I could not stay away from my 3rd graders! I decided to come in during my spring break! I had the day off, so why not spend it with my 3rd-grade group!? I have discussed this with my MT, and she liked the idea. Upon arrival, my MT told me she wanted me to be extra involved today. First thing in the morning, I assisted a few struggling students in finishing their biography project. They were to present the next day, and a few still needed to complete. I did what I could to help those students, and when I was done with them, I pivoted to the ones who were done.
I had them practice their speeches with me. Most of them were well put together! I was happy to see them all excited to share what they would say with me. After this came math. I assisted my MT with teaching the lesson. This has become a regular thing where she starts the lesson, and I jump in to finish it. Lately, in my math lessons, I’ve been asking many questions. When we have word problems to complete as a group, I read the question and ask the students what the problem calls for. I ask them to underline essential parts of the question and ask them what they think we should do first.
Sometimes when I’m modeling, I purposely do something wrong and see if the students can catch what I did wrong. Most of the time, they do, and they seem to enjoy it when I do/write something wrong. It also shows me that they are paying attention and understand the math concept well enough to see what I did wrong. Whenever I give them problems, I usually pair the students up. I let them work for a few minutes and brought them all back together. After I asked one group to share what they did. I then ask if anyone has completed the problem another way. There are multiple ways to solve any problem, and I like to see how they come to the correct answer. If I know of another way to solve the problem, I will also model it for them. Right after math was reading, my MT finally decided she wanted me to the lesson. I had no problem with that. It threw me off as I did not expect to do the lesson myself.
Regardless, I pulled myself together and completed the lesson. My MT handed me the teacher’s manual, which helped with the flow of the lesson. We read an informational newsletter. I had started the lesson off by asking the students about P.I.E. The students learned about the acronym the other week so it was fresh in their brains. I also made sure they knew what an informational text consisted of. I told the students right away what were were going to Regardless, I pulled myself together and completed the lesson. My MT handed me the teacher’s manual, which helped with the flow of the lesson. I started the lesson by asking the students about P.I.E. We read an informational newsletter. The students learned about the acronym the other week, so it was fresh in their brains. I also made sure they knew what an informational text consisted of. I told the students what we would do (read the newsletter and determine the author’s purpose). I had students point out and discuss different nonfiction text features throughout the reading. I had them look and think about these features – most of them helped us decide/figure out what that section of text was about before reading – they gave us clues. After reading each section, I would ask specific questions about what we had just read and then have them think if the author was trying to persuade us, inform us, or entertain us. Overall it was a long lesson with lots of information and thinking!
After the lesson, my MT said I did a great job! She said she liked the questions I asked during the lesson and at the end and a few other things. I did not get any critiques which I like because then I know what to do/not to do in the future. I’ll attach the pages that I did the lesson on below. Overall, this extra day coming in was successful and pleasant. It was funny, though; as soon as the students walked into the class, they all ran over to me and asked what I was doing there – it was Tuesday, and they were used to me coming in on Thursdays.