Tales from the Fourth Grade....Sept 2, 2014

Today I helped in my daughter's fourth grade classroom.  When I walked in, the teacher, Mrs. Wilson was finishing reading aloud to the students.  What I thought was interesting was that while she was reading, students had little white boards on their desks for them to doodle on.  I thought this was a good classroom management skill because some kids have a hard time sitting still and if they can do something that doesn't take a lot of thought, like doodling, they can actually listen better.  After reading, it was math time.  I helped a few students go over rounding while the rest of the class played a math game.  The game was set up like Jeopardy, but with math questions.  The class was divided into two teams, but everyone still had to figure out the problem on their white board.  I helped walk around and make sure all students were participating and also helped those who were stuck.  It was good because they were still able to review for their upcoming test, but do it in a fun way.  If the class got too noisy, Mrs. Wilson would say things like, "if you are listening, touch your nose"or something similar.  She would also say, "I like the way Madison is listening" to get the attention of the class in a positive way.