Fiction and Fractions

     This week in class my co-teaching partner and I taught two lessons together.  Our first lesson was a writing mini-lesson for our fourth graders.  The fourth graders are taking the Florida Writes State Test at the beginning of next week.  We took one last look at their writing and noticed that in their narrative stories, the students sometimes forgot the rules for using dialogue and quotations, such as what to capitalize and where to put commas and punctuation marks.  We also noticed that they needed to mix up their use of the word said with other words.  We made a PowerPoint of dialogue sentences and asked the students to tell us what was wrong or missing from the sentences.  The students were very engaged during the lesson, and we let them come up to the board and fix the mistakes in the sentences.  Then, we compiled a list of better words than said.  We gave the students two examples and let them run with them.  And that is exactly what they did.  They gave us over 20 GREAT examples of better words for said.  Several of them took note of the words and hopefully will look at them this weekend in a last minute preparation for the test.  This mini-lesson made me think a great deal about whether or not our fourth graders were prepared for the Florida Writes test.  It made me wonder if any of them will get test anxiety on test day and if there is anything we can do do relieve their anxieties.  It made me wonder how many of them will pass.  Ultimately, it made me think that they have spent an entire year preparing for the exam, and I am very hopeful as well as optimistic that their preparation will pay off on the day of the test.  You can do it fourth graders!! We believe in you.
     Lastly, my co-teaching partner and I taught a math lesson to the fifth graders.  The math lesson was on how to turn improper fractions into mixed numbers and vice versa.  Again, the students impressed us with their attention during our lesson as well as their grasp of the material.  We taught them a few tricks, with our mentor teacher's help, that hopefully made the lesson more concrete.
     Overall, I am greatly appreciative of the practice and guidance we are getting from this experience.  I feel more confident than ever in my ability as a teacher and more at ease teaching math.  Math has always been one of my weaker subjects, but getting the opportunity to break it down for the students is helping not only the students, but myself.  I understand the material and feel confident that the children understand it too.  Here's to another successful and fun upcoming week!