***Special Announcement***** This year we've had the opportunity to work with a high school student, Stu Mosseau. Stu is a graduating senior and has been interning with me for the better part of the year. On Friday, I would like to have some sort of "celebration" for him since this will be his last day with us. I'm hoping people can bring in some light refreshments on Friday. I will have the students make cards to express their thanks for all of Stu's hard work. Please let me know if you have any questions about this via email or a phone call.
In writing today, we looked at examples of past World's Fair Essays. Students focused on writing the introductory paragraph today in class. I would like rough drafts by Wednesday.
In reading, we continued our discussion of Metacognition while we read. Students learned about the inner voices that they have when they read. We distinguished between Interacting voices (those that deepen our comprehension) and Distracting voices (those that take away from comprehension). I modeled reading a short story and shared my thoughts within the first paragraph. Students then read the rest of the story and wrote down their inner voice thoughts. We determined whether each thought is an interacting thought or a distracting thought. Next, we went over all of the metacognitive strategies and what they are. Students labeled their thoughts with which strategy each one demonstrated. It is important for students to tune into the thoughts in their heads as they read. So often I hear, "But Mrs. Follansbee, I don't have any thoughts." I beg to differ! All good readers have thoughts, they just need to realize this and start listening to them. Metacognition happens for all good readers. It's just a matter of thinking about what they are thinking as they read.
In science today, we worked our way through a few genetic scenarios on the overhead projector. Students used their knowledge to come up with Punnett Squares for certain situations. We then worked on our paper pets.
We ended the day in health class.
