2 Teach is 2 Touch Lives 4 Ever!

So as many of you know, I went from teaching 6th grade to teaching a 3rd grade ELD class at a new school. I absolutely love my new school. The people there are simply amazing and super friendly. The best part is that I went from sitting in a 3 hour staff meeting to only having a 30 minute staff meeting. Woo Hoo for short & to the point meetings!!!

My kids are, for the most part, well-behaved – which I am grateful for. It’s real interesting the difference between a 6th grader & a 3rd grader. I really liked that my 6th graders understood sarcasm… 3rd graders… not so much! I realized that I need to work harder with this class. Most of the students in my class are below grade level with some of them approaching. I know that I will make a difference & that due to my small class of 17 students, I can give my kids the individualized attention that they need. My goal is for all my students to pass the aims test!!! Together I know that we can do it!

A couple of weeks ago I was reading a book to them & the word dozen came up. They looked at me with the most confused look on their faces. I was shocked that only one person knew what dozen meant. So the following day I took to school egg cartons and showed them what a dozen eggs looked like as well as different things that come in dozens. We also played various games with the cartons so that they better understood what a dozen was. I loved that one kid finally made the connection and said, “OH!! I get it!!! It’s like when my mom sells tamales, I help her count 12 of them” When he said this, almost the entire class had that ‘AHA’ moment. LOVE IT!!! LOVE IT!!!

Today my kids had a difficult time learning what a subject and predicate was. They kind of got it but were not sure and then after a while they were just uninterested. Of course… when my kids become uninterested in learning… that’s when I break out in a song or dance or something to motivate them. They love to sing and we learned a subject/predicate song that helped them get the gist of what it meant. Then… I decided to allow my kids to put a sticker on me whenever they got a question correct. It took a while, but by the end, they were so excited to get the answers right. I loved that they tried super hard to get the answer right just to put stickers on me. I was hoping for stickers on my arms and legs but they thought it would be funnier if the stickers were all over my face.

Anything to motivate kids to learn!

I am proud to report that almost all of my kids figured out subject/predicate.  My kids are just simply amazing!