oh january...

this week flew by...

MONDAY

we were supposed to participate in some MLK day volunteer activities, but a snow storm on sunday night through monday morning prevented us from going. we did spend some time talking about the significance of the day, but spent the rest of the day lesson planning.

TUESDAY

we have the older students (grades 4-6) on tuesdays. our first class is 6th grade. we finished a bit of our discussion defining global issues and then set off to talk about sustainability and finding solutions to global issues. we used the recent earthquake in haiti to illustrate the iceberg model of global issues...that often a catastrophic event is just the tip of the iceberg and that many complex, interrelated issues lurk beneath the surface. good lesson all in all! our education manager came to observe us and saw the tail of that lesson as well as our lesson with 4th grade. we had them do an interactive water cycle game using dice to determine where they go in the water cycle next. it was a lot of fun! we then had the students chart out how often they visited certain sites (clouds, ground water, the ocean, etc) on a bar graph (integrating science and math with interactive games!!!). it was lunchtime...and then art class with 1st grade. they are adorable...then we headed to 5th grade for a review of simple machines. caleb let a big version of "captain's coming" but instead of ship-themed actions...they all had simple machine actions (screw, lever, wheel and axle). they really enjoyed the game! at the end we had some extra time so we played the jedi mind trick...they loved it!

caleb started his after school chess program and i helped out with the drama club. hooray!

WEDNESDAY

our wednesdays are finally getting busier. our first class was kindergarten. we did a lesson on floating and sinking. first we read a book about floating and sinking. then we had them sort a bunch of items we brought from camp to predict whether they would float or sink...then we performed an experiment to see if they actually floated or sank. they did pretty well! most of the students were very engaged (shouting out, FLOAT or SINK), but one of them sat with his legs cross...hands neatly folded over his knees, very attentive to what was going on. it was PRICELESS! we lost their attention at the end, but i had a lot of fun!

afterward, i went to gym class to hang out with william and the rest of the 3rd graders. they were starting to play volleyball, and william got really into throwing the ball over the net and also enjoyed bumping the ball.

after gym class, we had lunch...the suited up to hang out at recess with the 3rd and 4th graders. when recess was over, we had reading groups with a couple 3rd graders...then went to our lesson with 2nd grade. we reviewed spaceship earth, learned about conservation and played Oh Deer! oh dear is what i have to say...they had a bit of trouble controlling themselves during Oh Deer! but gym class was next for them...

we spent the last hour before nature club hanging out and lesson planning a bit. oh nature club. i had the k-2 group, and caleb took the 3-6 students. my group was...interesting. we only got to a couple of games because the students had a difficult time focusing while playing in the snow. i learned a lot about classroom management during that adventure, so i'm glad for the experience. it's nice to see what you don't want to happen with a group of students so you can plan for that not to happen again...

THURSDAY

we enjoyed morning meeting with 3rd grade (love them). then we had a break to talk about what to do about nature club this week...things started to look brighter after our discussion with our contact. i was concerned that some of the students from my group might not come back this week, but i checked in with them and they all said they would be back! hooray! our lesson with 1st grade went really well! we just had them play Oh Deer! the entire time. i tracked their deer populations on a chart, and we talked about some reasons why the population fluctuated so much. it was awesome!! the 1st grade teacher mentioned afterward that she is noticing a lot of growth in caleb and i with teaching. that's great feedback : )

after 1st grade, we joined the chaos that is 5th grade during art class...yea...i got to have the back of my head be a model for one of the girls...that was fun...then we had lunch and went back up to art with kindergarten. they were playing with clay again and making pinch pots. they are such a crazy bunch...one kid wanted to make a cave with snakes and a bunch of animals living in it...which is totally awesome, but not what the art teacher wanted them to be doing at the time. haha.

after art class, we headed down to 3rd grade for a continuation of our water cycle lessons. that lesson went REALLY well : ) they were very behaved and stayed engaged the entire lesson! we ended a little early to get ready for the all school meeting. caleb and i helped the 3rd graders with a new poem/song they learned. the all school meeting was fun! i really enjoy the time that the school spends together.

FRIDAY

we went to sanderson, one of the other neighborhood schools (in ashfield/plainfield). we apparently used to teach at that school and might teach there next year. the campus and school are beautiful! i helped lead nature games with k-2 students. we had three rotations of students...2 before lunch and 1 after. it was kind of complicated, but it ended up working out. the first two groups were okay...i'm not sure if the students had a lot of fun, but i know chelsea and i learned a lot about leading games...(what NOT to do...). lunch was so much fun! they gave us veggie hot dogs and we led songs. i led this snowflake song and a moose song. i also helped with a few others. SOOO much fun! the last rotation after lunch was great. the kids were really awesome and seemed to enjoy our games a lot! : )

perhaps next week won't fly by so fast (although it probably will).