Math Lesson

It is the last week of field experience and I cannot believe how fast this went by.   As I have started to connect with the students and my cooperating teacher it will be hard to say goodbye on Friday!  One new thing I learned this week was how hard it can be to teach a math lesson with different learning levels.  Our class is pretty divided with catching onto the material and when we learned about fact families the division in the classroom was apparent.  I discussed with my cooperating teacher how long she normally spends on hard lessons and she explained how she had to cut the lesson short because we are behind. She mentioned how she wrote notes to parents on their homework to have them go over the material more at home, but there is not many ways to tell that this is actually being done at home.

I am just curious to hear how other cooperating teachers deal with being 'behind' with their lessons? No right or wrong answer! Are they cutting out material or are they eliminating other elements in the classroom in order to catch up?  Just a few things I am thinking about for future reference on how I want to run my classroom.  Hope everyone enjoys their last days in the classroom!!

Dojo – Integrating Technology

In my classroom my teacher used “Class Dojo” for classroom management. Class Dojo offers a wonderful way to manage their classroom by using an iPhone, iPad or a smart board. Class Dojo offers a way to record attendance, homework and behaviors the classroom. Class Dojo points can be seen by the teacher, students and parents, which is a great way to involve parents into their child’s education. My cooperating teacher uses Class Dojo for positive feedback, giving points to students doing their job and being good listeners. My cooperating teacher also gives Dojo points for homework assignments and morning work assignments. The students really look forward to getting Dojo points and I think it’s a great to integrate technology in a young classroom!

Crunch Time

Last week, we were in school for two days, but the student I work with the most, one on one, was absent. It was hard to post as it helped me to worry about what we needed to do this week in order to be caught up. My student is an excellent copier. He can be very successful in writing what he sees, but having his absence last week and a frustrating few days to get us back in the habit of writing and recognizing the letters of the alphabet these last few days has us working overtime. Tomorrow and Friday I plan to stay in my cooperate school the entire day. I'm hoping that this will give me more time with the student I work with particularly and the other students. I consider this to be crunch time because my cooperate teacher knows that I have few days left. Tomorrow, I'll be spending extra time with my cooperate teacher as well because she prepares to have a substitute teacher on Friday. She is walking me through her expectations of what we will accomplish on Friday. It's going to be an interesting few days!

Kindling Kindness

In my Kindergarten classroom, there are seven children who are from Somalia. Six of these children understood English before coming to Kindergarten. However, there is one who moved to the country a month after school started and she didn’t understand a lick of English. I admire her positivity she brings to the classroom every day. She comes in with a smile and has a desire to learn. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing her improve after each activity and lesson. I am awestruck at the willingness of her classmates to lend a helping hand to her or offer her words of encouragement.

Learning from these students makes me look forward to having my own class. To be able to grow as a person, as they do, will make my life as a teacher the most meaningful experience in my life. The crazy thing is, this is going to be my career. I am thankful I have been led to teach children. To be able to teach and learn from their young lives is a great gift and responsibility. The teacher I learn from comes into class with a positive attitude and it rubs off on these students. This is something I look forward to emulating.  

Read Aloud!

Today I did my first read aloud, and I think it went really well too! I made sure to connect the book to what the students are learning about in class; I also did a picture walk with the students. After we went over the important concepts of the book, I read the book with the children. I had us all read it together as a group to make sure the students knew the words and understood what they were reading. Then, I had the group whisper read the book to themselves. They liked whisper reading; I believe this is because they knew they could read their book all by themselves. When we finished the book, I talked about the content of the book with the children. I made sure to ask open ended questions so the students had to come up with their own answer. Tomorrow I will do another read aloud, and I am excited to see how it goes! I have sat and reflected about how my first read aloud went today so I can improve tomorrow!

Reading

Today my class was excellent. I had many big leaps and bounds that my students made towards behavior. They were able to sit quietly all period and read their books. I did not have one issue with them and it was the easiest day I had yet. I think a big part of why it was so easy was the synergy of the class. It was my first time leading a reading group and I think the students didn't know how to react to me being there. That being said I had the most advanced and then the most challenging group that I have had. One of the groups is always good and they don't ever have any issues. The other group on the other hand was extremely well behaved. I think that there was a point in the morning where everybody started acting up and My CT shut it down right away.

Last Week

Two more days left of this field experience and I can honestly say I'm going to really miss this class. In the short time of being there I have seen the students grow in their learning and it's been a really good experience. Everyday in our class my cooperating teacher incorporates the smart board for lessons and activities and lets the kids come up and interact with it. It keeps the students engaged and is a great tool for their learning. Today my teacher gave the students a new sight word- To. They practiced using it in sentences and then colored little books that had sentences with the sight word on each page that they had to underline. The students got to bring these books home and they were so excited to show their parents what they've done. I love seeing how happy they are to learn new words and it makes me really excited to be a future teacher!

Read Aloud Number 2!

Today I did my second read aloud. And the students were really excited about the book that I chose which was There Was An Old Lady That Swallowed A Fly (I don't know why, perhaps she'll die!) which is a great book. And it just made me really happy to see the students so enthusiastic about reading. They may have gotten a little out of control for a second but they loved it.  I think this one went better than my first one which wasn't bad at all but it was a chapter book so this one was way more fun to read.
It's sad that this is our last week with the kiddos...

-Nicole

Substitute Teacher

Today I was able to experience a substitute teacher for the first time during this field experience.  My teacher had emailed me the night before telling me she was going to be absent and in what ways I can help the substitute.  I was expecting that it would run smoothly because my cooperating teacher is an incredibly organized person.  I got to school and everything was laid out neatly and organized and labeled.  The substitute was nice and had very clear notes written up.  The kids arrived and it was pretty calm and normal.  After about an hour, chaos began to hit.  There were children that were running around saying "You can't catch me" to both my partner and I, along with the substitute teacher.  No one was listening and they were telling the teacher "no."  My partner and I tried to take control of the class because the students had previously known us.  We did our best to try to discipline them but there was nothing we could do to get them to listen or respect us.  The substitute mentioned to us that she had wished she knew the reward system that our cooperating teacher had to try to reward them when she noticed they were doing good.  I have learned a lot from this experience and what it's like on the teachers end of having a substitute teacher. 

