First sub?

Well, they did well with their first substitute. They were talkative (shocking!) but quieted down during Reader's Workshop. (They do love their reading time!) This morning, they continued thinking about setting their goal from yesterday and why or why not they accomplished it and if they needed to write a new one. Some were very excited to tell me that they wrote new ones-which allowed me to assume that they accomplished their goal from yesterday. :) Then, they sorted their spelling words by short vowel sound and wrote in their writer's notebooks about what comforts them. The substitute read, You're Finally Here, and they discussed the character traits of the main character but also why we feel this way about the character. They also answered some questions about the main character from our Story Works story about some of the character traits he showed and some of the motivations behind his actions. I gave a very fun little demonstration on efficiency before our Number Talk today (you'll have to ask them about it) but they used different and mostly more efficient strategies today. Then, we reviewed the places and values of numbers through the millions and did some fun activities with this as well as added the idea that each "place" is 10 times bigger than the previous place. We used Leon to show this! We also chuckled when discussing the value or worth of a kiddo as they were the digits. So, some weren't very happy that others were worth more than them. During choice time, they played some games and completed some work with these concepts as well as some 3rd grade review ideas. I also met with about 1/2 of them to be sure that they were on the right track and they completed their first Exit Slip today to give me guidance of if they understand the 10 times bigger concept. Finally, they were introduced to our Ohio Studies Weekly magazine/newspaper. They reviewed some map skills and completed a crossword puzzle about the information in the magazine. We learned how to use skimming, key words and heading titles to help us be successful.