Power Struggles...

An interesting situation occurred while I was in full control of the classroom with my mentor teacher not around at the moment. I was getting the students ready to go outside for recess, and our neighbor teacher was taking them outside. She popped her head in to say she was ready and I was still waiting on the students to gain full control of themselves before they go into the hallway! 

Our fourth grade team has a consequence of not completing homework as spending recess time completing the homework. Every student understands this consequence and I have never had a problem with students not doing as told. They know that if they do not have their homework, that they have to stay inside. 

Well, as I was trying to get the students ready to go, one student who was supposed to stay inside tried to sneak in line to go outside. I saw him and politely asked him to get his things together to go in the other classroom. At this time, the rest of the class went out the door with the other teacher. Well, he was not happy with me. We talked about what happens if he doesn't have his homework (which we had already discussed this morning when he didn't turn it in and he accepted the responsibility!) and he tried to have a power struggle with me, slouching around, slowly gathering his things, and "dropping" his books as he walked to the other classroom. While I didn't pay any attention to his actions, he still tried to not do his work in the other teacher's classroom, as I was told.

The thing that I learned from all of this, is the proper way to have a productive conversation discussing what went on. I discussed what happened with my mentor teacher, and she asked if I wanted to see how to handle the situation. I was ready to pull him aside and talk to him myself, but I have never had this issue with this class, so I thought it would be beneficial to see her talk to him. Boy, it was very beneficial!! 

My mentor teacher does a great job of talking with students on their level. While she had a stern tone because what he did not not acceptable, she did not just scream at him. They talked about what happened, how it made him feel and how it would make me feel, and how we could have handled it differently. She did a great job of relating it back to his family and how if that was acceptable behavior at home (which he said no), so we talked about how we wanted things to go from now on. 

The best things about students is that most of them accept the responsibility of their actions, whether when the action happens or after a talk, and then they move on. After specials, he came back smiling and ready to learn. I was afraid that he was going to be more reserved because of our conversation, but I believe that he was oaky with everything because of the way my mentor teacher handled the situation. 

I learn new things every day with my student teaching!! 

Writing Conferences~

This afternoon, I participated in writing conferences with students. I observed some conferences with my mentor teacher, she watched me do a few conferences with students, and then she turned me loose to conference with the remaining students. I was nervous at first, but after a few conferences, I figured out my questioning method and what I wanted to help the students with.

One question I had for my mentor teacher was I did not know what to focus on when doing the first conference with a student. If the student has many grammatical and spelling errors, then this takes away from the ideas portion of their narrative writing. But if you focus on the ideas portion, then the student would not get an idea of their grammatical and spelling errors. She informed me that when I participate in writing conferences, that the answer would come to me. She said that she couldn't really answer my question fully because it was a situational question. For the main part, she wanted me to focus on the ideas portion of their narrative because we can always have the students proof their own paper or proof a peer's paper. So with the conferences that I had, we went through and talked about their ideas and the style of their narrative. THEN if there were major spelling and grammatical errors, we would talk about those too.

With the conferences I was putting on, I made sure to ask the students what they liked about their writing. I thought this question would help me see what they believe their strengths were and would give me an insight as to how they think of themselves as writers. It was really interesting to hear the students' responses! Many of the students said that they thought they were good with writing entertaining, funny stories while others said they thought they did good on the style and sentence structuring of their writing.

It is really encouraging to see how far these students have come with their writing. The first week of school, we took a writing sample, and just comparing the two, it is really neat :) The students have learned so much throughout this semester so far, and I can only imagine what they will be able to accomplish by the end of this year.

Today one student told me that it was almost November, which meant it was almost my last day. That just broke my heart. These students have made such an impression on my life and have shown me that I have definitely made the right decision in my becoming a teacher. I will never forget these students and wish time wasn't passing so quickly!!

Not Enough Hours in a Day

One thing that I will definitely take away from my student teaching experience is the fact that there just are not enough hours in a day!!

I'm trying to plan lessons that incorporate all the aspects that I want, and there just is not enough time! It is really frustrating to me because I now see how stressful it is to plan. I have all of these ideas that I want to do, but when social studies is only 45 minutes a day, and the rest of the day is packed with other lessons, it is hard to do!

I now have a deeper appreciation for the teachers that stay after school for long hours trying to do what's best for the students. While trying to integrate lessons is a hard task, it is necessary in order to keep students on track for what they need to learn and to still be entertained and engaged!

