September; Space and Substitues

The past few weeks have been so busy. I finished my community unit and started on space. The kids have loved space and have surprised me with their ideas and thought process about the solar system. I wasn't even going to focus in on rotation but when it came up in a book the class really started to question it and begin ti develop an understanding for why the planets have different time lengths for rotating around the sun.

For this unit I did two book studies, one with a nonfiction book about rockets and spaceships. I wanted the students to understand that rockets do not stay in space, they just help the spaceship get into space. After we discussed the book they then made their own spaceship and used objects in space for their setting. I let them use aluminum foil, glitter and construction paper. The kids had a lot of fun and they turned out so good.

For my second book study last week we read Green Wilma Frog in Space and then the students made an alien and had to decide what planet it would live on. For this book I focused on setting and how two characters do not always do well on the same setting. With this project I had painted puzzle pieces and made the worksheet to make the setting and give some information on their alien. They had to give the alien a name, a planet to live on, describe the planet and say what the alien likes to do. I thought with this project the students' personalities really came through in how they saw their alien and what they thought an alien would do.

 

This month I also had to spend quite a bit of time outside the classroom. I started working on my professional development where I am focusing on math instruction, specifically with my lowest math group who need a lot of help with number sense and number in base tens. I really enjoy teaching math and believe that it is a strength of mine. But within 6 days I was out for 3 and not did not enjoy writing sub plans. Being gone last Thursday I felt like I had to go back over all the rules and procedures on Friday. While I think reviewing is important I also feel that my kids are missing out on real instruction time. My next day out was Monday and it went so good. The sub left a great note and actually worked through the lessons. The kids enjoyed her and I felt like they were valued while I was gone. That all changed though with my sub today. She was exactly what I was afraid of. I use a behavior clip chart and she had my entire class clip down numerous times. Yes they are not perfect but I cannot imagine what they all could of done to warrant that. My coworkers also told me that a few of my kids were crying through out the day and just seemed to be incredibly sad. I felt horrible and instead of making up for the lack of teaching I felt that I had to rebuild some of their self esteem. So hopefully after this chunk of time I won't have to leave them for awhile.