Math week 5, Geometry!

I had fun learning geometry through folding up a paper box.  It was fun and interesting to hear how other people explained their thoughts and thinking on geometry.  It was challenging for me to explain how I knew a square shape.  We are just so used to saying "I know it's a square because it looks like a square."  We are not used to expaining our thinking.  It was challenging but I think I learned/refreshed my understanding of geometry through the activity. 

My question is: how can I make my teaching fun  and creative to engage all my students? 

I am in a second grade classroom for my Main placement, so I haven't had the chance to teach them geometry yet.  I think folding the box activity (or something similar) can be fun to just teach them the concept/idea of geometry.

Taking the Time to Write

I enjoyed this week's reading of Bird by bird by Anne Lamott.  After reading few pages of her book made me feel like Lamott exactly knew how I was feeling about writing, and she was in a way guiding me to just believe in myself and write.  I felt encouraged that she understood how difficult it can be to be a writer.  This whole week, I couldn't come up with an interesting small moment to write about for my second literacy vignette.  I sat in front of my computer, flashing back to my childhood memories to come up with an interesting topic to write about.  I had a few, but just didn't think it was interesting enough.  I hindered for days, then reading Bird by bird got me started.  I enjoyed the chapter about broccoli.  "When you don't know what to do, when you don't know whether your character would do this or that, you get quiet and try to hear that still small voice inside.  It will tell you what to do." (pg.110)  It sort of worked for me, to take some time, take a breath and listen. I am willing to try it again next time I write. 

Thinking back to my childhood, I wasn't the best reader or writer.  Since it was even so hard for me to learn English as a second language, I didn't really know how to "enjoy" reading.  Not until when I was in 4th grade.  I started ordering books from scholastic book fairs we had in school, and I was so excited to get new books each month.  I literally could not let my books down and even fell asleep with it.  I feel that it's important to emphasize on the idea that we need to constantly read in order to become good readers and writers.  Thinking of my broccoli like how Lamott suggested, I was able to take some time to come up with an topic I wanted to write about and enjoy writing it.