Guided Reading

My teacher does something I think is really helpful during her guided reading groups. She uses the normal level books for her kids, but she also has paper books that the students get to read and then take home. With each book, there is a signature list that the parents sign to let her know the student read the book. It includes the parents in the students learning, but it also allows for the students to take responsibility for their progress. They also love coming back and telling us about how they read it all alone.

Smartboard

My coordinating teacher uses an interactive white board/smart board every single day of class. I guess I never really realized how much those are in use now! I walk by all the classrooms and they are all using them. I have definitely seen the different ways to use it, and my teacher has been very helpful in showing cool different ways to use it through different activities! I will definitely use some of those activities and helpful tips for the smart board in my future classroom!

Word Work

Today in class we split up into groups to do word work. The words we had were long adjectives that students had to learn how to read and spell. In my group of five I was told to hold up a different word to each person in the group and they had to read it. Once every student knew how to read each word, they got white boards and had to spell the word. I said a word and each student spelled it on the white board and showed me. It was loud and reckless because each student wanted to race each other to see who could spell it first and missed parts of the word because of it. It was a great experience to work with each of the students even though the group got loud towards the end. I would probably do it differently by having each kid write a different word and stop them from copying and racing.

Day After Break

Today the students in my classroom were a little more chatty and reckless than normal. I was kind of expecting this since they had a five day break from school. The students came into class fine, but when they started to break up in their stations they got a little more reckless and had trouble staying focused. This in my opinion I believe was a great learning experience for me because, it showed me that I can keep my composure in rough situations like this, when students are acting up. to me, I think that the students just needed a day to regroup and get back into the swing of things.

Friendship Feast!

Last Tuesday, the day before Thanksgiving break, my class had a friendship feast. My teacher brought ingredients for Snickers salad, turkey and crackers, fruit salad and bread and butter. She put all of the kids in groups to help make the food and they all had a part in making the "feast." She also had a table setting group that put the rectangle tables together into one and they put a tablecloth on top and set the table for the class. We passed around the food and they got to have a feast that they put together. Before they ate, they went around the table and said something they were thankful for. I absolutely loved it. The kids had such a fun time putting the food together and everyone was happy. They took a class picture and after they got to have play time. It was a great day before break; one of the best days we've had yet in class!

Thanksgiving break return!

Today marks the firstday of our last week in the classroom! And the first day back from Thanksgiving break...
I was expecting today to be rough because generally the students are a little feisty on Mondays but I was pleasantly surprised when it actually went quite smoothly.  There were only a few outbursts from the students I expected to have behavioral issues but nothing out of the ordinary.
Today we did the StarTesting which is this progress monitoring test that checks to see where the students are in their learning. Probably not that best idea to do right after a break because they were not in the right mindset and we were able to see the results and the teacher said that they didn't do well... On a similar note, the end of their trimester is this Friday!
Good luck to all this week!
--Nicole

Thanksgiving Activity and Technical Difficulties

In my field experience classroom we did a Thanksgiving activity last week.  My cooperating teachers' smart notebook has not been working and she has not been able to write on the smart board for the past few days. This made instructing how to create the Thanksgiving book a little more difficult but it was a lot of fun too! The students were able to make a book about what they are thankful for.  The activity included writing, creativity, and following directions.   Seeing how much my cooperating teacher had to adjust with her schedule and teaching plan due to technical difficulties was eye-opening.  Things happen but it was good to see how it does not have to affect the classroom, and that there are always multiple ways to present the material. Hope everyone enjoys their last week in the classroom!

Thanksgiving week

Thanksgiving week started to get a little crazy for our class. Students in my district were not excited to go home which I thought was a weird thing to happen. Upon looking a little further in to it I realized that most students don't really have a good home life. This meabs that they don't really want to go home and they start to get a little stressed out. This leads to them acting out and not paying attention in class. We had students even break down in class and it was hard to counsel them. To make matters even more hectic we had a substitute teacher on tuesday so it was even more difficult to keep them in line. 

Thanksgiving Week

We didn't do anything special in class for thanksgiving week. We had a short two day week and we started creating power points with the students. My partner and I each got a small group and read an animal book to the students. After we read the book we created a poster with cool facts about the animal and questions they wanted to ask. The questions they had we wrote down and showed the students the index of the book and showed them what page each of their questions would be on. After we finished the poster of the animal we went to the computer lab to create a power point. I thought this was a great idea to get students involved and do some critical thinking. I felt that the power point was hard to do with the kids because they didn't have any experience with it and we had to do most of the work for some students. I feel a warm up with the students to play around with power point would have been beneficial and would have created less head aches for us.

Thanksgiving Week!

We had a short two day week before the thanksgiving break. There was surprisingly almost all of the kids in class both days. Typically, there tends to be a lot of kids gone for these two days, but my class had full attendance besides for 2 kids both days. On Tuesdays, the kids were all over the place. They were beyond excited for the long 5 day weekend. It was a little challenging to keep the kids focused on the task at hand, but overall everything got completed that needed to be for the day. My partner and I did a co-read aloud together and the kids LOVED it. We read an elephant and piggy book to the class and the kids were laughing and really enjoying it. I would definitely recommend a co read aloud to a book like this if you are able to.

Short Week

This last week was an awesome time to be in the classroom. On Tuesday the other block 1 student and myself instructed students through a turkey craft that took around 45 minutes. This was the first time that either of us got to be in front of the classroom and lead an activity. I do an activity during daily five everyday but usually with a maximum of 6 kids. This was a great learning experience as things did not go as planned and some kids were talking and off task while this lesson was going on. The other teacher and myself were able to get the students back on track while still helping the students who were following instructions. This was a great first hand experience of how teachers must adapt and go with the flow of the day to ensure things move swiftly.

