Week 2 Response

I use games to motivate my students frequently. One game I use pretty consistenly is just called "The Paper Plate Game." It can be used for various topics. This is how the game works. You decide on a topic (ex. nouns) and write that topic in the middle of the paper plate. Students are divided into groups. I have my students arranged in table groups and that works well for this. The class is given a certain amount of time, 5 minutes or less. The paper plate is passed around the group and each person adds to the paper plate. I used this game last week as a review of nouns. I allow my students to write in crayon if they prefer, just to make it more fun. I have some sort of reward for the winning team. I also read aloud every word on the winning team's plate. We play several math games in my classroom. A great game for place value is called "I Am the Greatest." If you want to know more, just google the game. We also play an egg carton addition game. Most of the games we play serve as a review of skills we have already been practicing in class.
Modeling is a teaching strategy I feel I use constantly. Many times I tell my students to pretend I am a student just like them. I sit at a desk and model for them what I want them to do. For example, I walk over to various areas of the room and turn assignments into the correct places. At the beginning of the year, I model for them what to do when they get to school in the morning. I do a lot of modeling in my whole-group and small-group reading lessons as well. While reading a book or story aloud to my students, I tell them to "spy on me" and I use self-monitoring strategies or use context-clues to figure out the meaning of vocabulary. Recently I have been modeling decoding strategies in reading groups by using a "guess the covered word" strategy. I am now noticing my students using that strategy while reading.