Lesson plans!

Lesson plans. If I had heard those words in my undergrad classes, I would whine and dread the task. That's exactly what lesson plans were to me: a task. HOWEVER I have completely had a change of heart. Lesson plans to me now are ideas to put on paper because quite honestly, throughout the chaos of the day, I am very likely to forget what exactly I am doing in a certain time of the day. I have started creating lesson plans for calendar math and they have really helped me in planning the order of what I want the students to learn and the plans have kept me on track. I am very thankful to have a teacher that likes having lesson plans, but does not necessarily have to have every question she is going to ask written out on paper. I believe that when you have to outline every single thing you are going to teach and ask, lesson plans become a task and I do not want that to happen.
On the other hand, I have realized that lesson plans need to be changed daily and should be a guide, not a strict schedule. Why, you ask? Well just in one week, we had a fire drill, a real fire emergency where we couldn't get into the classrooms until 8:15 which completely altered our plans, an unplanned family conference, and some unique student actions that caused class interruptions. What I mean by this is that life is very unpredictable, especially when there are 2 adults and 31 kids in a classroom. Therefore, lesson plans can definitely be altered based upon what gets completed the day before.
With all that being said, I am completely enjoying my time in my classroom. The students are great, the community is wonderful with amazing family support, and my teacher and I are getting along so well. I don't want my time to end :)

First day of calendar math :)

Today was my first real day of being in front of the classroom doing calendar math! I wanted today to be a day that I was being aware of what I was doing while I was teaching. By this, I mean that the academic content that I was teaching was basic, so I wanted to see what teaching flaws I could notice while still paying attention to what I was saying :)
I wanted to find one thing I was doing and try to change/modify my teaching in order to address this issue. The one thing I saw and wanted to work on was the fact that I was paying attention to one side of the classroom more than the other. Maybe I was doing this because the calendar was on that side? I'm really not sure, but I wanted to try to fix this! So I started walking around the front and turning my body in order to adjust this.
I hope to find one thing every time I teach that I want to adjust!

A few highlights of the second week of school---

Second Week of School

August 15- August 19

Monday

Having the first week of school under our belt, the day went extremely well. The students remembered most of the procedures of the day, and we were able to switch with the other class in order to get to know them a little better. The other class has 29 students, which is still a bunch of students! We were able to get to know their names and what they enjoy about reading. Today we were also able to get down into curriculum and start the actual teaching. I was amazed at how much the first week of school is surrounded by creating procedures and getting to know each other! We started calendar math, which is a new thing for me. The school really stresses calendar math, and I really enjoy it because the students are learning about mathematics in a fun way. The calendar pieces are creating a pattern, so the students are using their predicting and analyzing skills to decide what the pattern is. We also talk about each day of the year (what school day we are on) as pertaining to prime and composite numbers. For example, today was day 6^th day of school, so we talked about the factors of 6 and if it was a prime or composite number. This allows the students to gain an understanding of prime and composite in a fun, and easy way.

Tuesday

Today was a day to remember. All of the fourth grade teachers had a meeting to attend, so I got to teach the last half of the day.  I was so excited to do this and to be in charge. I taught a lesson on plural nouns and how to make a noun plural. We used white boards and I would write a singular noun on my board and the students would write the plural form on their boards and hold them up. I then allowed a student, that was calm and paying attention, to be the teacher and pick a noun and allow the other students to create the plural or singular noun. After the noun lesson, we transitioned into science. The students and I had a discussion about the glossary of the science book and its importance. We also talked about the index and the differences between the two. The students then completed a vocabulary checklist, which we talked about would help them understand the unit that we are working on. We are starting an unit on ecosystems. And by the time we finished this discussion it was time to go! I was able to experience teaching, classroom management, as well as car duty. 

Also during this week, we got a new student! We were already at 30, so adding one more is nothing right? I honestly think having a big class is so much fun because there is never a dull moment!! I found how hard of a transition it is for a new student to come to a new school at a different time than everyone else. If a new student comes the first day of school, he is still new, but is beginning with everyone else. So today, I asked another student in the classroom to give our new addition a tour of the school. Giving her moral support was very important to me because not only was she new, she had been homeschooled since first grade. So I thought that she needed to get acquainted to having so many students around her. She was very overwhelmed at first, but with a little assistance we made it through the day! It makes it easy to get a new student when she is so sweet and respectful :) 

First FULL week of school!

