BEDUC406 - 9/9 Wednesday

Students arrived today fully burdened with supplies and some extra items that my master teacher asks for; a coffee mug for having juice and reading the Weekly Readers, snacks for the whole class to be stored and served daily, and of course tissues. Students were allowed to pick their own seats as long as the desk groupings included boys and girls. This strategy allowed the teacher to see who is tight and whether their friendship is distracting from the learning. When the students arrive tomorrow morning they will have new seats, and again on Friday. Through this process the teacher gets a couple of chances to make adjustments without singling out a student or pair who are not working well together. Because this is a cooperative learning classroom, having functioning learning teams is important. After 6 weeks new seats will be assigned again.

We have 3 ELL students in the class, but have been in the program for 3 or more years. While I am sure language is a challenge for them, they "hide it" very well. We have one student who is new to the school and is on an IEP. Neither my master teacher or myself can guess what his issue is, but the IEP meeting is first thing tomorrow morning.

As predicted, the day was over-planned, so we cut out a math activity. A significant amount of time was spent on the homework process, who signs what, what stays in the folder, and what happens on Friday. The teacher could have had this all prepared as a packet for the students, but by literally walking them through the forms and accountability process, they all got to assemble their homework folders and take some responsibility for what was expected. A tough after lunch lesson. The teacher asked a lot of questions as she explained each step so that the students could tell her what they understood. What appeared very chaotic at the beginning, fell together and it looked like most students understood what the homework was for that night as well as how they were going to keep track of their assignments for the semester.

Each child was given a goody bag as they left for the day.