All Quiet

There is some serious sickness at Walden right now. My class had five kids out today, and the lower elementary had a total of more than 20 kids out. Crazy. I actually had six out until one student showed up an hour and a half late. Really? 90 minutes late?! C'mon parents! Step up! That is SO annoying.
So it was a quiet day. I only had 14 students, and we implemented our "get your works done" policy today. We talked about it starting last week, that students now need to complete (AND TRACK) four works in the morning or else they can use recess time to finish up. Is it "punishment?" I don't think so. It is extra time for the kids who have a hard time working. And it totally worked. I have students who have NEVER tracked themselves, not for lack of capability, just for, I don't know, lack of motivation. Today, most everyone was on task, working all morning and ready to go at recess time - with their trackers completed. Sweet.
I started leveling kids in reading comprehension today. Very enlightening. I have one student who was reading at grade level and scored above benchmarks on both accuracy and fluency, but after taking seven minutes to read the story (that benchmarks suggested ought to take four), I asked her to retell the story in her own words, and she shrugged saying, "I don't really remember." NO comprehension. I had another student who was the exact opposite. Well below benchmarks on accuracy and fluency, but above benchmarks on comprehension. Go figure. I am looking forward to having all my students leveled so I can start to really work on their comprehension. It is going to be interesting to see how they do.
I didn't follow through with a lot of my plan today, though. I was going to teach a language lesson on the line that I totally blew off, because, well, I had six kids out at the time. What's the point? Then I did an intro to Pre-Columbian North American civilizations that was really done by the seat of my pants. I should have prepared more, but the kids were attentive, and when the lesson was over, I placed the books on the history shelf, and I noticed that several of them were chosen during DEAR time. So I guess it went all right.
OH! I failed to mention the introduction of the North American passports last week! The book has a space for each North American country, and the students get to "visit" each country by doing a single-page study of the country and turning it in to the teacher. For each country visited, the students get that space of their passport book "stamped" with a flag sticker for the country. The kids are LOVING it! One of my students who tends to be a goof - lots of talking, not so much with the work - has already done THREE country reports. It's pretty amazing.
So that's it, Maria. I wonder how many students will be out tomorrow?