Currently!

I've been WAITING for the February Currently to come out from {Oh Boy! Fourth Grade} and by the time I got there this morning, I'm already #117! If you haven't done Currently before, definitely do it. It opened me up to so many other great teaching blogs!

My school has a Student Word Study Teacher that comes around into some of the primary classes. Her job is to work with a target group of kids to devise plans and strategies that will help bring their grades up a level. It has to do with our provincial testing, etc. Although her job is to not evaluate or judge the teacher's styles, that is essentially what she is doing since she is changing the way we do things, the programs we teach, and how we do it. As a non-permanent staff, I am both thankful she is there, but worried about what will come of it.

I made the decision to go to math centres during a time when she was not coming to our school. It was working well, but I wasn't sure about the actual timing of each centre. I've been focused on trying not to neglect meeting with any math groups. But in the process, I think I was maybe being too overzealous in my timing.

She has suggested that I don't try to meet with each group every day, but instead, maybe meet with 2 groups at a time (there are 5 altogether), make it a bit longer of a lesson, then send those groups off to do their independent practice. Then I can meet with the next set of groups and send them off. I will do basically only 2 guided math sessions a day to teach our whole group lesson (but to smaller groups still) and then I can be available to help them when they are working on their independent work.

Confusing? I know.

I think in the end, it will be better. At first, I was a bit miffed at the criticism of my centres (they ARE good!), but as I got thinking about it, I realize what she is saying is actually right. I was more concerned about making sure I was getting the lesson to each small group EVERY DAY, rather than having longer stations and making sure the lesson I was giving was really rich.

So math in Room 12 will once again get a bit of a makeover! I plan to take some time this weekend to really come up with my plan so that it is simplified and easy for the kids to see.