Week 5

This was my last week of working with the students and CT, it was very sad. I became very attached to the class! I helped out a lot, and I just wanted to do more! I helped a girl who had behavior problems, I would sit by her if she listened and sat nicely, but if she got up then she lost privileges. Then I also had a student who got frustrated when she read and cried, I found her a book that she could read and looked like a chapter book. She now is reading the whole series!

1) What is the process of getting a lesson plan approved?

week 4

I believe this week related a lot to communication skills. The first thing I did was read a story to the class, it related a lot to Thanksgiving. Throughout my read aloud, I asked for students predictions and asked questions. I listened to each prediction and made each student feel right about it. I also did a lot of different sound effects for the story, to keep the students engaged. Then we did a word search and made turkeys, relating to Thanksgiving. 

1) What is the best way to teach about holidays that follow in the school year, and which ones to avoid? 

Week 3

I believe I worked well with building relationships with students and staff this week. I was greeted by many students and they came to me for help. I know the students by their first names and what they are interested in. I also worked on giving certain students a vocabulary test. The test was showing a word and the students had three seconds to say the word, instant words. This test was used to show improvement from the beginning of the year, the tests will be shown at conferences. At the end of the morning, many students waved goodbye to me, even some members of the staff say goodbye.

1. How do you get to know students that do not open up well or who are too shy?

2. How do you make sure students feel included in a lesson or activity?

Saying Goodbye

I am so thankful for another experience in the classroom. It was an experience I will never forget. This was my first time working in a class that has a diverse group of students. It was my first time seeing a room with many different behavior issues. It was a first for me in many ways. I have honestly learned so much.
It was hard leaving the students, I felt like they were my own by the end. I had made so many great relationships with them. I got to feel a small part of what it will be like to say goodbye to my future students at the end of the year.
My CT was great. I learned a lot from watching her. She has great classroom management. The students always knew what she wanted by her signals. It was cool to see how fast the students responded to her new management skills.

It was a great experience. I am sad to be done, but also so excited for the next classroom I get to be apart of.

Week 5, Last Day

December 2nd

Today is my last day of my field experience! I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. It seems as if I was just meeting my students and CT yesterday. I can honestly say I learned so much over the last 5 weeks. Working with such a variety of students with a very experienced teacher ended up teaching me so much more than I thought possible. I learned a lot about classroom and time management, working with ELL students, and teaching a group of students with a huge achievement gap. It was my privilege to help my CT with morning meetings, read-alouds, guided reading groups, rhyming, and so much more! I am thankful my CT was so trusting, and pushed me into things that I thought I couldn't do before this experience. I will miss all of my students, especially the couple that I worked with one-on-one everyday. I never thought it would be so hard to say goodbye, but I am happy to say that with the experience I had, an easy goodbye wouldn't have been possible!

Week 4, ELL services

November 25th

Over the past 4 weeks, one of the "tasks" my CT has given me is to work one-on-one with the ELL students. I have worked on everything from spelling their names to rhyming. This has been the most rewarding and enjoyable thing I've gotten to do. That is why when my CT said that I would be leaving and helping out with their ELL class, I was very excited! When I first got into the classroom that they transferred to, to my surprise, the teacher was incredibly rude and impatient with the students. I got the feeling that the students were a nuisance to her, and that they were just in her way. I was hesitant to write about this experience, but felt that it will be one of the most impactful events I will have over these 5 weeks. I did my best to swallow my pride, and keep in everything I wanted to say to her to myself. I just helped the students to the best of my ability, and tried to make them feel as smart and successful as I could. I didn't get a chance to say anything to her or my CT about it, because I don't feel it is my place. I just want to take what I observed, and make sure I never make my students feel the way they must when they have to go to her classroom.

Week 3, snow day!

Friday, November 18th

Today, as everyone else knows, our district had an early out. I wasn't planning on even having school, but after the school day started I realized they had probably made the right decision... UNTIL the snow started. Once the snow and wind began, the faculty members and myself realized they would probably be making the call to cut the day short anytime. Sure enough, the decision was made at 9:30 that the kids would get out at 11. What surprised me the most about the decision is how happy all of the staff were. I had pictured them panicking, thinking that their whole week of content and lessons would be messed up/pushed back. That really didn't seem to be the case, though. My CT was wonderful at handling the situation. She remained very calm, and her mood seemed to rub off on the students. They were surprisingly calm and handled the news very well. I'm thankful that I got the opportunity to witness an early out, as most likely I will have to deal with that in the future.

