Week 7!

Tuesday:

            The long weekend was definitely nice to have, but coming back is always a good feeling. I started math today, along with doing social studies. So I basically teach the entire morning and then most of the afternoon is guided reading in small groups. Practically I’m already full time except teaching mini lessons for reading and writing in the afternoon.

            I’m really excited but nervous about all of this added on responsibility. I enjoy teaching, there’s no question in my mind about that! I’m just nervous I wont’ be able to do it. I think that’s why today seemed so long! All I can think about is the fact that I will be doing all of this on my own very soon! I’m excited about it, but like I said, very anxious.

            Today we started regrouping in double-digit subtraction with math. I can’t be more thankful for the fact that Andrea did not leave during this lesson! These students need so much more one on one work than I expected! Another aspect of the lesson was using base-ten blocks; which got very annoying after a little while. Some of the students didn’t understand the purpose behind them for awhile; they just kept playing with them! I suppose that is the risk we take when we teach hands-on lessons!

            I’m really enjoying my placement here, and I’m very grateful for the fact that I get to spend my entire 17 weeks with this group of students. They keep asking if I will be working there next year by myself. The teachers are even starting to ask if I’m going to apply! I suppose it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. =) I really like this school, the staff, and the students! Perhaps I can get some guidance on how to make myself stand out from different professors at Trinity. =)

Wednesday:

            Today seemed like the longest day in the world! Andrea was even saying it, so we kept trying to find things that could make it more interesting. The mornings always fly by, but the afternoon seems to just drag on and on! These kinds of days will absolutely drive me nuts when I’m alone teaching. At least right now I have Andrea there to at least talk to; when I’m on my own I will only have the students! Not that I dislike them, but it is really nice being able to work with another adult.

            In social studies we are building communities and talking about how they change. One thing I really like about teaching is that you can do it whichever way you want to! I kind of tossed the book for the week, and created my own story and taught the lessons that way. I included all of the important information, and the students seemed to really enjoy it as well!

            On an unrelated note to social studies, I would like to discuss one student in particular that really caught my attention today. This girl doesn’t speak much English at all, she is from Puerto Rico and just moved here this year. Her parents speak Spanish at home, and that is pretty much all she knows. Today she was talking like crazy! It’s funny, because I will never tell her to pull a chatterbox slip; I want her to continue speaking English and talking to the other students! I don’t know what it was about today, but she kept volunteering to answer questions and participate. She was also getting off topic with a boy that sits at her table. Regardless, I was so excited to see this! So was Andrea. I really hope this continues tomorrow.

Thursday:

            This week is just going to be long, and I have accepted that fact. =) Once again it seemed like a long day, but that’s okay. I’m really enjoying my time with my students and Andrea. It’s a lot of fun working here, especially with the nutty staff for the lunch talks. You never know what kind of conversations will happen in there, but I’m always entertained during lunch and I really enjoy that time with the other teachers.

            An update on the young girl that wouldn’t stop talking yesterday: not as much talking today. =( She did continue to participate, which is really good! But today wasn’t anything like yesterday; we are hoping that another one of those days will come again soon. It’s exciting to see how much she has grown just in the few weeks that I have been here!

            Another student that caught my attention today was another little girl in the class. She came up to me crying because she heard she was moving and really didn’t want to leave. This little girl is in foster care, and her “auntie” said that she would be moving in with another family soon. I’m not sure if this is another foster family or if someone has adopted her.

            I really hope someone adopted her, and that she isn’t switching to a new family again. It’s unreal what these students go through that I can never even come close to understanding. They deal with so much more stress than any child should at that age. If she gets adopted, I would be really happy for her as long as it’s a good family. She is a very bright, creative, and fun student; she deserves a great home. This situation reminds me of Matilda. I wish I were in a place in my life that I could just take her home! I feel like I will run into similar situations as this a lot as I continue my teaching career. Perhaps I’ll end up with a  lot of children of my own! =)

Friday:

            Ahhhh, Friday. =) Although it was only a four day week, it seemed like the longest week of the semester so far! The social studies unit went very well throughout the week. I was also able to teach and record my TPA lessons! It was a week of getting things done, and I feel very accomplished with that area.

