Winter Blog..... Curating your topic project.... 3/22

Over the last two quarters I wanted to spend time looking into “how to involve more room for creativity in curriculum in a context of more scripted curriculum.” What I was looking into was how to get more creative with the activities that my students do. Looking through their workbooks and the teacher guild there was not really “fun” activities that the students are able to do. Before we had to, I was spent time on Pinterest. But now that I had a purpose in mind I started to look for pins that would add creativity to the lesson that I was teaching.

What I found was a overwhelming amount of activities, worksheets, websites, games, and more that I could use. That best part of it was that it came from other teachers. Many of the pins that I have come from a website called “Teachers pay Teachers,” the great part about this website is that it is teacher created materials. I know that these are going to be reliable because it came from a teacher who has/had used it with their students. The other part that I really like about it, that it gives one tools that they can send home for parents to use with their students. For example one of the pins is “Free sight word apps,” this can a great tool to tell parents about.

One of the negatives to this is that there is so much stuff out there. It can be really overwhelming to look back through all the pins and remember what you have. The link may not work, or really end up not being what you want. One of the positives is that there is so much available. That one is going to be able to find some fun creative way that can add to the topic you are teaching about!

Winter Blog.... Technology Inquiry project Reflection 3/15

The technology that I use for personal use and classroom use are very different. The technologies that I use for personal use are my IPhone, IPad (personal), and my computer. For personal use I am using to connect with friends, family. I am going on Facebook, Pinterest, emails, games, or watching Netflix. Normally when I am using these resources I am not always working or doing work for school. I try and make time so that I can just have. But there are times when I am writing papers or using the internet to look up information that can help with my homework. I have really started to use technology in which I hope can help me in my future classroom. There are so many connections through Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and Pinterest. I have found that there are many great interactive worksheets, ideas on Pinterest that I would love to take into my classroom. This is a great way to connect and share ideas about other teachers are doing.

The technology that I use at my main placement school are very different from what I personal use (i.e. active board, document camera, copier). When I am at school for my main placement the technology that I am using is mainly used for the interaction and basis that it is going to help the students. The active board is used for the students to check in on. They have to come in, put their things away, and then put their name in A lunch, B lunch, C lunch, or home lunch. Then we also use it for the morning message where they have to put together the date. Then we graph the weather for the whole month. Then we also do math, we use the days of kindergarten. We are learning about hundredths place, tens place, and one’s place. It is a great way for the students to use the board. My CT is always using the document camera for modeling what the students are going to be doing in writing. For math we use the interactive board, my CT pulls up the student page and then work through some of the problems with the students.

I think that incorporating technology is going to be really important, and something that I want to do when I have my own classroom. I feel that it can really benefit the students in many ways. It will allow students who are visually learner’s maybe see examples in different ways. Also there are many great resources out there that one can access. For example, we have started learning how to infer, there are many great poster pictures that my CT has choice to use that students relate too, but can use to practice their inferring skills. But on the other hand it can be really overwhelming by how much technology is out there. So one does need to be careful about how and what we are using technology out there.

Short-term goal: I would like students to have more of a personal interaction with the technologies in my classroom.

Long Term goal: I would like to have a comprehensive set of flip charts to use year after year. 

Winter Blog.... 3/8

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of principles for curriculum development that gives all individuals equal opportunities to learn.  Principle one provide multiple means for representation. In this principle outlines ways in which students can receive information where they are non-auditory learners or visually impaired learners. This principal provides ways in which these learners can receive alternative forms or representation.
A tool that can be used too support non-auditory learners would be the library of signed stories. Which use British Sign Language and caption words. This can be used for students in Grades K-4th. Content area would be literacy cost is free, and all you need is internet connection.

http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl

http://bookbuilder.cast.org/

Winter Blog.... 3/1

This week I had to complete and 3 series lesson plan for Literacy. I took a small group of students (three students, two of them where ELL students. It was a really interesting experience to see and get the feel for you plan lesson that build off of each other. Over all I think that the lesson went really well. By the end of the week the students were able to verbal explain what question marks, and exclamation points were. They were also able to identify the punctuation on a page of text.

