Another quick post…more productivity, yada yada.
First off, got all those ‘My Hero’ papers submitted..whew! We’re now fully working on the book + workbook competition/challenge and it’s definitely a challenge. The kids are assigned a book based on their grade level in school and the level seems to be higher than what most of the kids are ready for. For some of them, I think it’s a good challenge…not too hard, but hard enough. However, my oldest student is on his own because he’s the oldest that I personally teach, so he is in the last category for books…except his reading level isn’t high enough for the book he’s reading.
There are different books with different topics, but they all have about the same reading level/word choice, etc. The book I picked from the group is about food around the world. It looked cool and has some fun pictures, but the first chapter is about proteins, carbohydrates and fats. The second chapter is about Food Producers. It talks about different crops that farmers around the world make. The food bit comes in more later. It’s just that…he doesn’t know body parts past the basics (the topic I chose for the youngest group because I think words like “muscle” and “brain” are good ones to know).
It’s just rough because he doesn’t understand most of what the book is talking about…and he has to answer questions on it.
He’s also Monday/Wednesday/Friday, so I can’t give him as much help as I plan to do with the others in his class.
The book is 30+ pages…
All of them at that level are about the same amount of pages though. Oi.
It’s not the length though…he reads books that are already that many pages…I just can’t explain the book if he doesn’t understand 80% of the words.
*sigh*
I dunno, I’m hoping to have these books and workbooks finished by about Friday, so we can hopefully knock out book 2 (one fiction and one non-fiction) next week.
Anyway, the bosses are taking the books from our classrooms and putting all of them in the library downstairs and my classroom is the last to go. I stayed late tonight and moved around some furniture and re-organized the classroom and some bookshelves a bit. I brought about half of our books down to the library today (didn’t want to overwhelm the people downstairs) and converted the bookshelf into a sort-of supply shelf. I have all of the crayons, extra tissues, paper plates, plasticware, etc on it.
I think it sounds tacky as I explain it, but it actually looks really nice. I have things labeled and now everything has a place (yay!). Also, since we’re not using it as a bookshelf anymore, I moved it over a bit and expanded the reading mat area.
I also put our class puzzle (for breaktime) in the library downstairs. The puzzle was sitting on our magnet board that we used for the abc magnets and I wanted to make use of that (was tired of looking at the puzzle that is taking ages to be finished.)
Anyway, it looks super nice and I’m planning on getting two more cheap throw pillows from Daiso (dollar store) tomorrow to add to the new/bigger reading space.
I’m also still realllllllllly wanting to convert it to a fort by putting a sheet on top and adding in some Christmas lights. But not sure if that makes me crazy or not, haha. My kids would absolutely die if they saw it. Classrooms here typically don’t have all the bright colors and such…much less a reading fort (ie: a sheet hanging over an empty space, haha).
Typical Korean Elementary School Classrooms:
American Style Elementary Classroom
Similar, yet different.
I still remember my 4th grade classroom. The teacher made a giant tree out of paper and it stretched from the floor onto the ceiling. We had our free-reading area over by the tree. There were beanbag chairs and mats to lounge on. Super fun. I hope to create something memorable with my room too.
I try to make it a fun place that works for me and a room that makes me happy to be in, and hopefully they are too. They seem to like when things are switched around or added for the holidays. I like when they come in and start exploring the changes, haha 🙂
Anyway, I’m happy that Monday is finished. A long, but productive day. They feel good, but they can really wear you out.
Good thing I have those 20-something hours in the airplane coming up..hopefully I can rest then. haha 😀
staceyinkorea 