            However, today was another stressful, kind of strange day. We had a lot of students crying today for different reasons. One girl was absolutely hysterical after lunch, so I pulled her aside to ask her what happened. I figured it would be something that happened in lunch, someone calling her a mean name or something like that. It was actually because her sister, for the past few days apparently, has constantly been telling her that she hates her. Her parents are in the middle of a custody battle between the two children. This student’s sister is about 15 years old. I’ve met her previously in a meeting that we had with her dad.

            This entire situation is very strange, and I can’t quite understand what is going on. I just really hope that the older sister isn’t blaming her younger sister for the fight. Just about a week ago, this student pulled me aside in the class and told me her parents were fighting over her. That’s when I kind of figured out that they were having a fight between who has custody.

            Once again, the lives my students have is unbelievable. I never had any thoughts about what home I would be in next week, or if I would live with my mom or my dad, or know what drugs did to people. The things these kids say are really unbelievable; I just hope I can continue to listen and better understand what they are trying to tell me. It’s definitely been a rough week, so I’m glad I have some time to de-stress a little.

Classroom Confidential

            I really enjoyed chapter 8 in Schmidt’s book! I am a history minor, and making history come alive is one of the main things we talked about at Trinity! Using authentic pictures, postcards, letters, etc. can really bring a subject to life! The simulations idea is such a good one, that I may have to use it in an upcoming unit in social studies! I definitely did a lot of highlighting in this chapter, and look forward to using some of the ideas.

            Learning through drama, similar to doing a simulation, is a great tool for any subject; especially when it comes to elementary! They love stuff like that! Incorporating music in any way that you can really helps students understand difficult concepts even better; along with rhyme and poetry.

            I have seen a lot of hands-on and authentic assessments in my own placement. We use drama and music regularly in our own classroom. For almost every science and social studies unit, we incorporate a song to help them remember different aspects of the topic! They all sing along happily, so there is no twisting of the arms when it comes to this learning technique!

Week 6

Monday:

            One thing I must say is that I absolutely love coming to school every morning. Every time I come here, I just feel like I can forget about anything else going on and just focus on being with my students. So I must say that I am very thankful for this placement, my cooperating teacher, and my students after today. They make me smile every day I go in; even when they are being chatty!

            Today we had presentations for Social Studies about their dream jobs. A few of them even dressed up for it!  They went well, obviously they were very short presentations; only one paragraph. If I were to do something like this again, I think I would try and get more involved with it. I felt like I didn’t prepare enough for this unit on careers, only because there was so much I could have done with it! However, I am very happy with how it turned out. The students even started their classroom jobs that they applied for; everyone seemed very happy with the job they were given. =)

One thing I learned today, no matter how much I think I know about the students, they never cease to surprise me. Today I worked with one-on-one with a student while doing reading centers. He always loves reading Mr. Brown Can Moo to me; we still have yet to finish the book! This particular student has an IEP, and they are considering moving him to the full time special education program. Despite some of these setbacks, he is a very bright student. (This was all context just so you can understand the type of student he is. =)

Anyways, today while reading with him we came across one line, “very soft, very high”. All of the sudden he stopped reading and told me “I don’t like this page.” I was really confused as to why, the picture wasn’t scary and I had no idea what he was talking about. So I asked him to explain, and basically his explanation was along the lines of high means it gets smoky and my mom and auntie are sometimes in the back room screaming. My heart instantly dropped when I heard this, and he continued talking a little bit about the situation. Sometimes his stories are hard to follow, but the beginning of this one was made very clear. I feel like stuff like this should be reported; no child should be experiencing anything like this, especially so young! The fact that he was so upset by that one word makes me so nervous for him. I love each and every one of my students, and when I hate to hear that this is going on at home.