I know that after the three lessons, they know what the different types of punctuation are. So for the next lesson I would start of work with them on how we read with a question mark, and exclamation point.

It was a been a great time, I have really been able to see my students grow. Students who were only saying one word, are now saying full sentences. Also students who could not write and only draw pictures are now asking if they can write more than we asked them too. It has been wonderful to students come out of their shells! It has also been great to see when students who were struggles are excited when they get the answers right! I am really looking forward to the end of the year and see how much more the students will grow.

Winter Blog.... 2/22

I have been able to see several different styles of how teachers teach vocab. In my dyad experience (3^rd grade) the teacher had posters all over the room. It would have the word and the definition written next to it. To help support their learning she had a half sheet of the most common words and the proper spelling. To help assist in their learning, in the morning when they came in the students would have to look up two words, write the definition (this always ended up being the first one), page number, the words that were on the top of both pages, and 2 synonyms. This was a good way to get the students exposed to how use a dictionary, also what we can learn from a dictionary. Looking back I am not sure that it really made that much of an impact on the students. I noticed that many of them did it as fast as they could or just took the first definition they found. This means they did not see words could have more than one meaning, or really look at what it said.

            In my main placement (kindergarten) the teacher likes to take a different approach. While we have not used the dictionary (nor do I think we will use it), we still teach new words to the students. When teaching the students a new word we tell them the kid friendly version, but also the “big college” word. They really seem to like that we do this; it makes them feel important and cool that they are leaning the words that I am learning in college. One thing my teacher has learned from working in kindergarten for so long is that when you put the words with movement and actions, the students have a better success rate for remembering the words. We have a word wall for the sight words, and have posters with words and definitions that we bring out when we want to remember what the definitions are. 

Winter Blog.....2/15

I got to teach today!

9:00-9:40

            We started the day off with normal calendar routine. After reading our routine we read a few poems. Then we moved to sight words. After saying, spellings, saying I had each student spell one word without seeing the word. We also did some zoo phonics.

Reading workshop

           

            We continued with our center work. I worked with both Pink, and Purple groups. In Pink group: we read “The Chocolate Cake,” during the book I would pause and have them summarize (or retell) what was going on. I told them for the next time, I want them to focus on reading with expression. I noticed that they were not reading the ?,!. So we re-reviewed what those symbols meant.

In Purple group: we read the book “Blizzards,” and worked on retelling what we had read. Then they picked out new books.

Writing workshop

            We reviewed how to write a letter and the different components of a letter. Then the students went back to their desks and wrote their own letter.

Math workshop

            We did student page 131. We worked on if two numbers are equal or not. Then representing numbers with circles and then finding our five groups and circling them.

End of the day

            Someone pulled the ear off one of the stuffed bunnies. So tomorrow NO ONE CAN play with the stuffed animals, I did talk to them about how that is not how we play with others toys, and you would not like it if I am into your house and broke one of your stuffed animals.

Other than that they did really well today!!

It was a really great experience to see what it would like to be a sub/ teacher. I had to plan my day when I got to school. During our specialist I sat down and wrote what I had to do, and then how much time I was going to spend on each subject. It really helped that I put the exact times of when and what we were going to do. I am really looking forward to when I can get to full time teach!!!

Winter Blog.... 2/8

At the beginning of the year, we started off by telling your students how we read books. As the where in kindergarten we look at the pictures and try and read the words we know. My CT started off by having the students “reading” for about five minutes. Now that we are about half way through the year, they are reading for about 20-30 minutes. Routman talked about how you have to build up to reading for a long time. Which is very true in kindergarten, they start off with very small reading workshops then build up to longer times. As they learn how to read, you can give them more time to explore books. I know that my CT had a bin for where she put books that she has read out loud to the class. Then when it is reading work shop the kids always “fight” over those books, and then may “read” (most of the time they have memorized the book) the book.

