The amount of information that I am learning each day in the classroom is blowing my mind. I can't keep up. I feel like I have so much to share and then I sit down to write and don't even know where to start. Today we got to the school only one hour late. The bus system in Plymouth makes absolutely no sense. The time schedules aren't accurate, different buses go to some stops and not others and sometimes they will just take different routes if the drivers feel like it. It's extremely frustrating. Anyways, when we arrived at Mary Deans my class was working on Math. For every lesson, the teacher gives the students a very specific focus. It's a lot like an essential question but it's more specific and it changes with every subject, every day. This particular math lesson had four focuses.
1. I can tell you whether we would use ml or L to measure the capacity of various objects.
2. I can accurately estimate the capacity of various objects.
3. I can accurately measure the capacity of various groups.
4. I can convert fraction and decimal L to ML mad vice versa.
My teacher opened here lesson by planning a game teaching multiplying/dividing by 10, 100, and 1000. She gave four students random single digit numbers on a big sheet of paper and had them stand up and form a number. She then picked a student to be the "function machine". That student pulled a piece of paper out of a shoe box that said "divide by 100" or "multiply by 10". The students would then change the number that they formed to perform that function. They soon found out that they needed a decimal point so the teacher assigned a student to be the decimal point. They played this game for about 10 minutes.
The class was broken up into group based on the four focuses. The goal is to reach the fourth focus. The lower students were put in a group with an assignment to practice the skills in the first focus. The middle low group was given an assignment to match the second focus and so on. I was working with the middle high group practing the 2nd and 3rd focus. They were given the following worksheet. 
Students were told to estimate 200 ML of water. The students poured water into a cup until the reached approximately 200 ML. The cup was not marked with the measurements so they had to do their best to estimate. They then would pour their estimate into a jug that was marked with the measurements. They would see how close their estimate was then cut the jugs out from the worksheet. Glue them into the science notebook and label them with their estimate and the difference between their estimate and how much it should have been. I unfortunately didn't get to see what the other groups had for assignments. I do have the worksheets for focus four. 
My teacher ended the lesson by asking a few questions. She asked, "why is this an useful skill" And "in terms of YOU why is it useful?" She also asked the question, "do you feel that you have completed your focus and do you think you can move up to the next level?"
I thought many things about this lesson were fantastic. I like breaking the class into groups based on the focuses. I do think that this can only be accomplished if you had help in your classroom. This classroom had the main teacher, the teaching assistant, me and a ESE teacher. I don't think I've been interned in a classroom that received that much help.
I am also uploading some pictures of my classroom. I hope you enjoy June!
Missing you,
Susannah 
Photo of the spinners I talked about in yesterday's blog.
Photo of the spinners I talked about in yesterday's blog. 
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