Week 6: Fifth Day in the Classroom

Week 6: Fifth Day in the Classroom

Date: Thursday, October 7^th, 2021

By: Monica Schrank  

I had another great day observing and being in the classroom again with the students! My MT was teaching the students all about the different non-fiction text features such as title, table of content, heading, bold print, diagram, graph, caption, glossary, index, and where they are located in a non-fiction book. The teacher provided the students with an activity sheet where there were pictures of what each of the text features looked like. The students cut the pictures out and pasted them next to what text feature was represented in the picture. This activity sheet was a great way for the students to test the knowledge that they already had about the different test features while also creating a resources sheet that they can use of what each of the non-fiction text features look like. The students also used Seesaw to allow the students to find these non-fiction text features in a book, so the students were able to pick a book that they liked and find all the text features, take a picture of what it looks like and label what feature it was. I thought this was a great activity because it allowed the students to take the non-fiction text features that they just learned/reviewed and find them in actual books. This was a great opportunity for me because I have never used Seesaw before so I got to see how the students use Seesaw, the different features it provides for the students, and how it makes learning fun for the students through the use of technology. After learning about Seesaw, I would love to incorporate it into a lesson because the students really enjoyed using it!

For the Daily 5 for this week, the students were practicing turning common nouns into plural nouns, learning about irregular nouns that have to have the spelling changed, and correlative nouns that are words that mean more than one person or thing. I was able to meet with three different groups of students this week and teach them about these different concepts. The first group that I met with was higher on the academic level so they were able to know right after a few examples for each of the concepts, they knew what to do and were able to finish the activity sheet. The second group was a little less academically compared to the first group, so I had to spend a little bit of time explaining each of the concepts and how to turn common words into plural, understanding irregular words, and what the correlative words are and how to know what they are referring to. For the third and final group, they were the lowest academically, and I had to spend much more time with them on the different concepts. For example, I went over each of the different ways to turn a common noun into a plural noun (i.e., is you have a ‘y’ change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘es’, if you have an ‘f’ change the ‘f’ to a ‘v’ and add ‘es’). I went over each different way to turn a common noun into a plural noun one at a time and went through those examples with the students after we learned how to turn them from common to plural. I highlighted each of the ending letters and highlighted what that ending letter is turned into to make it plural to help the students to have a better understanding of what you turn those words into to make them plural. The students also highlighted on their sheet the ending letters and what they are turned into as well, which can help them if they want to refer back to this activity sheet as a resource for them. With the last group, we were only able to get through the turning of words from common to plural nouns and irregular nouns. I knew when I was starting to work with these groups of students that day that they would all be at different levels or knowledge academically, which helped me to realize how important it is to differentiate the ways in which you teach students. If I had not gone over the different ways of turning a common noun into a plural noun one at a time while showing examples for each with the last group, they would have been so lost and would not have understood how to turn common nouns into plural nouns. I cannot wait to come back next week and help not only the students that need more of a challenge, but the students need more assistance to learn about learn in a way that is easier and more beneficial for each and every one of the students!