My Last Day in Kindergarten

4/21/16

       Today was the last day of my field experience in Kindergarten. I was talking to the CT about how the students might behave after the two of us doing our field experience left. A lot of the students had baggage and really grew attached to us. So they did very well listening to us when we redirected them to stay on task and "make good choices." All of that aside, what really stumped my mind today was a pretty heavy subject.
       They would always hug us, sit by us, and talk to us and we did well explaining to them that in school we had to behave a certain way. However, I was just thinking in my head about the messages we were sending them by saying such things. Essentially, we were telling them that we couldn't have the bond that they want (and kind of need) because we were in school, but ultimately, it was sending the message that school was a place where you only worked. The kindergartners and their baggage consist of: parent(s) being arrested, child of 9 raised by a single mother, father leaving to a different state for work, not seeing their parent(s) until 8 or 9 at night because of their parent(s)' work situation, and so many more baggage to be listed.
       So it stumps to try and stay "professional" by not letting them cling to you and tell you about all the exciting things they like talking about when they so desperately need this attention and person to talk to. Let me make clear that there are certain situations that are intolerable, but there has to be a scenario where these kindergartners do get the attention they need. This will definitely be the most important thing that I take away from my field experience.

Unexpected Behavior

4/14/16

         This morning was going like any other morning, the kids were mostly on task and focused but some were distracted. We finished morning meeting and the CT was giving out class points for those who practiced "self control" by listening and paying attention with disturbing. The CT gives out the points on the Smart board on this neat little website that the kids really enjoy. So the students can see how many points they are at, how much more they needed for a prize, and if they gained a point. Well I have mixed feelings about showing the class their points because the students who didn't receive a point start to act out. Well one of the students with EBD (Emotional and Behavioral Disorder) noticed that he didn't get a point (as he really shouldn't have anyways) so he started acting out. He would write on the Smart board while the CT was teaching, then he grabbed all of Smart board tools and threw them across the room. His behavior escalated even more and the CT eventually just evacuated the entire class into another class while the behavior intervention specialist tried to help the situation.

         What I took from this experience is that it's really important to be mindful of the cause of the students' behaviors. I wasn't sure if the CT had realized that the point system was just increasing behavior problems for some of the students, and this, in my opinion, could have been easily avoided if the points were just kept more covert. However, on the other hand, it did work as a reinforcement for most of the students. One of my teachers once told me that one classroom management might work for most of the class but there's always some that it won't work for. So do you adapt or change your strategy to try and accommodate for those few students or try to make it work?

A Day In Kindergarten Blog 4 (4-21-16)

Today was my last day with my students. I felt so sad that I had to leave my students. We had a lot of fun with the students today. We did a lot of Earth Day projects with them. While my partner and I were busy doing the projects our CT had the students go over to her teacher table and sign large cards with the both of us. I thought it was really touching that she did that for us. When the students were headed to lunch each one of them gave me a hug and I thought it was so sad. I really enjoyed getting to know all of my students and seeing their behaviors change from not only day to day but from hour to hour some days.
When reflecting on this experience I am so glad I was placed in this classroom. I have learned so much on classroom management and behavior issue from a hands on perspective. I really enjoyed my class.

A Day In Kindergarten Blog 3 (4-20-16)

      Today was my morning meeting. My peer that is in the same room as myself decided we would do separate morning meetings. We just thought that since we had a small class it would be more beneficial if we did it that way. For my greeting I had the students do a microwave, which is where the students wave using their pinkie finger. I think the students had a lot of fun with that. Then for our activity we danced to one of their favorite songs called Pop See Koo. I really enjoyed dancing with them during that song. I thought it was a good way to wake up the students on a Wednesday morning. After my activity my CT took over to do the calendar with the students.

A Day In Kindergarten Blog 2 (4-13-16)

    Today the students were awesome! Their behaviors were by far the best compared to the last few days. They were all listening which made the day a lot easier. I did my last read aloud today. I read the book Once Upon a Cloud. I think I finally have a hold of how to get the students really interested in the book that I'm reading. The book is about a girl that is worried about what she should get her mom for her birthday. in the story she has a dream that she visits the stars, sun and the moon. When she wakes she knows exactly what to get her mom. I think the students really related to the book. The author, Claire Keane, is also the illustrator whom works as an artist for Disney. She has worked on films like Frozen and Tangled. I feel that by telling the students that piece of information about the author helped them pay attention to the book more.

A Day In Kindergarten Blog 1 (4-12-16)

          Kindergarten was interesting today. My CT had a line that was two different colors, green and red. when students were behaving they stayed in the green when they weren't their clothes pin would drop to the red meaning they had to fix their behaviors and they could move back to the green. Well today she added a third color to the line, blue. By 9 AM we had two students in that area.
          During read to self one of the students with a disability had an accident and wet his pants. That was my first time having to deal with something like that. It was definitely a learning experience not only having to take care of the situation with the special needs student without their para in the class but also keeping the rest of the class on task with their read to self.
          While trying to get into writing work one of our students was having a behavior issue that got to the point that my CT asked my partner and I to take the students for a walk around the school while my CT took disciplinary actions for the student that was having a behavior.
          At the end of the day I think this day I learned a lot. I learned that even after a teacher has more than 10 years of experience they still do things by ear, especially when it comes to behaviors in the classroom since every year the students are different from the last.

Educational Games on Ipad

During my second week in Field Experience, I got to see and learned about integrating technology to the lesson. Each individual will have an ipad to play few educational games that are related to math, vocabulary, and phonics. I really like the idea using Ipad for students to learn because it is more engaging and especially, they are having fun while learning.

Media Center and Computer Lab

Every Friday, students go to the computer lab and library. At the computer lab, they are either play a math game or a vocabulary game. After that, they will go to the library, which is right next door. There is a library media specialist that will do a read-aloud to students for about 15-20 minutes. Then students choose a book that they want to read and then check out the book at the circulation desk. Then they will head back to the classroom. I love the read-aloud activity in the library because I get to learn more about read-aloud, not only from the teacher, but also from the library media specialist.

my second week

During my second week, I started to be more familiar with the classroom management and everyday the routines. I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to be with the students attended a session of music class. I also got to meet the music teacher, learn more about the routines in music class, what are the students expectations, and rules. I also got to play few music instruments, learned a new dance.

