Frustrated

I have  a student in my class who is low not the lowest but low and he continues to not pay attention. I feel like I have to stand over him and point to everything as we work or sit right next to him at all times for him to get his work done. He is not getting any support at home and doesn't turn in homework. I pull him everyday for reading small group and work with him as much as I can, but I have two others that need the same thing all the time. It is just really wearing on my patients and need some suggestions on how to deal with this type of child. This is very different then what I am used to seeing in my classroom and not sure how to deal with this type of child. I feel like I am complaining, but just really want to help this child and am frustrated over his lack of attention and focus.

Rowdy Kids

Today our 1st graders were a little crazy. I'm not sure if it was because today was the first day back from a long weekend or what, but they were having behavioral issues. Numerous kids were tattling on each other, asking to go to the bathroom during the warm-up, and struggling with keeping their hands to themselves etc. We finished the warm-up but instead of transitioning into the lesson, we did an activity with a CD. We performed two exercises to the song "knuckles knees" and "spin again." This seemed to help get the wiggles out. We did not get to the lesson as planned, but I felt the class was more productive with a modified lesson after the songs. I think it's important as teachers that we know it's okay to deviate from the lesson plan. If we notice things are not working that typically do with our students, it is perfectly fine to switch things up and we have to in some situations.

Writing

I am really struggling with a small group of kiddos on the topic of ending punctuation. They are becoming better at writing down their ideas but still do not include punctuation at the ends of their sentences. When I prompt them to find something that is missing from the sentences, they have no idea. HELP! I have tried having them dictate their sentences to me and then they have to copy what I have written. But, even then, they seem to not even see the punctuation mark at the end. I have tried having mini lessons centered around periods, exclamation marks and question marks and they grasp the concept in isolation. However, when I want them to transfer the skill to their writing, they do not do it. Has anyone else struggled with this and found a way to help them understand the concept?

Positive Conference

I was discussing with my colleague about some positive conferences we've had this year. As physical education teachers, it is our goal that our students build a life-long love of learning and physical activity. We were pleased to be visited by a parent that was asking us for exercise ideas for their son so he could exercise more and play on the computer and do sedentary activities less. They acknowledged he would be going to the middle school next year and that he'd need to get stronger and build his confidence. My colleague and I were so refreshed to see parents advocating for their children and recognizing how school changes would impact their son. Hooray for involved parenting!

Word Study

I am sorry to bring up word study again but a few members of my team came across something today that really upset us. We were looking at the December phonics lessons in the Red F&P book and they want us doing letter matching with First graders in December! We are starting to look at this book and we were shocked to see letter matching in December. That is a skill that 99% of students can do in Spetember! Those of you who have used this book or are first grade teachers, how do you feel about this? Did you skip the lesson? What are you doing to give your students a strong phonics background? I am always looking for help and suggestions!! We just feel like this can't be the first time someone has brought this up!

Magnetic Letters

Just wanted to share the excitement kids get when we just let them be kids sometimes. I had a fancy lesson plan with all these steps and procedures and I noticed that the class was enjoying the first step and really thinking about the process of making words. I realized that sometimes we forget to make learning simple and fun. The concept was difficult but since they were having fun manipulating the magnets and making real words and Dr. Suess words they forgot about how challenging it was and really thought about each word.

Small Grouping

I have been working with small grouping with my kids in reading. I think that this is going well overall, but tend to spend a lot of time pulling resources for my small groups. For my average and above average groups, I have been using the book room and Reading A to Z. These are "ok" for reading with my low groups, but I feel that I am pulling from everywhere for these groups. Does anyone have any ideas that I could use for these low kiddos? They need help with vowels, high frequency words, sentence writing, and the list could go on and on. I pull this group almost everyday and try to read with them everyday, but need to be working with them on more intervention things. It would be nice if we had a intervention program to go with a reading curriculum to help support these low kids in reading and writing.