Making Math Packets

Whew….I’m tired again today…but I wanted to give an update on the school…

On Monday night, I made up a bunch of worksheets for the grade one and grade R classes and saved them on my computer. Then on Tuesday morning at the staff meeting (there is a staff meeting every morning at 7:30 before school starts), I started off by saying that I really enjoyed observing the classrooms on Monday, and I was very thankful that the teachers had allowed me to visit their classes.  Then I said, there is just one thing I have to say about what I observed yesterday…AMAZING…then I turned to the Principal (Paul) and said…you have some very amazing teachers…you should be very thankful.  Then I said, however, the teachers are really suffering here, because they don’t have enough resources to use in their classrooms when teaching, and that makes it really hard on them.  I thought of a way I could help the teachers yesterday while I was observing.  So, I took out my laptop and sat it on a table and showed them the worksheets. I asked if they were interested in using them for their classes.  They all got very excited and said they would love to, because indeed they were suffering from a lack of resources.  So, I asked the principal if it would be ok for me to make packets for each grade for each learning area…problem is it will take a lot of paper and toner for the copier.  He said that it was fine…to do what I needed to do; he thought it was a good idea.  So, I told him I would start working with the grade R teachers and continue from there.  So, after the meeting I met with the two grade R teachers and asked them to choose the worksheets they wanted me to include in their packets….they wanted all of them! I told them I would start with the math packets.  So, I spent yesterday and today working on the math packets for grade R (or workbooks I guess I should call them), and will finish up with them tomorrow.  The workbooks include the basics…like tracing and writing from 0-1…there is a separate section in each workbook that has about four pages for each number 1-10…so there is for practice pages for each number.  Then, at the end of the workbook there is exercises that include all the numbers. I made other exercises…where they have to count the number of butterflies and circle the correct number. The workbook includes stuff that they will write with a pencil and also things they can color…I was trying to kill two birds with one workbook…they will not only learn their numbers 1-10, but also colors and shapes.  I got them all printed and copied and sorted yesterday and today. Tomorrow, I will put them together…using a hole punch and yarn.

I was excited about starting the letter (English) book next week, but the copier ran out of toner right when I finished the math workbook. So, I’ll don’t know how long it will take before they get another cartridge.  I plan on presenting the first two lessons (presenting numbers 0 and 1) in the workbook next week to the grade r classes while the teachers watch…that way, they’ll know how to teach the rest of the numbers from the workbook.  I thought it would be a good idea to model teaching for them for a couple of the numbers.  I’m also making large letters 1-10 and coloring them bright primary colors, for the grade R & 1 to hang on the classrooms walls…they don’t have numbers or abc’s hanging up.