This week we added new members to our learning community. One was Ms. Jones, our MAT. She will be with us, full-time, through the end of April. Here is a short introduction she prepared for all of you...
Hello! I'm Meredith Jones, Mr. Hass's MAT student teacher this semester. I grew up in Charlotte, NC and have lived in Columbia for almost four years and love it here. I have a Bachelors degree in Sacred Music from Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, NC and a Masters degree in flute performance from Appalachian State University. I am so thrilled to be an intern at CFI and truly believe I have found my calling as an elementary teacher. I have only been with Mr. Hass's class for a few days, but I can already tell that they are a wonderful group of kids and I know I will learn so much from them.
Meredith is very musical. In fact, she has led a children's choir in the past. I was especially excited to hear this since I'm a fairly terrible singer and sometimes struggle to help the kids sing on key or find the right notes.
Over the course of our three months together she will take part in teaching literacy, math, science, and social studies. As the semester progresses she'll take on more and more responsibilities but still within a co-teaching model in which I'm present and supporting her. One big difference this time around will be that there is no longer that two-week period in which student teachers are completely on their own in the classroom. Having multiple adults in the room is always a good thing. We're excited to begin our work together!
The other new members of our community were the latest batch of USC Tall Teachers. They are with us for our final hour of the day on both Mondays and Wednesdays. On Monday they observe our mini-lessons and then work one-on-one with the kids during independent reading time. On Wednesdays the Tall Teachers are participating in our writing workshop, doing the very same work the kids do each day - participating in a mini-lesson, writing independently (or in small groups), then coming back together to share their work and new thinking. The kids will soon be assigned to one of the USC undergrads. Be sure to ask your child about it!
In class this week we are exploring...
Reading - Determining importance when reading non-fiction texts
Writing - Songwriting
Math - Communicative, Associative, and Distributive Properties
Social Studies - American Revolution
Finally, it's getting awfully cold out there. The kids have been doing a great job of bringing in their coats, hats, and mittens. However, could you please make sure to write your child's name in their jackets. We finds lots of these lying around (in the room, at lunch, on the playground, etc) and it'd make it much easier to get these back to their rightful owners.
Thanks,
Chris
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