I Teach 1st 2016: Day 4

The last day of I Teach 1st has come and gone.  I had an eventful 36 hours trying to leave Vegas after the conference, so please excuse the time it took to get this post written!

I attended a Guided Reading session with Tara West Thursday morning.  My biggest take-away from this session was the 5 minute whole group lesson she does at the beginning of her guided reading time.  This is something that everyone might need a mini lesson on (and maybe review for a few) so you don't spend time in your small group teaching on it.  I think, for me, this would be most valuable at the beginning of the year to practice things like one-to-one tracking, turning pages, book orientation, etc.

I also liked her "warm up" activities that she uses when her students come to the table. You can see some of these below.  My favorite is "sound around the circle" which you can see an example of below the wording on the slide.

The second session I attended was about incorporating STEM activities.  I don't have experience with STEM, but after attending the session, realized that I have done some activities that with a little tweaking would be STEM.  I liked the STEM characteristics shared in the slide below.

Throughout the session, she shared children's literature and different STEM activities that could be done relating to that book.  I think it is important to connect things for students as much as possible, so I though this was great!  At the end of the session, we got into groups and brainstormed books and activities to go with the book.

The final session of my day was back with Dan St. Romain about getting rid of clip charts.  We use the clip chart throughout our district, so it going away is not likely for me, but I learned some things I can try for behavior.

Dan talked about the importance of teaching life skills to our young students.  The more he spoke, the more I realized how much I could incorporate these more into my day  He talked about how punishment is generally not effective with behavior problems.  Behavior is generally a skill deficit and should be treated as such.  Just like you'd do intervention for an academic skill deficit, the same should be done for a behavior skill deficit. Students aren't being punished, they just need more practice with the skill.

It was a fantastic week of learning!  Thanks so much for following along with me.