The End

Although it was sad saying goodbye to the little boys and girls, I am happy to have been apart of their classroom for the 5 weeks. It is even more exciting to see them in the spring before school gets out. That way you can see how much they've grown.

My CT discussed with us that at her next meeting, she is going to talk about one of her students needing some special education intervention. Now this wouldn't be anything extreme, just a 20 minutes to a half hour meeting with a specialist during their literacy time. This way, this student has a chance to be caught up with his other classmates. A lot of the time, people associate special education with having something wrong with you, but sometimes the case can be that a student just learns slower than the rest of the class or that he or she has not had as much exposure as the other students. I am curious to see where this student ends up if I visit them in the spring. Hopefully he gets the help he needs!

Field Experience Done!

When I was told I would have 5 weeks in the field I didn't expect the time to go by so quickly.  I have learned so much in such a little amount of time. In that time I also made some new friends. I took many things from this experience. The last thing my CT told me and my classmate was when things get a little crazy just take a deep breath and remember that you know what you are doing and you are doing it for a reason. My CT also taught me some good transitions and attention getters. Some attention getters were "class class: yes, yes, chicka chicka: boom boom, classidy class: yesidy yes, lollipop, tootsie roll we've been talking now lets stop. Every child knew what these meant and they stopped what they were doing right away to stop talking and pay attention. The only thing that I took away that I may do differently from my CT is stations. Each day they have stations to go to, independent time to work on things such as rhyming, writing sentences, letter sounds and such. While they are doing this the CT is normally doing a guided reading with a couple students, or doing assessments. While she was doing that I got to work with the students. I found out that many of them used the same ones over and over again, ones that they were already perfect at. They were not challenging themselves and since she was busy was not able to notice which students were changing stations and which kept picking the same ones. She did however mention to them that she wants them to switch stations they are using. If I were to do the stations I would make sure that they had certain ones they took on certain times so that they are challenging themselves and really learning. What things do you see in your classrooms you may change?

Last Day of Field Experience

I loved my field experience classroom and getting to know all the students that were there. My last week of field experience was a good week, but also a little sad because it was our last week.  It was cool to see how far the students have come from the first day we got there to our last day.  It was fun to see how much they have learned in the couple weeks we were in the classroom. 

I personally made so many connections from the stuff we discussed in all of my classes that had happened in my field experience.  For example, Daily 5 was incorporated in the classroom everyday. The students either did word work or they did read to self or to an adult.  The students loved word work because they could be creative in their our way by still learning.  My CT also incorporated morning meetings everyday, they weren't as structured as the once we learning about in class, but they were still good. 

On the last day the students were sad to see my partner and I go, but they were very grateful for the time they had with us.  Right before it was time for my partner and I to leave on the last day our CT pulled out card that the students had made for us thanking us for coming into the classroom.  They were really cute and I look back at them when I start to teach.  I learned a lot from the experience and I will cherish if forever.

Overall Experience

I personally loved my experience in the classroom! The time spent in the classroom was a time that I really got to see what I learned in my classes and how they are applied in elementary classrooms. I feel like I was able to make more connections by going into the field, because I had background knowledge on majority of the things in the classroom.
Examples: Daily five: we talked about this in our literacy classes.
Interactive Whiteboard: I would have little knowledge how to work a interactive whiteboard without this IM class.
I felt like I was put in some situations that were outside my comfort zone, which challenged me daily. Playing the role of a teacher is way different than the role of a student learning to be a teacher.
Examples:
Read Alouds: We practiced these in class with peers, doing it in front of 20 first graders and keeping their attention is harder.
Leading Interactive Whiteboard: Making sure the student uses the interactive whiteboard correctly, and helping them when they need assistance.
Typing and using a computer: Assisting students with logging into accounts, or figuring out why headphones don't work.
There were a lot of times I could just spend time and talk with students, and times that I had to challenge myself. Overall I would rate this experience really well. I am excited to continue my time in my blocks and see what the future holds.

Last Day of Field Experience

It's officially the end of our 5 weeks in the field and I can honestly say that I have learned more in these last few weeks than I could have possibly imagined! I'll be the first to admit that I was a bit hesitant about being placed in a kindergarten classroom, I don't have much experience with such a young age group, but it was so incredibly rewarding! My favorite thing about being around 5-6 years olds, is that they make such progress over such short periods of time. When I started at the very end of October, many kids were struggling to write out their full name, but by the end, they were all so good at it! I also had the opportunity to assess students individually, so I really got to see a lot of progress in that area as well. These kids are seriously smart!
I used to think that kindergarten was kind of like a glorified daycare, where teachers watch students as they play games, learn colors and shapes, but these kids were identifying nouns, pronouns and verbs in sentences that they would write! Friday was a tough day, we had a sub so everything was a little more stressful than usual, but by the time I had to leave and say goodbye to the students, I broke down in tears! I didn't realize how attached I had gotten to each and every one of them. Luckily, my CT said they has an open door policy, so I'm more than welcome to visit anytime :) I am so thankful for this wonderful experience!

