Sometimes it all comes together

I'm doing a solo day tomorrow. It's my third, so you'd think I would be comfortable by now, but nope. Actually, in the classroom I'm perfectly comfortable, but I have been struggling with the lesson planning at home. I was complaining to discussing with my husband a few days ago and he suggested a writing lesson idea I really liked, but my mentor thought it wouldn't be great. :/ Last week my mentor had suggested a lesson on slang because a lot of the students write "gonna" and "cuz" in their work. I liked the idea, but struggled to find support or inspiration for it. All of my Google searches were turning up street slang or SMS shortcuts. I don't think "slang" is really the term I needed, it's more like lazy writing. I watched YouTube videos, read articles, browsed Pinterest (with just a touch of procrastination mixed in!) and just felt stuck.

Last night, while my husband got my son ready for bed, I continued to push through my block. Research, frustration. Then I took a break to lay down with my son and snuggle. Our nightly routine. While we cuddled he was so soft and so still. With my head on his pillow I listened to his breathing and felt his warm head pressed against my face. Now here I would like to say I was zen, at peace, completely present in such a wonderful moment... but that would be a bit of a lie. I was at peace, and calm, and suddenly my lesson solidified in my head. All on it's own. It just came together, a simple, straightforward lesson that my students would learn from and enjoy.

It felt like a weight was lifted. When I was done cuddling my son I came back downstairs and typed it up. I was hesitant to show my mentor, in case he disagreed with me, but I did and he loved it. He also agreed to let me do a bulletin board with the students projects from this lesson. It will be awesome. I can see it in my head already.

I went from tense and stressed about this solo day to feeling completely at ease and ready to rock tomorrow. I am going to have to do some serious reflecting (or something!) on why lesson planning is so challenging and stressful for me, but when it comes together in a moment of peace, it's a wonderful thing.

I'll post details of the lesson and a picture of my awesome (I'm sure!) bulletin board in a few days.

What did people do before the Internet?!?

Obviously they didn't do much blogging, of course! 

I finished my lesson plan for my solo day this week.  I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, but now that the lesson plan is done (off to my mentor teacher for review), I'm feeling much more confident.  I have no doubt I can get through the day, a year of subbing has shown me that, but I want to be sure the students have fun and learn something as well.

I was feeling a bit lost as to where to begin, so I turned to the the trusty Google machine and did some exploring.  Did you know there are TONS of great resources out there?!  Of course you knew.  The Internet is a wonderful place.  I discovered WritingFix and Responsive Classroom and ReadWriteThink and so many other invaluable resources.

I decided to do a writing lesson on chronological narration and a reading lesson on using paraphrasing to better understand what you've read.  I think both should be fun.  I also found a few other activities for throughout the day, including Human Bingo (get to know your classmates!) and an experiment on left/right side dominance.

I have the lesson plan written and the necessary supporting materials created, and now I feel more eager than anxious.  A little preparation goes a long way!

Planning for a solo day

Next week will be my first solo day.  I'm not only in charge of the class for the day (something I've done many times as a sub), but now I'm also in charge of actually educating them!

I've been working hard on lesson plans.  Due to the nature of our class rotations I only have to plan a morning meeting time, one writing lesson (to be repeated with several different classes), a science experiment, and a reading group lesson.  When I write it all out somehow my "only" from above seems less appropriate!  That is four separate blocks of time to plan well to ensure a quality education for my students.

I found a cool site called Writing Fix with a wide variety of writing lesson ideas.  They have fully developed lessons based around picture books, called "mentor texts."  I love picture books.  They make me feel at home.  I think my writing lesson will involve Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  A cute story (that I happen to have in my own personal collection) and a good lesson on chronological story telling.  The lesson on the website is long and involved and could easily span several days, so I'll be tailoring it to just one lesson period.  We will read the book, discuss chronological storytelling and why an author might chose to write that way.  Then maybe I'll use a graphic organizer to have them write a brief chronological narrative.  I think the students will enjoy it.

I'm trying to find a balance of teaching fun, interesting, grade level (something I'm learning fast!) activities that will engage them and hopefully they might learn something along the way.  My mentor teacher is really fun and the kids all like him, so I want to make sure my plan for the day isn't too dull.    Fun, and interesting, and educational, of course.

Adjectives

The word of the day is adjectives!  Or, I should say, the words of the day were adjectives.  Adjectives everywhere!   We did a great (not a 5th grade word!) activity today to help the students think of creative and clever adjectives to add more appeal to their writing.

Each table had a large sheet of paper in the middle and the students were asked to discuss with one another and write down as many adjectives as they could find.  The only rule being no duplicates on the paper, and school appropriate, of course.  They had energized discussions about what words were adjectives and every group filled their papers.  One of the very last groups discovered a list of adjectives hanging on the wall in the classroom and thought they had scored big!

Once the papers were full, students were told to quietly (no discussion) circle their favorite adjective on the paper and put a star next to a word they questioned being an adjective.  They then had the opportunity to quietly rotate around the room, reading the words on each sheet of paper, circling their favorite and staring questionable words.

An abundance of adjectives!

It was fascinating to see what they came up with and what they questioned.  It was a peek into their minds and an opportunity to gauge their current vocabulary level.  I also thought it was a bit telling of their personalities, as many kids put "awesome," "great," etc. but several others put "fat," "slow," "dumb," etc.  I know you can't read too much into it, but I think the words that come to mind first can be a reflection of words often in your head.  

Once everyone returned to their seats we had a discussion about what were the favorite adjectives, did everyone agree that they were adjectives, and what were some of the questioned words.  Many, many students put stars next to the color words.  We discussed that some words, like "orange" and "lavender" can be adjectives or nouns, depending on the context.  Some words, like "chocolately" caused great debate and the students defended their sides (adjective/not adjective) with gusto!  We also came across words that were slang and had to consider where they fit into the writing lesson.  Hint: they did not! 

My favorite?  "Swagalishious!"  Said with enthusiasm and defended with passion.   Not a real word, of course, adjective or otherwise, but maybe it should be!