Tuesday:

            Special surprise today was a shortened day! Andrea and I both had no idea coming into school that it was going to be a SIP (School Improvement Plan) day. I didn’t get to do much teaching because of this, and the day went by very quickly! I’m very happy I was able to experience this day with all of the other teachers. Basically what these days consist of is the teachers staying late to try and find ways to improve the school by working and discussing together or in groups.

            The goal for today was to find a mission statement for the school. The principal is leaving after this year, and she wants the teachers to give their input on what they believe the mission of the school actually is. I thought this was a little odd that they were trying to figure out a mission statement towards the middle of a school year so I asked Andrea. It turned out that they had already done this earlier in the year, so a lot of them seemed a little annoyed that this was happening again. I don’t want to get too detailed because I understand that this is online for anyone to see. So, all I will say is that the thought behind finding a school mission statement is very good! However, it’s my understanding after today that usually principals help create mission statements. If they are getting a new principal next year, I’m not completely clear on what the point of this activity was.

            However, all of this talk about mission statements did get me thinking! This could be a very good way for me to see which school or districts I would want to work in by looking at their mission statements. The purpose of these is to summarize what the goal is that the teachers and school are trying to achieve. I really hope to be part of a school that is concerned about creating lifelong learners, teaching 21^st century skills, and empowering both the students and the teachers. Along with this, perhaps I should make a mission statement for my own classroom! I think that would be a good idea, just to keep the end goal in mind throughout the year. =)

Wednesday:

            Today I took some time reflecting on what I can improve on to help ease the stress that I’ve been feeling lately. Every single day, I feel like I come home absolutely exhausted; but I continue working on either Trinity lesson plans or plans for school. I think I may have found a solution if I have the responsibility to go through with it! I really believe it would be beneficial to begin using my weekends to start planning the entire week ahead of time. This way when I get home throughout the week, I don’t have to worry about what I need to make for the next day because it will be finished already! This is an optimistic thought, but I think it might be a good one!

            The main reason I thought of this is because I always see how the other second grade teachers are planning. Obviously they don’t have as much work to do because they have taught a lot of these lessons for the past five years; but they always plan for the week ahead! I never see them trying to figure out what is going on tomorrow because they already know what they’re going to be doing.

            Moving on from planning, I worked one-on-one with a student again today. He struggles a lot with reading, and today I learned something that I’m not quite sure how to understand. While reading a story, this student will look around the room to try and match the word in the book to a poster or song on the wall. He’s very good at recognizing words, but he still is not sure of what the word is! I was discussing this with Andrea, and she isn’t even sure what this means exactly. I suppose it’s good that he recognizes the words, but that doesn’t mean he’s improving reading. It’s a very strange coping mechanism that I have never even heard of! Hopefully we will be able to figure more out as time goes on.

Thursday:

            Wow! I can’t believe how much I am starting to dislike party days! I mean, don’t get me wrong; it’s very fun to celebrate with them. However, party days are so much more stress and work than a normal school day. It was frustrating because the morning, when we were supposed to still have a normal school day, all of the students were already acting wild and excited. If someone can easily manage a children’s party, then their classroom management skills should be recorded in a book!

            This morning while teaching my social studies lesson, the kids were acting so much more hyper and inattentive than usual. I felt like I was just doing an awful job, but Andrea kept reassuring me that it wasn’t me, it was just the holiday. Although it was a lot of stress, we had a lot of fun! The kids had an ice cream bar, which I was very excited when I was able to eat one too!

            One aspect of the holiday that is very cute are all of the presents the students brought in for us. A student actually told me that she bought her gift for us with her own money! She was so excited to be able to give us something that she earned herself. We actually had a very strange incident happen with a bag of treats brought in by a student’s grandparent. They made very nice bags for everyone in the class, but they smelled like skunk! Andrea wasn’t sure what to do and whether or not she should send them home. She ended up sending them, but that would be a difficult decision to make. The grandparents might be offended if they found out, and other parents might be angry that you are sending a smelly bag home. Hopefully no one gets too upset!