Once I gave directions today for a research day in the computer lab and we traveled to the computer lab, we had 25 minutes to research. 25!! I'm starting to wonder if my life is just flying by jet speed fast.

I am trying to assess various different aspects of what we are learning in each subject, but it is hard to do as well because we have deadlines for projects to be done, we have parents that do not support studying at home, and the students may be a day behind because they were absent! Plus, if we schedule all the assessments in the same week, it just seems like taking the SAT every day, which is boring for not only the students but the teacher as well!

So where is the answer for the best thing to do?!

*Classroom*Environment*

One major aspect of teaching that I have learned throughout my student teaching experience is how a classroom environment affects the students. I understand that a learning environment is necessary in order for the students to succeed, but just the actual look and feel of the classroom is a huge part of learning.

The first aspect that I LOVE about my classroom is the fact that my mentor teacher uses lamps and natural lighting for the students. We are blessed to have windows and a door in our classroom, letting in natural lighting. The students enjoy this because it just feels natural in our classroom, until the sun starts beaming in their eyes, then they have an issue with it and the natural lighting gets covered up until the sun passes:)--They also have the privilege of having many lamps of various sizes and strengths. I believe this helps the students because having the overhead, bright, tiring lights are uncomfortable for me, so I know they are uncomfortable for the students.

Another aspect I love is the music that is constantly playing in the classroom. The music gets turned off during directions and such, but the students know when the music should be on or off. It helps calm the classroom and take away the silence that is sometimes created when testing, etc. It is really entertaining to me when I see a student who knows the words to a particular sound and they start mouthing the words when they think no one is looking :)

I have read many articles about how having student work on the walls makes a difference in the classroom feeling. So with that being said, we create anchor charts together that we hang up. For the sake of time and ability to be read, I write the information on the chart. However, as an extension to the lesson, the students are always welcome and encouraged to add their thoughts to the anchor chart with a post it note. Once I see an anchor chart that has a post it note on it, I make sure to read that note to the class and express my thanks for the student participating in the extension. After that, I have many students scrambling for a post it note to gain that encouragement too! I always keep the anchor chart at their level so they can continue to add ideas and post its when they feel necessary.

I find that a classroom environment is an idea that I think I have confidence in creating. I am really excited to get my own classroom to try out all of my ideas that I have!!

Birthdays at School=Great!!

I have had a complete change of thought about where I want to celebrate my birthday.
If you would have asked me Tuesday, I would have said the beach, the mountains, anywhere but getting up early and not relaxing.
However, once I have celebrated my birthday (Wednesday) at my school, I would never trade celebrating my birthday anywhere else!!

Having a birthday on a Wednesday during the school year was a blessing for me. The students made me feel so loved and special, I did not want to leave school. Some students brought me gifts and flowers, but it wasn't about the gifts that I loved. I constantly got hugs and told to have a great day. My mentor teacher brought cupcakes for the class to celebrate my birthday, and they had planned a birthday card signing and singing Happy Birthday to me when I wasn't expecting it. They were so so thrilled to see me smile and be surprised when all this was going on. I commented when they gave me my card saying, "If you were secretly signing this card while I was teaching, were you even listening to my lesson!?" in a joking manner, and they thought that was hilarious!! They answered, "No, No, Miss Denly!! I promise!!" :)  This experience has showed me that no small word goes unnoticed, to a teacher or a student.

I always love getting up in the morning and coming to school, however, this morning (Thursday) was much easier for me because I was still overwhelmed with love and kindness from my students. I'm still getting "Happy Birthday Yesterday Miss Denly" :)

This whole student teaching experience has showed me that I am where I need to be. I have never doubted my feelings about my decision to become a teacher, but this experience has proven to me everyday that I have made the best decision for myself. It is always a good feeling to know that you have made the right choice or decision and to have a moment that makes your feelings complete. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about these students and how hard it is going to be to leave them in a few weeks. I have already told my mentor teacher she is going to have to leave for a while so I can substitute for her class because I'll miss them too much!!

Project-Based Learning Training*

This past Friday was a Professional Development Day. Project-Based Learning is an idea that is starting to gain power throughout the education system. With that being said, our professional development day was spent touring schools who have experience in project-based learning and who have proved that it works.

