Our second guest was Mrs. Nicodemus, our treasured former substitute and current first grade student teacher. Mrs. Nicodemus is doing some observing of other teachers at the end of her student teaching experience, and we were happy to have her sit in with us for a couple of hours, yesterday morning.
I think she was impressed with the way our class discussed a single paragraph in an ongoing story we are reading. Students were using appropriate reading comprehension vocabulary to discuss their ideas, predictions, inferences, and evaluations of the paragraph (See more about these skills on our Read Like a Reader and Read Like a Writer pages.). Next, two small groups of students presented the readers theater pieces we have been preparing for a couple of weeks.
After a short break, we returned to the classroom for some Math like we like it. We started with a hexagon (a creation of my own that allows for a different presentation of content). Students love to do these hexagons. Now that the class has been introduced to the order of operations, I have introduced some traditional algebraic sentences, and we have been working them together. During this time, students are successful, not only when they correctly solve a problem, but when they identify the mistakes that caused them to get a problem wrong. In a twisted way, this identification of mistakes allows students to support and receive support from their peers. They help solve the issues, applaud success, and encourage each other - all as a part of the process we have embedded into our class.
It felt pretty nice to share two solid hours with Mrs. Nicodemus. I was very proud of my class. As a side note, I think the wasp stayed around for longer.