Wednesday - 2/13
My cooperating teacher and I came up with the idea to focus our literacy instruction this week on the concept of retelling/fairy tales - a bit of a stray from the basal reader, but still making use of the book we're supposed to read aloud. So, during our language arts time I introduced The Three Billy Goats Gruff and talked about how we would be hearing lots of different versions of the story that week to prepare us to create our own puppet retelling in our reading groups. Managing the whole group still has its struggles, especially since I've taken over so much of the instruction and don't have much opportunity to really observe anymore. But it is definitely getting easier as time goes by, and I think if there is one thing I've learned it's that being strict isn't the end of the world.
For example, when I was giving my lesson on the billy goats story, two students were talking (pretty loudly) to each other during my reading. I don't like to stop the flow of the lesson to deal with behavior - I think that's why it's called "managing" and not "disciplining." You don't want them to really know you're thinking about 500 different things about the situation - you want them to think your focus is 100% on the lesson being taught.
So I made my expectations clear and firm at the beginning by reinforcing the expectations for carpet time. When I first noticed the students talking, I kindly reminded the students of what behavior I was looking for - I didn't call them out. After a while, though, I simply stopped reading, said "That's your first warning," and went on. While it worked for one of the students, it didn't work for the other. I gave two more warnings before I said, "You may spend the rest of this lesson at your seat. I've warned you three times." And it worked. The student went quietly to his seat and didn't say a word for the rest of the lesson (in fact, he actually participated and raised his hand to respond to my questions from his seat). It's always moments like those where I feel like I'm being too "mean" but am astounded how well it worked in the long run. I think keeping composure (what little amount of it I feel like I have!) is huge. If I had flown off the handle, I doubt the situation would have been dealt with so swiftly. But that firmness and that consistency really helped me today.
Thursday - 2/14
This was the first day we worked on our puppet plays in reading groups. This was my chance to work with all of the reading groups in one day and it was quite a whirlwind! Trying to hammer out rough scripts for groups of 5 kindergartners - 4 groups in 40 minutes - was just crazy. Management was really big today, but in a different way than it was yesterday because of the group size that I was working with. Which brings me to...my first student meltdown.
This class has been so wonderful and problem-free that I didn't think it would happen. But these are kindergartners - it's inevitable. Today, I tried my best to make the expectations clearer than clear as we were dividing up parts between the students. Obviously some parts are more desired than others. I simply explained we will choose fairly; if two people want the same part we can solve it by a game of rock paper scissors or by guessing a number I'm holding behind my back. I explained that if we show how responsible we can be during this process, there will be many other opportunities to perform plays and thus, more opportunities to get the parts we want. Every single group did really well with this. And thankfully, no group meetings were really interrupted with problems. But at the end of the first group's meeting, after everyone had left the table, a girl broke down and started crying a lot. And this is one of the best-behaved, problem-free students in the class - possibly the last student I would think to do this.
So, this shook up my plans a bit. But this was a day that I think I learned the most about flexibility than I have on any other days - and it also helped me learn about how crucial it is to have a good rapport with the students. I struggled today deciding whether to be firm or "soft." The problem with kindergartners is the simple fact that you can't help but feel bad for them - they're five years old, after all! I know that I was giving them a big responsibility for their age group and that more time should have been spent setting up those expectations, but I was so eager to do this creative, fun little project that I didn't spend that adequate time. So while I wanted to be angry with this girl, I felt angry at myself a little bit, too.
But I think I found a nice balance when I talked to the student. She had originally chosen one part, then changed her mind, and another girl was nice enough to switch with her. She was ecstatic to have this new part - until the group disbanded, when the tears came. That move is what made me realize it was okay for me to be a little firm. I told her that her group mate did a very nice thing by switching with her, and that that won't always happen. I said it would be very responsible (one of our big PBIS expectations) to say thank you to her friend and make the best of the part she was given. Basically, I tried to encourage her while also letting her know that she should have made a better choice.
Friday - 2/15
We had our puppet plays today! Overall, I think they went well. My cooperating teacher filmed the students as they performed, and I think it went surprisingly smooth considering (a) the level of responsibility that was required of them and (b) the amount of distractors that could easily dismantle the flow of the whole experience. I worked on setting up expectations both in the small groups and then reviewed them in the whole group before the plays, and I wrote them using simple words in a place every student could see.
No comments:
Post a Comment