Everyday Technology

With students use of technology increasing during the school day, teachers must adapt their lessons to integrate technology. The teacher which I am observing uses his interactive whiteboard every day. He uses it to read books, allowing the children to read along, he uses it for phonics songs, and he also uses it for brain breaks. The curriculum the school uses has a book with short stories on the curriculum website; this allows the teacher to select appropriate books as they progress through the year. I feel this is useful, as it gives students the screen time they crave, and is instructional. In my future classroom, I will use a variation of technology, making sure it is instructional while being interactive for the children.

The Runner

We have two students in our classroom who frequently will run out of the classroom and do not return to the classroom. One of the students, we'll call him John, leaves at the smallest requests, one day it was being requested to grab a pencil. We know that he has potential, but because of his absences from the classroom he is falling severely behind. He stays on average about 10 minutes each day (if he shows up at all) and that really is just while he eats his breakfast. I was very proud the other day as I was able to get him to stay for an hour and 45 minutes, but now he hasn't been back to school yet.

Does anyone have any ideas to help increase his attendance to school? What are some of the things that your cooperating teachers do increase classroom participation for some of the students who have a hard time staying in the classroom?

Short Thanksgiving Week

     Despite only having a 2 day week, I thought that this one would be good to reflect upon.  One significant thing that was done this week were creative Thanksgiving activities on the smartboard.  Our teacher had a software that allowed the students to interact with a very high-tech thanksgiving crossword.  Students would drag their finger along the word that they wanted to select.  It could go diagonally, horizontally, and vertically.  If the word was correct, it would illuminate in green highlight.  I thought that this activity would be good to talk about because it relates to what we've discussed in this class.  Activities like this are a way to get resources from other teachers and expand upon lesson plans.

Thanksgiving week

This was a short but a great two day week. It was great to experience what the classroom was like during a holiday week and how the students react to an upcoming long break. As for attendance goes during this week, it was surprising to see how many students were absent either at home, on vacation or out of the classroom due to testing. I realized that these short weeks are tough to teach curriculum content because many students will forget the material over the break and will need to be relearned again over the next week. Instead of going through the normal curriculum routine my cooperating teacher took the time to instead refresh on the content we had previously learned, which I thought was a great idea! This was a fun week because the students were able to create a turkey book about everything they were thankful for! 

Go Noodle!

Every morning after the students do their morning work/eat breakfast and have morning meeting, our cooperating teacher has the students get their energy out with something called Go Noodle. Go Noodle is a fun way for students to be active in the classroom with fun videos that get them moving. Many of the students really enjoy these videos. The main reason my co-teacher uses these videos is because the students need to get their energy out before we start for the day. Another reason is so that students can be active in the classroom. After we do a couple of moving videos, the teacher will play a video to get the students to calm down and be ready to learn. They have a lot of fun with Go Noodle and they love seeing that we do them with them sometimes.

Guided Reading Groups

My CT has my partner and I leading guided reading groups each day.  She has the class divided up into 4 different groups and they are put into color groups based on the students reading level.  She classifies the two higher level reading groups as the "readers" in the class.  This is something I am not sure that I agree with.  By doing this, the students in the class know if they are the higher readers or not and it might discourage them into doing their best.  When leading the guided reading groups we usually have the students read with a partner in the group, then read the book together as a group.  This way my partner and I can lead discussion and look to see who may need some extra help.  After reading the story the students have booklets that they fill out depending on if it was a fictional book or an informational book.  They draw pictures that go along with the story and also talk about the setting and the plot of the book that they just read.

Breaking the Language Barrier

In my field experience classroom, there are several students that are very new to country and speak little to no english.  It has been such a learning experience finding ways to communicate with these students to not only help them learn and become adjusted to their new environment, but also to feel safe and accepted.  One thing that I have learned is that a smile and a high-five are universal, and go along way with building connections.  It is sometime challenging when I am placed in a one-on-one situation with an ELL student to tell if I am successfully helping them hone their math and reading skills.  When there is evident signs of progress and understanding, it is an even more rewarding experience to see how these students have overcome their obstacles.

New Student

Starting the second week we received a new student. The student moved from Minneapolis to the St.Cloud. He does not speak any English but speak Somali. The teacher communicates with him through the other Somali students in the classroom. The student is going to get a specialist starting the third week to help him with his English. The one good thing is that the new student had a cousin in the class and made friends instantly. It was fun too see the first day of class because all the students wanted to get to know the new student better. They kept asking him questions and trying to help him with what they were doing. It was a great atmosphere to be in and I was glad to see that the new student was not left out.

Morning Meetings

Starting next Monday after break, my field experience partner and I are going to be in charge of the morning meetings in our classroom. After watching morning meetings for the last couple weeks and doing our own in class, I feel that I am prepared and excited to have the opportunity to lead one of my own.

Our co-teacher gave us a book that is similar to our morning meeting book. We looked through it and got many ideas that we could do with our students. We also used some things that we have done in previous morning meetings that we know the kids enjoy. Morning meetings are one of the things that I enjoy doing during our day in first grade and I cannot wait for next week! I will let you all know how it goes!

New Student and Thanksgiving

This week in class we got a new student! Everyone was very excited to meet him. One interesting thing was that he spoke little to no English. I was wondering how he would do in our classroom but I thought my co-teacher handled it well. She paired him with aa student who was fluent in the same language that he spoke. This way that student could translate for him.

Today was our last day of the week due to thanksgiving break and we threw a thanksgiving feast! The students made cornucopias out of bugles, tix cereal, and vanilla frosting and turkeys out of Oreos, frosting and candy corn. After we made our food we washed up at the bathroom, brought all the tables together, each student wore either a paper hat or bonnet. The students loved this activity and I think it helped them to understand thanksgiving because not everyone in our classroom normally celebrates it.

