Learn & Serve 2

My second day consisted of me signing into the front office, and then going upstairs to Mrs. Capastosto’s room where the class had taken attendance by using the Smart Board. Then, the announcements were held live on the television. This was a tool I had seen used at the last learn & serve placement I was at in the Tonawanda School District. I also noticed big lined paper on the white board which was either titled “My Favorite Restaurant” or “My Favorite TV Show.” On each of these papers, punctuation such as periods, commas and capitalization were all pointed out by post-it notes. Next, the students took out their spelling notebooks, and Mrs. Capatosto walked around the room to check homework. During this time, the students worked on their “bell work” which was about addition. After the homework was checked, two homework sheets about ABC order and short “I” words (middle, dish, pig, rich, sick) and subtraction were discussed as a class. For the math sheets, a few students told the class about their picture stories. The students then moved onto another worksheet about short “I” words. One student read the directions by using a small microphone which was attached to a lanyard. This tool is mostly given to students who are soft spoken. Next, it was time for centers; students were split into three different groups who either went to computers, guided reading, partner reading or the listening center. Mrs. Capatosto has this schedule on the wall where the students can refer to it every day, to make sure their group is going to the correct place. This is an effective tool in keeping your students on track and it helps them develop a sense of responsibility for themselves and their group. Each of the centers are focused on the fluency and speed of the students as they read and reread their books. In the guided reading center, Mrs. Capatosto worked with a group of students who read a book together, one at a time, and then they completed a worksheet together about the book. At the listening center, a group of students used headphones to follow along to a tape that read a story to them. This is more of an individual assignment, seeing as the students are not supposed to be talking to each other as the story is being read to them. Next, it was clean up time, and after this Mrs. Capatosto had the students sit on the reading rug. She placed two chairs next to her, and these seats were for students who chose to share their reading sheet which listed the title, author, and picture of a book they had read for the 25 Books Club. Before it was time for me to leave, the students had their snack, and took out their work study notebooks in order to work on long and short “a” words, such as map, train, and rake. Here's a website I found on short "a" activites.