I blame You Tube!!

Ok, so I finally figured out why this age group of children have no inner monologue and NEVER stop talking. They aren't even always talking to other people-sometimes just themselves! I realized this when I happened to watch a "show" Adison, my 4th grader, was watching. These people describe out loud every thing they are doing and every thought they have! "I got this toy so I'm going to open it and show you how to put it together. Hmmm...I wonder if this is going to be hard to do. Oh, look! There's stickers to put on..." Seriously! So, when I just reached my limit today, I told the class this reality. They are not "You Tubers." This is not You Tube. I am not a subscriber to their channel. They do not need to verbalize every thought and every action of their day. I am definitely one that talks to myself when I'm trying to solve a problem but I do not share every thought in my head! Ok. I feel better after my rant. Thank you for allowing me to share. I also said that even if you are not talking to someone, if sounds are coming out of your mouth, that counts.

Anyway, we took our M4T assessment for the week and then watched the ADE news. We didn't have a full meeting this morning because too many kiddos needed time to complete their writing. They had about 40+ minutes today to work on their writing that we began on Monday. I told them that I'm not seeing their growth as writers as I would like so I was going to assess this writing this weekend so we could set writing goals next week so that they could improve as writers. I'm looking at ideas, following the writing process, paragraphs, delicious words, punctuation, capitalization, spelling...everything. In Read Aloud, we finished The Beaded Moccasins which was bitter sweet. We were happy with the ending and the story but we grew attached to Mary and the characters! We spent extra time finishing the book so Reader's Workshop was cut a little shorter than usual. However, students finished their poetry work, read and visited the library. We had Art, lunch and inside recess due to the rain. :( **4 cell phones/iPods/electronic devices were taken from the teacher on duty at this time. We had a discussion that "Bring your own device" is for EDUCATIONAL purposes. It is a rule that there are no electronic devices allowed during recess-ever-because they cannot be properly monitored. There was an issue earlier in the week with someone taking pictures with their device during class. That means they have 2 strikes...if there is one more issue with our "Bring your own device" policy, they will not be allowed any longer. Most children use them to listen to music as white noise while they work or to get on ST Math or something. Hopefully, this point was made clear today. Math Workshop was a mess today-extremely chaotic. Students: took the Unit 4 Pre-test, took the Unit 3 Post-test, practiced for the assessment on Monday, challenged themselves with trying to figure out Mixed Numbers/Improper Fractions, completed ST Math, etc... One thing that remained the same was that it seemed that EVERYONE needed me at one time and all the time and Mrs. Sharma was out today... I tried to teach them "Calm Down Yoga for Kids" to calm us down after such a chaotic math but they chose to be too silly which created more stress and we ended up sitting silently at our seats for 5 minutes. I really like the poses and message involved in this so I hope to show them again next week when they are more receptive and less crazy. :)

We ended our day with completing our OSW from yesterday and Wonder/i-Time where most kiddos were working on finishing their writing.