Montague

This week I have noticed that our calendar time in the morning seems to be getting longer and longer. However, I do not necessarily think that this is a bad thing because it includes so many important things and covers a lot of different subjects right into daily routines. We started out with only a few things in our calendar but every week we add something new so that our students can learn more from it because they are ready. Something that I have found interesting and that I did not notice when I first started was just how much math is included in that early morning instruction. We start off with a student reading our daily letter to the class and that same person counts the number of something in that letter. For instance, one day it could be the number of words, the next it could be the number of a’s in the letter. Every day it changes, therefore the number that they count to changes. Next, a student comes up to do the calendar. During this time, the student tells the day and talks about how they knew the day by referring to the rows and columns. Another math activity included in calendar time is the growing number line for the number of days we have been in school. This is a very important one because each day, they learn how to write that number, they learn how to build that number (using base ten blocks—this is another student’s job during this time) and how to say the ordinal number. The next student’s job is to write the number, draw the base ten blocks to match it and tell the class how many tens and ones are in the number of the day. I could go on and on with the different math activities that we have just in this first hour of the day but I won’t bore you with that. I just thought it was important to recognize how easily you can fit math into your student’s daily lives and do it in a way that students enjoy doing it (they love having these jobs!). I think that it is important to recognize this to keep your kids interested in math and have them recognize that math is not just memorizing things but that it is actually useful in the real work. I think that this is a case of recognizing the different ways to teach across the curriculum and doing it in such a way that engages your students. Overall, I think that the calendar time is something that all elementary ages should start the day off with because I think that each job can be modified to fit different age levels.