Ask me about thursday, october 15, 2020

Today we worked on finishing our My Calm Down books.  This book can be put in their Calm Down Kit to use when the children are working through strong feelings.  We talked about how these strong feelings aren't always negative, that sometimes you need to calm down when you become too excited.  We worked with Zen Doodling today.  The children drew a shape or thing with a thick marker if they had one, then used a thin marker to make different patterns or designs in different parts of the drawing.  I showed examples of the kinds of patterns or designs they could use.  An important part of Zen Doodling to be very deliberate and work slowly, focusing on the lines you are drawing.  I put quiet music on as the children were working.  We went through this step-by-step, but one thing that is becoming more difficult is that the children begin working before I am done with directions or have modeled it.  A few children drew pictures instead of a design with one big shape or thing such as a flower or fish.  Some children colored in their pictures instead of doodling.  I'm breaking down tasks into smaller parts to get children to listen to the directions and following them, but it's more difficult online than it is in person to get them to stop what they are doing and listen.

We wrote opinions today.  We wrote a beginning sentence together, then they were to write at least one more sentence that tells their reason for their opinion.  We will be working more on learning how to spell or write the sounds they hear, but I am giving them more opportunities to do this, and hope that if you are helping them, please help them by encouraging them to stretch out the word and to write the sounds they hear instead of focusing on spelling the word correctly by telling them. 
We went to the Benchmark website today.  Yesterday I logged in as almost every child and added Benchmark, Clever and See Saw to their favorites.  I'm going to be brave tomorrow and try and get them to open a second window and toggle to Benchmark and back to Zoom.  We will do this in the afternoon at the end of the day so if they accidentally close out of Zoom, you won't have to log them back on.  I try and be very aware of your work situation from home so that you don't have to keep stopping what you are doing to come help, so hopefully we can learn this quickly.  If you have time over the weekend, you might want to work with them on toggling between the sites.  The other sites you might use are Benchmark, our Google classroom, and Clever.  On Clever you could show them Tumblebooks so they could go there to hear stories read to them.  Clever will already have the passwords saved so the kids won't have to find all these different passwords for the sites.

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe