Friday Musings: February 1, 2019

Reading to K-Buddies

It was a super busy and productive week in school. Rather than push the students or day too hard today, I ended up making a few scheduling shifts to better meet the energy and needs of the day. That was the right choice.

Sometimes when you push a heavy teaching emphasis on tired teachers and students, the result is not what you planned for. On the other hand, if you match the teaching load with the energy available, you're much better off. And you never want to end a week on a less than positive note if you can help it.

The highlights today were a very good PLC meeting where we learned to use an assessment tool to better understand students. After school I opened up the tool and learned a number of good facts about my learners, facts that are difficult to see simply by observation. I'll use the knowledge to help specific students gain skill in more meaningful and successful ways.

Science: Focus on Teamwork

Another highlight was our focus on fairy tales with the kindergartners. I loved listening to students practice reading the fairy tales in preparation for their buddy time. I also enjoyed listening to students teach their kindergartner buddies about what a fairy tale is.

During science, students work on teamwork tasks, and the final highlight was the chance for students to relax a bit, make choices, help out in the kindergarten classes, and be with their friends. Our schedule doesn't always allow for that kind of positive down time, and today's opportunity to do that was just perfect.

The weekend finds me completing report cards and grant proposals as well as few personal pursuits. And next week finds the teaching team catching up on science lessons, attending a play, beginning a fraction project, analyzing students' reading growth/needs, talking curriculum with colleagues, and helping a few students finish up past assessments and zero in on some specific math problem solving tasks.