Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Stop And Think


Every other week I get the privilege of monitoring lunch detention. Oddly enough, I would much rather be sitting in lunch detention making my to-do list monitoring students, rather than standing up in the cafeteria for sixty plus minutes. I look forward to the weeks where i'm able to sit and rest my feet for a little while. During this time I cut, count, file, grade and sometimes i'm even able to read. None of that is even relevant for this post... i'm just tired so my thoughts are coming out as I type.

When a student gets lunch detention they have 30 minutes to eat their lunch and also complete some work. Kindergarten and First graders work on penmanship while second through fourth graders complete a "Stop and Think". A "Stop and Think!" is a worksheet that asks students a few questions to help them reflect on their actions. The purpose is to help, or make sure, they understand what they did wrong, get into their heads and figure out why they did it, and prompt them to come up with some other options they could choose when the situation arises again.

A particular first grade teacher asked if I would allow her students to begin doing these same worksheets since it's the second half of the year and they're starting to master higher skills. To which I agreed. When one of her students came to detention this week I gave her the worksheet, made sure she could read through each question, and sent her to complete it. This is what she turned into me at the end of her time....

Stop and Think!

What did you do? I Play WiTh my BruThr. I winT To The pork. I HalpT my sisTr.
Why did you do that? be cuz iT is fun
List 4 OTHER things you could have done.
  1. go To The moves.
  2. Play aoT sid
  3. make food
  4. go To SLeP.
What will you do next time? go To The mol


I'm not sure she comprehended the point of the worksheet, but hey, maybe next time? Atleast she was working hard!!!