Last Day :(

My last day with the kindergarteners was a very emotional one! I had such an amazing time in that classroom and I looked forward to being there every day. I really had a connection with all of the students and I'm going to miss them so much. The students were very sad to see us leave. As a gift, our CT had each kindergartener draw a picture and help them write "I will miss you!" She combined these into a little booklet with a class picture inside. This is one of the sweetest gifts I have ever received and it brought tears to my eyes! I will never ever forget my experience in this classroom.

Student of the Month

The school that I have my field experience at has an assembly every month for Student of the Month. Each teacher picks a student from their class as the student of the month and the parents and grandparents get to come and see it and take pictures. I thought this was such a great idea and it gives the students a time to feel extra special. It is also an incentive for the students to be on their best behavior so they can be chosen for student of the month.

Morning meeting

Durning our last week we did a morning meeting with the students. It looked fairly easy when we were watching the teacher, but it was different when we got up there to give instructions to the students. For the most part it went well, but it was also hard to manage the behavior, and the side talking. I really enjoyed doing the morning meeting.

Last Day

Thursday was my last day for field experience. It was kind of a bummer that we didn't have school on Friday because it was Earth Day! We could have done so many fun projects to show the kids how to keep our planet healthy. Throughout the week they had been planting plants, but that was later in the day so I didn't get to experience that. Also I'm not sure if they were doing that for earth day or because it's nice out now! We went about the last day as normal. The kids new it was going to be our last day with them and that made them sad. During prep time when the kids were in gym, our cooperating teacher gave us each gifts. She gave us each three book, one was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Inside that book she wrote us each letters, which made me tear up! She also put her morning meeting on a flash drive and told us to bring them with us to all of our experiences in case we want to put something on it. I thought that was such a thoughtful and cute idea! I am so thankful to have such an amazing cooperating teacher and a group of awesome students to work with. I definitely learned a lot with hands on experience and a CT that has experience as well. I am looking forward to visiting their class before school ends in June.

Teaching

This week, my partner and I were able to teach all by ourselves. At the beginning of our field experience our cooperating teacher asked us if we wanted to get more experience teaching and, of course, we said yes. The students mornings are pretty similar from day to day so it was easy to get the hang of how to teach. We taught new vocal and cite words. We were able to try out different classroom management techniques also. We pulled sticks, used classroom dojo (an online teacher resource,) and used the phrases listed below.

Teacher: "One, two." Students: "Eyes on you."
Teacher: "eyes on..." Students: "you" Teacher: "Hands at our..." Students: "Sides" Teacher: "Bubbles in our..." Students: "Mouths."

We found out quickly how hard it is to keep an entire classroom full of children to pay attention! They often had their eyes wandering around the room, their arms in their shirts (not in their sleeves,) and swinging their heads back and forth. One thing that worked for us was classroom dojo. We were able to give students who were paying attention and had their eyes on the board points, while the students who were being distracting either didn't get points or had them taken away.
It was a really wonderful experience being able to teach on our own and having our cooperating teacher their with us in case we needed help. I hope everyone gets to experience something like this before student teaching!

2nd Grade - Blog Post #4

Yesterday was my last day in the field as my school, and I believe most schools in the St. Cloud district, had off today. It was a bittersweet day as we did not really get a chance to tell the students in advance that it would be my last day so seeing their reactions the day of broke my heart. It was great to see that the students really wanted me to stay, especially since my group of kids aren't really ones to show emotions all too well so for them to have a big, sad reaction was really touching. We went about our normal schedule. I did a full morning meeting with the students where I said my goodbyes and well wishes in my message. I also was able to complete my final read aloud. I read the book Let's Play by the same author as Press Here that Ilene read to us in our ED class so it was a very fun and interactive book which all the students really enjoyed. As a surprise, I gifted the class the copy of the book I read to them so that they can continue to enjoy it on their own during their read to self time and so my co-teacher can share it with her future classes as well. I wrote a little note at the front of the book thanking them for allowing me into their classroom and they all were very excited to be able to keep such a cool book in the classroom. I decided to stay a little later than my normal schedule until they went to lunch because I couldn't bring myself to leave while they were in the middle of a lesson where I wouldn't get the chance to actually say goodbye. I was sent off with many hugs and lots of students begging me not to go along with my co-teacher saying she didn't know what she was going to do without me. It felt really great to feel so loved and needed in the classroom and to know there was obviously a connection made between me and the students in such a short amount of time. If bonds can be made like that in 5 weeks, I can't wait to see the kind of bonds I make with my own future classes who I will spend an entire year with. Overall I thought my field experience went very well and I was able to learn a lot of great new things from my co-teacher about lesson planning, classroom management, and just little tricks to get you through the day. I will definitely cherish this time spent in the field for years to come and hope to stay in contact with my co-teacher.

Field Trip/Last Day

Thursday we went on a field trip to St. John's University to do a nature hike along their boardwalk loop. It was very educational and the students loved it. We slip up into groups and measured trees with our arms. I had a group of girls and they were really energetic and hard to keep up with. When we re-grouped, we learned how to tell how old a tree is by the rings.
The field trip was a success and was a great way to end the experience. When it came time to say good bye to the students a lot of them didn't realize it was my last day and were a little let down. One of the boys I worked with wanted to come with me. I told him he had to do me a favor and learn as much as he can. Made me tear up a bit, you had to be there.

Last Day...

Yesterday was my last day in my first grade classroom! I am so lucky to say I was able to be apart of their classroom for a few short weeks. It is crazy to me at how much time has passed. This last day was also kind of different because the school was going to have a prairie burn. My CT was notified of this until the night before around 6pm. She told my partner and I that this is a great example to show adjustment! Being in a classroom I have learned adjusting is something a teacher goes through almost everyday! My CT had to show the students a video about the prairie burn and also read a story about it. She had to make time into her curriculum for this event. It ended up being canceled, but it still showed us how to be great adjusters! If one thing I have the learned from this experience it's going with the flow. Not everyday is going to be perfectly planned out and you'll sometimes have to let loose.

