Rotation B students were FABULOUS today! They came in excited but focused in on the tasks at hand. Having missed them last week, due to our half day, I was feeling some pressure to move them along toward catching up with the other classes. They are settling in and becoming more comfortable with each other too.
This week we discussed our SAGE class rules and expectations. I shared with the students that SAGE is somewhat like brain aerobics class (minus the sweat- LOL.) The work they do here should challenge them and hopefully, frustrate them from time to time. It is not supposed to be painful, but it is intended to stretch their abilities, take them out of their comfort zone and test the way they handle frustration. The safety net is close, although sometimes camouflaged. I need to know what they can handle and so do they.
Each week, the work they do in our room should be hard enough that they are missing at least one or two problems/questions. If they are getting everything correct, I will bump up the level of difficulty until they are missing some. I want to get them to their individual, instructional levels. All of our work (particularly in math and critical thinking) is done over until it is correct. I give small hints if they ask. If I feel like they are becoming too frustrated, I will set down with them and work through the problem. I've told them our classroom is a safe place to try something new and a safe place to fail. I try very hard to watch that a student is not getting too stressed, but I sometimes miss the signs. If your child expresses that SAGE is too hard, please contact me so we can talk about it with him or her.
For our affective, future goals project, the students began the rough draft paragraph about their aspirations. We discussed indenting, the position and purpose of a topic sentence, supporting details and a wrap-up or conclusion sentence. Although we had not had time to finish this draft, everyone had gotten a good start by our computer lab time.
In the lab, we reviewed the parts of the computer and the related vocabulary words. We also practiced how to locate their personal folders on the shared drive. They really listened well and jumped right into their typing. Using Microsoft Word as our tool, everyone was able to type what they had written on their rough draft and most were able to compose as they typed to finish the rest of their paragraph. Along the way, we learned to use the "tab" key to indent, the space bar to space appropriately between words and after punctuation, to format the font for style, to right click to correct spelling errors and to save and print our documents. Bravo boys and girls!
After a beautiful outside recess and our lunch, they finished drawing a picture of what they would like to be when they grow up. The students also worked to finish their construction paper head. They are excited to share them with you at our Open House on October 6th.
At the end of the day, we discussed Bloom's Levels of Thinking and what each level might look like. Next week I will introduce our Exploratory centers and the students will have an opportunity to look through the choices and choose their first center of the year.
Wow, what a busy day! Your children should sleep well tonight! I know I will!
No comments:
Post a Comment