. I could always tape again some other time as well…

We started a new vocabulary program AND we started poetry. Both lessons went GREAT! The kids were awesome (Mr. Redmond-my camera man and a gym teacher-threatened them with laps) and they really seemed fairly interested in what we were doing. I’ve got lots of points to work on (which I’ll save for the video write-up) but it looks to be a pretty good example of what goes on in my class on a daily basis.

The planning for this unit almost killed me this weekend. It has been really difficult to find quality materials to present everything the way I want it presented. Finding good read-alouds has been the hardest. Even the poem/story today didn’t quite do all I wanted it to do. They were interested for the first couple of pages, but then Jerome’s head went down, and then Jarrelle’s, and Alex’s… Gabby stopped looking at the pictures eventually too and put her head down. I know that these are the kids in this group that are most likely to do that sort of thing, but how can I keep them attentive like the other kids? I don’t want to bring in handouts that they have to fill in as we read at this point in the lesson. Why can’t they just sit and listen AND pay attention???

The group activities went really well. Lynn had full behavioral control, and the kids were respectful and on task. I didn’t have to turn from the novice kids at all, and I only helped the group right beside them once. The novice kids did really well with the syllable work. Sumaya was a little behind, but she was back to her old self, trying things out and asking questions. I included Johana in this group, and hopefully she will not only build confidence with her speaking, but she will make the effort to speak in English more because of it. We’ll see…