Day 3

Though today was a shortened day, it was still just as tiring and chaotic. Today, the kids started the day with Word Matches. Each student was given a sheet of paper with words that have "i" in them or they were given a paper with words that have "o" in them. Their job was to cut out the words and categorize them into three groups: hard vowel sounds, soft vowel sounds, or oddballs. When they thought they organized the words into the right columns, i went around the class and checked to see if they were correct. While the students waited for others to finish, they looked through books to find other examples and write the words down in their journals. This was a relatively mellow activity. Next, we all traveled into Mr. Jensen's class to figure out where the students were going to work on their fairy tales and to see what stage each group was at. I went back into Ms. Hildebrand's classroom with half of the students who were working on their illustrations for their book. I walked around the room to each partnership to make sure that they were on task and to help them figure out what pictures still needed to be drawn. It was still a challenge today to convince the students that they needed to color their pictures. Many students just wanted to be finished with their book and never have to draw or color again. At nine o'clock writing session was done, everyone cleaned up their area, and went back to their assigned classroom for snack. Today, i really paid attention to the kids during snack time. It was funny to see the kids barter and trade snacks, to see what was a popular snack, and who had the best snacks. As soon as it was snack time, everyone races to their cubby to get their lunch box, opens it, claims which items they will absolutely not trade with anyone, and then hold up the items they are willing to trade with someone else. Today, the cheese still was very unpopular and was traded about 5 times between the students. Anyways, after a wild snack time it was time for quiet reading. I was assigned the same three boys: Aiden, Todd, and DJ, to take in the hall and read another chapter of their book. This time it was different, the boys were told to read the whole chapter silently and write down important points that related to the title of the chapter. DJ is a very fast reader and completed the chapter in a third of the time that the others completed it. Once they all finished we went around in a circle sharing what they had read and what they wrote down on their paper. Most of the points they said were very similar but none of them had all or the same points as one another. After discussion it was time for gym class. Ms. Hildebrand and i walked the class to the gym and then i left the school in time to get ready for my lacrosse game! 

Today when i first entered the classroom i was given a very thoughtful card and a beautiful flower plant from Sofia, who is in Mr. Jensen's class. The card read, 

"Dear Trenny 

these flowers are for you 

Love Sofia

you are the best helper"

Then as the day went on i was given a card from Britta and Kathryn who said basically the same thing. They were very cute. I feel as though i have been helping out in the Second Grade for much longer than just 3 days! It have been extremely exhausted but i am enjoying it so much!