Friday:

            I’m so thankful the week is over! Not that I’m not enjoying myself, but it’s just been such a long and busy week. So far, I’m starting to get a little bit bored with not teaching the whole day. Now I’m starting to get used to teaching the same things; so I am very excited and nervous to start teaching math next week! It will definitely be a challenging week because we are starting double-digit subtraction with regrouping. Andrea said they are going to struggle through this a lot.

            Hopefully I will be able to prepare myself a lot for this unit coming up. It really makes it difficult to teach concepts and strategies when some of the students don’t even know their basic math facts yet. I know you can’t keep everyone behind on account of four people; however, I really wish it were easier to differentiate instruction. With math, it’s very difficult because we only have them for half hour. If more time was devoted to math, perhaps we could take more time with the students who need that extra attention.

            This weekend I am really looking forward to sitting down and trying to figure out a new way to teach this. I also need to hear about what the best strategies are for going about teaching double-digit subtraction with regrouping. Andrea and the other second grade teachers are great resources for this. However, I am starting to learn how to take their advice and combine it or change it into a way that I can easily adapt it. This week has been very stressful, but I’m really starting to feel more like a real teacher! =)

Week 5

Tuesday:

            Unfortunately I caught whatever bug was going around the school, so Monday I was sick. Now I kind of understand how teachers feel when they come back from missing school. It’s very frustrating feeling so behind, and it feels like you have so much to catch up on just because you missed one day of school. Especially now that I have been given more responsibility throughout the day, I almost feel like I should have made sub plans for Andrea!

            We kind of started off my student teaching a little different than we realized we were supposed to. I have been making my own lessons and teaching them, rather than her writing them. Honestly, I think this has benefited me more than it would have; so I’m definitely not upset that we didn’t read through it completely! However, when I came back today she told me that she didn’t do social studies on Monday. I had the guided reading book for the week for my two groups, so she was unable to start reading the book with them as well. It was kind of exciting to see me being there actually makes a difference, but at the same time I realize that I need to send something in if I ever get sick again!

            Other than the difficulties of missing school, the day went relatively well. I worked with the students more in social studies. Last week they all did research on their dream job, today we took those notes and worked together on turning it into a paragraph form. They did a pretty good job with this. It took them awhile to figure out a good way to phrase the notes, but I learned that the best way to lead them is through questioning. I’ve really been working on not giving them the answers, but at the same time I don’t want to leave them in the dark to figure it out on their own! It worked out well and nearly everyone participated in helping form the paragraph, which I was really excited about!

Wednesday:

            Today was another fun day with Andrea. Yesterday I was still a little out of it just because I still wasn’t feeling too great, but today was a complete turn around. (I also had a five-hour energy before school, which helped a lot! =) We were both having a lot of fun, but then the fun kind of stopped when a student said something we both didn’t expect. During the middle of a lesson, one of our students raises her hand and says, “Are we almost done with this? And why are we doing this anyways? It’s boring!”

            I really had no idea what to do, and Andrea clearly doesn’t have to deal with it very often because she seemed as surprised as I did. She had the student go move her clip down on the behavior chart, and that was the end of it. But it got me thinking, what am I going to do when a student says something like that to me? I feel like there are a lot of different ways to approach it and I’ve been thinking about it a lot today.

I could handle it the same way Andrea did, and get upset and give that student a consequence for being out of line. Or, I suppose you could try and work with that student and your class to figure out why it seems boring. The main take-away from this, for me, was that a lot of teaching has to do with respect. The teacher needs to respect the students, and the students need to respect the teacher. I think the way this particular student was speaking to Andrea was completely out of line, and deserved a consequence. I’m glad I was able to see this, but I’m still a little unsure of how to handle it myself. I suppose things like that I will learn with more time and experience.

Thursday:

            Today we got a new student! Well, new to me. Apparently she was here the whole month of December, but she did not have some medical papers in saying she was okay to be at school. So this entire time I have been at this placement, I have not met her. Which means she missed about a month of school, which is kind of ridiculous. I’m not sure how a student would catch up after missing that much school; however, she seems very bright and doesn’t seem to be far off from the group at all.

