Week 10: November 14th-18th

 

    Monday, November 14th

➽Activity of the Day: Recess

    Typically, I'm not a big fan of Hubbell's recess. Kids will be kids, but I am over double their age. It can be difficult to play along because it's been a long time since I've had an imagination like theirs. That said, today was different. One of the girls I often read with asked me to play with her. I suggested an obstacle course, which she loved the idea of. Hubbell's playground has many different parts to it, making it great for a course. The route we took was;

    Climb through a rock wall, leap across bouncing seats, climb up a ladder that was at a 45-degree angle, slide down a corresponding bar to the ladder, and end on the swings. 

    If you fell, you were out. This obstacle course got so exciting, we soon had half the grade involved!

   

 Tuesday, November 15th

➽Activity of the Day: A geography lesson

    I'm not sure who needed this lesson more- the students or me. Today was different because I was working with some of the higher achieving students in the class- typically I help the opposite spectrum. We were working with a map of Des Moines. There were questions which asked about which direction one would have to travel to get from one location to another. Now, I know my directions but before this lesson I did not know the interstate numbers, nor specific locations of buildings outside western Des Moines.

    Though these second graders were quite bright in geography, I wouldn't call them geniuses in logic. It took 10 minutes for them to put on coats, gloves, snow pants, hats, and boots today. After three minutes, the teacher asked if I could bring down the stragglers when they were ready. I agreed, only to realize that the majority of the class was a straggler. Who puts gloves on before anything else? The amount of coats I had to zip up!

    Wednesday, November 16th

➽Activity of the Day: Subtraction

    I was working with one of my usual girls today on subtraction. Her attention span is not what one would call stellar. Any commotion in the hallway (where we work) distracts her and it is difficult to get her back on track. Subtraction-wise, it can feel like pulling teeth out because she likes to add the numbers. Her attention span is no help! However, I've found that by constant encouragement and snapping at the page she's supposed to be working, I can often get her refocused. 

    Thursday, November 17th

➽Activity of the Day: A Turkey Story

    When I walked into class today, the second graders were on the carpet, working with Ms. Carlson on their first story. The story followed the outline, "First, next, then, finally". The main idea of the story was that the class was going into the woods to hunt a turkey for thanksgiving (a gruesome story for second graders!)

    I worked with a different one of my usual girls. Before she could write her story, she needed to make an outline. We soon ran into a block. When she doesn't feel confident in something, she goes into her shell. It is of my opinion that writing is difficult for her because she sees her peers beginning to do it with ease- and it is stressful to catch up. At one point, she was getting so frustrated- writing, erasing, writing, erasing- that I took her pencil out of her hand. I told her to breathe, and we went through a few cycles of breathwork. When returning to writing, she was much calmer and more focused. We didn't get the story written, but we did finish the outline!

    Friday, November 18th

➽Activity of the Day: Subtraction

    A few kids were gone yesterday when the math test (subtraction) was given. I went out in the hall with them today and gave the test. They get two minutes to answer 25 questions. When the kids finished, they handed their test to Mrs. Carlson. One of them got pulled aside. That kid was S.

    I mentioned S on November 3rd. As they often miss a day out of the week, it takes a lot to catch up. S did not remember how to do subtraction. Addition itself was a struggle. However, I was determined to teach S the concept. I started with 20 counter pieces. 

An example problem I did was 14-5. I asked S to get 14 pieces out. Then take 5 away. I asked S how many pieces were left. After around 5 similar questions to these, I stayed silent and let S do it by themselves. They understand the concept!

    Being at grade level for math means recognition and memorization of basic subtraction problems. That's another hill to climb but I'm convinced we can get there!