First Week of School

Monday August 8-Friday August 12

Attending the first week of school was VERY important for me. I did not want to come into a classroom where I did not know the rules and procedures and did not know the students from the beginning.

Monday

The first day was so exhilarating. The students were excited and nervous to be there, just as I was. The students came in during the morning and we got started creating procedures and rules and going over what was expected throughout the year. We played an ice breaker game that allowed the students to give facts about themselves; which helped with the names of the children and gave us information about each student. By learning facts about the students, we were able to see what kind of books that liked to read, what they did for fun, and various other aspects. We continued the day trying to create our schedule so the students could get used to the ways of the scheduled day. During the day, we did a following directions activity that allowed the teachers to see how the students were in following directions. By the time we got through the expectations and our activities, it was already the end of the day! And oh boy, was I exhausted when I left!!

Tuesday-Friday

These next few days were basically the same. The students were still getting used to the procedures of the classroom, as was I, and we were trying to get on our normal schedule with connections and switching with our partner classroom for mathematics. My teacher teaches two groups of reading, our class and then the other class, and the partner teacher teaches two groups of mathematics. By breaking into groups like this, the teachers are able to focus and dedicate their time to that one subject area in order to prepare the best lesson (as well as social studies, science, grammar, and writing). The reward system was put into place during these days. The students have bookmarks with a grid on them. If they do not pull their stick during the day, they receive one sticker. If they pull their stick to green, which is a good thing, they receive two stickers and if they move their stick to yellow, which is a punishment, they do not receive a sticker. When they fill their sticker chart, they are able to turn their bookmark in to the teacher in order to receive a reward. The students came up with the rewards:

Lunch in the room

Ice cream

Read to another student in the school

Be the teacher’s helper for the day

Sit in the teacher’s chair

Homework Pass

The rewards change throughout the year so the students do not get bored with the rewards. My teacher also said that she changes the way the students receive awards throughout the year because she said they respond to various methods and it allows the students to not get bored with the way they are rewarded.

By attending the first week of school, I felt a stronger connection to the classroom as a whole. I believe that the first week of school is one of the most important ones to experience because it allowed me to become acquainted with the classroom, the students, the teacher, as well as the school and the faculty. 

End of Summer and the Beginning of Pre-Planning...and Open House!

The pre-planning experience was one that I wanted to experience from the first day that I registered for my student teaching semester. I always wondered:

Why is the room set up this way?

Why are there tables and not desks?

How do you deal with parents from the beginning?

And many, many other questions…

I decided from the beginning that if I attended everything that I could possibly attend, that I would be able to have most of my questions answered. Attending pre-planning was an amazing experience. I was able to meet all the teachers in the school before having the students arrive and was able to build a relationship with the faculty and staff. I did not want to become just another student teacher, so by getting myself out of my comfort zone and reaching out to the other teachers, I believe that it has paid off.

During pre-planning I did an immense amount of labeling desks, tables, cubbies, along with creating bulletin boards, arranging the room, and many other tasks.  I was so excited to do this aspect of the classroom creation because I learned the reason behind why things were placed where they were placed. My classroom has 30 students, and thus is the reason why there are tables in the classroom. My teacher decided that if there were tables, the students could have more room to work in groups and to move around the classroom.

Also during pre-planning, I attended meetings about various aspects of the school. We had meetings in the morning about the beginning of the school year and the expectations that the faculty has of the school. This aspect was exciting because I got to hear the expectations and various other announcements from the other teachers of the school. The principal had created a slideshow for the students, which was good to see because it showed how much she cared and her personal relationship with each teacher.

Thursday, I attended Open House. I believe this was the best thing for me, personally. By attending open house, I was able to meet every parent that came in the door. This is truly the most important thing to me because it helps me understand the students and their home life to an extent. It showed me which parents were overly concerned about grades, which parents worked everyday all day, if the students had other siblings, and many other aspects about the students’ lives. Attending open house also allowed the parents to meet me and to see and hear what my role is in the classroom. By putting a name with a face, I think that the parents are able to understand the students’ stories better and can respond to their students and to my comments on a more personal level.

Overall, I am very pleased with my decision to cut my summer short and to attend pre-planning and open house!