100 words...This was a project that was done yesterday when I was observing as well as another time when I was there. The students were writing a story about the Thanksgiving time and were expected to include some specific vocab words as well. However, the last of the requirements was to have 100 words in the story and not one more or one less. It was amazing of how much of a challenge this was for some of the kids and how in to this project they got. There was one who has a lot of energy was making sure that he had his 100 words as well as a great story line. He had learned from the last time of this project what to do and so was trying to use a strategy of 1o words per sentence so that he would know how many he has. This was able to work for him while others were just going to write a story and then count at the end and go back and add or subtract how ever many words they were over or under. I like the second way better but I realize that not everone is the same and arent going to have the same ideas of how to do the assignment. Also, the class did an activity with nouns, pronouns, and adjective clauses which was challenging for a lot of the kids and they needed a lot of help to be explained everythign in more detail. I thought this was interesting because I was also one of the students that would have struggled with this kind of activity because I was never good with grammar and the sentence structure of things. So because of those thoughts I was able to know and relate more to the kids who were struggling since I at one time had been that kid. I love when I can relate to them and know how they are feeling since I was once that kid.
Also, on a seperate note, this isnt about observing but just something that is relavant and I want to share. I recieved an email from one of the girls who I coach for junior high the other day and she was sharing a story that had happened to her at school. I guess she and some of the other softball girls were sitting at lunch and decided to make up some weird nick names for themselves that were all related to each other in some way. However, the point of the story was she shared with me that she wanted to share that with me because she knew that I would appreciate it. And also she told me thanks for letting them to be themselves at all time and not try to hide who they are as people. She said that was one of the things that she had learned from me over the time that we had spent together. I thought this was very relevant since we have been talking in class about letting the students be themselves and not making them change who they are. I am glad to know that even before this class had started and really started to make me think about things I had already started to do this and was able to leave a positive effect on these girls.