Storybird

My co-teacher asked if I would work with a student on the Ipad with an application called Storybird. The first 20 minutes during reading we go to small table in the room to work. Storybird is basically a writing application. The student picks out a picture that she wants to base her story on then she is given a variety of pictures that relate to it. Every page she can put in a picture then type anything she wants for her story. My co-teacher started trying this for the first time this year. The student who uses it is bored during reading class and this is meant to challenge her and really use her creativity. I've been watching her use it and the story she is writing right now is really good. I'm helping her add in quotes into the story. I would definitely use Storybird in my classroom.

Morning Meeting Activity

Last week in my 1st grade classroom I was assigned to do the activity portion of Morning Meeting. My activity that I chose was to write word pairs with the same end rhymes. Then, I would pass one card out to each student and have them wait until all of the cards were passed out. After that, I had the students go find their partner with the same end rhyme, but I had them try to do it quietly so everyone could hear what  word a student was saying if they told another student. I would also time the students so that when they did the activity the first day, the days after they would try to beat their time from previous days. When I did this activity the first day it was very compelling to me because, you would hear each students using phonics and break up the sounds of the words if they didn't know it. Throughout the week the students progressed drastically in how quick they completed the activity.

Daily Five

Recently in my 1st grade classroom I have been teaching a "work on writing" segment for a daily 5 done every morning. During this time each student is given a sticker sheet and allowed 5 stickers to place together that creates a type of story. The next step is to write 3 sentences that relate to the picture and make "sense". The creativity of 1st graders to me is incredible and exciting to watch. I have witnessed stories about "flying cars" and "dangerous bunnies". Instructing this daily 5 activity has been a great experience and I have enjoyed it greatly.

Word Work

Every morning in my kindergarten class we do word work for about a half an hour. This consists of numerous games working on syllables, spelling out words, matching, etc & even just grabbing a write board and writing sight words and practicing spelling. Today my cooperating teacher had me work with a group of 6 students. They each had a whiteboard and I could make up any word I want and have them try to spell it out and tell me what the word was. I would give each sound at a time and at the end say okay now sound it out. The students loved guessing and learning how to spell new words and it was very successful. Ilene also came into my classroom and played with us a little bit and it was great!

Early Release and New Student

The last two days of field experience through everyone for a loop.  On Friday school was released 3 hours early due to the blizzard like conditions. My cooperating teacher stated in all the years she has taught at the school, there has only been 1 day of class where they had a 2 hour early release, but have never had a 3 hour early release due to the weather. To say the least, everyone in the school was frantic on what to do, where to send the students, and in this case, where to send the students who did not return their winter weather emergency sheets. The students were frantic that their parents would not be able to get them at school and they would have to stay all weekend long! Overall, all the students found their parents or the bus to get home Friday!
Today, Monday, we had a new student start in the class. The class has been waiting anxiously for the new friend to start as we were told it was supposed to happen last week. The Kindergarteners kept asking questions about what the new friend was going to look like, who he would play with, and what things he would be interested in. They would not stop talking about him and he hadn't even started yet. When he arrived today right before lunch, the Kindergarteners waved to him, but seemed very afraid to talk to him. I was expecting the complete opposite because of their constant questions earlier in the week. I am sure as the week goes on the students will become more comfortable talking to the student and he will fit in nicely with the class!

Power of encouragement November 14-18

In my classroom, I have a student who struggles to write his ABC's, to write within the lines of his notebook paper, and stay on task. This past week, I have focused on pulling this student out of the classroom, drawing lines with marker for him to write between, and focusing on simple tasks. Instead of trying to do the entire alphabet, I have selected letters from him to practice each day. Last week, I discovered that he does not know the alphabet unless they are in the correct order where he can sing the alphabet song. I think that this week, we will continue to work through letters I have selected, but that I may also ask my student to organize the letters chronologically. When I celebrate his success, we get more done than when he is frustrated and unsure of himself. Sometimes, I will even tell another student or my cooperate teacher of what my student did better. This makes him smile and ready for our next alphabet session.

New student

So starting the second week, my class received a new student. The poor guy had a rough first day. He crawled around the floor and was being extremely disruptive. I was able to sit down and talk with him when he was asking to sit in the "break chair" to ask him what was up.  He told me that he was scared to be in this new school. I told him that if he needed to take a break or talk he was welcome to ask any adult in the class and that we were so happy to have him class. This seemed to make him feel better for about 20 minutes and then we went back to similar behavior of being disruptive. My co-teacher came find out that his brother acted the same way but only worse in his 4th grade classroom. As the week when on, we learned that in fact that this student is actually always like this.  My co-teacher was curious about how he acted in his other school so she contacted his previous principal was able to get a better of idea of what this student was actually like. Turn out that this student was the exact same way at his old as he was here. They were in the beginning stages of getting him tested for an EBD but decided not to once they heard he was going to be moving. Their mother was also not supportive of getting him tested because she thought the school was being racist toward her sons, they are both of mixed race. The old school also hoped that a new school and environment would "straighten him out." Well clearly it didn't work. This past Thursday, the student's brother had an episode in his class to the point he had to be restrained and suspended from school, his mother then decided that because his brother was leaving so was he and was also not going to be in school while his brother wasn't either. I found this situation to be quite frustrating. The student in my class can be such a great kid sometimes that its just hard for me to understand what goes through his mind. Does anyone else have that problem?

