February 27

This week has started off pretty normal. Yesterday we started the day off with more poetry. They began looking at rhyming patterns and then began putting all the elements of a poem together. They were given 2 poems in which they had to find the rhyming pattern, personification, simile, metaphor, alliterations, and onomatopoeias. They then had to practice reciting the poem and for homework they were to practice it and we listened to some of them today. Following this, we had math in which we finished the review game. During this time, 2 of the students took their National Assessment test. I had a lot of confidence in these 2 boys that they would pass because they’ve been grasping all the topics and haven’t had any problems. However, after looking over the test, one of them has actually not passed. He will have the opportunity to take a re-test; however it’s very hard to take when one of the students you’ve been working with for so long fails. I know he is more than capable of passing this test, and after talking with my cooperating teacher, she believes that he, along with many of the other students panic under pressure. She was surprised that a lot of the students that she’s been working with have failed the test as well. It’s just very frustrating because I feel like I’ve done something wrong with my teaching but my cooperating teacher assures me that there’s nothing that I could have done because he knows what he’s doing when verbalizing it and when doing his daily work. It’s definitely made me reflect a lot on how I’ve been teaching and what I could have changed. In the afternoon, we went to the computer suite and I showed all the students pictures of their pen pals. Most of them enjoyed them, however there were a few that thought it would be alright to laugh at the pictures because of their appearance. The class had a big talk about it this morning and we incorporated the poem “Prepare a face to meet the face that you will meet” into the lesson. Some students even added some other proverbs such as “Beauty is only skin deep” and “Never judge a book by it’s cover” to our list. I truly think that this got through to the students and this afternoon they wanted to see the pictures again and were very excited and only had good things to say. After break, I did a lesson on T.S. Eliot and the “Cat” poems. What I had them do was first look at 4 lines of 3 of the poems. We then discussed them and then I had the class break into groups and I gave each group the full version of one of the poems. They were to work together to present their poem. They could either just recite it or present it in a different way. It was a lot of fun and I was surprised at how enthused they were about doing this. It was also fun to see how each group presented their poem. These poems have a lot of humor in them so the groups were able to have a lot of fun with them. Some just recited it, many of them recited it and acted it out, and one group even sang part of it. It was great! After lunch, they were very anxious to get their pen pal letters so I gave each group their letter and then we went to the computer suite to type out letters. When they were finished with their letters they worked on their independent Peru project. Along with this, we've got a new student in the class, Katy. She has been adjusting very well and seems to fit right in with everyone.

This week the school has also started a fitness program called “Shake til Break.” 15 minutes before their 11am break time, the whole school goes outside and someone from the community comes and does some fun warm-ups, routines, or exercises. There’s music and everything. Before and after the exercises everyone is dancing. It’s so fun and really enthuses the whole school. I think it’s a great way to promote a healthier, fit lifestyle.