Chapter 6 - Sabrina

Even in my Kindergarten room, I encourage the students to talk as much as possible. This is much easier to do at this point in the year, seeing as in the beginning they are pretty much clams. The Language for Learning program I am using encourages students to use language properly. For example, when pointing, in my teacher's book, to a dog I will ask the students, "What is this?" I will not accept "dog" as a response - it must be "a dog." I utilize this throughout the day; the learning doesn't stop when we're through with the Direct Instruction. Taking off my "Direct Instruction" hat, when discussing a story, or with anything we are doing, I will ask students if the topic reminds them of anything else. We were discussing "equal parts" a few days ago and that led into a discussion about past birthday parties, and sharing your cake, cookies, and jello equally - so that it would be fair. Anything can lead into a discussion amongst the students; the teacher just needs to take those opportunities when they come up.

The hardest thing for me to keep up on is "wait time." It's hard to gauge the wait time, and it differs with each student. I find it interesting that some of my students who speak Yugtun at home need less wait time than other students; and with other students it's the opposite.

One thing I try to do throughout the year is vary my instructional groupings. As it says in the book, if you switch it up every now and then, you will keep the students interested and help them retain the information. I am utilizing the SMARTBoard mostly for Math so that they can be more interactive in their learning. Allowing the students to get up and participate in a giant video game keeps their attention for a longer amount of time (sometimes...).

I use whole-group instruction to introduce new topics, split into smaller groups if the topic is not being absorbed well and eventually move into independent work. I would like to work on adding more independent structure to my center time; giving the students a chance to work in pairs or triads on their own. I now have students working independently with file folder games, and other math games.