--Nicole Laferriere

No Recess for You

Every day, the Kindergarten teacher who I am learning from takes away or threatens to take away a child’s recess because of bad behavior. The first time he did it I was surprised. However, after a while it stopped phasing me. Then, during the school’s student of the month ceremony, I was supposed to keep an eye out for children who behaved well to give them “Caught Being Goods” (the schools reward system). After the program, which lasted around 30 minutes, I handed out the CBG’s to all but four students who had moments of less than good behavior. It wasn’t necessarily bad behavior, but it wasn’t good. I explained to the teacher why they didn’t receive them and he took away their recess because of it. This made me the bad guy, which I could care less about. The part I didn’t like is taking away recess in general, especially from kindergarteners. I can barely sit through a half hour presentation without getting antsy, and these kids are 5. They need to be able to run around outside to burn off their energy so they will be able to be calm and ready to learn in class.

School Let Out Early

On Friday, I was able to witness what happens in the event of school closing early because of the weather. It started snowing about 9am and there was no sign of it stopping until after school is supposed to be let out. They decided to close the school at 11:05am. When my coordinating teacher found out, she had to frantically find all of the students emergency school closing slips that tell how/where they are supposed to go to get home. The kids in the class all came back from gym/music and were ECSTATIC to see the snow outside. They all rushed to the window to see the snow. The school had to also change the times for lunch, and the lunches were to be eaten in the classroom. They switched up all of the times to make sure the kids were able to get the food. It was a little hectic, but all of the kids were super excited. My teacher had to adjust her teaching schedule a little bit, but was able to get in what she wanted for the day with the allotted time.

Turkey Bingo

After the whole school has earned enough Colt Cash, they get the chance to play Bingo. Colt cash is something they get when they have done something respectful and/or helpful for the school or to others. Since it is November, they called it Turkey Bingo. Since my class is a first grade class, they meet up with an older class and play Bingo with them. The Bingo numbers are read through the intercom and once someone gets a Bingo, they have to call down to the office and let them know. Then they get a prize. This is a fun way for students that allows them to get rewarded for doing good and being helpful in the school and in their classrooms.

Reading

My teacher has been working very hard with our students helping them learn to read! On Friday we got to do a fun activity where we went to an in school store and the students go to by things with their points they earned reading. It has been very rewarding watching and helping my students learn to read. Each day during our station time, I do a writing or reading activity. Helping the students to read and write has made me feel proud.

Behavior

Third week of field experience has been a little crazy.  As the students have started to get to know me, I am beginning to see the side of behavioral issues that are in the classroom.  I am learning lots about teaching and classroom management, however another huge skill I am seeing is how to address behavioral issues in the classroom.  I have had to hold doors tightly shut from children trying to get out of the classroom.  At the school I am at they lose their recess privileges when they are not doing their jobs as students.  Another thing they could lose is their fun Friday.  The biggest lesson I have learned from all of these behavioral issues is that each student lashes out in their own way and getting to know your students is so huge as a teacher.  My cooperating teacher can tell when students are seeking attention, sad, and when they are acting out.  She knows them on a personal level and can address issues in the right scenario at the right time.  I am glad I am seeing this first hand because I know behavioral issues will most likely always be present in the classroom!

Fire Safety

For my first read aloud my teacher asked if I would read a book about fire safety. I found the perfect book called 'Stop, Drop, & Roll.' Then my teacher asked if it was possible for me to bring in my gear and do a demonstration for the class. I had 30 minutes to teach whatever I wanted on fire safety. I started with putting on my gear and talking about it. Then I read the book and we discussed what we learned from the book. I also made a glogster the night before and I put that up on the smartboard for them to look at as I did a scenario for them on the whiteboard. After we finished I let them try the gear on. It was great to see that the students were engaged the entire time!

School Closing Early

Today I was able to experience what it was like for students to get out of school 3 hours early.  It was quite the experience.  The class found out around 9:45 that school was getting out at 11:40 and that they were eating lunch at 10. The children got very excited when they noticed that it was starting to snow and they had trouble staying calm.  We brought the students down to the lunchroom to pick up their lunches and brought their lunches to the classroom.  We then put in a movie for the students to watch while they ate and the three adults planned and figured out how each of the students were getting home.  After lunch, the students took a math test because the teacher was insistent in using all the time they had left in the day to be productive. I was blown away on how long it took the students to get all packed up for the day and get their gear on, even with three adults in the room helping.  The three of us divided and conquered to help get the students to where they needed to go. It was a pretty chaotic morning but I'm glad I got to experience what the process was like for the students to depart for the day. 

Waiting Fingers

A technique my cooperating teacher uses is what she calls “waiting fingers.”  When the class isn’t paying attention to what she is saying she puts her hands palms up and wiggles her fingers. When students notice she is doing this they mimic her until more students catch on and eventually the class is back on track.

I think this is a great classroom management tool.  It can usually bring the class back to focusing on the teacher within less than a minute.  When one student notices and contributes to the waiting fingers it provides motivation for more students to do the same.  I don’t think students want to be the last one participating in waiting fingers.  I would use this in my classroom or something similar.  I think it’s effective and easy to implement.

Colt Cash

Throughout my first couple weeks one of the main strategies that I observed is that the students get rewarded. The way that the students get rewarded is that if a student does something good or help their classmates out. Some of these things that they get rewarded for are talking all of the chairs off of every students desk in the morning. Another thing that a student can get rewarded for is putting all of  the packrat books back in the bin after each student chooses their new one. How this rewarding system works is that if a student does one of those tasks either me my co-teacher or the other student in my class will write our initials on a piece of paper the school calls Colt Cash. Then, the student will right their name on the Colt Cash and put it in the Colt Cash bin that each classroom has. Then, at the end of the month those bins are brought down to the office and a name is drawn from each classroom, and that student can then go get their prize from the office.

Positive Behavior Rewards

I was placed in a kindergarten and have loved it. We have 21 students in our class and they are very well behaved for the most part and eager to learn. I can't believe how fast it's going! I already know I am going to miss this class when it's over. One thing I think is really awesome is that the whole school participates in a positive behavior reward system by giving out 'Colt Cash' when they see a student or entire class doing something good. My teacher has given some to me to hand out to students when I see them doing a positive thing and the kids get really excited when they get one. Then at the end of the month each classroom puts their colt cash in a drawing and one student from each class wins a little prize. This really gives students incentive to go above and beyond when it comes to helping a student/teacher out or just asking their overall best.