The Last Day

I cannot believe how fast the time went over the last five weeks! I have learned much more than I could have imagined in such a short amount of time. One thing I learned is to pick your battles. As I have said before, there were students in my classroom with behavioral issues and knowing when something is worth 'fighting' over is very important. Another thing I learned is safety of your students comes first. If there is a student in the classroom doing things that puts the rest of the students in danger, don't feel guilty for having to stop instruction and leave the room. Also, flexibility is important. Things are not always going to go the way you plan so it is important to be able to do things 'on the fly' and come up with different ways to teach when things aren't ideal. In other words, sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
Although, this class had their challenges, they were the most caring, empathetic, and kind 5-6 year-olds I have ever met. They have made a huge impact on me and it was hard to leave. I will definitely miss them.
I always thought that I would like to teach a younger grade like 1st or 2nd grade but for some reason never had the desire to teach Kindergarten. After my experience, I realized that I wouldn't mind teaching Kindergarten; it's not like I thought it would be. Overall, it was a great experience.

Final Thoughts on Field Experience

After processing that field experience is over and I wont be returning to my students on Monday, I thought about all the different things I learned in the last five weeks. One of the most important things I learned is about how crucial it is to learn about your student's home lives. Learning as much as you can about what they encounter outside of school is going to help you understand them so much better in the classroom. Getting to know everything you can about home lives will be the best way to become their biggest advocate. Another thing I have learned is that everyday is a new day for your students. One day could be a tough one, but the next day is brand new and it is important to treat the day as a clean slate to continue to encourage everyone. Lastly, one of the best things I am taking away from field experience, is that there is no better feeling that seeing your students grasp what you are teaching them. Watching them make the connections on their own and be excited about it, is truly indescribable.

Final thoughts, final post!

What an experience this placement has been! I cannot believe how quickly it went by, and how much I learned in the short time I was in the classroom. During my time, I was able to work in small groups everyday, and really got to know the students and how they learn best. My classroom had many adults which made smaller groups possible. In a normal classroom there might only be the teacher and possibly a para or two, which would make these smaller groups harder to achieve and attend to. I could tell that my students benefited from the smaller interaction, so I hope to make this possible in my future classroom. One thing that I hope to get a better handle on in my next placement is classroom management. My class tended to be more rowdy, with many students being pulled out for different classes throughout the morning. My CT has many years of experience and was able to control the class for the most part. She did this by having high energy and capturing the students attention with her enthusiasm. She was also able to ask students questions throughout her lessons or simply say their name before giving another direction, which helped the student refocus. I hope to see how other teachers manage their classrooms and behavior!

If anyone else has examples of how their CT used classroom management, I would love to hear some other ideas!

Last Day of Field Experience

Well yesterday was my last day of field experience.  I was really sad that it was over.  I felt like it went by way to fast, but I'm excited for field experience next semester.  I have learned so much from my CT about the school system, classroom management, what its like applying for teaching jobs after graduation, etc...  Before this experience I never thought I would want to teach second grade and this experience completely changed my mind.  I didn't just learn from my CT I also learned so much from the students about their culture, language, and books.  To thank my CT and class I wrote a letter to my CT thanking her and brought M&M's for the whole class.  I am so grateful for this experience and am so excited for next semesters experience!

My Last Day :(

Today was my last day in the kindergarten classroom. I cannot express how much knowledge I have gained from observing my CT. Some important lessons I learned was "just going with the flow" in the words of my co-teacher. Don't be too up-tight in an Elementary setting because the students will pick up on it. I also learned that organization is SERIOUSLY important. My CT was very organized with her daily schedule, her classroom, and her lessons.

Today I felt so loved. The feeling of 21 students giving you hugs, and constantly telling you they will miss you felt unbelievable. All of the students are all so kind and loving!! (It was adorable). I cannot say enough great things about the kindergartners :) It was a great classroom to be apart of.

I cannot wait to go back in the field and continue to learn!!

Field Experience Wrap Up!

