With the wet weather forecast, we’d planned to keep the worship streamers out of the rain — the crepe paper dissolves! — and try our hands at carpet rolling and porting about.
But…
The rain was something else. (As I write, it’s starting up again!)
When the internet went down early in Round 1 it was “All change!" Orange and Green groups did phonics simultaneously.
And — learning the take a new direction at the drop of a hat due to changing circumstances is a good lesson to learn early in life!
DOTAWAHESH!
As change produces anxiety, we’d already pulled out our tried-and-true Do TaWaHeSh classroom management tool.
It proved helpful today.
• DO = DOing? — Students answer the question, “What activity are we doing now?” Making that clear mental shift from, “We’re practicing for the All-School Gathering” to “Phonics” is important.
• TA = TAlk? — In our activity, are we talking? Not talking? Are there times when a student can talk? When? Who can talk? Any other rules about talking during this activity? With a chit-chatty class like this one, discussing the “Talk Rules” is super important.
• WA = WAlk? — Are we walking about during this activity? Some activities are “all walk,” like our All-School Gathering activities. Most classroom activities involve little or no walking about. As 2G students are lawyers, Yes, if it’s your day for sharing you can walk from your hula hoop to the bench. Yes, and back. Yes, if it’s an emergency you can walk to the loo.
• HE = HElp — If you need help, how do you get it? With some activities (e.g., math), on-topic student conversations are encouraged. In other activities, students may need to raise a hand (rather than shouting out!).
• SH = SHow? — How can you show that you understand everything we’ve talked about? How can you show us that you are fully participating? Always good to set the expectation: participation is required!
All of this takes longer to write about than to do once student have been through it one or two times.
DAILY DICTATION
For all of February and the first week in March, our 10 am whole-class instruction will be “daily dictation.”
We established our DoTaWaHeSh for dictation, and it flowed far more easily than it did yesterday: more focus, less shouting out, more accomplished — and more fun had!
As we mentioned in today’s homework announcement, Dr. Cat had a chance to peek in at students’ writing as Ms. Erin read sentences.
This class had made a lot of progress!
Listening
Capitalizing the first letter in EVERY sentence
Using punctuation
Handwriting
Choosing good letters and letter combinations to represent sound (Magic E, ee and ea for the long E sound)
Staying focused
Exciting to see the progress!
FRACTIONS WIZARDS!
Email us if you’re not impressed with 2G student tackling these beyond 2G-level fractions challenges:
You do not have to email us if you scratched your head for a moment and (a) looked again at the questions and (b) wondered how a 7 or 8 year old might tackle them.
We are amazed!
IT WASN’T ALL RAIN & HARD MENTAL WORK
There was a break in the weather for our 9 am Brain Break on the playground, and we had sharing before lunch.
Lunch Recess was rained out, so 2G got some free time, which they devoted to imaginative play and board games!
MEANWHILE OUR MOMMY TERN…
Throughout the deluge, we checked on our mommy tern.
We think the chick has hatched, but if so, mommy is keeping baby tightly underneath. We haven’t seen a little chick beak yet.
It was a scary day for mum with all the wind, downpour and falling branches.
Perhaps tomorrow someone will catch sight of the chick!
JABBED!
And Dr. Cat got his 1st COVID-19 jab today!
Pandemic begone!
Back to All-School Gathering preparation tomorrow!