Up and Moving and Dancing

In my kindergarten class placement, my cooperating teacher will use several dance videos through out the morning to keep the kids up and active and to give them a quick break from learning.  I'm sure many other classes incorporate this as well.  Not all the dance videos are silly fun songs, some are educational and factual.  The students at the age all get very excited when it is time to dance, and fully immerse themselves into the song.  Some songs deal with vowels and others with shapes.  It is unrealistic to expect students to sit for long periods of time and not tune out or become tired.  With little dance breaks scattered throughout, it keeps the lessons punctual and interesting.  I love this idea to keep kids moving, and its fun for the whole classroom!

Smartboard Activities

I am in a kindergarten class and there are about 22 kids. Something we do every few days is use the Smartboard for interactive activities. The kindergarteners love it. Some of the activities include creating sentences using sight words we are learning, grouping letter sounds, and learning about word families (-it, sit, lit, etc.) The students are always very involved in the activities. I feel like they really benefit from the Smartboard actives because it’s something different and more fun than the stations they do daily. The students usually get randomly chosen to go up and do part of whatever activity they are doing that day, and the students who are not called on are always attentive. They like to help their fellow classmates who may need some guidance, and they also really enjoy being able to something they see the teachers doing.

I always knew technology plays a huge part in the classroom, but this makes me really excited to see how I can integrate it in my future classroom.

English Learner Special

Today I was able to witness an English Learner Classroom. This a special for a few of the students in my field experience classroom. When I was asked if I wanted to see how it was run I couldn't wait. Not every school has this opportunity, and not every student teacher is able to find time to witness it either. When the ELL teacher came to grab my six students I noticed right away that she wasn't very nice. She yelled for their names and disrupted the entire class from warm up work. This caused chatter and chaos with other students. While we were walking down to her classroom she was yelling at the students to walk quietly and keep their hands to themselves when they already were doing so. Also, when we got to the classroom she immediately slammed the iPads down on their desks and told them to play the reading games. I was thinking to myself, "How can they play reading games when they can hardly speak English?" This day was a testing day, so she was testing to see their reading fluency. While she was testing I was trying my hardest to keep the other five students on track and help them as much as possible with reading games. Every now and again I would look over and try to sneak a peek at what she was doing. I couldn't see much because her desk was very unorganized and she was yelling at the student when they weren't doing very well.

I'm not really sure what I should do. This isn't what I was expecting whatsoever. Are my expectations to high? Any ideas?

Packrat

    A neat little tool that my teacher has been incorporating into her classroom is the Packrat program.  I think that this is something all of us should consider using in our classrooms.  The whole idea of Packrat is generally students choosing their own books every set period of time and bringing them home.  When the students bring home the book they must read it with their parents and get a slip signed by them.  Back in my elementary days, I can clearly remember doing this myself.  I believe that this is crucial because it is a way for the teacher to give the students hands-on time with their families.  Some students may have a rough life at home.  Reading a book together is something that could have a slight possibility of further connecting.  Activities at home are a must, especially in the elementary classroom.

Fingerprint Lunch Code

Today the Kindergarteners were allowed to go to the lunchroom to scan their fingerprint into the computer system. This fingerprint is how they will get counted for lunch. Instead of my cooperating teacher having to take a lunch count each morning in the classroom, the students will have to get in the lunch line and use their fingerprint to get their lunch. All the Kindergarteners were very confused at lunch today as to what was going on and why they now had to use a fingerprint code.
Personally, I feel like there should be an easier way for the teachers and lunch ladies to have Kindergarteners get counted for lunch. I see this as something the older students would not have a problem with, but Kindergarteners do not like waiting in line and taking 10 seconds to complete a task when they are worried about eating. Maybe as they get used to the process it will not be so bad, but today the lunch line backed up quickly because the Kindergartners were not cooperating with the new fingerprint code system.

Learning to manage behaviors

I have learned a lot of different things in this class. One of the main ones I want to share with you all today is behavior management. We have a very challenging classroom. Some students in it tend to be a little rambunctious and have problems following directions. A perfect example of this is one of our students will act out if they get told no and they escalate extremely quickly. It goes from him or her getting told no to throwing chairs around the classroom (this could actually describe a number of my students). Another problem that we have is that once one student escalates another is much more likely to follow their example while they are in the middle of a meltdown. A way that we handle this is a three step process. The first step is isolation. We immediately isolate the student from their peers so he doesn't drag any other students with them. This includes if they become dangerous we evacuate the classroom. This has happened about twice a week since we have been there. Second is not feeding in to their behavior. We do tend to not show reactions and we let them burn themselves out by not giving them the energy to work with. And finally we immediately call for support. We have a whole staff that is engaged in coming in to classrooms and extracting students that may be a danger to themselves or others. One thing that I have noticed is that the students that tend to act out also tend to be some of the smartest, and I think there is a correlation, but unfortunately I will not have enough time to explore this avenue. Does anybody else have any suggestions on how to handle situations like this.

As challenging as this school is I believe that it is a good experience and my students are awesome. They all have unique personalities and all of them are smart and capable. I definitely would not have picked a different classroom if I had the opportunity and this class has definitely made me consider a minor in Special Education as well as Elementary Education.

First few weeks in the classroom

The first week was a great learning experience in the classroom. Simply learning every students name was the first step. This step seems easy to do, although I surely struggled grasping a few names that I have never heard of before. Another learning experience that I was quick to learn about classroom management. I had the mindset of going into the field experience thinking that every student was going to follow a few sets of classroom rules and that every student was going to engage accordingly. I soon found that classroom management was not that simple, every student follows the classroom rules to the best of their ability but every student has their own accommodations and each student reacts to classroom management procedures differently. Overall I’ve enjoyed my first few weeks in the classroom, with both the students and my teacher!

