A New Focus

Yesterday was the first day that I really yelled at students. It upset me that a few of them weren't taking Writer's Workshop seriously. I also yelled when students weren't getting into line quickly, instead they were talking with one another. What prompted me to yell was that I felt that students weren't taking my directions seriously. I think the yelling scared them a little. They definitely listened, but I don't want it to get to the point where I'm constantly yelling.
By the end of the day there was a really negative feeling in the classroom. So many kids were on red. As I reflect on this, I realize that the most common reason for card flips was students talking with each other and not following directions. From my conversation with another teacher, I realize that this is a fairly common problem that all children have. By punishing them for it, I'm really just frustrating them. I'm not teaching them how and why they should not be talking. So I'm going to do a mini-lesson on this today. I want to acknowledge that I also want to talk sometimes, everyone does, but if we always talk then we won't get the things we need to get done so that we can play math games, have choice time, etc.
Teaching can be really messy, and I feel like I made a bit of a mess yesterday. I came to pick up the kids from their special, Library. They were all really excited to show me the Tomie dePaola books they'd picked out because we'd been doing on a mini author's study on him with Read Alouds. But rather than have a discussion with them about it, I was so up tight and beholden to the schedule I had made, I had them put them away and take a spelling pre-test. Why did I not have them share the books they had selected? It was such a good thing that they were eager to find more Tomie dePaola books. And I completely smushed that enthusiasm. UGH.
One thing that I'm thinking about it is teaching them how to write book recommendations. I've already received a few Tomie dePaola books from children who want me to read them as Read Alouds. I want to formalize the process a little, and I want them to be able to write recommendations for the class about different books.