Two days down and nobody is in the hospital, so I consider that a win!
Today we talked a good deal about expectations and how we should act in groups. We did some fun skits where students pretended to be ‘good’ groups, and then pretended to be ‘bad’ groups. Everyone was a *tad* too good at the bad group “acting”, which is a little suspicious!
Today I wrote the students a letter introducing myself, and telling them about my family, and what I enjoy doing. Students then started a letter to me telling me about themselves, their family, and the things that they enjoy doing. They should also include any questions for me. These letters will be due THURSDAY. I’ll take them home over the weekend, read them, and then write them a letter back!
Students also received a neat little word ladder to work on. If they have any questions about vocabulary, they are welcome to ask parents for help on it.
After that we took a quick math assessment that will help me figure out where the students are in regards to understanding mathematical concepts.
One thing that students will learn quickly in my classroom is that being able to DO a math problem and being able to explain HOW they did a math problem a certain way are two very different things. I am in NO WAY interested in processes when it comes to math problems. I am interested in underlying conceptual understandings. This will be a challenge for students to begin with, but will lead to deeper understandings in the long run.
Finally we took some notes on the base ten system. We essentially re-discovered how our number system works today, and took some good notes on it in their math journals.
At the end of the day we did a little something called the toothpaste challenge. We squeezed as much toothpaste as we could out of a tube, and then tried our best to get it all back in. It was good fun, and led to us all smelling minty fresh. We used this to talk about how the toothpaste is a lot like our words. It is really easy to say something, but almost impossible to take it back. We need to choose our words and our tone carefully with one another, and make sure that we are always being kind.
And before you knew it, it was time to go! Students did get a correct reading log to begin filling out, as well as a letter asking about food and allergies for parents to fill out.
So, tl;dr
Read for 35 minutes and get reading log signed!
Finish word ladder:
Letter to Mr. Potter introducing yourself/asking any questions you have is due Thursday.
Food letter (can be found on the main page)
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter