What I would do

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Home : 2002 : March : 8

What I would do
By Lydia

My feeling is that you will need to keep this type of class in their seat at all times. I teach a fifth grade class like yours, and I have found that it's just not worth the aggravation to do "special" stuff. Like, you, I don't want to deprive the kids of opportunities to do "fun" stuff, but it just wastes time if all you do is handle discipline problems. These kinds of kids don't handle unstructured or "freedom" activities like you described very well. We do a lot of reading and writing, which won't hurt them at all. I try to avoid group work, because they get so crazy with it. Most work is in seats, and I give a lot of quizzes to keep them quiet and on task. I make sure I grade them and that their parents see the results.