Last Week...

This is the last week of our field experience! I am so sad to see how fast time went by. This week I will be doing one of my final morning meetings and one last read aloud. It is so crazy to see how different I feel in front of the classroom from doing my first morning meeting to my last. In the short 6 weeks we have been placed in our schools I have seen so many of my students grow. This was definitely a great first experience and something I will always remember! Have a great last week!

Last day..

Today was my last day with my kindergarten class. I was sad because I built such great relationships with each and every one of these students and I couldn't even do anything special for them nor did my co teacher let them know that it was my last day. The students all come from poor backgrounds and she does not know what goes on at home but a lot of them already have anxiety issues so she doesn't like to make them upset or make a big deal out of goodbyes, I can understand this nor would I want to upset any of the students so I went along with it. I learned a lot that I will be able to take with me while furthering my education to become a teacher as well as things that I want to take with me to my future classroom. I am grateful for the experience!

Illuminating experience

In my final week of being in the field I had an illuminating experience with one of my students. This student has been what I have referred to as my "problem child"; he repeatedly caused disruptions and did not seem to respond to redirection. I don't like using the term "problem child" but I am at a loss for what else to use to best describe this child's behavior. Anyway, yesterday, this child was not participating in the math assignment on measuring; I approached the student and tried to redirect him back to the assignment. I was not successful in this because he started to tear up when I tried helping him through some of the problems. I remembered that the other day I over heard my CT being a little hard on him when going over the lesson again. I realize that was probably out of frustration from having to repeat herself so much. I took the student out into the hall to try and talk with him about how he was feeling. He opened up to me about how he felt frustrated and how he thought all the teachers at this school were rude. As this student talked I could feel all the pieces click into place in my head. I finally understood that this student felt like he wasn't being respected and like he wasn't being heard. I also believe that he has not been taught or managed in a way that is beneficial to his learning and nothing was really being done to bring about a positive change in his behavior. I am happy I made this realization, and I promised him for what time I had left in the class that I would help him and advocate for him. But, I am disappointed that I came to this realization so late and that I couldn't have done more for this student sooner. Part of me wonders if I could have done some good for this student, but, I ended up treating him like everybody else did.

Final Week

In this past week of our field experience, I finished up my last read aloud and ran another morning meeting. I also got the experience of coming up with a literacy center idea and having the kids work on it. Their literacy centers are basically just word work with words that are designated for each week. Their stories and a lot of their language arts are spent on these words. I learned this week how important it is to be prepared before class and to make sure that the supplies you have are done correctly so it is fairly simple to explain how to do the lesson or worksheet.

Week 4

We had a substitute teacher this week. I can't even put to words how much the children change when the original teacher isn't around. They think they can get away with anything and try to take advantage of the substitute by saying, "Our teacher lets us do this." It is remarkable how great of a job my CT does of controlling her classroom. The classroom has about eight kids, mostly boys who can't seem to figure out how to sit still. I learned so much this week on flexibility and how to control a classroom.

Last Week of Field Experience

Today was a great last day of my field experience. Overall it was a great experience and I can't wait to grow more as I move forward in my block classes. I have definitely been able to take a lot from this experience such as; workstation activities for math, classroom management ideas, and other ideas that I found to be beneficial. Based on some of the lessons I heard them partake in while I was there. I was also able to come up with an idea for my final presentation.

First week

When I was in the classroom, I noticed new aspects of the teaching profession. I did not realize that teachers have so many responsibilities. While observing students in the classroom setting, I was able to learn more about the teaching profession as a whole. I also learn more about myself as a developing teacher.

Last Week in the Field

     Our last week is going pretty well. It's Earth Day on Friday; so we are learning on how we can help keep the Earth around for a long time. A few books that we read in class talk about how we can save water by not using to much soap. This will keep the water on long enough to wash our hands and not waste as much as a lot of the students would be. For our writing assignments today we made a book where the students author the last sentence in the book of how they help the Earth. I worked with a few students that said that they take the bus rather than having their parents drive them. This will lower the air pollution.
    There is a lot of excitement for tomorrow because we get to go on a field trip to St. Johns. I'm not sure about the details of the field trip but I will be posting about it tomorrow.

Students behavior without the teacher around

I know that it is normal for the students behavior to be dependent on whether their teacher is around or not but I am still in shock at how the students behavior changes when the teacher is out. We had a sub the other day just in the morning in my kindergarten classroom and when I walked into the room that morning to the sub trying to do morning meeting with the students I was appalled! It was sad to see the "help me" look on her face as she was just trying to explain some directions to them but they were talking non stop to each other and messing around. The kids who normally behave even had issues and it made me disappointed to see that they would give into the behavior. The substitute had been spending most of her morning correcting behavior or waiting for the students to be quiet so she could continue, luckily the kids were used to us at this point so showing up and taking some control over behavior helped her out a lot. I can only hope someday the kids in my classroom will know how to respect a sub, they have a hard job trying to take over a classroom just for a day not knowing much about the class or what they have been working on!

Last Week in the Field

This field experience has been an eye-opening, fun, fulfilling, and challenging experience.

• I was able to work on-one-one with a student on a specific skill, and see her progress in that skill.
• I was able to do three read alouds. With the feedback from the teacher, I was able to make each read aloud better for the students and myself.
• I am helping with a morning meeting this week, and I am excited to do my greeting and activity with the students.
• I was able to help groups of students during work-time, word work, math work, crafts, and reading.
• I was able to communicate with my CT, ask questions about the field, and get some answers.
• I was able to see how behavior management is handled, what works and what doesn't. 
• I was able to see how academic can be used effectively in a kindergarten classroom!
• I was able to connect with students and work towards making meaningful relationships with each of them (important one).
• And much, much more!

I am grateful to have the opportunities to go out into the field and put what we learn into action. I am also looking forward to seeing you all and hearing about how your experiences went!