Another point that Routman brought up was Independent reading. Based on how Routman described Independent reading this is what my CT does during her reading workshop. On Mondays she has the students come over in their level groups pick new books, (the books are separated by level) so she had them pick from the boxes that will “just right” books for each group. While each group is picking out their books, the other students are independent reading. Before the independent reading time she will give the students reading goals. Right now the students are working on Character, setting, problem, solution. At the end my CT will ask a few students to share what their books were about. If the students are not picking out books, she will work with the different groups. 

Winter Blog.... 2/1

This past week in my placement was a super busy. There was no school Monday, then Thursday was observation, and Friday was a Seahawks day.

From the classes that we have had before in the program showed me how much work goes into lesson planning. So it gave me a good idea about how long it would take me to write out one for my first observation. I did an observation in math, a lesson on classifying. Over all it went really well, it was at the end of a three day lesson. The students had been introduced to the topic, then spent two days working with different objects and how we could sort them. Then on the last day they had to take their shapes and sort them into different groups.

During the lesson I used many talk moves that we have learned with Allison. Even though my teacher does not use these all the time. The students did a really good job about working with me. It was a really great way for me to see if the students had understood the lesson or not. I put them into different groups. The higher level groups had to sort them into 8 groups, middle had 4 groups, and lower students had two groups.

The great part was the kids really worked well together and really helped each other. They were able to bounce ideas off each other, and learn from one another. It was also great when the low students wanted a challenge and wanted to sort the shapes into four groups (when they only had to do two).

Winter Blog.... 1/25

Optimal Learning Model (Gradual Release of Responsibility) it very important for a classroom to start with a focus lesson which will prepare students for independent learning. I have seen this model happened in all the subject areas at my main placement. My CT will introduce a new concept; she then will give an example where she does it first. Then she will work through another problem with the students. Next she will ask if there are any questions, then she lets the students work independently.

The connection to my main placement is that my teacher has guided reading groups. After the beginning of the year assessment my CT put the students in to different level groups based on their ability.  She has five different groups; she tries me meet with one or two groups a day. She has her stronger groups on Friday or Monday because these are the days that are missed most during the school year. They are placed this way because it is going to have an negative impact on their learning much as the students who are in the lower level groups. While working with the reading groups she has the other students reading independently. While they are reading they are working on specific topic. Right now they are working on who are the characters, what is the setting, is there a problem, and then what the solution is. At the end of reading workshop she has each student turn to their table partners and share what they learned, and then takes a few volunteers to share out lout to the whole class.

For example, in the reading group “Green Book Worm,” they got a new book where they working on reading with expression. So how do you do when there is (?), (!), or a (.). On a separate sheet she wrote down each of the punctuation and what it means and how they need to read that sentence. During the reading time they rainbow read, and when they are not reading they need to be following along with their eyes, and pointing to each word. 

Winter Blog 1/18

It was a good to be back with my Kindergartners, this week I spent the getting reconnected with the students. In the morning I would teach calender, word phonics, and sight words. This week I had to reestablished. During the first few days the kids were vary chatty during the morning, so I had to have the talk with them. We have our jobs in the morning, and if we cant get through them then we can not have free choice in the afternoon. I stated that we have to do our jobs first before we can have fun.
But I also wanted them to know that they are my teachers a well. They know that I am going to school to be a teacher, so it is their job to teach me, what kindergartners think/say/ act like. So it is really important for them to act like kindergartners.
Most of the this week, I sitting back and watching/observing again. It was interesting to see the connections between some of the classes come up during the week. I was able to see Science, My CT started a lesson on wood. She started asking the students what we think we know about wood?, then moved to what questions would we would like to know about wood? After watching a video what did we learn about wood.

