Lots of Lessons!

Morning: We start our Balance and Motion unit today in pit. I met with the other student teacher, who I am working on this with, and we briefly went over our lesson this morning. It seems like we are pretty much ready to go. We don’t have enough supplies for every class, but we will be demonstrating the experiments in the pit and then giving each classroom a few supplies so that students can try them out back in their classrooms later in the day.

I quickly taught the words of the week and chunk of the week this morning. Those lessons are fast and pretty easy. I am getting used to them. They’re a little repetitive, but the students know exactly what to do and what they will be doing, so it flows well. It’s hard sometimes to tell a student they’re wrong when they pick a word for “chunk of the week” that doesn’t go. For example, our chunk of the week was –ake. So, students brainstorm words that have –ake in them (bake, make, take, etc). One student said “tummy ache.” I just explained that, yes, it sounds like it should end in –ake, but it’s actually spelled differently, with “ache.”

Afternoon: The lesson in the pit went really well – it seemed to go by quickly. The principal walked in right at the beginning and that made us both a little nervous, but it was good to start that out by co-teaching. Vanessa and I worked well together and the other teachers were all there to be supportive and keep their classes in check. The first lesson in that unit doesn’t have much to it, but we took a bunch of volunteers to try the first experiment to draw it out a bit.

After pit, we had an assembly with “the balloon guy.” That was pretty insane. The balloon guy was fun and funny and the kids loved him, but they went crazy. They were screaming and yelling and jumping up with excitement at every move. He had volunteers come up and those volunteers got balloons. At one point, when the volunteers left the stage, other kids tried to grab their balloons. The principal calmed them all down. After the show. They had recess, but then they were back in time for a quick snack and math lesson. My math lesson went well despite some calling out. They were still excited and chatting about the balloons. We did a quick Smartboard lesson and worksheet on estimating. Then I had a basket filled with blocks and asked them to estimate the number of blocks in the basket. The winners got to sign the hundreds board. The hundreds board is now all filled up with names, so pretty soon we will select a winner at random to choose his or her prize. That took us right up to the end of the day, so the timing worked out perfectly.

Friday

Yesterday, the 27th was a snow day, so today (Friday) is a little messed up again. It is a two-hour delay, though I am here at the regular time along with the rest of the teachers so that we can figure out what we’re doing today and all of next week. I also met with the other student teacher I’m working with to go over our grade-wide Balance and Motion science unit. I completely forgot to bring the game to school today that I was going to play with the class during math. Luckily, one of the other first grade teachers had a great Smart Notebook file on the lesson and emailed it to me. I am using that instead now and I think it will work out just fine. My CT even gave me a fly swatter to use (the game is where students swat flies to get different problems on the Smartboard. The fly swatter is a great toy to use, as long as it works on the Smartboard. I will test that out before we start.

We have a meeting with the principal before lunch today too to go over students’ scores on the CogAT test, which they use to determine candidates for the school’s Humanities program. That should be an interesting meeting. I remember taking that test and being a candidate for the program. My parents didn’t put me in it because I was young for my grade and they didn’t want the added pressure on me. I always used to wish they did put me in Humanities though. I would have been with my friends more all throughout school (even in high school, for social studies). I remember hearing that I scored around a 118 or so on that test, though that may not be correct. I think it’s scored similarly to an IQ test. My brother got about the same score as I did, and he was in Humanities.

This afternoon went well. I did my math lesson as usual. My CT was busy with some paperwork for the students identified to go into more testing for the gifted program, so she wasn’t observing me as much. I think that made me feel a little more independent and at ease and the lesson went well. The fly swatter game worked pretty well and they had fun using the physical fly swatter to touch the flies on the Smartboard. It was a good prop. We also did a shark game where it showed number blocks with multiple choice numbers. When they got one correct, a dolphin swam across the board. When one was wrong, a shark bit off a piece of a boat. The class was curious about what would happen when the shark ate the whole boat, so at the very end, I asked a few volunteers to come up and tell me the right answer, then hit one of the wrong answers. We did that until the boat was gone. Nothing major happened – they thought there may be a picture or something underneath the boat. Then, we just ended the game, and I did a follow-up activity where someone would make a number on the board using blocks and they had to pick a volunteer to guess the number. This worked out well to close the activity, but I kept having to remind them to look at the board and try to figure out what number was being made.

After math, the day went by quickly. They had indoor recess and then we got them packed up and ready for art. It was a sad afternoon though because we got the news that one of the student’s stepbrother died earlier today, possibly of a drug overdose. Her mom was coming to get her early. She is a really sensitive girl, very young for first grade, so I am worried about how she will be. Her dad passed away when she was 3 or 4, so this is going to be rough on her. She is usually very clingy and complains of stomachaches during the day, so I can imagine that next week, if she is in school, that will be even more intense. Poor girl. I’ll be thinking of her this weekend.

