Term 3 - Week 5

This week has been where things are things are becoming a little bit crazy.

I am still focusing on my writing. I am working had to see every child a week and conference with them one on one. This is time where we talk about their writing goal and work together to assess their work. I find that this can be very challenging because writing time can easily become limited for several reasons. Sometimes maths time can become too long and cut into writing time. I also find that I can talk too much in the mat and this cuts into their writing time again. The less time the children have for writing, the quality of the work isn't as good as it can be and the conferencing time is lessened.
This week so far I have felt really good about conferencing time. I trying very hard to watch the clock and hove more writing time. I am making sure that I am seeing a writing group every day. The children are getting to know that this day is their marking day with me. The other children are getting to know that if they finish they are to put their writing away and just do some free writing while others finish.

I am also working very hard on my behaviour management. I am still finding one particular child very challenging. He is still hitting others and not following instructions. He can sometimes argue when he is asked to do something in front of other children. He responds really well to one on one conversations. I have been talking to his mum still but I am concerned that his behaviour is regressing. At the start of the year he would become upset and leave when he did not win a game. He did not do this last term. He is doing it again now.
I am thinking of trialing a notebook that I can send home with him to mum. This will make it easier to communicate with mum. She can write notes to me to. I can write a comment for every break of the day about his behaviour. My fingers are crossed that this might help!

The Ferrymead trip was fantastic! It was organised very well and the children's behaviour was great. The only issue I saw arise was that some parents would only take one child of their group to the toilet and then the other children in the group couldn't find their parents and they needed to go to the toilet as well. I will try to make this more explicit for next time.