Word Work

In my first grade classroom we do "word work" each day to help the students practice their spelling and high frequency words. These worksheets vary each day and incorporate their artistic skills into it as well. Some worksheets have them practice writing the words, other you draw a picture of what the word means, or there are cut and sort worksheets. We have utilized this time as a way to work one on one with students to help them review their words to ensure that they are getting practiced. It is a quick way to assess where your students are and who needs more work.

One thing that I am not as fond of is that our teacher enforces that they color each worksheet. As a student, I was never very creative, and also did not understand why I would have to spend time coloring a word if I could write it. It is a good opportunity for the students who enjoy art, though I do not think that the coloring aspect of the worksheet should be assigned as homework if they do not get it finished.

After talking with my teacher I found that she gets these worksheets from Teachers pay Teachers. She pulled out some of the worksheets that come with the book series that they use in class and they looked very boring compared to the ones that she uses. I didn't realize the variety of things that were available on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Daily 5!

My kindergarten classroom uses Daily 5 every day and they do two rounds of it, with the students rotating through the different stations with their groups (based on their ability level). Most days, I get to do guided reading with at least one group, sometimes two. If the students aren't at guided reading, they do Writer's Workshop or take a game from a shelf. There are many games; most work on recognizing and writing words with the same beginning, middle or end sound. Some are putting together words based on pictures. The students are pretty self sufficient during Daily 5, but if they don't have an adult walking around and monitoring they can get off task pretty quickly. The routine for Daily 5 is spelled out really well, the students just sometimes don't always know what they need to be doing. It does flow really nicely though, and works well for the classroom!

November 7-11

Each day, our class starts by eating breakfast! After breakfast, we gather on the rug for a morning meeting. We sing a morning song, and we do a fun little greeting. The teacher also allows each student to share something. My co-operating teacher also has a morning message written out on her easel that she reads with the students; each day a different student gets to take the message home with them! After that, the class does their literacy stations; we then have a little mini lesson on the rug with the teacher.  Finally, the class gets some play time, and then, they go out for recess.

During the first couple weeks, I have been helping my co-teacher with assessments and running different stations each day. Their stations often include different writing and reading activities. In the time that I have been with my class we have written two class books! I also did my first read aloud!

This has been a very fun experience so far and I am very excited to continue!

Post 1: Election week! Nov. 7-Nov.11

This week, my class held their own election. I am placed in a first grade classroom and the students were read three books in which the name of the main character was placed on a ballet for a mock election and all students were given the opportunity to vote. I thought that this was a great way to involve students in an election as their parents had the same opportunity to vote in the United States 2016 election. I am curious as to how other classrooms incorporated, if at all, the election into their class schedule. I felt like hosting our own class election was a fun way to get students to participate in class while learning more about elections. We did not receive results of who won our class election.

At first, I thought that we were doing this class exercise to coincide with the United States 2016 election, but I feel like we, my teacher and I, didn't do everything we could have for the students. On Wednesday, the students were told not to talk about the United States 2016 election results because it is a "private, family matter."

I understand that I have first grade students and they have not established their own political views, but I feel like the students should not have been banned from talking about the results because the president-elect will have an impact on the students and their education. I do believe that the students had other opportunities during recess and snack to talk about the results had they wanted to. I felt like, as teachers, we could've had a classroom discussion because then we, teachers, knew what was being said between the students. If I were to do this lesson again in an upcoming election, I might consider what it could be like if students talk about who won, how they feel, and how their parents feel.

In my research of -isms, I have always read that racism, sexism, and other -isms are not something we are born with, but are grown into. I struggle to know at which age this -isms become prevalent, but I do know that we as teachers need to teach students critical thinking and allowing their minds to grow in new dimensions. I believe that dialogue is what helps prevents these -isms.


Can anyone weigh in on what their class did for the election, if at all? What my class could have improved on? What thoughts there are for when the -isms begin?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Sight Words

I am placed in a first grade classroom! These past couple weeks have been eye-opening and I am learning so much from just being in the classroom with the students.  One thing my cooperating teacher does that I really like is sight words of the week.  At the beginning of each week we have four new sight words that are the focus for the rest of the week.  These words appear in the morning message, in our reading books, and in our writing practice.  The students get to practice writing sentences with the words and they have a spelling test on the words at the end of the week.   I love how the students get practice with the words for a whole weeks worth of class.  I feel this would be less effective if they were just specifically given the words to memorize for their test.  This way they are seeing them in books and are able to use them in their writing.  I am eager to keep hearing more about other teaching styles!

Reading Workshops

I am placed in a first grade classroom. So far I have been able to do two read aloud books and have been able to do a few guided reading lessons! One of my favorite things that we do is something that the kids call readers workshops. Basically they rotate around the room and do stations. Depending on how many adults are in the room at the time they usually have one adult per station and three to five kids per station. The groups are made based on the students reading level. I like doing these stations because it allows us to work with the kids more on a one on one stand point. The students are also very good at helping out their peers in their groups if the adult cannot get to them right away. Readers workshops are defiantly something that I will use in my own classroom.

Alphabet Activities

Learning the alphabet and how to pronounce each letter is a big part of the Kindergarten curriculum. I feel my cooperating teacher makes learning the alphabet and phonics fun for the students. During my time in the field, I have seen the students practice with songs, play games, use the alphabet chart on the classroom wall, and have guided reading lessons with the teacher. Along with reading stories as a group (or individually during silent read to self), the students seem to enjoy learning these concepts! It makes me laugh when I walk around during silent read to self time and a student asks for help sounding out a word. I will get my lips ready (like Professor Christian taught us as a reading strategy for young children) and the student will be able to sound the letters out without me even making a noise. It was a shock to me to see how much Kindergarteners enjoy reading! With making learning these concepts enjoyable for the students, they sometimes do not even realize they are learning!