Have a great last week! Make the most of it!

Problems at Home

There is a student in my class that has a very tough time following instruction. He will sometimes get physical with kids, push them, step on their fingers, and frequently raise his voice other students. I spent a lot of my time trying to control the behavior of this student right away as I thought there was no reason for this poor behavior. After about two weeks my classroom teacher informed me of some of the issues this student was having back home. His original parents lost custody due problems with abuse. The next couple to have custody also was abusive. Now he is floating between different houses with different family members. To me this really explained a lot of the behavioral issues he was having. It was sad to see, but it showed me a lot of how important family involvement is at that age.

2nd Grade - Blog Post #3

My co-teacher has given me more responsibility in the classroom. The first couple weeks I mostly observed and helped students during their work time, then I began to run morning meeting twice a week, and now I am still doing morning meeting twice a week but also giving my own language arts mini lessons 1-2 times a week and doing one read aloud a week. I really enjoy being able to create my morning meeting especially after spending so much time on the importance of morning meeting in our ED classes. Since my class has a lot of behavioral issues I am not able to make them quite as fun as I would like to, but I still have been finding different things to do that relate back to the content the students are learning about (activities including time, sentences with grammatical errors they must correct, etc.). My co-teacher has given me a lot of freedom as far as the mini lessons go. She gives me a topic and a time frame I must meet and lets me do whatever I'd like with it. I have been getting a lot of practice with the smart board and the notebook application to create lessons, so I'm glad we were able to do the interactive whiteboard assignment in class to prepare me for that. I can tell the students have really started to respect me. The first couple weeks when I would try and tell them to do something my co-teacher would almost always have to step in and say to listen to me, but lately they listen the first time I ask them to do something. It would be interesting to see where I would be with this class if we had a few more weeks even now that we are finally comfortable with one another and I have a lot more responsibility.

2nd Grade - Blog Post #2

The second week of field experience, my class lost a student who transferred to a different school. This specific student happened to be a big distraction for the class and was difficult to work with, lots of behavioral issues and no respect for authority. After he was gone you could tell the entire atmosphere of the class completely changed. Although there are still of course students with issues and the class is no where near perfect, just taking this one student away from the equation has seemed to make the teacher's job much better and the class as a whole easier to gain control of. I had no idea that just one student could make such a difference in a classes entire progress as a whole. We of course hope the student who has left us is getting the help he needs, but according to my co-teacher their family refuses to believe anything any sort of teacher, administrator, and even the student's even peers have to say about their behavior and focus so they in turn refuse to seek help for whatever the issue may be. Most of the other students in the class who have behavior problems are at least manageable and willing to work with you, so classroom management has become a lot more probable and you can tell everyone is just more focused and happy to not have to stop every few minutes for the teacher to reprimand this student anymore.

Week 4 Blog

The beginning of this week was that we had the two high-level learning groups do the same bear activity we did on the Friday. They put the bears into the boats and discovered which one sank and which one floated. We then worked with the high-energy group and did the same activity and they loved it. On Wednesday is when we let the students make their own boats and have them float their boats and put bears in the boats. We are still continuing the activity into our last week of teaching with the low-level students. They are going to make their boats next week. On Friday, they had a substitute teacher and did they ever take advantage of that. It was like they were an entirely different class. But their normal teacher came in and they were just fine like nothing happened.

I also for got to mention that during Week 3 and 4, I helped a few students with reading and phonics. We also did our read-a-louds and we did pretty well with those.

Week 3 Blog Post

My partner and I began to work with the lower level, high energy students on our sinking and floating lesson. We changed it up so we didn't make an anchor chart with them. They just wanted to dive into the activity. For our high-learning students, we had them do a writing activity to tell about what they learned from sinking and floating. Then Friday, my partner and I showed a little sneak peek of what they were going to do the following week. We put little bead bears into three different "boats" and saw which one would sink first. After we did this, the kids went off and did separate math activities.

One thing that was really awkward that happened this week was that there was one day, I don't remember if it was Tuesday or Wednesday that we couldn't help the students at all with anything. We had to observe the whole day and it was different. After the students went out for recess, we met with the teacher after and she told me that I'm like a brother figure instead of a teacher because I played outside with them one day and the teacher saw that. She just gave me constructive criticism and I stopped playing with them and maintained a teacher role.

Week 2 Blog Post

On Tuesday is when my partner and I found worksheets and made an anchor chart on how to plan the lesson on sinking and floating. We began by grouping the high-level learning students into two groups and the low-level full of energy students into two separate groups. We posted our anchor chart onto a white board that the teacher uses to post her morning message. The first group of high-level kids made predictions on what they believe would sink or float. I put a couple items in a tub of water to show them on what to do and went over guidelines on how to properly put the items in the water. The students then made predictions and placed the items in the water. When the chart was completed, we gave them a few more items to put in the water. We did have to kick a student out of the activity because he was misbehaving, but other than that we had no problems. My partner and I did this Wednesday and Thursday with the high-level kids and there were no problems on that Thursday for the activity.

Along with doing our lesson, we helped with math lessons and games when needed. Other than that we reflected on our day and how the lesson went.

Friday was a kind of a rough one for me. I went in to help, but didn't have to. There was a little spat while the students were playing a game during morning meeting. After this occurred, we had a little talk about being safe when this happens. Everything calmed down and I stayed until lunch and left. This was the beginning of our lesson and we took off from there.

Week 1 Blog Post

To begin the Field Experience, my partner and I worked with the students one-on-one on a math game. We also had a day of observation where we couldn't help the students if they asked us to help them. Our CT, my partner and I decided to do a lesson on sinking and floating. The students didn't have class that Friday due to Good Friday. It was a really interesting week and was a little nerve-wracking and full of excitement at the same time.

Incorporating movement activities

I was very much interested in how the CT incorporated movement activites in her daily classroom routines. Whenever she saw few students that can't focus, moving around, and getting up for bathroom breaks. She would turn on a movement active from online, and the students would jump up and start moving. After the activity break the students would focus much better. Its true when they say that activity breaks durning the school day can help sharpen students' abilities to focus and stay on task. I would like to incorporated movement activities as much as I can in my classroom in the future. 

