Day Seven

Week Number Two
Day Number Seven
Hours Worked: 7:30-12:00 (Total: 4 1/2 hours)

Today is the day when I get up early so that I am at the school before the kids. This gives me a chance to see what the school is like when it is not in session, and to be honest, I liked being there it was kind of fun. :) This also gives me another opportunity to talk with Ms. Wallace about my goals or to schedule a day when I will be going to another class. The other class that I will be attending would be the other third grade class, or a forth and fifth grade classroom. By going into another classroom I would be able to see what other classes are like and see how the teacher works with different types of students.

While Ms. Wallace was teaching math class, I corrected their Mad Math Minute quiz that they have daily. What the student is tested on is thirty multiplication or addition facts, that they have to complete in a minute. The students who are done before the minute is up hands their paper to Ms. Wallace to be graded to see if they can move to the next level. The students who do not finish in time put their papers in the hand in box to be corrected later on in the day. If the students who handed Ms. Wallace their paper, PASS that student gets to move up one level, the students who handed theirs in but DID NOT PASS have to do the same level the next day. Today's math lesson was the scary negative number! The kids were a little scared that they were working with "numbers that have a minus sign in front of them" ( said by the kids), but Ms. Wallace explained it very nicely and the kids calmed down. The class used daily life that may use negative numbers, examples, the weather and when someone borrows money.

During snack time I played a game called OTHELLO with my buddies of the class. It was a lot of fun playing with them because I got to bond with them outside of being a teacher aid. During phonics they did an exercise where they had to elaborate more on a simple sentence, what Ms. Wallace asked them to do was add in more descriptive words (adjectives) or put in some quotation marks. Afterward they had to make a list as a class of words that has a silent consonant in it. Some of the words that they came up with were HALF, TALK (Silent L), KNIGHT, KNOW ( Silent K), WHO (Silent W), and THUMB, LAMB (Silent B).

Then it was James and the Giant Peach time! Since today was Author's Day Ms. Wallace had the class read two chapters out loud. During Author's Day Ms. Wallace promises the class a drink and a small snack. So while the class did their reading she left the room to make the punch and LEFT ME IN CHARGE! :) I had to look through the chapter and find what characters were speaking and assign a student a character to read. The students who did not get a character would switch being the narrator, after they read the two chapters I had to make sure that they were either working on finishing their story, or working on their journal responses and I was surprised that they did not give me a hard time because Ms. Wallace informed me that they like to do that when she is not there.

Getting ready for Author's Day was good. I poured the punch in cups and gave them to the students. Then everyone moved their desks into a circle, and I passed them ten flashcards to write down notes about each story. While a student is reading, the class (with Ms. Wallace and I included) would write down the students name on the flashcard and write down multiple comments on what they did well while reading their story or how their story was written. Then on the back of the card we had to write down one negative comment that would help them the next time they write a story.

Thursday, Ms. Wallace and I are going to go over my goals and make sure that we are not missing anything. We are also going to schedule a date when I will be going to the other classes.