As today was the last day in the classroom, I have been verygrateful for this experience! There have been so many eye opening things happening in the classroom that you never are really prepared for until it happens. I have observed many great things that my cooperating teacher incorporated into her classroom such as usage of the interactive whiteboard, great read aloud sessions, small group work stations, etc. I could not have asked for a better cooperating teacher to work with. She really gave my partner and I a realistic look at what our future as teachers will look like and took us into her classroom with open arms! I also completed my last read aloud this week, it went great! I learned a lot of techniques and cues to use in the classroom to catch the attention of the students.

I can't believe that this experience is already coming to a close, it went really fast! It is crazy how close you get to the students in a short 5 week period. They made it hard to leave! I hope you all had a great experience and learned as much as I did in the classroom!

Wrap Up

Time sure flies when you are having fun. That is motto that I have said over and over again, and I couldn't think of a more appropriate time to use than now. I had a blast working with the students and my CT, it was able to fun, challenging and a great learning experience all in one. The last week, was a spirit week, and that was cool to see all of the students get involved in showing their school spirit. At the end of the week there were awards for students at each grade level and even the staff member who showed the most school spirit, that teacher got to receive a crown and that went over really well with the students.

The last day was as easy as it could have been. We started off giving some students a spelling test, with the vocabulary words that they were learning. After that, was the assembly to conclude spirit week, then we got to have a scavenger hunt with all of the students in the class, based off of a book I got to read in class. The students enjoyed going through the class, especially making the clues for the other students and trying to make them as tricky as possible.

Lastly we got to end with hearing advice from the students that we got to work with on what it takes to be a good teacher. Hearing it from the student perspective is always a plus, because we can get feedback from other teachers all of the time, but hearing it from the students makes it that much more meaningful.Then the other field experience students that was with got to give advice to what takes to be a good student. After that, we said goodbye to the class, it was tough seeing the students leave but knowing that I was able to help a lot of those students improve in something makes the reward that much greater in the end.

Last Day

During the last week of field experience I got to experience a substitute teacher. The children definitely get more restless and try to stretch the rules. I can honestly say substituting is not an easy job. It was nice that we were there to help show the substitute teacher the ropes of the morning. I noticed that even the next day my cooperating teacher had a little trouble getting them to focus. It takes them a little while to come back from a day with a substitute. I still can't believe today was the last day. I am going to miss my classroom so much. I learned so many valuable lessons that I will definitely take with me. I wish we had more time to spend in the classrooms. These past five weeks felt like one week.

last day :(

I can not believe that field experience is already over. It has been a blast learning with the kids and what its like to be in a kindergarten class. They are all full of so much energy and every day ended up leaving with a smile. There has been so much to learn from challenges to new things. I've enjoyed every minute of it and I'm sad that it is over. I've learned about ELL students and many different cultural backgrounds. My views of teaching kindergarten are so much different now then from before. I never thought I wanted to teach kindergarten one day but I wouldn't think twice about it now. Today Elizabeth and I were given thank you cards where all the kindergarteners signed their cute little names in it and gave a hug one at a time as they left for lunch. I'm excited to have my own class one day. It was definitely hard to say goodbye but I will be going back as soon as I can. I can't wait to see how much they have progressed when/if I get the chance to go back. I really saw a difference from the first week to this last week on their progress and it is incredible what five weeks can do.

Last Day of Field Experience

I cannot believe today was our last day in our classrooms! It went by way faster than I thought it would. I remember on the first day we were there, our CT told us that it would be over before we knew it and that couldn't be more true! My partner and I made bookmarks as a goodbye gift for our students. Our entire morning is pretty much devoted to literacy and reading, so we have spent a lot of time focusing on reading skills with our students. We thought that a bookmark would be fun gift that they could remember us by, since they will use it everyday! Our students also had cards prepared for us and were really sweet when it was time to say goodbye. Our CT said that to say goodbye the students could either high-five, handshake, or hug. Every one gave us hugs and some of the students that gave us the most difficulty ended up giving us the biggest and longest hugs! I am really going to miss going there everyday and watching them improve!

This was our very last day but the experience was completely worth it!

