Tuesday, 2/25, literacy lesson

In field experience this week, my cooperating teacher asked me to do a read aloud for 20 to 30 minutes with the book “if you bring a mouse to school”. She wanted to give me the opportunity to teach a lesson before I started teaching my own lessons. During the lesson, I asked students questions about the words and pictures. The real point of the read aloud was to be able to identify the beginning, middle, and end of the story and summarize it, since these are skills that the students have been working on. This activity went well. With support, the students were able to provide complete sentences for the beginning, middle, and end of the story. This led into a writing activity that the students have been working on for a while also involving beginning middle and end. For my activity, I used a sequence chart and asked the students to help me fill it in. This is the same format that the students have been using for other sequence activities. I have attached a picture of the chart that I made. I think this was a great opportunity for me to use students names as well as to see how long they stay engaged with an activity like this.

Whole group math/adapt to change

This week was still not a set routine of their daily schedule. The students were spending most of the morning preparing for their black history performance that was taking place on Friday. I think the students not being able to follow a consistent routine makes it hard and they lost out on a lot of instruction time. The students were all riled up and it took time for the students to settle down. During the plan period, I asked my CT if I could teach the whole group math lesson for the day to get some more experience and work with the students directly in preparation for my observed lessons to follow. My CT gave me the teachers work book and told me the lesson they were on and went from there. It was an interesting experience to plan a lesson on such short notice and work through putting something together in order for the students to understand. I worked on my lesson plan during my lunch time. I took into consideration the different learning personalities in the room and the different strategies that i've seen my CT use while teaching her whole group math lesson. I was a little nervous because of the lack of time for preparation but it put into perspective that I need to be ready for random schedule changes and to have back up plans in place for all subject areas. I called all the students to the smart board with their workbooks. I shared key vocabulary and asked them questions about greater than and less than which helped guided them into our concept of the day of sequencing numbers by greater than or less than. I demonstrated a problem for them and then had students work independently and then put their answers on the board while explaining to the entire class what they were doing as they worked through the problem. In between my lesson, the kids had an additional schedule change . The principle called all 1st grade students to one room for another talk about their performance. It was difficult to get the kids back on track after that transition because they were only exposed to half of the lesson and then taken out so the rest of the lesson had to be rescheduled for the next day.  I learned to adapt to the change and be ready for anything that is thrown my way. 

Paragraph writing

This week in class, the students were working on writing sentences in a final project form. They had already worked on a graphic organizer prior to this to organize their five sentences about why french fries are the best. The CT passed out their original graphic organizer which they worked on as a class as well as a copy of one she wrote in her own handwriting. The CT was working on the SMART board to write her small paragraph. The students were all supposed to write exactly what she wrote on the board into their final worksheet which was what they already had in their graphic organizer. Some students were working slower than others but the CT did not wait for those students that were falling behind. In one case she went up to a student and finished writing the sentence for him because he was not where the rest of his classmates were. I do not believe she handled this in the most effective way for the students. I believe they should have each gone over the sentences slower and she should have waited for students to be on the next sentence together. As she was moving on from sentence to sentence, their were several students that were completely behind and still on their first sentence. Those students seemed confused and lost and this activity was not done in the most effective way. Several of them were struggling to write their sentences but it was very beneficial that she included her own copy of her graphic organizer for each student so they can see exactly how the words in the sentences were spelled. I hope to see more writing assignments being done in her class and see the different strategies she uses to help her students with their writing.

Week 4

This week, the students were listening to the teacher read one of the books that the students are expected to write about. The writing activity for the students was honestly very rough. The vast majority of the class are not strong writers at all. They are pretty good at finding the concepts in which they have to write about, but when it comes to writing them into sentences and expanding on those concepts, they really struggle to explain their ideas. Their ideas are also very basic. There really isn't a lot of depth to them, unfortunately. They aren't really writing anything long, either. They use the R.A.C.E. concept. R is for restating the question. A is for answering the question. C is for citing the source of their information. E is for explaining their answer. In total, it really only comes out to four sentences, but the students are so below level with their writing that they struggle to form complete sentences and come up with their own ideas beyond the initial R portion. They bounce off of the higher-level students in the class a lot.

If I were to do a writing activity, which I will have to, I think I'm really going to try and work on this strategy with them. I would use a topic that is familiar with the students, possibly a book that they all have read before or even something simple like their Mohawk pledge. I really want to drive this concept in with them because it's something that they will use a lot just in more advanced conversations.

Overall, I thought this week was very beneficial because it will help me to build my writing lesson. I know where the students are at now.

Calm Classroom

Caitlin Kurtz
Sunday, February 23, 2020

On Thursday during my class, my teacher had noticed that some students were acting out and having attitude with everything that was going on in the classroom. During specials, the teacher had explained to me that the students that were performing these behaviors usually are his students who show positive behavior and good examples for everyone else in the classroom/ He was giving me tips with what to do when these situations arise in the classroom and the two strategies he uses his calming corner and a calming classroom. Right before lunch, I had noticed the entire class was getting angry with one another and everybody had a comment to something. My CT started to hand out lunch detentions to these behaviors but then realized that is only going to solve the problem for a short time. He then realized the class needed a time to just lay their head down and listen to soothing music with the lights off which he refers to the calming classroom. After lunch, the students came in laid their head down, lights off, and listened to the soothing music for 15-20 minutes. I found this very beneficial because it allowed for students to recollect themselves, and regulate their emotions. My CT communicated with class dojo to notify parents this was going on and to make sure their kids are going to bed at night at a reasonable time. I would find this challenging because as a teacher you don't know circumstances happening at home and only can control what happens at school. I thought this was a great activity to incorporate in the classroom when needed.

week 4

Kiley Rolder
February 23rd, 2020

This week I experienced STEAM with my class for the first time. Since the schedule has been all over the place the STEAM teacher was saying how she hasn't had many opportunities with my class because of the many things that have been going on this month. In the STEAM room the topic they are talking about is ocean animals. On the ceiling she had plastic wrap hung with different things that could end up in the ocean such as news papers, water bottles, wrappers, etc. Around the room she has different sea animals and materials for the children to work with. This week they were working on the word buoyancy. They did an activity where they had to draw out a type object that would float in water then they had to use materials to make that object and test it out in the water. It was awesome to see the children use trial and error to figure out why theirs weren't floating and what they could change to make it float. Once the students created something that could float we would ask them to try to add materials and test it again to see how durable their creation was and what they could add until it didn't float anymore. The students enjoyed the independence and freedom they had to use their creative side to make whatever they wanted. 

Classroom Managment

I noticed my CT rearranging the desks in the classroom and she explained how lately the students have been misbehaving in the hall, lining up, music class, and cafeteria. She also explained how embarrassed she is when a substitute teacher goes in her classroom because they always leave a note on the misbehaving. My CT has class Dojo and she always gives points to the students who are behaving and following the rules. That strategy doesn’t work anymore she said. She decided to put names up at the board if a student did not follow the rules and if their name is on the board the consequence is missing recess for 5 minutes. There is one student who always interrupts the classroom and she gives him a 5-minute break to reflect on his actions. My CT doesn’t know what else to do and asked if I had any suggestions on classroom management. I am new to this but I did mention to my CT how maybe she should punish some students and not the entire classroom. Only because some students were paying attention and doing their work independently. I also suggested giving the class a choice. For instance, if they are working as a group but are too loud, I would say “Do we want this activity to be in groups or independently work since we can whisper?.”