Early Dismissal

It’s snowing like crazy outside and it’s not a snow day! It’s good to get the day in but it’s still going – way more than was predicted. The roads were horrible this morning, worse probably because no one expected it to be this bad. My CT was stuck in traffic and was late getting into work. I was proud of myself because as students started arriving, I found a morning work worksheet, had them do their morning jobs, and then work on the worksheet. They were pretty well behaved. The worksheet was a pretty challenging word search, so it kept them focused and occupied for a pretty long time. When the teacher arrived, they were either reading or working on their worksheet.

We only did one round of daily 5 because we kept hearing different rumors about school closing early. The official word is 12:15 now. It sounds like I may not get out until later though because we have to wait until all the buses get here and all the kids are gone. I assisted with a guided reading group today. They were just practicing the words of the week, so it was a simple lesson. I had them write each word on a white board. The kids are pretty wound up after the crazy morning, so we decided to have them do a journal response to the Hungry Caterpillar to calm them down a bit. That definitely helped.

We got in my planned math lesson for the day, which was good. It was a scripted lesson from a Problem Solving book. We went through two “Make An Organized List” problems on the Smartboard and then a third one was for homework. They seemed to catch on quickly and it was an easy lesson to do.

Dismissal was crazy because a few buses were late because of the snow. We had to wait with the students until all the buses came and got them. Luckily it wasn’t too long and then we were out of there! I used the rest of the day to plan for the rest of this week and next. The snow is a pain, but it does help with giving more planning time! Tomorrow should be interesting because my CT is out and I’ll be with a sub….

Observation Day #2

Today is another observation day. I think I have my lesson down pat and I have a good idea of how it will run. I am learning to plan for smaller details, like that the students will all do the problem first, then I will choose one volunteer to come up and show everyone on the board how they did it. I videotaped myself yesterday, and watching it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I think I may do one or two more before I have to turn it in so that I have a few choices of lessons to turn in. I noticed a few things I should have done. One student had finished her worksheet really early but I didn’t come around to check her paper until the end. I felt bad about that and I think I will let her be the “teacher” to start the game today.

The morning went smoothly today. I didn’t do any lessons in the morning, but I read with one student and tried to keep the class on task while they were mostly working on writing in Daily 5. They had some trouble getting started and picking stickers to write sticker stories. I still think that organizing the stickers would be helpful. There were some arguments about how many stickers they were allowed to take. I thought they were allowed 2 each, but one student told me that they are only supposed to take one each. I decided to allow two for that round but after that round, I said we would only do one at a time. That seemed to appease them and then they got into writing. We didn’t have enough time for a third round of Daily 5 like they usually do, so my CT brought out a mat with different word chunks written on it. They all sat in a circle and took turns throwing a beanbag onto the mat. They had to say the chunk and then say a word in that chunk. So, if it landed on –ot, they had to say something like “not.” It was a good game and it worked really well as a 5-minute activity before recess.

My handwriting/math/poetry lessons were all done this afternoon. Handwriting was quick, and I did that before math to get in a quick lesson before my supervisor arrived. They were very well behaved and liked the “z” animation on that same handwriting website. It was a little better than the usual animations. There are no more letters to learn, so next week, we will start learning to write months and other frequently used words. When my supervisor arrived, the class was quietly working on their handwriting papers. I had them finish up quickly and put their books away and meet me in their spots on the floor. We went through the math lesson easily. I realized that I had dismissed them back to their tables before explaining the second Smartboard activity that I was going to have them work on independently. Instead of that, I kept up the activity that we had done together so that they would all know what to do. My CT liked that I didn’t try to squeeze in the other Smartboard activity and that I stuck with the one they understood. I’m glad I did that, because otherwise it could have been chaos. The good thing is, now I have that game to use for another lesson. That’s good because we used an extra tens and ones matching game later in the day as a quick game to play before we had a fire drill. I may need to swap that out for the Smartboard one I didn’t use in another lesson.
My lesson may be changed around due to possible snow the next two days. We did some planning today and I realized I really need to look at the Balance and Motion science unit that I am doing with the other student teacher next week. We are co-teaching the first two and then I am doing the third lesson, and we alternate from there, co-teaching a few in the middle when we introduce a new section, and co-teaching a review at the end prior to the test. I think that tomorrow night I will write out plans for those and email them to the other student teacher. Then, once we agree on that, we can email it to the rest of the teachers so they know what we are doing. I am nervous about those lessons because they are in front of the entire grade, rather than just in the classroom. I think that once I write it all down in a list I’ll feel better about what is happening and when.

