Week 4

How does this teacher manage assessment?

Today was my last day in the K-3 grades, so that means I'm halfway done with my fieldwork for this class! But I still have twenty hours left to do (I'm also required to do fieldwork hours for my child lit. class). Just like the week before last, I volunteered once again in Mrs. Homer's class. Luckily her heart has healed a lot, so she no longer needs to hire substitutes for the day if she doesn't feel well enough. I like having Mrs. Homer there more than the substitutes; the class is more structured and the kids actually listen to me!
I helped them with rotations again, however, Mrs. Homer put a twist in the workshops. Because October 31st is drawing near, the activities were all centered around Halloween. There were five different workshops. First, a small group of students listened to an audio tape and followed along to the book Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler. The second rotation was a writing activity where they had to create a story, using their vocabulary list, about witches. The third rotation drew pictures around a pair of eyes and write a description of their creature. The fourth was a math activity where the students paired up and played a math game called "Bump". Finally, Mrs. Homer had the students come to her one by one and read to her. This assessment allowed her to see if the children had improved in their reading skills since the beginning of the school year. If they weren't surpassing the number of words per minute they could read at the beginning of the year, Mrs. Homer increased their reading time and told them to spend a lot of the time reading aloud to their parents.
I'm a little sad to be leaving this class - they were a fun group of kids and they made me laugh a lot. But I am excited to observe the older classes!