            Once again, this situation got me thinking a little bit as well. If I have a new student come into my classroom late in the year, what will I want them to know? Andrea and I were talking about it a little bit, and apparently she found an idea on Pinterest that, I think, is an excellent idea! Throughout the year, you put important papers and things such as folders, notebooks, pencils, crayons, etc. into a bag of its own. That way, if you ever have an unexpected student come into the class, you will have something to give them and the parents right away of what was important that they missed! I wrote this down so I wouldn’t forget. =)

            Today I also got to teach a reading lesson about author’s purpose. It was a lot of fun, and I’m starting to feel like a real teacher! The students did a great job paying attention and participating, and I’m starting to see how to connect with them in an appropriate way. It’s difficult for me sometimes because I babysit a lot! While I’m babysitting, I obviously need their respect; but it’s a totally different relationship in a classroom. I’m slowly starting to see how to relate to my students in a better way. It’s hard not to treat them as if I’m babysitting them, because they are all so cute! =) But I’m starting to be a little bit more strict with them and I tell them my expectations before I start almost every lesson. So far this strategy has been working out well; another idea given to me by Andrea. =)

Friday:

            Oh boy was this an interesting day! So in the morning, Andrea was still in the classroom. At 10:30, she left and a substitute teacher came in to the room. She informed the substitute that she had a student teacher and that I would be doing all of the teaching today and she could just relax. She was excited to have a nice relaxing day, and brought in some crosswords to kill the time.

            However, the students still tried their best to take advantage of her; which I was very disappointed about. I had students doing things they know they shouldn’t be doing, but unfortunately the substitute was unaware of the rules and allowed it. If I caught them I had a short talk with them about the situation. It was kind of awkward with her in there, because she still seemed to feel like she had to manage their actions while I taught. It was kind of frustrating because I feel like it almost moved me backwards with gaining the students respect. During one of my lessons, there was a lot of talking and I had to stop the lesson very often because they wouldn’t stop. It was definitely a rough day just with classroom management; I see I still have a lot to learn about that. I talked with some of the other teachers and they told me not to worry and it’ll come with more practice and time.

            Today I also had a boy refusing to do his work in class. I taught a lesson in social studies about job resumes, since we have been working on jobs for the past week. It was very simple, and they all applied for classroom jobs. He said he didn’t want any of the jobs, even though I know for a fact he loves helping out and volunteering in the classroom. Finally I told him if he didn’t finish it now, he would finish it during “Friday free-time”. We worked on it together at the end of the day, and after we were finished I asked him to stay and explain to me why he didn’t just do it earlier so he could have been playing. He basically said that he didn’t think he would get picked for any of the jobs because he doesn’t think he’s good enough at math and reading to help the class. So I explained to him that he was very good at leading the class (sometimes leading them in ways I wish he wouldn’t!). But I was relieved to find out it wasn’t anything personal about me; and I was also relieved that I could show him that he has a lot of strengths in school. It was kind of nice to be able to connect with him a little bit more and I’m happy he was honest with me about it! All in all, it was a good week!

Classroom Confidential

            Honestly, this chapter of Schmidt’s book just reinforced everything I already thought about parent-teacher encounters. It’s obviously very important to know about your students’ home lives. Without knowing this aspect of them, you are missing an element when teaching them! I really like how she hit every aspect of parent-teacher meetings, with the fact that you can make an impression even seeing them at the store! I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t read this chapter before the weekend. I saw one of my students at Wal-Mart, she ran up and gave me a hug and I didn’t even see an adult in sight. I talked to her for a bit, and then her mom came by and summoned her to leave. I wish I could have taken advantage of that situation, but now I know for next time!

