Slice of Life: May: The icing on the cake.

May is...FULL

May is...FUN

May is gratifying. Readers of this blog know that I love how I spend each work day. The fullness and fun of May is like the proverbial icing on the cake. It is such a sweet month. May is the time when I get to work with classroom teachers to develop collaborative culminating projects, projects that hopefully tie together the skills, strategies, ideas, and knowledge that the students have been gaining all year. 

Last week was just the first of many full and fun weeks. I used any increment of time that I could to work with classes.  Along with working with the twenty-one classes of students during my fixed schedule, I was involved in other learning experiences that included classroom teachers as well.

I introduced (location, access, and navigation) electronic resources to third grade students and their classroom teachers. 

I spent forty-five minutes in a first grade classroom working with the students and classroom teacher during their ocean animal research project. I introduced the electronic databases and then spent the next thirty minutes working with engaged learners.  

I spent an hour in a third grade classroom assisting the students and teachers with a project for a unit on New England mammals. I introduced an image database that we are piloting and guided the students through a presentation that included two slides - one with a riddle and one with an image of their mammal.

I spent time in all the fifth grade classrooms working with students to create knowledge products on various science subjects. The students have been information gatherers, script writers, prop creators, and film-makers. 

I spent an hour with a second grade teacher and her students working on a poetry project. I introduced, explained, and assisted in the creation of poems capturing what the students learned during a science unit on forces of motion. 

 

May is...BITTERSWEET

May is...EXCITING

May is gratifying.