Blog 4: Week 4

So yesterday I finished my last read aloud for my field experience and I feel both of them went very well. I do feel that I was more comfortable with the second than the first and my cooperating teacher thought that as well and said I seemed even more poised and confident and varied my pitch very well. It's really cool how much you can learn from the teacher by observing her reading to the students and then be able to use what you learned for yourself. 

Blog 3: Week 4

So on Wednesday April 13 I decided to go to the school at a later time than usual to experience a different part of the day at school. Instead of doing the literacy portion of the day like normal I did the math portion of the day which starts in the afternoon. After trying this out I really liked going into the class later because I find the math stations much more fun and easier to teach than the literacy groups. 

Fun Project

Today me and my partner got to do a fun project with the kids! This past week the students learned about cause and effect. For our last read aloud we wanted to do something fun, so we created a project to go along with our book! We read If You Bring a Mouse to School, which is a cause and effect book. For our project each student had to come up with a cause and effect. We had worksheet they filled in with "If you give a ___________," "then______." We went around the room and we ended up creating a class book that me and my partner get to keep copies of! While the book was going around the room, we also made a paper mouse using paper bags. The book started with a squirrel coming into our classroom asking for cheese, and ended with the squirrel having a party with flying cows on the moon. We had so much fun making the book and mice! It's also an activity I hope to use in my classroom if I teach cause and effect.

Substitute Teacher

On Monday we had a substitute teacher in our classroom. It was interesting to see how the Kindergarteners would react to their teacher being gone and a new teacher they didn't know there. I definitely saw a huge difference. Students that normally weren't known for misbehaving were misbehaving and not listening to any of us. This was a good experience for me to see because I can someday be prepared for that when I bring substitute teachers in my classroom or if I ever sub myself.

Food Drive

I am not sure if any other schools are doing this, but the school I am at is doing a spaghetti food drive. It is awesome to see communities giving back and this teaches students many life lessons. It was intestesting to see how kindergarteners reacted when their teacher explained how some families do not have enough money to buy food so the school is trying to help them. All the students were very enthusiastic about helping, although, the winning class gets a popcorn party so that is a helping motivator. Other schools I have been in have done food drives but I have never seen one specifically for spaghetti, which I thought was pretty cool.

Chromebooks

This week I got to watch my students work with the chromebooks for the first time. My classroom has a set of 6 chromebooks and my CT decided to use them for math centers that would help review the previouse lesson on telling time, which many were still struggling to fully understand. The week before, my CT went over how to use the chromebooks with the students and sat with each one of them to see if they understood how to use the device. It was interesting because I remember my elementary school days and the technology I used was the portable laptop cart. They were bulky, slow, and I didn't even start useing them till I was in the older grades. However I was not all that surprised to see chromebooks in my classroom due to all the advancements in education and technology since I was in elementary school.

Technology in the classroom

Technology in the classroom

In my classroom the CT uses smartboard, document camera, and an online website called wonders. I have not seen any iPad, and any other technology being used by the CT.  The CT use the smartboard in the morning to take attendants, which I think is a great way to take attendants. In the morning the students listen to stories being read aloud on the internet.

Behavior and Special Education

This last week has been the most challenging, but I have been learning a lot. There is a student in my class who has behavior issues that are severely affecting his academics. He is in the process of being evaluated for special education so at the time, he does not have a full time para. He currently has a para who comes in when she isn't working with her other students. There have been two different people this week who have been in to help, but they have just been thrown into the situation. This inconsistency is not seeming to help the situation. His home life is not very supportive and his parents are not being consistent in helping with their sons school work and recent evaluations for special education. Although they were on-board with the special education referral to begin with, there has been a falling out. If the paperwork from the parents is not filled out by this Friday, the evaluation has a missing piece and cannot proceed further.

I have mixed feelings about all aspects of this situation, (interventions, parents, teachers, special education evaluation, labeling, etc) and have much more thinking to do. I am hoping that he is able to be qualified for a full time para, and/or at least get the interventions and help that he needs in order to be successful with his behaviors and in school. However, if he is qualified, I hope that he does not use the label of special education and his para as a crutch. I hope his teachers and parents can help him overcome these issues, so that he will then be able to become independent and successful in his school and life.

This will definitely be a huge challenge when I think about this happening in my future classroom. I am hopeful that I will learn from this and be able to put my best foot forward in my own classroom someday.

Student Count

In our classroom we have 24 Kindergarten students. I don't know what most classrooms have, but I feel like that is a bit ridiculous. The teachers are required to have individual testing sessions with a lot of these students and I feel that is near impossible with 24 little bundles of energy moving around and making noises. There is just too much going on in the classroom for our teacher to be with one student while the other 23 are just doing whatever pops into their heads. I feel as if this might be the most difficult task as I become a teacher.

Daily Routines

In the time that we have spent in the classroom so far I have really noticed our teachers goal of getting the students into a routine. It's not necessarily the same exact thing every day, but she follows the same pattern every day. The students at this point of the year have the routine down pretty well. This helps the students become more on task because they know what they are suppose to be doing. It also really has helped when there was a substitute teacher. The students were able to do some of the tasks, even if the instruction wasn't very good. Just because they already know what they are going to be doing for the most part. It also made it tough for the substitute because the students would make sure to let her know when she was doing something different!

Emotional Behavior Disorder

There is a student in the class that has an emotional behavior disorder. He has troubles following the most simple instructions without getting mad or frustrated. Yesterday, he got mad at another student and yelled at him in the middle of class. The teacher tried to talk to the student but instead he walked out of the room and slammed both of our doors as loudly as one can. He typically has a paraprofessional with him at all times, but due to some of the teaching staff quitting this year he has had to alternate with a new helper every day to every week. The student seemingly has no control of his actions and will just get up and leave the room whenever he gets upset. It has really opened my eyes to some of the different behaviors I will see in the classroom one day. 

