This past week (since last Monday, Oct. 4th), my students have been working on their Unit 1 Choice Board Celebration Projects. They had to plan out their week and try to stay on schedule, they had to do homework when they didn’t meet personal deadlines, they had to assess a peer’s project and give them specific feedback. Today, we celebrated all our hard work. We did a gallery walk of the projects. Students set up their games and put computers out with headphones for the video interviews. They set out their flip books and setting pictures with explanations. Students walked around and wrote compliments on stickies to give specific praise to their peers. Everyone was on task and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Colson popped to see our hard work and they seemed impressed with the quality of work displayed. I’m so proud of my kids! There were more challenges in the PM class because of the behavior issues that exist in that room. But most were able to stay on task for the most of the celebration in that class.
It was hard to let go of controlling their every moment and letting them decide how to spend their time. It was especially hard to watch as some students struggled and others soared. It’s the goal to keep them all on track and in the same place…right? I don’t really think so. All kids work at different paces. I noticed that one female student, who knows she needs more time to work on projects, scheduled nights of homework during the week even though it wasn’t required because she knew she’d need the time to create a quality project. One boy wrote that he was going to finish his project by Friday so he could take it home and have a parent review it and he could make adjustments. The majority of the students set realistic goals and made adjustments as they worked to ensure they met the deadline. I found that the students who did not fill out their contract schedule were the only ones who did not meet deadlines or who struggled to meet them.
I will launch Unit 2 tomorrow. Unit 2 is all about character study. I have most of my MiniLesson teaching points prepared thanks to the Reading Units of Study planning calendar but I have to create charts, make ASL follow-alongs, etc. I will also create out next Choice Board Celebrations. It will be a challenge to continue to create project ideas that challenge students and are unique.
On another subject, the kids are taking their Survival Skills Quiz today on the computer. It is two essay questions. One is about physical adaptations of animals from the African plains, the other is about animals in the arctic. I am optimistic after all the work we did that they will do well. I am looking forward to moving on though. I am very far behind in Science. We are going into Environmental Changes. I wrote a differentiated instruction lesson plan for this workshop in my DI class over the summer. This unit will be for a portfolio artifact so I need to make sure to document every step of the way.
I have done so much better this year with journaling. I am taking lot of pictures of their work to put in my portfolio. This is an exciting year and I’m so thrilled to find that many of my fifth graders are extremely capable at product creation.
No comments:
Post a Comment