visit 5

Visit Number 5

Today was my fifth visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. It was nice out today and I could tell it would help the kids get into a good mood which always makes these lessons go smooth. I stopped in and said my usual hellos to Mr. Lahey and Randy. I stopped and talked to my literacy coach real quick, her name is Mrs. Peterson. I told her that I thought it would be helpful to get different activities for the children because it was obvious they were becoming bored. We talked about the kids just memorizing the answers and repeating them back, but I explained that I had done another activity from the classroom that dealt with the same thing but was based on completely different material. After several minutes of discussion she told me that the following week I would be provided with new folders for the classroom. I headed down the hall and noticed something interesting on the way there. I saw an older middle school student helping a younger student find her way to the bathroom. I was impressed at how responsible this young child already was. I finally got into my trailer and was again greeted heavily with hellos and many students who I didn’t work with were asking if it was their turn to come work with me. I felt bad telling them that they didn’t need to do the extra work with me and I hated to see the sad looks on their faces. I went and talked to Barb for a minute and she gave me some fresh packets to do with the kids. Ricky, Julian, Sara and Lucy were all very excited to sit down and get to work. We covered activates that dealt with vowels, fluency, and reading. I bribed the kids with candy land, and they all behaved very well and we were able to cover all the materials properly, and play a new version of candy land that involved reading. Like the prior weeks the kids seemed sad to have to go back to the regular class but those frowns were quickly replaced with the smiles of Trevor, Cory, Bubbles, and Trinity. I made them the same deal I made with the first group about playing candy land at the end if they paid attention and we covered everything. We moved through activities a little slower and with a little bit more confusion. We went over the material a few more times until everyone felt comfortable with it and they wernt making the same mistakes over and over, and I could tell they really understood it. We then moved on the candy land which is a fun way to help the kids read, have fun, stay interested, and work hard for. Again another successful day.