Substitute Teacher

Yesterday, the kindergarteners had a sub in their classroom. The teacher reminded them multiple days in advance that there would be a substitute so there was no surprise. She also reminded them about being on their best behavior so the sub leaves her a good report. When I walked into the classroom that morning, I could hear the kids from down the hall. Their voices were loud and they were acting in ways they never did with their original teacher there. One of the students who never acts out and always had good behavior, was acting the complete opposite. Luckily, for the morning there was three adults in the room to handle the wild behaviors, but I cannot imagine what the afternoon was like. The students got very frantic when the sub did not do things exactly the same as their teacher or their daily routine got a little out of order. It shows that even very young students thrive off routine. Watching these students made me dread the thought of being a substitute teacher after graduating.

Morning assembly

My classroom always has morning assemble every day before the class starts. The activity on the morning assembly varies. There are some games that enable students to move their body. Also, there are some activities to make student talk to each other and get to know more about peers. There are a lot of benefits of morning assembly. First of all, it gives students an opportunity to understand each other and be close to various friends in the classroom. Though the activity, students share about themselves such as their plans for weekends, dream in the future, or their favorite food. Not only it promotes the relationship between students, but also teachers could monitor on students so that they know whether there are students who are bullied. These benefits will help to make caring environment in the classroom. Also morning assembly can make students awake and be ready for classes by making them move and have fun. I witnessed a lot of students who became more active after the morning assembly. This short schedule of morning assembly can be seemed like unnecessary and time consuming time but the effects we expect from the students are huge.

Maker space project

When I first met my students, they were working on their invention at the maker's space. As a group or an individual, they designed their device and built it with a lot of kinds of materials such as Lego block, motor, wire, rubber, 3D printer, saw-toothed wheel, and battery. As examples of invention, there were automatic stirring machine, mini roller coaster, spinning coil, and soccer game machine. Using technology, students could make the invention they designed. Soccer game machine team used an application called 'Scratch' to make goalie keep moving automatically. It was an amazing project that makes students think more creative and innovative. Also, this manipulative ability helps students be more passionate on the technology and confident about them. To wrap up this 2 months of project, they held a small science museum in the classroom and buddy class visited them and shared ideas about the inventions. Buddy class was the first graders so students could learn the sense of responsibility by introducing their work to the younger students.

Library activity

Every Wednesday, students go to the school library. Usually they choose a book they want to read and check out the book. There is a library media specialist to answer students' questions such as how to find a certain book that has information they want to know. On the week 2 as a library activity, library media specialist prepared the scavenger hunt for students. It contained useful books that are related to the other subject students are learning in the general classroom. As they find what they want, they could be able to learn how to get resources in the library. It was a useful lesson for students since it is important to be a skilled consumer of information.

Internet literacy project

I was assigned to the fifth grade classroom. The most impressive class i have observed on the week 1 is definitely Internet literacy project. As a group of 4 students, they researched about one topic from the three topics that teacher presented. Topics are 'Tree Octopus', 'Dog Island', and 'Charging iPod with Orange'. These topics all have professionally looking like websites and videos on Google and You Tube. However, they are all false information designed to deceive people. At first as teacher intended, students believed that all of these topics are real without any doubt. Since students had to present about the topic they chose to the rest of the students, they gathered information about it. For one week, some students started to find out that the topic is not true and they realize the information from You Tube and Google cannot always be trusted. At the end of the week, all students got an important lesson which is the importance of internet literacy from this project. I think this project was very brilliant because students got to learn about internet literacy by themselves and they would never forget this experience.

Teacher and Media Specialist

Today my students went to the computer lab, they go there at least once a week to play educational games on the computer. From talking to my teacher, he informed me that the teachers and the media specialist at the school were able to comply a list of website that the teachers love and that are beneficial for the students. They use what we all know as...Symbaloo. The first time I noticed that, I thought it was awesome to see that something we used in the classroom for practice is actually being used out there in schools. So each grade under the school has a list of websites teachers can allow their students to go on. For example today in class the students focus on fiction and non-fiction book. When it was time to go to the computer lab, the symbaloo page was up and all the students had to do was click "K" for Kindergarten and then to the website the teacher wanted them to go on and then they were able to find a list of fiction and non-fiction books to read online.

What a great resource page put together by both parties!

My experience thus far..

I have made many connections with the students in my kindergarten class these last couple weeks. It seems as if I have known them way longer! My co-teacher has been having me do lessons with the kids starting from the first week and I love it. We have been focusing on the same topic the whole time and it amazes me how fast the kids learn and catch on to things. We usually get about a half an hour a day with the kids and split them into a few groups so that we are working with 4-5 students at a time and it works really well. I am there mostly for math, so fitting in read aloud's or anything other than math has been extremely difficult. The end of the day is crazy and they are not in their primary class much so our co-teacher doesn't want us there at that time. I have realized throughout these last couple weeks that I do not want to teach kindergarten. I never intended to teach kindergarten but being in a classroom and working hands on with the kids just made me realize it's not for me. I love the kids and have formed relationships with almost all of them, but it seems more like babysitting to me and focused so much on behavior and wrong from right. I couldn't do it everyday all year is what I know. I would much rather teach an older level where all of that is pretty much established although I realize you can never fully get away from these issues, don't get me wrong. My co-teacher is wonderful and is always willing to help out and take time out of her day to chat with me about her class, answer any questions and really fill me in on what it's been like for her teaching all the years that she has. I really enjoy her and her class and I will be sad when it is time for us to leave!

Substitute Today

We had a sub today in kindergarten. It started out as a normal day until students realized that their teacher was not in the room. So we got to see another teachers methods of taking control of the situation. She used the "give me five" method that I saw in the Sartell school district, which worked for most of the students but a few were not getting the hint.

Some of the students weren't behaving as normal. That is to say some of the ones that followed directions before, were not following directions today. This is something that I hear about when ever substitutes are brought up in class, where students will be more susceptible to follow the lead of a classmate than follow the lead of the substitute teacher.

Then when work time rolled around it was tattle city. Normally, our teacher had ways to counter tattling by asking the tattler to just remove themselves from the situation. This was rather difficult because everyone was tattling on each other. The substitute announce to the class that if they could not keep their voices down to a "1" then she would need it to be a "0". This worked well and the students started getting their work done.