Winter blog 1/11

I know that I am a bit late on the first post, but looking at what this quarter has planned for us. I am looking forward to see how all the quarter will come together, and prepare us for our final quarter student teaching. For me during the first week it was not really overwhelming, but now that we have gotten into the swing of classes one week, and placement the next.

I feel that it is going to be a very busy quarter.

Reflection 12/7

I feel that this quarter I got a bit better at blogging before it was random topics. As the quarter went on I started to post about my classroom I was in. I started about posting about my different experiences that happened to me. I feel this made more people want read my blog, so they could see how teacher were running their classroom. I feel that I am still struggling with what to post, I a never sure what people want to read, or if they want to read my posts.

I  have really enjoyed twitting, it is interesting to see what all of my cohort members are posting about. I have started to linking my Pinterest education board. There are so many great ideas out there about how to make learning diverse and fun. I am really starting to like the twitter movement. It is kind of exciting when someone you don't know starts following you.

Stressed...... 11/30

So I am sure where to start this blog post today……

I really need a vent post, I am finding it hard with going to school during the week and then working on my off days. I am finding it really hard to find time just for me, to do things that I find fun, that do not have do with (school, house work, ect). Having this past week off  (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday),  I told myself that I would give myself a day off, but I found myself coming home after spending time with family and friends coming to do homework. So I know that as we I get closer to the end of the program it is only going to get more crazy busy, I am going to need to find time for myself.

I am wondering how to do it… What are other people doing…? Also how are people who have kids finding time to have fun?, Work has just gotten more crazy with the holidays coming up, and only going to get more stressful, and I am going to need to de-stress. I am going to try and give myself one day off next quarter where I get to do what I want…

I do find myself always looking forward to the days when I can spend time with the kids……

Strategies for the Classroom 11/23

The norms that I would like to start using in my classroom are?

• Remember that it's ok to make mistakes and revise our thinking
• Keep trying even when problems are challenging
• Share our mathematical ideas with our classmates
• Listen to understand someone else's ideas, give each other time to think

   ***I thought that it will be important to have all the norms in my classroom because all of them are important. I feel that all of these will be a great way to foster classroom community. I feel that it is also going to be important to share and community with the other teachers at my school and see if this is something that we can do at all grade levels. 

Which talk moves do I want to start using in my classroom?

• Re-voicing
• Adding on
• Wait time
• Turn-&-Talk
• Revise
• Repeating
• Have student retell what their classmates said

    ***Here again i feel that it is important o use all the talk moves, they are all going to benefit the students in different ways. These are not great because they can both guide the teacher and student talk. 

How many student teachers does it take.... 11/16

The really fun part of the day was after lunch I meet up with Jeannette, Eric, Mel, Regan, and Alicia. Eric and Jeanntte had just been told that they had to sub in library, but they had never been to library, and all the sub notes said was Read “Lion vs. Rabbit” and fill out booklet. So having no sub notes and the book that we had to read was nowhere to be found. We all got together and made a plan. I had been to library once, so that is how we planned the 30 minutes. So we all chipped in to help out. The first class happened to be the one Regan & Alicia were student teaching in, so they lead that class. The plan that we came up with was, one person would read the story to the students (Mel), then they would check out books, and then we would fill out their books. It was what happened first, middle, and end of the story (me).

I feel that overall both lessons went really well. They were put together moments before the students walked in the door. The part that I did not like was that the sub-notes were one sentence. The book was not where it said it was, and there was no one who really knew what was going on… But the six of us were able to work together and make a plan. We got both classes in and out, (for the most part on time), and the kids were really good at helping us. We did let them know that we were student teachers, and were are learning to be teachers, so if we do it differently it is cause we are still learning. 

I one things that I learned about today was that when I make sub notes I am going to make sure that they are very detailed. I would make copies of what the students are going to use, and copies of the teacher pages so the sub has something to follow. Overall it was a really fun interesting experience. 