As we all know, today was our very last day with our field experience. I am so grateful that I got to do this five-week involvement for a few reasons. (1) I was able to build a rapport between students and teachers. I met plentiful of different staff throughout this experience while gaining an insight of what they do in the school. I was also able to create that sense of security with a couple of the students. It was to the point whenever something was just not right they would come to talk to me about it. (2) I learned mistakes will happen, but we will be able to get through it. I felt like I was messing up a lot in the beginning of this experience. I have been in a classroom before, so it was frustrating me since this was normal for me. However, I figured out these kids need a different type of motivation than others. Thus, they were not necessarily wrong in what they were doing, they were just not used to how I was trying to encourage them. That being said, I was able to grow with them in these situations. (3) Never give up on your dreams. I will admit classroom management was a little bit difficult for me when my CT was not around. I know I have probably said this time and time again, but it is definitely something I have figured out I need to work on. Despite the fact I am still learning how to be a more efficient leader, I have learned that is my dream job. I just love the feeling I get when a child gets the lightbulb of realization I helped them achieve. I want to continue creating this positive relationship between my future students. That way, they feel like they can follow their dreams, too!

Bullying

When you think of bullying you think of middle school age, or high school, but not with little Kindergarteners. The last couple of days my CT has been notified by parents at her conferences that some kids felt that they were being bullied by some children in the classroom. Once she found this out, she decided to try to go at this head on. Right before sharing time today she chose to talk about the bullying that may be going on. My CT said I want to talk about something that when I heard it broke my heart. I have heard that some of you may be feeling teased or bullied, and if that is true I am sorry. I want you to know that that is not okay and that it should not be happening. If you feel that it has been happening and you want to fix it, please raise your hand. Do not use any names, because this is not a time to tell on anyone. She then said that this is a safe place, and she is someone they can come to. If they did not want to say anything in front of anyone that they could come and talk to her later. Then some students talked about some times that they have felt bullied and she talked about ways that they could fix the problem. Other times that it was something that could not be fixed right away she asked if they would come and chat with her about the issue at a different time. An hour later one child was bullying another child but when she confronted the child about it, the child lied and said that they didn't do it. They then began to yell at her saying that she never believes them and she is just mean. A couple of minutes later he accidently  admitted to doing it. With this child it has been happening often, and to multiple kids. She told me after class that she emailed his mother about the incident, the mother said that she has been getting yelled at also. The CT is doing a wonderful job of attacking the problem head on, calmly and rationably. I just wonder what other things could she do to make sure that not only this child stops bullying, but others? Some students are just not feeling like they can tell anyone just because the kid might retaliate, or it isn't a safe place. This breaks my heart because if it is starting at such an early age what is going to stop them from doing it in the future? What can we do as educators to prevent bullying at such an early age?

Last Week

I am so bummed this is our last week. My cooperating teacher and the students have taught me so much. This week our class has three tests. Two of those tests are for math; which the children took today. The first test was a unit two chapter test, most of the students did pretty well on this test. There was one student who is usually very good at math, but for some reason today he panicked. As I was watching him I could see that he was just getting frustrated so I walked over to him, covered his paper and together we took a couple deep breaths to clear his mind. The second math test they took today was a timed addition test. There were several students that were done really quickly, but we had three or four students who got less than half correct. The students that didn't do very well had switched the problems from addition to subtraction. The third test will be on Friday and it will be a spelling test.

Also, look up Erin Condren. She creates these amazing teacher lesson planners. She has other cool options too, but my cooperating teacher has always used these planners and they are so helpful.

Last Week

It is sad to think that this is our last week in field experience.  I have learned that you do develop relationships with the students very quickly and they aren't happy when we leave.  During this short amount of time I feel I have bonded with multiple students.  I feel a lot more confident in myself, when it comes to read alouds and morning meetings.  This experience has prepared me for creating lesson plans for my own class, and I felt that I've learned the most during math time.  My partner and I got to explore new ways to teach counting money this week.  Also, I have seen some helpful tools online that students can use to improve their reading and math skills.  The most common websites that our school uses are Star fall and ABCya.  Does anyone else feel more secure in their own teaching skills, now that we have been in a classroom setting?  What specific programs have helped you achieve more knowledge in new teaching methods?

New Routines... New Challenges!

The Kindergartners at the school I am at receive free breakfast if they choose. Up until today, breakfast has been brought into the rooms and the students eat at their tables. This was easy, because the students could see what was available, pick what they wanted to eat, eat at the table, clean up, and move on. What was happening though, was that they would bring a certain amount of food down and not all of it would be eaten. What was left had to then be thrown away. This also produced a lot of garbage in the classrooms from wrappers and napkins being thrown away. Today, they started a new routine for Kindergarten breakfast. The students had to choose if they were going to eat, go down to the lunchroom on their own, eat breakfast (in ten minutes) and come back on their own. What ended up happening was that there was a huge line and it took a long time for the students to get their food. By the time they sat down, they barely had any time to eat and then had to throw away most of what they grabbed anyways. I believe they are going to try something a little different tomorrow to make it run smoother.