All praise be to Allah SWT, I had an amazing school year! After incorporating lots of ideas that I learnt from teachers' blogs in my math and science classroom, I've grown more confident in the classroom. I am also learning to establish a more nurturing relationship with my students. Although it was a tough year to deal with classroom issues, I am thankful to have the support and mentorship of my co-teacher, Miss R. She is so generous with sharing her 15 years of teaching experience with me.
Here is a snapshot of what worked in my classroom this past school year.
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| Classroom management strategy: "What Do You Choose?" My students were able to reflect on their behavior and made smarter choices by referring to this chart. It is a real life-saver for me! |
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| I spent the first two weeks of school explaining about the color chart system, students knew to move their own clips down when they broke a rule. No drama kings and queens in the classroom! |
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| I love the Whole Brain Teaching class rules! This is the second year I used it and it worked really well. It took a while for students to get a hang on gesturing the class rules, but they got it eventually. |
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| The hand signal chart on top really helped my students avoid distracting me when I had small group instructional time. My students loved the group rotation for math workshop. |
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| I was not able to incorporate Calendar Math in my daily math classes as often as I like, partly because I was still trying to figure out how to get it done! Allah SWT willing, I will be more confident to do so this coming school year. |
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| On my science wall, I put up seed bags to show students how seeds germinate. I realized that although they have been learning about this process since first grade, they gain new insight as we explore this topic deeper each year. Visual learners such as myself really find this process fascinating! |
I didn't include a picture of classroom jobs assignment, but I find that this classroom management strategy worked really well for 4th graders. Students are super excited when it was their turn to be Captain Math and Science Lab Managers, because they'll have super powers of solving math problems and carry out science demonstrations/experiments!