Playing around in Scratch... 11/9

Well to start off I did enjoy making this project, even though I think it took me about 3 hours to get it done. I found it hard to put the project together, I could not find a video that really showed me how or what to do. After playing around with it for a 1 or so, I really started to get the a hang of it. Then I was going to delete one part and ending up deleting a whole section, I have never wanted to throw my computer more than ever. So after taking a break I sat back down and got it done. Over all I am happy with how it turned out. I did find it really hard to get the timing done just right....

After I had done my project, I went into my dyad placement and they had just read a time article on coding and were given a website that allowed them to practice beginning coding. I really like this website, it took them step by step on how to code. It also used the Angry birds so it was of interest to the student. They worked in pairs, which worked out really well, they learned how to bounce ideas off one another, and how to take turns. They did the 20 level lesson over two days, they were so engrossed in the program that it was really hard for them to stop and have to go to other lessons.
For those who are interested the web address is
hourofcode.com

hit the
  student [try it] button
  write you first computer program  [go]
  then try the 20 different levels!!!





Hope that you like my Project...

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/31749534/

Parent Teacher Conferences 11/2

I now have been able to see how two different teachers do parent teacher conferences. I can't believe how different they were. They both had many good points that I want to take with me when I have my own classroom. I can see myself mixing what both of my CT’s did and creating a good interactive parent teacher conference.

            My main placement was in Kindergarten, and we had the parent teacher conferences way back on October 9^th. She put all her meetings into two days. She started at ~1ish and finished about ~5ish, she said that really the meetings did not need to be longer than 20mins. I found that this was true. She was able to talk about what she has learned about their child, give them tools to use at home to help out, and then time if they had questions. So the meeting consisted of going over the Kindergarten Assessment for Emergent Stage (AFES). It had 10 different task. It assess the students on uppercase letters, lowercase letters, letters sounds, rhyming, alliteration, beginning letter-sounds identification, kindergarten spelling inventory, kindergarten sight words, CVC words list, and writes their own name (there is not points, but a good way to show how their writing will improve over the year.) During this she gave tips on the different ways the parents could support their children at home. Then she talked about the writing assessment she gave and how she broke them up into different groups, and what she does with them in those groups. Lastly she brought up the math assessment, but told the parents it was not a assessment of what the know, because it is a test of what they have to know by the end of kindergarten. She ends it with please feel free to email or call me if you have any questions or concerns, but also they could set up another at any time.

            My dyad placement is in third grade One thing that this school does which I really liked was they made sure to schedule siblings first. So what they did was one day before school, was had all the teachers meet in the library so they could make sure to have the siblings meetings back to back on the same day.  I thought that this was a really interesting thing to do. They were really thinking about the parents (the days they came to volunteer), so they would not have to come twice to the school. At the meeting was also the specialist teachers, and they were there in case a teacher wanted them to come in and talk, this way they made sure they were not over lapping and time or any parents.

My dyad teachers started out with asking the parents a few questions about their child, how they are doing, if they like school, and how they are doing socially. I thought that this was a good way to start the meeting, because this allowed the parents to bring up anything they wanted the teacher to know about. Then she did the same thing, she went over, reading fluency & comprehension, what they are doing in reading, their math fact (timed quizzes) where they starts and where they are now vs what the standard is, and their writing. She also gave them different ideas about how the parents could support their students at home. Then she ends it with the last question for parents: any questions or concerns that they might have.

            They were both really interesting, and many good points that I am going to take with me and I have my own classroom. 

Putting my Camp Skills to good use 10/26

So last Thursday at my Dyad placement, I had just finished my read-aloud and we were moving to the next activity. So the teacher was taking back over and explaining what the students were going to do next. There were was one student E who started yelling at two other students. So I decided to just go sit behind them, and whisper, “make sure you are listening to your teacher..”  Next thing I know E is crying in the corner, so I went over and sat down next to him. I started asking him questions about what was going on. What happened, how are you feeling, what was going on.. It was first hard to piece together what had  happened. (I would like to state E is very focused on everyone using manners and can get upset when people do not use them. E also has a hard time understanding why some people can do things and others cannot.) So what had happened was he was picking at the wall, and making a hole, a few of E’s classmates had asked him to stop. They did not use manners so he got really upset.

