A Big Breakthrough!!!

This week has had its ups and downs. I'll start on a positive note with a big breakthrough.. I have a little boy in my class that is  pretty bright. I expect him to qualify as gifted, you know one of those kids who just comes up with great and unique observations. He wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up. When school first started , he was constantly falling out of his chair and disturbing the class. When it was time for journal writing, all he wanted to do was draw, his mom told me he hates to write.

The other day, he came up to show me a drawing of a snake, I gently reminded him again that he was supposed to be writing something to go with the picture. He came back with "I love snakes." I told him that was a great start, could he go back and tell me what kind of snake it was. He came back with, "My snake is a diamondback rattle snake." YES! So, I thought I see if it would work again, I asked him to go back and tell me what color it was and it;s size. It Worked!!! He came back with "The color is red. This snake can grow up to 100 feet long." Here it is:

 

 

So now, he is writing a book, I told him I would type it for him and let him draw the pictures and then I would make a copy of it for our classroom library. He said we needed to make 3 copies so he could give one to our principal.

 

Here is what he wrote the next day.

 

 

 

I wish the whole week had been like that, but one day, I'm telling you I had 5 or 6 kids that could not stay in their seat. What I mean by that is, they were falling out of their chair or turning the chair over as they fell and I'm not talking once, I mean like 4 to 5 times EACH. I was very frustrated by the end of the day so instead of journal writing, I gave all the kids a piece of paper and told them to write  a plan for their behavior for the next day. Reading them that evening certainly gave me a few chuckles.

 

 

I love this one!  "I will be good every day by listening to the teacher, not humming and not singing, but I will listen to the teacher."

And finally this one: "I will be good all day. I will not do anything wrong tomorrow."

 

At least they are learning a little bit from our phonics chart while they are falling out of their chairs. lol When school first started, I could not get them to write, now that is all they want to do. My principal told me when she used to teach 2nd grade, she would write back to them in their journal. I started doing it a couple of years ago, it can be a little time consuming, but it is worth it. I had some students who have never written anything in their journal taking the plunge this week. One more and I'm finished this little boy only knows a handful of sightwords, so it was exciting to see this.

 

 

 

Kelly