The fourth and fifth grade teachers traveled up to Dalton, Georgia to tour two schools that are focused on project-based learning. We first stopped at a middle school where the students were participating in a team building exercise where they were given supplies and they were to build the tallest tower. These were the only directions given and the students had a time given in order to complete this task. The teachers then traveled to each group asking questions and facilitating discussions within the groups. After the time was up, the students all gathered together and discussed what they learned and how they arrived at the most efficient result. While the tallest tower was the end result that was needed, the team building exercise helped the students come together as a community. While talking with the students, I realized that they have team building exercises every Friday and they have a "town hall meeting" where they join as a grade level team and talk about issues that have come up. This is where the students talk about projects going on and various other activities.

After the middle school, we traveled up the road to an elementary school where we had a question and answer session with various members of their faculty. One thing I loved about this school was that the projects were carried on throughout the school. What I mean by this is that one class was doing learning about how chickens are born and raised, and while they were focusing on temperature, humidity, and how these affect the birthing, the rest of the school watched the development of the chicks through a web cam that was played throughout the day. The school had writing activities and various other activities based around this one project done by a class. The project completed were not just busy projects, they were ones that were carried over into real life, which I loved about this school.

While we learned and were trained on project based learning, I also learned many things about the layout of an effective school and the atmosphere that needs to be created for these to continue. For example, the classrooms all had natural lighting with lamps and lights, the walls were painted brain-researched colors. I found many things that I want to bring into my classroom including a behavior management idea where the students can move up when they do something good, but can also move down. The students are rewarded when they land on "outstanding" and there is a continuous chart where the teacher writes down every student who lands on outstanding. When they land here more than two times, they get a jewel on their clothespin, and if they land more than 2 times, they get a special treat from the teacher.

Having these meetings are a great way to help keep the teachers involved in new learning that can help the children learn in a different format. While I am not saying that I am an expert in project-based learning, I now have learned an immense amount that will help me in my future classroom. I look forward to these days :)

Giving Directions*Social Studies Unit*

Today was the day that we actually started our social studies unit. We did some prior lessons to activate background knowledge of directions and various other activities, however, today was the day. I honestly was expecting students to not be that excited about learning about social studies. I just remember social studies as being a topic that the students my age did not enjoy back in the day (makes me feel old!), but boy was I wrong!

The moment I said we were starting a social studies unit on Native Americans and that they were going to do the teaching, they were smiling and were so so excited! Those moments are the ones that reassure that I am where I need to be. I felt such a strong feeling of encouragement from these students that I was just so excited myself.

The one thing that I learned today is that giving directions takes a lot longer than I had planned! Given that today was the first day of giving the project, I understood that it was going to take longer, but we spent so much time going over directions!!

While I was a little shocked at how long it took to get through the directions, I was happy to do this because it was necessary. The students had great questions and I wanted to get all questions out of the way for right now so when they started researching, they could focus on the task at hand.

Once the questions started to repeat themselves or when the students were taking us further down into deeper steps that we were not focusing on, I made sure to cut off the questions to begin researching. When I was planning this unit, I wanted the students to take a few steps towards project based learning, therefore, they are finding out the information themselves by resources I give them.

One thing that I made sure we had in place were checkpoints. I emphasized the importance of these checkpoints so we can make sure that we are progressing at an expected rate to be able to accomplish our goals. I could tell that the students relaxed a little bit when I told them this, because I felt like they thought I may have been turning them loose into the wild. However, I want to make sure I am a facilitator in this project, being available during every step of the way :)

*Cause and Effect*

Another mini-unit we are working on in class is the relationship between cause and effect and how this strategy helps us with comprehension. We have completed many lessons on what a cause is and what an effect is and how we can tell the difference. This is something that the students have grasped quickly as well and they have said that they have been using this strategy in their reading, but they just didn't know! They were excited to know that they have been using something without actually knowing it!

To further our cause and effect development, we read the "If you Give a Mouse A Cookie" books and the students picked out cause and effect relationships from their stories.

The students then created their own cause and effect books as a group following the same format as the books they read! They were so excited to complete this activity. The students received a graphic organizer to help with the organization of their books.

When everyone completed their stories as a group, I put the book together for them to read whenever they had free time. I read a few of them out loud to the class, but I did not want to spoil all of the surprises!!

Some of the books that they created were:
-If you give an elephant an egg...
-If you give a monkey a marshmellow...
-If you give an ant an apple...
-If you give a whale a watermelon...
-If you give a sheep spaghetti..

