Current mood:

chipper

Week 3

Week 3 posting
This was a pretty easy week.  The kids were doing their SCOE testing in the A.M. I introduced Science this week.  The caterpillars arrived in the mail just in time to start our observations.  I gave the kids new journals to write in.  Half is for Science and half is for Math.  They wrote their descriptions of the caterpillars as I gave them several minutes to study them.  The class is very excited that we will be growing butterflies.  We looked at some pictures of animal parents and their babies. We discussed inherited traits, likenesses and differences.  In math I gave them baggies of money to count.  I gave several groups a baggie with $1.00 in change.  One had 20 nickels, another had 100 pennies, 10 dimes in another, 4 quarters, two half dollars and a dollar coin.  I had each group count their coins and write on the board how much money they had.  We remarked that they each had $1.00 total. We talked about the different ways to make $1.00.  I put on the bulletin board a paper collection jar for the St. Jude's fundraiser that the school is conducting.  We kept a count of the money our class collected and added it to the bulletin board.  OVer several lessons we counted new additions and added the amounts.  We set our goal and kept track to see if we would make it.  I also had the students add their math vocabulary on journals with pictures.  I encourage them to use these as they do math at any time.  The kids are enjoying their lessons.  I am having difficulty with my pacing as I tend to plan too much and then don't get to the worksheets.  The worksheets are important to my cooperating teacher so I need to have the kids do them no matter what.  It's frustrating but them's the rules!