Earlier we had two boys, who are really good friends, get into an argument about blocks. It got so heated it ruined both of their mornings. I tried to talk to one, we'll call him boy A, but all he could say that the other kept making him mad. So I talked to the other one, we'll call him boy B, who was really frustrated at the whole situation. I asked him if he and the other boy were still friends and he asked, "How could we be friends when he keeps getting mad at me and yelling at me?" I told him that they were just having a bit of a disagreement and that if boy A kept getting mad at boy B, then boy B should just give boy A some space until he calmed down. I felt really bad for boy B because sometimes he doesn't realize that he is making boy A upset.

What would you have done?

Week 3

Week 3 I got to be a lot more involved in the classroom. During this week I did 2 read alouds and 2 morning meetings. It was very cool to take the teachers role in the classroom during morning meeting and to write my own message. The two books I read to the class were different versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children are working on venn diagrams and noticing similarities and differences between the original story and the different versions that I read. Both days that I got to read and do morning meeting went very smoothly. I looked to the children to help me because I wanted them to feel very involved. I really stressed getting all of their opinions on their favorite book that was read to them and I really tried to make it fun for them as I used different voices for all of the bears and Goldilocks while reading. It has been interesting to see their personalities come out as they have grown more and more comfortable with me and my partner in the classroom. These field experiences definitely let me know that I chose the correct career path. It is so rewarding being able to help these kids and be around them.

Weeks 1-2

Hello everyone!

The first two weeks of our field experience were amazing. It is so nice to be in the classroom again. I enjoy working with the children and accepting the challenges of getting to know the children on a personal level so I can work with them accordingly. The first couple weeks I really concentrated on memorizing all of the kids names and picking up on the strategies my teacher used with the all of the children. I did some one on one reading and some small group work on math assignments. The children make it enjoyable to come in every single day as they are so happy to see me and my field experience partner. The first couple weeks were not what I would call challenging, but more interesting. There are several kids with learning disabilities in our classroom and it is very cool to watch my teacher work extra hard to make sure they remain on the same level as everyone in the classroom. My teacher is such a good teacher and has definitely become someone I want to strive to teach like.

Three Weeks Down.. Two To Go!

This time in my classroom has flown by so quick! It makes me so sad to think I will be leaving my first grade classroom in such a small amount of time. These past few weeks I have been given the opportunity to run morning meeting, read aloud to the students, help specific students with homework daily, and now I am planning a game that the students can play to help learn their site words next week! I think the time I have been spending in the classroom is so valuable. It is a great learning experience to see what the daily routine is for this class. I am also very thankful that my CT has been giving my partner and I great advice and "opened up the stage" for us in her classroom.

First Experience With Kindergarten Week #1

When I found out I was going to be placed in a Kindergarten class, I didn't know what to expect. Most of my experience has been in second and third grade classrooms, so I was excited to see what Kindergarten would be like. I'm glad that I had this opportunity to be in a Kindergarten classroom because I could see if it was something for me or if I didn't think I would like it as much as the other grades. After experiencing the first week, I have found that it is not exactly what I had expected. The class is very well behaved (for the most part) and are learning things I didn't know were being taught in Kindergarten! They were a lot taller than I expected too. So far, I have LOVED being with the Kindergarteners and I could definitely see myself teaching Kindergarten.

2nd Grade - Blog Post #1

My class began with 27 students, but now has 25. One student has transferred to another school, another has left the country for an extended amount of time to visit family. I was shocked to see a class of close to 30, I have heard about the rising class sizes, but I've heard of classes still in the low 20's. Now with just 25 students it even feels a little more manageable than the original 27, those two students made a big difference. Of the original 27 students, 2 students are actually diagnosed with special needs and have IEPs, but about half of the class have different behavioral issues of some sort. A good chunk of the day is spent with the teacher having to stop and correct students, and you can tell she has figured out every child's little lies and issues and does not put up with it. She continues to tell me one warning and they're done because they know better by now. They see a new adult in the classroom and definitely try to push their limits with me, but with guidance from my co-teacher I have tried my best to stand firm and not allow them to get away with much. Some days it is difficult to be so stern because I would like to be a fun and compassionate teacher, but I know with this particular group if you let your guard down even once 1. nothing would get accomplished and 2. they would see you as a weak link and try to take advantage of you. Although this class is on the difficult side, you can tell a many of the students really are trying their best to be good but are just easily distracted. For the most part they own up to the things they do wrong and accept their punishment, which I know can sometimes be the most difficult part for a 2nd grader. My co-teacher is great, and although she has hard some complications with her class you can tell the students really respect her. The daily schedule is very routine; morning meeting, math, snack, reading/writing. I have been able to help out in math and writing stations by being given groups of students to work one on one with and/or teach new activities to. I look forward to picking up even more responsibility in these last few weeks in the classroom as my field experience comes to an end.

Taking a test on a Computer

Today I observed the students in my classroom take a literacy test. They take this test once a month to see their growth overall. The test is taken on a computer and my cooperating teacher told me that at the beginning many of the students struggled with taking the test because some of them couldn't get pass the practice. A lot of them do not have computers at home so they have a hard time using computers. During the test, I noticed a couple of them had a hard time with the mouse. It was evident they did not know how to use a mouse, so for most of the test, they would just press the letter of the answer they wanted to select. It just goes to show that computer skills is getting to be more important as the years go on.

First week

During the first week all we did was mostly observe, and help out the students. We joined the morning meeting, which was fun, and a great way to introduce ourselves to the students and also learn their names.

New Student Today

           Today we had a new student join our class. Fortunately he already knew another student in the class, from what I infer was from play dates or even daycare. The new student seemed to be accepted into the group very easily, although he did not show much interest in playing blocks, he still played with his new classmates.

           Class was about to start so it was time to clean up all the blocks on the floor. The new student followed directions but a few other students were not. The teacher viewed this as an opportunity to tell the students that they need to be a positive example on how we follow directions for the new student in class.

