Reflection #25

Credit to OffBeatBride

The first day I was in SLE was normal. I was a very average morning. The students got in to the classroom and unpacked their backpacks. Then they went to their desk and got a chair.There was no morning work for the students to do so they just sat at their desk and waited for Ms. C to begin class. Ms. C called the students to the carpet. Ms. C has a 'cup' that she fills with different things (paper clips, beans etc) and each month the students try to guess the amount that is in the cup. If the guess the closest then they win a gift card. This month there were beans in the cup. With the class on the carpet she began counting the beans. There were over 400 beans!! Next we looked at the guesses that people had put in. The highest bid was  only 240.  After she finished with that she told the students what centers they would be doing and let them do get started with it.

 The second day was a little more interesting.The students came in the students came in the classroom like normal and put their backpacks away. They then saw if their was a morning warm up to do and began working on it. The warm ups this week weren't very hard they just required the students to think and use their imagination. The students had to write a short story/paragraph. The prompt on the first day was "If you were an alien, what would you look like and what would you do?" Some students did really well with this assignment, they have a great imagination and can write up an entire story off the top of their heads. K wrote almost an entire page and wanted to write more!! Other students had a really hard time with this activity. They just didn't know what to write without being told exactly what to do. I seems like kids are losing their imagination, they cant think for themselves. Students have a easier time with expository or persuasive papers then narrative. Kids should be able to come up with a story and they cant, I think that is sad and needs to change. Doing activities like this could help expand students imagination.

The third day was a pretty abnormal day. First they started with the morning warm up. It was another prompt. For this one they had to choose two animals create a conversation between the two animals. Again most students did really well with this. However some students really struggled with it. K tried for a bit, but he just would not even write anything down, maybe he didn't understand it or maybe he just could think of anything. I tried to help him but even after my help he still had nothing written down. After morning work and since it is a new month the students do their 'monthly cleaning' they take everything out of their desk and organize it. They also clean the tops of it with a disinfectant napkin. The class also gets new seats on the carpet and in the desk. The class had spelt out COURAGE from last month so they would get a reward this month. The reward they got was 'free time' for 30 mins. Ms. C gave the class popcorn, pencils and let them play games, arts and crafts or just relax. She played music and just let the kids play and relax. It was a nice time and very nice to see the students out of their 'work' environment.