Week 3 (and a little about week 4)

For my third week at Rwentutu (my 2^nd week in P2), Ziporah, one of the two teachers that rotates between P2 and P1 was out sick all week with malaria.  This meant that I was in charge of P2 for the whole week.  This was exciting because it gave me the opportunity to try many different activities in different subject areas that I wouldn’t usually be able to do. 

Math

Students explaining their work to their peers.

In math I worked to establish a few routines this week.  The first thing I started with was having students share their work and strategies with the whole class.  The math classroom is currently very teacher centered and I was looking for a way to make it more student centered but keep the same basic structure.  I started the week off by having students explain the different ways they are solving the problems.   I would write different problems on the board, have students work to solve them individually on their slates and then post them on the board.  Students were very excited about both the opportunity to explain to their classmates and to listen to their classmates’ explanations. 

Two students working to solve each others problems.

 Something I noticed in my math classroom was that after students were done working on the problem set they were done with math, no matter how much time was left in class.  I wanted to give my students who finished faster something math related to keep them engaged with practicing the content.  So when students were finished with their problem set I asked them to make up their own problems similar to what we were working on in class and give them to a peer who was also done.  This worked wonderfully.  Students were very excited about creating their own problems and challenging their peers.  The math classroom has had that wonderful hum of students who are engaged with their content all the way until the bell rings for break. 

Next week I hope to implement some fluency activities, especially focusing on making 10. 

The cards I created, color coded by
level.

Additionally in math I noticed that my students participate in a lot of copying.  This seems to be a normal, mostly culturally accepted practice at Rwentutu.  This makes it very difficult as a teacher to really asses student work.  This was one of the reasons I started having students’ explain their work, it gives me a better sense of their understanding.   Another activity that I introduced at the start of the week to wrap up our unit on fractions was a game like activity where everyone got a card with a different question on it, they had to solve it before moving on the next round.   Each round increased in difficulty.  After each student was done with each question I checked in with them an marked (graded) each problem.  Checking in with each student as they finished their problem and assess them right away gave me a much better understanding of where my students were at and how I can better meet their needs. 

After this I did a few small group workshops focusing on specific misunderstandings.  Additionally my students were VERY excited by the set up of this day. They loved getting their own problems, checking in and then moving on.  Usually when it’s time to do practice problems on paper some of my students are somewhat reluctant to get started.  This day my reluctant students were very excited by the different way of doing practice problems and they dove right in.

My students starting right in on their problems.

Literacy

This week I created my very first word wall!  My students don’t have access to a lot of text resources and I noticed that we often work with a word once or twice and move on, so I created a place were we can keep these words more permanently in our classroom and students can use it as a resource. 

Word Wall!

Also during week 3 I started creative/free writing time. Continued it this during week 4.  I am considering continuing this until our last week and ending with students making some type of published piece like a small book or story.  My students really struggle with the gap between what they are thinking or can say in English and what they can write.  I’ve been trying to address this by starting with pictures that illustrate or plan the story and then have my students add to the words.  My students ability to write in English ranges from students who can write many paragraphs to those who do not yet feel comfortable composing anything of their own.  To meet the needs of all my students I had them draw pictures first, and add text later.  If my students personally felt they could not get started writing their own ideas I took notes on what they said about their picture, gave the notes to my student and then they re-wrote or edited these notes on their picture. 

This is an example of one of my students work.

I did this same thing during week 4 and I noticed that the biggest struggle was to keep students from not copying other texts and to create something that is completely theirs and original.  My students are used to having their English graded on perfection of spelling and grammar and not ideas that they are not used to composing things they create.  In the end most students created something original.  We will continue to work on this type of writing over the next few weeks.

Changing Reading Time

After watching library, which is the time in the week my students have to read texts I decided I wanted to change how this happened.  I notice that a lot of my students were having trouble choosing good fit books, most of the texts provided are above my students reading level.  On my trip I brought along the Daily 5 text and have been reading it and am very inspired by it.  I wanted to incorporate some of the ideas I was reading about into my classroom.  Some of the specific ideas were changing how we used library time, focusing on reading to self, reading to a friend and reading to a teacher. As well as adjusting how students are picking books to read during this time.

After an exciting discovery in the library I found a bunch of small books that are closer to my students reading levels than the books that were currently present in their classroom.   During week 3 I read with all of my students crudely assessed their reading levels and placed them into small reading groups.  With these groups I selected different books, which we read over as a group, then they read individually.  This practice is something I’ve worked with my cooperating teachers to keep in place during week 4 as well.  My students’ struggle significantly reading new texts but are VERY excited to be in reading groups and reading new texts that are closer to their reading levels.

Three of my students read a new text together.

English

In English we were focusing on days of the week, time of day and telling time.  One of the teaching tools I brought with me was a calendar.  I brought this into our classroom as we were talking about days of the week. I wanted the calendar to be somewhere students could have access to it so I put I on their level.  The calendar however is dry erase so almost right away some erased the calendar.  At first I felt discouraged but then a students asked to re-write it and everyday since it has been the students who are making sure our calendar is correct along with labeling today tomorrow and yesterday on the calendar.  It was very cool to watch something I thought was going to be a problem turn into a working routine with my students. 

One of my students updating the calendar.

Additionally the English curriculum is very focused on writing in their work books and less on speaking and engaging in English conversation.  To try and add some conversation to my lessons I created a telling time game where students have to ask each other a specific question like “What time did she eat?” and the other person responds with “She at at…. o’clock.”  The students all have cards with different times and they have to find the person who has the same time as them.  This was an engaging activity for my students who aren’t used to getting up and moving around during lessons, especially English lessons.  We were able to play it a few different ways through out the week.  My students really enjoyed this activity and were able to practice using some of the language we were writing about. 

Students use phrases and sayings we were practicing to find their match.

Pamela was very supportive of me during week 3.  During week 4 I have continued in the same fashion but with two teachers in the classroom, which has allowed students to get more one on one support.