Level III Performance Tasks

1. Greet every student and learn something about each one.

Greeting activity

At the beginning of the day I try to greet every student and get to know a little about them. However, I learned that it is not only important for me to get to know them but also for their classmates to do so. So, I did a greeting with them in which not only I learned about them but so did their classmates. I had the students stand in a circle and hold hands. Then, we went around the circle and after we greeted each student by saying "Good morning ____ ," each student shared something about their self. This was a great way for all of the students to get greeted in the morning by their classmates and I and for all of us to get to know each other.

2. Lead a Morning Meeting.

Beach Ball Activity

In this activity, the students sat in a circle and tossed each other a beach ball. On the beach ball I wrote a different question in each colored section. "I did this activity with my students with the purpose of them getting to know each other better. It is important for them to know that just like there are many differences between them, there are also many similarities. The students enjoyed this hands-on activity because it was interactive and they were able to learn more about their classmates. This is usually an activity done at the beginning of the year when the students don't know much about each other. It can be done as a whole class, but I broke the class up in half to have smaller circles because there were only six questions and they would have gotten repetitive. So, I had two circles and two beach balls with different questions on them. I later had the groups switch beach balls so they could have different questions. Here is a list of the questions displayed on the beach balls:

1. What kind of music do you listen to?

2. What do you look for in a good book?

3. If you could give a future 4th grader advice, what would it be?

4. Who is one famous person you look up to?

5. What is your favorite summer activity?

6. Tell something that most people do not know about you.

7. What is the best vacation you have been on?

8. If you could be an animal, what would it be and why?

9. What is your favorite restaurant and why?

10. What makes you extremely happy?

11. What makes you mad?

12. If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

3. Line students up and take them to specials or lunch.

There are several strategies for lining the students up but the one I chose to do, that is used the most, is asking the girls to line up first and then the boys, or vice versa. I have noticed that one thing that works well in the upper grades is making things a competition. For example, before I call the students to line up I tell them, "Who is going to line up better and more quietly, the boys or the girls?" I observe the boys as they line up and then the girls. Once they are all lined up, I make my decision and thell them who won. In this case, they both did a great job at lining up so I told them it was a tie.

4. Try the attention-getting strategy that your teacher uses.

My CT uses a variety of attention grabbers, but the one I chose to try was when you say, "Alright stop" and the students respond, "Collaborate and listen." I like this one because it not only gets their attention but lets them know that the teacher wants them to stop what they are doing and carefully listen to her. This a new one that my CT started using a couple of weeks ago. It is not used as often as the other ones so the students have less practice with it. It worked for me though and it is something I would like to continue using.

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5. Try at least one “new” attention-getting strategy.

A new attention grabber that I introduced to the students is where I say "Scooby dooby doo" and they say, "Where are you?" This is one that I used often when I interned in second grade and is one my fourth graders had never heard of. I can tell they like it because when I use it, I can hear theat they are all responding, not just some of them. So, I use it often with them. Sometimes when I say the words "Scooby dooby doo" I do it as if I am singing and they enjoy this too.

*clip of audio could not be put on wix so it was sent to supervisor*

6. Write something on the board or on a poster .

When my class started learning about adding and subtracting fractions, I made an anchor that they could refer to whenever they needed help. This anchor chart stated that whenever you are adding or subtracting fractions, the denominator always stays the same and you only add or subtract the numerators. At the bottom, in one statement, I explained why it is that the denominator stays the same. This is: "The denominator does not change because the number of equal parts stays the same."