Morning Math Board

I am placed in a second grade classroom.  Each morning around 8:45 the students all gather for whole group for something called the "math board."  This is similar to morning meeting but it all revolves around math.  The bulletin board in the front of the room has different posters with which the "helper for the day" gets to lead.  There are activities that include the date, number of days of school, money counting, counting by different increments, and telling time.  I think this is a great way to incorporate math in the morning and it splits of the reading in the morning.  I also think this is a fun way for different students to get up and lead the class in these different activities.  My partner and I guide the students through the math board and help them stay on track. 

1st and 2nd graders

My class starts off with half 1st graders and half 2nd graders. After the morning meeting they switch and all of the 1st graders go to the other teacher and all of the second graders come into our classroom. In the afternoon they switch back to their original classes that have half 1st graders and half second graders. The hardest part to what I have seen from this is that they switch rooms at specific times so you have to be done with your lesson in time. Also if the students are understanding and get through a lesson quickly then the teacher has to find an activity for the students to do before they have to switch rooms.

Sight Word Stations

My cooperating teacher has daily sight word stations.  The students are broken into small groups of four to six.  They each work independently at each station on different activities that help reinforce their sight words.  Some examples of the stations are, putting beads on a pipe cleaner to form sight words, putting sight words in alphabetical order and drawing a picture and writing a sentence using sight words.  During this independent work time the teacher takes students for small group reading assessments. 
I think this is a great idea to keep the other students busy and learning while you have small group assessments.  As a teacher you have little time in the day and you have use of the time wisely. 
Being in the classroom and experiencing teaching strategies first hand is great!  I am learning a lot!

Courthouse

     One significant thing that my school did in the first week of my field experience was conduct a "pretend courthouse".  In this courthouse, the students were allowed to receive their own passports through a series of stations.  These stations included getting your passport book, getting an immunization (fake of course), and getting a photo taken that would be put in the passport book.  After participating in this activity, I believe that fun events like this are crucial to a child's education.  If you can show the student's that you care, while connecting with them, the school's environment will be a lot more successful and strive. This activity also enabled students to pretend that they are in the real world, which is specifically what school prepares you for.  My main reflective point for this day is to let students enjoy school, while learning and being more actively engaged on what is going on!

Classroom Rotation Stations

One thing I have really enjoyed in my field experience classroom is the use of stations/circuits.  In addition to myself and my field experience partner, another student from St. Benz is placed in our classroom doing their field experience as well.  This gives our cooperating teacher some flexibility on how she wants to use our presence.  I think we are pretty fortunate that our teacher gives us quite a bit of responsibility in the classroom.  In these rotation stations, each of us field experience students are given a concept and an activity that the classroom students need to work on.  While students are working with us, the teacher has time to test and assess students that are struggling.  The use of these stations makes time fly by, and it is fun working with students in small group settings.  The students seem to enjoy it as well, because it keeps them active and moving.  If I ever have the opportunity to have multiple helpers in my future classroom, I would certainly use this idea!

Sight Words Game

When my cooperating teacher does literacy centers, she likes to incorporate some fun games for one center. One game that I got the chance to do with the students is called Bang. This game consists of sight words on cut out paper pieces and some of them have the word bang on them. The cards are all flipped over. The students who are playing pick up a card and read the words. If they get it right they can keep the card and if they get it wrong they put it back. Then they keep picking cards until they get a bang card, which has them put all their cards back. I feel that games like this makes it more fun for students to learn. If students have fun learning, it makes them want to learn.

It's Election Day!

It's Election Day! One of my favorite days is finally here! I believe that Election Day is such a great day. It's a day where everyone comes together to exercise your right to vote. Whether you are voting in the same party or different parties. Our country has one thing in common, and that's bettering our country, ourselves, and our communities.

That being said, I had my first read aloud today. I decided to read One vote, Two vote, I Vote, You vote By: Dr. Seuss. I struggled trying to find a book for my read aloud, considering my field experience classroom is first graders. This book is geared more towards fourth and fifth graders. I chose to read this book in the end because I feel as though it was educational. This book had what the different parties were, what electoral votes meant, and various other definitions that they were going to hear over the next few weeks. The kids ended up loving the books and continuously asking questions throughout the book and afterwards. I wasn't expecting such an overwhelming review from them. I'm glad I did so that they could become more educated on their next activity which was a school wide vote on their favorite three books and a classroom vote.

Classroom Cash

The entire school uses classroom cash to reward students who are "caught being good."  I like the idea of trying to reinforce positive behaviors.  It isn't always possible, but I try to avoid punishing bad behavior, if I can.  Students seem to respond well to the classroom cash program.  We will announce who is getting the cash and for what behavior before giving it out.  This method has a ripple effect and other students behavior usually improves right away.  The cash does not have a dollar value.  Instead it is put into a weekly drawing for prizes.

Class Dojo

During my first few days in the classroom I have found that the most effective classroom management tool is Class Dojo. My cooperating teacher frequently will use the random option that randomly selects students to be granted Dojo points if they are doing what they are supposed to do. The fact that the computer randomly selects students for the opportunity to receive points creates a good incentive for all of the students to behave appropriately. The teacher then has rewards that go along with different point values for the day. Whether it is a piece of candy, a special job in the classroom, or extra IPad time, the students love that their good behavior is being recognized!

The First Week

The first week of Field Experience has been nothing short of remarkable, stressful, and exciting. My cooperating teacher has already a set schedule and a plan for my partner and I. She's given us full range in doing almost everything. We are able to do Morning Meetings everyday, guided reading groups, read aloud, and independent work with English Learning Students.

One concern I do have is that my cooperating teacher almost has too high of expectations for my partner and I. She will get upset if we don't do something right away, even if she hasn't told us what she wants us to do. Yes, I get that we need to take initiative. What is concerning is that it's only the first week and don't quite know the schedule is or how she runs her classroom.

Emily Nelsen

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