I took a picture of a student I saw reading the class book, and it was so exciting for me to see him smiling as he read their own creations. I think it is very important for the students to see their work published because it helps them see that what they do actually has a purpose.

The students had the opportunity today to create cause and effect sentences and play an activity where they matched the cause and effect relationships of others. Here are some examples of what they created:

*Questioning Strategy*

Last week, I began a mini-unit on using the questioning strategy to help with comprehension of our reading. The students have really grasped this concept, especially with support from the teachers. They understand the importance of why we ask questions throughout our reading, and can distinguish between thick and thin questions. While we are reading in our literacy circles, the students are prompted to ask questions and to have discussions throughout the time for circles.
However, I have found when they are to find questions themselves, they are in need of support. I see that the students need extra practice to help figure out HOW to actually form questions while they are reading independently. So to help with this task, I decided to compile a list of "question starters" for the students. I created little note cards that have these question starters on them and placed these in a bag. Each literacy circle has a copy of these question starters. When the students have read around 3 pages in their circles, they are to stop, draw a question card, and use that question starter to form a question to ask a literacy circle classmate.

The question starters are:
-What are the characteristics of...?
-Who...?
-Would you agree that...?
-What caused...?
-Why...?

These question starters are ones that can be thick and thin, depending on how they asked their question. A thin question is one that they can find the answer to right away by looking at the page. A thick question is one where the students have to really think and analyze the text in order to answer the question.

I took a few pictures of the students using these question starters, and they have really seemed to help! In a few weeks, I will take away the cards and see how they do forming questions without the support.

Field Trip!!

Also on Friday, I was able to experience a field trip. Boy were the students excited!!

I was aware that it took preparation for the field trip to work, however, it takes A LOT of preparation to get everything arranged!! From getting lunches ready, to getting stickers for each student to wear with their names on it, the teachers work really hard in preparation!!

We traveled by bus to a local college to watch James and the Giant Peach performed by local members of the community. The students absolutely loved going to a college, first off. They were all asking if this is where I went and were excited to step foot on a college campus.

We watched the play, which the children enjoyed, and then traveled to a local park to eat lunch. The students enjoyed the free time they had to eat and play with friends from other classes, and we were back to school by 1:00.

By talking with the students, it was clear that this was a perfect way to end the week. We had a great time at the play and hanging out at the park. However, it was stressful making sure that every student was accounted for at the park! We had parents from the class volunteer to help with us. But it was still stressful making sure that every kid saw their group parent!

Dancing on the roof, literally!!

Over the summer, the students and the teachers were "battling" each other to see who could read the most over the summer. The students won!

So with that being said, the punishment for the teachers was that we were to dance on the roof on Friday while the students were coming into the school. We got to school real early to make sure that every student saw us, and we were doing just that; dancing on the roof!!

All the kids stopped and we had a giant group of students standing below at the bus line watching some of the teachers dance and dance. It was so much fun to see their faces when they saw that a teacher they knew and had was up on the roof.

All day long, I heard "Miss Denly!! I saw you on the roof!! You had some good moves!"

The students were so excited and I believe that this is a great way to motivate the students over the summer to read as much as they can. Students were outside taking pictures, their parents were videoing what we were doing, and they were laughing and dancing along with us. I was so blessed to be able to participate in this activity!!

Social Studies Unit~~

Today I started my unit in social studies on Native Americans. While planning the unit, I first realized that I cannot jump into teaching the standard without basic review of skills dealing with maps. So today, we made sure we understood cardinal and intermediate directions and completed an activity that aided in their development of this task.

I wanted to do a project with the students that was more geared towards project based learning because my school is focusing on that and I believe the students really enjoy this type of learning and learn an immense amount from this. However, I believe that my students still need assistance in their research abilities and their time management skills. With that being said, I am having "checkpoints" throughout this unit where the students check in with me as a group to show me what they have completed in their research.

The main idea of this unit is that the students are going to be grouped together, based on their interest, in groups of 4 or 5 and will be given a group of Native Americans. For example, the Arctic group or the Southwest group. The students will be answering the essential question, "How did the Native Americans use their environment to obtain food, clothing, and shelter?" The standard also gives the students a certain tribe in that group to focus on, so the students can look into that group.

The students will be working together on research and once the research is complete, they will be working on how to present their ideas. I have told them that they are responsible for teaching the class their material, and the class is responsible for learning the material. Therefore, their presentation needs to be thorough and the students need to be paying attention.