Before I new what was happening my counselor mode had kicked in. I had him deep breath, so it might help him clam down. All though he really did not do it, ( I was starting my process of calming him down.) I started asking the normal question I would ask a camper to help get their mind off of what ever was going on. (ie, do you have any pets at home?, what is your favorite TV show?, do you play video games?, What is your favorite book?....). While these questions for most kids would get them talking, he found a way to answer them all with a no….

But then we started to talk about what we should do if people are mean to us. E said that they were not saying that he was trying to them to say please, but they were not so he need to say it louder, (yelling at them). I explained to him that if someone yells at you, it makes them feel bad and not want to listen to you.

So I came up with a three things that we can do when people are being mean

1)    Ask them NICELY to stop

2)    Walk away

3)    Then go tell a teacher

I went over these many times with him, had him repeat them to me. But I also wrote it down on a paper with him, I told him that it was just between the teacher, him and I. I ask him where he wanted to keep (in or on is desk), so if needed a reminder of what the rules where he would remember where to look. He got really excited and we picked a place out in his desk.

I am excited to go back this week and see how it worked….

Leading a math lesson...!? 10/19

            On Wednesday this week I was given the opportunity to lead a math lesson for third graders. Overall I was not really happy on how I taught the lesson. I was able to observer the CT teaching the first group of students the math lesson. I took down as many notes as I could on what the teacher said, the question she asked the students, what she had the students say, and what she wrote on the board. Then I was thrown into the second group.

            Overall I was not really sure how it went. I do think the student understood what I was teaching. But they did have some previous knowledge on the topics. So I was just building on what they already knew. I not sure what I taught them or what they already knew.

            Looking back on the lessons I taught at my main placement, it was not my best one. The one thing that I learned was when I starting out teaching I am going to have to write everything down. I learned that I have to write down, what I am going to say, the questions I am going to ask the students, what I am hoping they will say. I did this at my main placement, and I felt more confident going into leading the lesson. I notices that I did not have to really look down at my lesson plan, but knowing that it was there was good comfort to me. So I think for my first year, I am going to write very detailed lesson plans.

Kindergarten Buddies! 10/12

         This past week, we meet up with our kindergarten buddies again. This was the second interaction that we had with them. During the 30 minutes session we were asked to bring a picture book and read to our kindergarten buddies. At the first meeting I found out that she was able to read a basic book, (she sat down and read the book right away). She could write her name and knew the alphabet.

              This second time went a bit different. My partner and I went in and told her (K) that we had books that we wanted to share with her. She was very quiet, and seemed to be looking at me more during the first book. The first book was Beautiful oops, she really did not seem that to into the book. She looked that the pictures but then she would look away if she heard something or when she would see when someone walked by. When I read her my book (Love Bugs) she really did not seem that into it also. She did look at the pictures and listen to me as I read, But then when we asked her what her favorite parts where she did not say anything. 

              Then we asked if she wanted to read more and she said no… but she wanted to color. So she made three different drawings… And she was able to verbal explain what was going on in each photo and was able to “write” on the line about what they photo was. She listens to me as I sounded out the words for her and she wrote the letters of the sounds that she knew. Then she got her book bag, and read us her story that she wrote, and then she had me read a story about ANTS… and pointed to the different ants that where walking over or in objects. She had me read a song about colors while she did read part of it too and did that very well. 

               So she knows her colors and how to read pretty well. I am not sure if she likes being read too, or it could have been that she did not like books we brought. It will be great/ interesting to see how she grows over the quarter, and how the literacy assessment goes next week. Looking forward to see how much she grows!