            For actual conferences, I will definitely refer back to this book. She has a lot of great tips about cross-cultural meetings with parents that I may not have known before reading this. For example, she talks about eye-contact and fillers like “yes” and “uh-huh”, can actually be seen as rude to people! So I will hopefully remember not to be offended if someone chooses to not look me directly in the eyes. =) I also really like how she gives some helpful hints to go about parent-teacher conferences, and important topics and information you want to talk about. The main take-away from this chapter is that I don’t want to have awkward conferences with parents, I want to be comfortable with them and somewhat informal so they will be comfortable. 

Week 4

Monday:

Today was actually a lot of fun with Andrea and the students! I know that teaching will always be fun, but I feel like there are just some days that go above and beyond fun! First of all, I showed up to school with a book about penguins on my desk! It’s funny that she already knows how obsessed I am with penguins, but I was really excited about it. We got a lot accomplished today, but the students and us enjoyed doing all of it. Andrea even led the students in a short session of yoga in the afternoon.

Especially for me, I think it’s so important to have fun while teaching. Even I get bored easily, so I can definitely understand my students in that way; and I have tried really hard to show them how much I enjoy learning and how fun it is! For example, we have Daily Five guided reading every day. Some session I don’t have a group, so I do what every other student does and I read. I absolutely love children books, and sometimes I even laugh aloud to myself while reading them. Usually the students will see me smiling or laughing to myself while reading, and then I’ll see them go and grab the book right after I put it back. Then I usually grab a nonfiction book about penguins, which they’ll grab once I put it back too. It’s really cute, but it just goes to show that if a teacher is really into something, the students will be too!

I started teaching social studies today and introduced the new unit: Services in a Community. It wasn’t anything special. I introduced the new vocabulary for the unit, then asked what jobs they could think of on their own and had them write down what they want to be when they’re older. I’m going to try my best throughout the semester to show them what we are talking about is important for them to learn; so I really want to connect it to real life as much as possible. It’s the same with adults and children, why should we learn something if it doesn’t apply to us? It was a good introduction day. Even though the students don’t seem too excited about social studies now, I hope I can get them more excited as the week goes on!

Tuesday:

            I feel like I learned a lot today, especially after reviewing what happened. First of all, I continued social studies. Once again, the lesson wasn’t very exciting; even I started getting a little bored! All we did was read part of the chapter, then fill out a graphic organizer together. The students seemed bored because, quite honestly, it was a little boring. I didn’t bring much life to it and could have prepared that better. Tomorrow will be a very similar lesson and Andrea gave me a few helpful tips. First of all, while asking questions I will award points to tables for participation. (The points don’t really mean anything, but for some reason when points are involved they all get more excited!) I will also try and find some kind of song that can go along with services in a community; they love music! =)

            The other big part of the day was the planning period where the second grade teachers reevaluated the effectiveness of “Gumball Math”. Basically, “Gumball Math” happens every day once the students return from lunch. It is a list of 40 addition problems that they try to finish in a minute. It takes up a lot of time because we grade it altogether in class. The problem with grading it in class is that the students would grade their own worksheet, and we found out a few of them were actually cheating while grading. A lot of the students were actually just counting how many they had finished, and not just the ones they had correct.

            After meeting and talking about this for a while, they decided that they would try to research some more before making a decision. One thing we pointed out was that all of us had our addition facts memorized. So now they are trying to find a way to have the students memorize the facts again, rather than just knowing the strategy of addition.

Wednesday:

            Today was the third day of social studies. I did take Andrea’s advice and started doing participation points for the students who were answering questions. This got all of them a lot more involved and interested while we were filling out our graphic organizer together. The table that had the most points was able to line up for lunch first. I also found a song online about people’s jobs and what they do. They reacted to this very positively as well; I didn’t realize how much they did like songs! I’m glad she gave me all of those tips and that I listened to her; it made the lesson go a little smoother.

            Update on “Gumball Math”, Andrea decided she was absolutely finished with it and introduced “Math Blasters” today. After looking through the worksheets for this, I feel that it will be much more beneficial to the students than “Gumball Math” was. One of the very first things I loved about it was that the students did not grade their own work, the teachers do! Along with that, the students work at their own pace.

