I am so excited to
be teaching fourth grade math and science this year! I previously taught a looping kinder-first grade. It was an amazing experience, but I am thrilled to be where I am now. I just wanted to give a brief explanation of how my classroom works (and I mean BRIEF)! I plan on going into more detail about each aspect as the year goes on, but we gotta start somewhere!
First off I am a Conscious Discipline teacher. I TRULY believe in this program. I have seen it work on my TOUGHEST kids! For those of you unfamiliar with the program it was created by Dr. Becky Bailey and it is a brain-based model of classroom management. I like it because it is rooted in the science of how the brain works. It is NOT a clip system, or a conduct mark system. You may still use those with conscious discipline but punishment is not the end goal. It is a program that helps you notice what part of the brain the misbehaving child is in and teaches you how to help the child get back into their per-frontal cortex (where all learning takes place).
I also teach using interactive notebooks. There is a big difference between these and journals. The key to interactive notebooks is that they are INTERACTIVE! This means that it has to be more than just "cut this out, glue it in." In my class the students take notes, and yes sometimes cut and paste, things into the right side of their notebook. The right side is the side for INPUT. The left side is the OUTPUT side, this is the side THEY are responsible for. They work examples, do foldables, make graphs, come up with problems, and record results from learning games here. We use lots of COLOR in our notebooks and the kids truly treasure them.
So that is the short and sweet overview of my classroom. I am so excited to share my journey with you! Please check back often. Next week I will post my lesson over adding and subtracting decimals- complete with a fun game! I just have to get pictures of the kid's notebooks before I can really explain it!
