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Home : 2001 : August : 16
I teach first grade (now for 7 years). They are a bit overwhelming at first, but once you have a bit more time with them, you will find they are a wonderful grade to teach. Having 32 students is much more difficult,
Remember grade 1 students especially this time of year have about a 10 minute attention span per activity. This doesn't mean you have to plan tons of things, but instead you need to plan for breaks inbetween activities. You need to give short instructions and quite often it's easier to have them follow along as you do something. Do activities step-by-step with them. They learn a lot by example. They love poems, little songs, games. When I start to see my little ones fidgeting a lot, I'll just stop the work, get them to stand up and do a few actions - walk around your desk twice, touch your nose, jump up and down 3 times. They love this and it allows them to get some of their energy out before we sit back down to do work. I like to use incentive charts. I have them up on a wall and then when I catch them doing their work, sitting quietly or following one of the behaviours we're working on, I put checkmarks on their chart. When they get 10 checkmarks they get to go to my prizebox. It's amazing how hard they will work for those checkmarks. Sit down tonight and figure out what things you feel are the most important for you to be changed. Things that I prefer in my classroom is no talking when I'm giving instructions, coming in and being ready to work after the recess breaks, putting up their hand to ask a question, so these are the main ones I work on at the beginning of the year. Later I will work on the other behaviours or with individual students. I also find it easier to put my desks into groups of 4 - although the kids sometimes socialize too much in groups - I can usually rearrange the groups enough to have good workers in each group and the "stronger" students can easily help those who are struggling. It's much easier for me as well to sit with a group of 4 to help them, than to have to go from desk to desk - especially with larger classes. I also have a table in my room with shelves, etc., and this is where all their workbooks, journals, etc., are kept. I find it so much easier to have everything in one place and not in the desks. This way the students learn from day 1 where to put their work and I rarely have to go searching for someone's workbook. I always find September and October the harder months - trying to figure out where each student is, working on behaviours, etc, but then usually about November they start to really settle into the routines and we take off from there. This doesn't mean you have 2 months of terrible days to look forward to, just that the first two months will seem more hectic and unsure as you get to know your kids.
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