A Learning Curve

This week, I have been working with the first boy I've been assigned to, Anthony, a soft-spoken 3rd grader who absolutely loves his mom. He brought up his mom almost every five minutes somehow. First, he said his mom was a "panther," too (his teacher, Mr. Kersten, calls us service learners "Mr./Ms. Panther"). He told me his mom is going to school at UWM like myself, but he was not sure what she was studying. He said she wants to open a daycare so she can take care of him and his siblings and, "some other kids."

We began reading an online chapter book about a girl who was trying to sneak into the Olympics during ancient Greece, when girls were not allowed. We began on chapter six, so I asked Anthony what the book was about. He did not give me a good summary, but he told me the definition of a horse-drawn chariot, which I thought was adorable. He was a very good reader and took on words like "philosopher" and "definitely," which most of my previous students would have stuttered over. He also read with great speed and anytime I asked if he wanted a break where I would read a paragraph or two, he always wanted to continue reading. I took a video of him reading because I was blown away! (Unfortunately, the video I took was very short and caught him stuttering, but I did not want to continue having my phone our for much longer; also, turn your volume up).

After breezing through three chapters of this book, Anthony asked me if I knew how to write in cursive, which I did, and he asked if I could teach him how to write in cursive. He said he asks his mom to teach him, but she is always too busy. He then told me he has four other siblings, all younger than him. His youngest sister just turned one-year-old. I wrote his name in his notebook and had him trace over it. Then, he kept asking me how to make an "s" or a "u" for his notes, so I made him a copy of each letter, upper and lowercase for him to practice in his free time. He was so excited and told me he wants to work with me again next week to practice more cursive!

Anthony learning how to write his name in cursive.

Anthony looking at my cursive examples for him to try.

The "guide" I gave Anthony in his notebook so he could practice cursive in his free time. 

Writing Stories

This week, I spent a few extra hours at Brown Street Academy to make up for missed time during UWM's spring break. For the first hour, I worked with a girl I have never worked with before named Anaylisha. She was very sweet and sassy, which I appreciated. She kept cracking jokes about boys and snacks and I could not believe how smart she was. They did not have any reading they needed to work on at that particular time, so we worked on writing. The class has Chrome Books which are small laptops that have a touchscreen screen, so it is very kid-friendly. Her uncle had died that morning, which she did not really talk about other than saying she was sad. We could write a story about anything, so I asked her if she wanted to write a story about her uncle. She said she did not know enough about him to write a whole story, so I asked what she wanted to write about.

First, I helped her write a story about her teacher. She said things like, "I respect Mr. Kersten. Mr. Kersten gets mad and turns red, but he is very nice." Very funny third grader things. I was worried her teacher would be mad from her honesty, but he laughed very hard. I thought it was very cool that she said she respected him. She wrote the entire thing and I just helped her come up with ideas and spelling. Her favorite part was picking the different colors for each sentence of the stories.

Anaylisha's story

Then, she asked if she write a story about me. She did not know much about me, but wrote a story about me none-the-less. She made up the story and did not ask me any questions, but made assumptions. They were very nice sentences and it brought me a lot of joy at 9 a.m. I told her I loved the story and she said she wanted to become a writer like me (because I am going to school for Journalism). Below, I have a picture of the story, but this is what it reads: "All about Gabby. She is nice. Gabby go to school at uwm. She love coffee. Gabby is funny. Gabby is going to school to write. Gabby like the color purple. Gabby like he teacher. Gabby like swimming. Gabby like panting. Gabby like street. Gabby dress pretty." I'm not sure what some of it means (Street? Panting should have been painting) and there were obvious grammatical  errors, but i still found it adorable.

Anaylisha and her friend Love wanted to take a silly picture to send to my friends...so cute!