Reflection 3/2

This was a pretty good week for me. It finally seems like I can do this whole planning and teaching thing! I felt like I couldn't breathe and see how I could keep up the planning and the implementation before, but now I am able to kind of have a routine of how I plan best and how I can shift things around to make it all fit into a week efficiently.

I have learned that there is never going to be a "normal" week where you get all of your academic blocks. While this is kind of frustrating because our kids need all the academics that they can get, it is also good to not have a consistent routine that will get boring for teacher or kids alike.

Reading Street has started to make less and less sense of me and I have asked Jen if we could scrap the Reading Street stories and try to incorporate the skills into a novel. We will be starting Hatchet in the next couple of weeks and I am so excited! I am hoping that it will either maintain or improve test scores. After having students read a Reading Street story that they knew nothing about and that was above their level, I know that this is not helping them improve their reading skills. I am hoping that reading something that is more on their level, more motivating, and more than just a silly story that is a couple pages long will help my students.

I will also be starting a new math and science unit this week. For math, I am hoping that they will do alright on the test. I know how hard fractions are, but my students have been doing a decent job. I am glad that we will be continuing to work with that. I know that I am learning so much by looking at fractions in different ways and having to break down the skills; I hope that some of this knowledge is sticking with my kids, as well!

I will finally be starting my unit for Science this week. Students did horrible on their tests again, and I am hoping that changing up how information is delivered in class will improve their engagement and achievement. I am going to try to make it as inquiry as possible and as less teacher-focused as possible.

Excited for Fire Up and the Job Fair tomorrow, as well. Spent so much time researching, hopefully it will be a good experience!