At the beginning of the month, when the students returned from winter break, we had an addition to our first grade class; a new student! This was such a great learning experience for me to get, especially since the student came half way into the school year. We assigned him a buddy for the first week to show him around the school, help him with classroom routines, etc. The first week went smoothly and by lots of observations we were able to get a grasp of his math and reading levels. He fit in very well with the rest of the class and was quickly accepted as if he had been a classmate for the entire school year.
It wasn't until week two that we began to see some true colors showing. I feel as though new students are on their best behavior at first, are quiet and appear to be exemplar students. Week two was when we (my co-op and I) needed to begin redirecting a lot of his behaviors. Week three was when his behavior began to effect not only his academic work but was a distraction to his peers. Luckily, his common behavior problems (talking while others are talking, calling out, getting out of his seat during instructional time, unable to stay on task while working independently) are fixable. My co-op and I have each talked to him one on one and he seems to really take in what we are discussing. I'm sure I will have more on this issue in future posts to come.
Overall, it has been very interesting for me to observe this change in the classroom. When we had only 8 in the class, adding one student really switched things up. The students adjusted well and I was surprised at how easy my co-op made it look at getting our new student acclimated into our classroom.
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