            There is a level system, a-z, which the students need to work through. First they take a test to see how many numbers they can write within one minute so that they can set their goal. If they can write 25 in a minute, then their goal will be 25 to pass level a. However, if they can write 40 in a minute, their goal is 40 in order to pass the level. It is much more individualized to help challenge the students. I’m excited to see an entire new system in place so I can even compare. So far, I really like the concept of “Math Blasters” more than I liked “Gumball Math”.

Thursday:

            Unfortunately we had an assembly during social studies, so I was unable to teach today. The one thing that stood out to me today that I would like to focus on is discipline for students. I find this aspect very difficult right now, because I don’t feel that it is my place to be disciplining someone else’s student! I feel so strange doing it because I believe I would be uneasy about someone else disciplining my students!

            One thing we have is a “chatterbox”. Each student has their name with three red slips behind it. If a teacher says “chatterbox”, they have to take one of those red slips and put it in a box. If they have all three gone, then they have to move their clip from “ready to learn” to “warning”. A note doesn’t go home or anything, but their behavior for the day is written in their assignment notebook every day. I really think this is an effective strategy to keep students and parents responsible.

            Today I finally used the “chatterbox” with a few of the students. Whenever Andrea would leave, it seemed that they would get the idea they were free to talk. My problem is, I don’t have a problem with some quiet conversations if I see that they are still working; however, this was not quiet. They were all getting too loud, so I gained their attention and told them if they aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing they will have to move a chatterbox slip. I pointed out that I don’t mind conversations as long as they’re not distracting others or yourself from getting work done.

            After I talked to them, there were still a few students with their pencil down and they were clearly just talking to one another. So I told them to go take a chatterbox slip and put it in the box. After I did that to two students, its as if they all realized that I am a teacher now too and they all quieted down. I wasn’t trying to scare them all, but it seems like I may have gained a little respect from them! I’m very happy about that outcome. =)

Friday:

            Friday’s are always jumbled days it seems like. I feel that we only have this day to catch up on things we have fallen behind on; and today we didn’t have much to catch up on! We did some activities for Groundhog’s Day, and we continued with our social studies unit.

            Today I brought in a lot of books, from the public library, about different types of jobs. I taught a very simple lesson on research and taking notes. Plagiarism was introduced today, because I wanted them to get a very basic understanding of what that meant. I was honestly surprised at how well they understood and how well they did research! Andrea told me they don’t do anything with research in first grade, but her second graders did an excellent job of finding information about their dream job. They actually were quite into the whole concept of researching, so we continued the lesson up until lunch! I was very happy with how well it went, and I will keep in mind how capable second graders are when I start teaching.

            Andrea was able to be a part of a meeting about reading today as well. The school is reevaluating the way that the school teaches reading now too. It’s kind of crazy how quickly changes can come at any time. They are now considering switching for reading as well, and put ability levels together. I am interested to see how this works out, because I feel that whoever gets the low level group for reading is going to have a lot of work cut out for them! I have seen just the ability levels in our own classroom, and there are students who still struggle knowing how to read. It will be a lot of work for one teacher, but perhaps there will be other aides in there assisting.

Classroom Confidential – Chapter 3

            Once again, I felt that this chapter was very applicable to us now. It is very hard to get students to want to do the tasks you are setting before them. I never thought that the students acting up are either trying to seek pleasure, or avoid pain. I really like that thought because, as she said, one the surface it may not be so evident that is what is happening. Sometimes students hold it deeper than that, and camouflage it from us.

            The eight strategies to help students succeed is also a great way to help our students. I have a few students who really struggle with focusing on writing. Perhaps next time we are required to do an assignment where they need to write down three sentences, I could give them more options other than just writing. I know its not much freedom, but I feel that this is something I need to learn more through experience and see how it will work for me, rather than just taking the strategy straight from the book. I have found that doesn’t always work so well and that it’s important to think about it before implementing a new strategy in the classroom.