The actual presentation has to include 2 visuals (one being a diorama) pertaining to their Native American group, has to be creative, and the students need to use some type of multimedia. For example, they can create a powerpoint or they can find a quick movie to help in their presentation.

During their presentations, I will be asking questions to check for understanding and development and extension of ideas. This will be my form of assessment of knowledge in group settings. Every student has to speak and present.

As an individual assessment, the students will be pretending that they are in a given tribe (given by me) and they need to explain how this group used their environment to obtain food, clothing, and shelter. The students will talk about the daily life in this group.

In order to make sure that the students participated in the research and group preparing activities, I will have the students write down what they did in order to add to the research. I will be giving a self-evaluation of what they think they deserve as a grade.

I am excited for this learning experience to get going!! Our social studies time is in the afternoon, and many meetings and activities interfere sometimes with our afternoons, so I am hoping that we stay on track and the students enjoy this project!!

Enrichment Clusters~

My school is participating in doing Enrichment Clusters to help the students develop interests in various ideas, or to continue their development of their interests. Each teacher "hosts" there own cluster, whatever they decide would be best. For example, my mentor teacher does a "Legal Eagles" cluster where the students learn about the legal system and put a fairy tale on "trial". She picked this cluster because she is very interested in the legal system and wants the students to be interested too! Other enrichment cluster ideas were game shows, cake building, sewing, and many others. The fourth and fifth grade are grouped together, where they are mixed and can choose any of the 4th or 5th grade clusters, second and third are grouped together, and first and kindergarden stay in their grade levels. Students have the opportunity to pick their top 5 choices of clusters and the teachers try their bests to give the students one of their top choices.

I had the privilege to assist in a kindergarden cluster because the teacher really needed an extra pair of hands. We are teaching the students "Oceans Adventures". I am helping out each time, which we go once a week for 5 weeks. Boy, is it a HUGE difference going from fourth grade to kindergarden and back to fourth grade!! I love both ages, and would be happy teaching both ages, but those grades are on totally different ends of the spectrum!! I had to mentally change my mindset quickly as I walked into the kindergarden pod, and change back when I returned to the 4th grade pod!

Overall, I believe Enrichment Clusters are a really good idea because the students have time during the week to participate in something they truly enjoy, or want to get to know better. When the students returned to the classroom, they were excited and telling everyone about what they did in their cluster. It gives the students an opportunity to interact with other students in the school, which is a positive aspect because we want them to get to know others!

I am excited to continue my journey in participating in the kindergarden "Oceans Adventures"! I hope I have the opportunity to take some pictures of these students because seeing how they react to anything dealing with the ocean is such a treat!!

Homecoming Parade--

One aspect of teaching that the university classes do not prepare you for are homecoming parade days :)
Boy, do these kids get excited when it comes to these type of activities!! We painted faces, students made signs, and tons of screaming occurred! It's a good thing that we scheduled science presentations on the day of this parade because there is absolutely no way that we could keep these students' focus when they are thinking about the parade and after they get all worked up!

It was really exciting to see how the students reacted to seeing the football players, the band, the various floats and the cheerleaders. Many of these groups interact together because the high school teaches some of the elementary camps during the summer. I believe that these parades do more than just get the students excited for the homecoming game. I think these parades allow the students to see the people that they look up to most.

The students were smiling so big when their role models walked by. I took a few pictures of the students on this crazy day :)

Science Presentations!

The students were wrapping up projects pertaining to ecology. They were pretending that they were interns with the Natural Resource Department and the residents of a town took out the red wolf from their environment because of a suspected rabies outbreak. Now, the residents gardens were being overwhelmed with deer and rabbits. The students were researching to figure out why; the red wolf extinction took out the predator of these animals. The students had many opportunities to work during the school day, with multiple computer lab rentals. Watching them develop into deep researchers and seeing the amount of questions decrease as they became better researchers was amazing.

The students were required to present their material in a creative format, either including technology or not. It was very interesting to see the different formats that the students used to present their material. I took multiple pictures of the students presenting their ideas:

Seeing their ideas was the most precious thing!! I had a smile on my face the entire time each student was presenting. I sat on the floor in front of the presenters and I believe that the students felt more comfortable to see someone smiling back at them! I believe the students have matured through this presentation because before, they did not want to get up in front of the class, but after, I could see how relieved they were.