October 6, 2012: New grade, new inquiry, new blog

Saturday Meeting: October 6, 2012
It's a new year and I'm teaching a new grade level! I'm excited to try something new. What I've found so far while teaching Kindergarten is that many things I do seem magical to the kids. One of these things is using puppets. Some students will ignore me when I'm teaching, but if I bring out a puppet, all of my students are engaged. I also have some students in my class who are very quiet and who I would like to speak more in class. My next steps are figuring out what is my particular learning goal. I know I want to use puppets in my inquiry but what my acutal question is, I'm still not sure.

Focal students: I was thinking I wanted to focus on Transitional Kindergarteners versus Kindergarteners but now I'm leaning more towards students who are quiet in class. All of my students will talk when I ask them a question but there are about 7 students who don't intitate participation. Of those 7 I want to narrow it down to about 4 students, ideally 2 boys and 2 girls but not necessarily. I want to make observations during these next few weeks and then select focal students from those observations.

What I'm thinking now: It's important for students to speak, especially with the new common core standards rolling out. I don't know if puppets will necessarily increase students vocabulary but I know that it will get them to talk more. There is a major focus on speaking in the common core and I want to give my students the opportunity to engage with dramatic play while still speaking.

Next steps: My next steps are to start selecting focal students as well as start collecting data. I'm not sure what my data or data collection methods will be yet, but I do know that know that I have a focus, I do think I will be able to move towards a way to collect data. I also want to use the puppets more within giving routines and allow for opportunities in which students can interact with them.