           Generally it is hard being a new student toward the end of the year. This student was lucky he knew someone who had a bunch of friends that he could be included in play time and I think they will get along nicely.

My First Week

My first week working with Kindergartners was quite challenging. The students have a hard time staying focused because of "boredom" so they often wander around the classroom. However, it's been  very rewarding to be working in the classroom. The students really enjoy books. They often want me to read to them which is great because it's been allowing me to practice the skills we've learned about in class while practicing my management skills. In the morning the class is also working on Math so i've also been helping students with their math. After math the students are divided into small groups and so I have been helping some students read books of their interest as well as just reading to them. I haven't done my first read aloud to the class, however. Like I said before, the class is quite challenging but they are also great and it's been very rewarding.

(This entry was recorded in my notebook and just now entered as a blog)

My first day.

Day 1: 

When I walked into my classroom on the first day, I was looking forward to having an engaging first day with the students. I was a little disappointed when my teacher said she didn't want us interacting with the kids at all the first day, just observe. She didn't even introduce us nor did the kids seem interested at all. For kindergarten students that I am used to they would all come up and ask a million questions and want to get to know somebody new in their classroom, which is why it shocked me to see that they didn't even seem to pay attention to us at all. I also noticed that whites are the minority in the school and the classroom that I am in, which is actually what I expected coming into the area that the school is located, but it really didn't register until I saw it that first day. Another thing I noticed from day 1 is that for having a classroom of under 20, the majority of the students in my class have behavioral issues and end up leaving the room or taking breaks multiple times a day to regather themselves. This caught me off guard as well, I am not used to seeing a teacher have to deal with so many behavioral problems while trying to teach a class. 

First Week Blog 2

On the third day of the first week we did more literature stations. I really like these stations because they give the students fun and different ways to learn how to write words/sentences, spell, read, etc. I also like these because it gives the students more attention to what they need because they only have about 5 students to a group so it isn't as hard for them to receive help when need like when it just a 1 teacher to every student in the class ratio. When the students get to my station I try my hardest to make sure all of them do their best on the task at my station because it's such a great feeling to see a student succeed know you helped them. So by the end of the first week my cooperating teacher wanted me to do the morning lesson on the interactive smartboard which I was nervous about because even though we did do an assignment like this, using the smartboard is still fairly new to me but the teacher was there to help me along and she said that I actually did very well with the morning lesson.

First Week Blog 1

So during my first week of my field experience I found the first week to be kind of overwhelming because it was just a lot to take in and I'm from a city where it's majority white students so definitely the diversity was a bit of a shock to me as well and trying to remember every kids name as they came up to me on the first day was hard. Also on the first day the teacher had us mostly observe and gave us a tour of the school before I left for the day. By the second day I was definitely feeling more comfortable, on this day we went to the library and I helped the students pick out their books which was fun because I got to see what all the different kids were interested in and the type of genres they like to read.

Adventures of Week 2

Last week was another busy and fun-filled week in my kindergarten class. The students were finishing up on learning about pets and started moving onto animal homes. They were able to make an animal and also make their own fish and fish bowl. While doing this, they practiced using scissors, coloring in the lines, and writing. In math, we worked on addition and also introduced the official term in math called "equal."

Last week, I also did my first read-aloud. I read the book "Is Everyone Ready for Fun" by Jan Thomas. You may remember this book about the three jumping cows and the chicken from ED 315. The kids were quiet and engaged while I read the book, with the occasional giggle here and there. They were also eager to answer questions when I asked. This was a great experience and I was glad to have practiced before with you all and Ilene.

I am looking forward to the new adventures this week will bring. 

Have a great week!

This is my third week at Lincoln Elementary School with a second grade class. It's a very diverse classroom full of unique personalities, backgrounds, and cultural experiences. There's nineteen students. We have two children with autism, a nonverbal student, six struggling readers, and a couple of students with behavioral problems. We also have one para that is in here everyday and a few that come in and out throughout the day. 

Today we had a sub! It was a crazy experience. Students who are typically our "all-star" students and are well behaved even had rough days. Me and my partner started off the day with morning meeting, The kids were extremely squirmy and were trying to move around the whole time. After that we had small groups. The kids were hard to keep on task but with two SCSU students, two paras and a sub we were able to manage to get some of it done! 

Library

Once a week the students get to visit the library. I really like the way the library is organized. It is very appropriate for all ages and the walls are painted with fun, pastel colors. When the class first gets to the library they sit down and the librarian comes to reads them a story. I noticed she talks about why she chose the book and a little about it a before she reads it. This is something we learned to do in ED 310 and 315. Another thing I really liked about this library, was the students checked out their own books. They have library cards that they scan and then they scan their book to check it out. This gives the students more independence and makes it a little more enjoyable for them.

The computer lab

Today I went with my class on their weekly visit to the computer lab in the library. Every week they go to the computers and there is a program installed that the students use to practice different academic areas, like math and literacy, through computer games. It was an interesting expirience for several reasons. The first was that it was interesting to observe my students motor skills when it comes to working with keyboards. Most all of my students were very cautious and clumsy when it came to typing on the keyboard, but I was impressed with how well they were all able to log in and navigate through the computer without assistance. I did notice that my students need to learn a little patience with the computer and that continually clicking something will not make it go faster. What was also interesting was to observe the games and activities my students were doing on the computer. They looked like fun games that not only delt with math, literacy, and writing, but there were also some social emotional development games as well. Overall, based on my observations, it seemed my students respected the computers and understood that they were not something to be aggressive with.

I also want to mention that I had an interaction with my schools library media specialist this week. I was preparing to do a read aloud as apart of my ED 315 assignments and I wanted to find a book that tied into my classes weekly theme of being a good citizen. I tried looking in the Juvenal section of our own campus library, but there really wasn't anything appropriate for a 2nd grade read aloud. So I took my teachers suggestion of talking to the library media specialist and she helped me find a book that delt with beings good listener, which is an important part of being a good citizen.  I see the worth these specialists have in a school and for teachers and I hope to have one in my future school.