Today started with some learning lessons on how to create objectives with the whole class rather than just writing what we believe the objectives are and assuming that the class actually understands why these activities are being done. We have had several occasions lately where our principal has come into our class and asked our students why they are doing a certain activity and almost invariably the students are unable to say why the activity is important or is being done! Talk about frustration since we go over the objectives for each activity daily! But my CT has started to develop the learning and content objectives with the students daily so that they can take ownership of those activities and potentially understand more of why we are spending our time on certain activities.
We also continued progress monitoring with DIBELS testing. There were a couple students who made only slight progress but one student completely surprised me and just read his little heart out and now, is meeting standard! I was shocked but so thrilled for him!
The insight for today... Kids say and write hilarious things! As a teacher you have to learn when you can laugh and when you have to keep that to yourself as to not discourage the student from expressing their ideas aloud. But nonetheless, what they say and write is pretty funny sometimes.
In writing, in the spirit of Thanksgiving approaching and conferences messing with our normal routine, we decided to have the students write a "How To" paper about "How to Cook a Turkey". Most of the kids have no concept of how long to cook a turkey or an approriate temperature to cook it. For example, some students want the turkey cooked at 30 degrees for 9 minutes. Yikes! Or microwave for 10 minutes at 100 degrees. Interesting. The funniest one was a girl who wanted to cook a turkey that she called, "Turkey Extravaganza!". What were the ingredients, you may be asking yourself? Well a turkey, of course, and 12, that's right 12, lemons! I can't even imagine what that must taste like! :)
The other funny moment of the day was in my guided reading group. We read a story together about how kids can make money by starting their own businesses and gave examples of how some kids started businesses, the supplies they needed, how they advertised, and more. So, I decided that I wanted my group to decide in partners a business they could start and outline their business plan. Most decided to make lemonade, wash cars, or some other common job many of the students have done before. But one group decided to go above and beyond. The one partner was going to own a restaurant, the other (who just found out that she was going to be getting some bunnies) decided that in front of the restaurant she was going to have a stand where people could pet the bunnies, blow bubbles, and buy bunny poop because, the student said, "It's not very stinky and you don't have to do anything special to treat it. It's just naturally a great fertilizer!"
Wow, the things that seven-year-old students will say!
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