Monday Monday

I’m starting to take over more lessons this week so it should be fun and interesting.  Today I teach two language arts lessons as well as math.  I arrived early for a conflict mediator meeting that my CT runs.  It is a big group of 6th graders that visit classrooms to talk about problem solving and solving conflicts between students.  It was an interesting meeting to sit in on and listen to.  The students were nominated by their teachers and they went through an interview and a 5-day training to become mediators.  They meet monthly to learn a new activity that they will do with a class somewhere in the school.  They sit in on the morning meeting of their assigned class and run it, with conflict resolution skills as the focus.

Last night, I revamped by lesson plan for math today too.  I have a Smartboard game for learning tens and ones where it shows blocks of tens and ones and asks for the correct number.  One student at a time would need to come up to the Smartboard to answer.  To keep the rest of the students occupied and on task, I added an aspect where during the game, the students each have a worksheet and clipboard so that they can write the number of tens and ones on their own sheet as well.  I think this may be a good addition because last time I used just a Smartboard game in the class, students who weren’t up at the board were losing their focus, and it was a suggestion by my CT to always have something to keep the whole class occupied.  

I did lessons on the words of the day and chunk of the day today.  They both went very well and I was prepared for them.  I had forgotten to add in my lesson plan that they usually make up a song for the bonus word.  One student raised his hand and told me he had a song.  I incorporated that into the lesson and they all sang that song.  Then another raised his hand and said he knew another song.  He turned the same song into a rap.  I asked the class to repeat it and they liked it.  I noticed two students in the front row were really not paying attention.  They were fidgeting and I told them if I had to tell them one more time I would give them a time out.  That calmed them down for a few minutes until the end of the lesson.  

I got to read with a student today during Daily 5 because she was working with another teacher when my CT met with her guided reading group.  She is an advanced reader and she only had trouble with one or two hard words.  One of which was “hand-me-down” which she had never heard of.  I had her break it down into individual words and them explained what it meant.  Then she was able to read that word perfectly.

I’m a little nervous because I just got an email from my supervisor saying he can come tomorrow for another observation.  I was hoping I’d get a little more prep time, but I guess it’ll be good to get it over with.  Plus it’s at 12:30 instead of 1:30, so they may be better behaved at that time.  I had planned on a matching game type activity, but my CT said they hadn’t practiced anything like that before so it may not be the best thing to be observed.  She gave me some tips on other game ideas and we came up with a Smartboard game where the students need to build the number using tens and ones blocks.  I will give everyone a basket of tens and ones blocks too so that they can also build them themselves as students come up to build them one at a time on the Smartboard.  I will do the matching game for the next tens and ones lesson, onThursday, or as a morning meeting activity.

My math lesson went pretty well today.  There were a few more good pointers from my CT.  I learned that when we pick a teacher to run a Smartboard game, the teacher should be up there the whole time.  This makes it much easier because I won’t have a million kids asking me “can I be teacher next?”  We also have a class list where we mark off who has been teacher so that everyone gets a turn.  This will be helpful in my lesson tomorrow, as well as in lessons going forward.  One thing I also realized is to instruct the students to put away the materials we had out.  They all had papers on clipboards and I dismissed them back to their seats.  I should have told them to put their clipboards back before going back to their seats.  At least everything got cleaned up soon after the lesson when they packed up for the day.  

Overall, it was a good day, and I don’t have a headache like I did at the end of last week, so that’s an improvement.  I need to work more on my lessons for the rest of the week tonight and email my supervisor the math lesson.  It’ll be good to get tomorrow over with.  Then I can relax for a few weeks, as far as observations go and focus on the big science unit I am planning to do with the whole first grade along with another student teacher.

Two Hour Delay

Two hour delay! Two hour delay!  Well, for me and the other teachers, it’s actually a one-hour delay.  Either way, an extra hour of sleep is pretty nice.  Plus, it makes it a short day too!  I am here this morning trying to figure out what to do for a poetry lesson.  I looked in the students’ poetry folders to find the next poem and found one about a Birthday Day. It sounds cute and there is a website on the BBC that goes through the whole lesson with them.  My Cooperating Teacher sent me the website, so I think I am all set.  I just wrote up a quick lesson plan and I think I am all prepared for next week now.

I realized this morning that in my math lesson plan that I wrote for teaching “Doubles plus one” I wrote that after the game I planned, I also planned for them to come back up to the Smartboard and do an activity.  I realized that I never actually designed an activity for this on Smart Notebook.  I did, however, make copies of a worksheet for them to do, so I think I’ll be using those instead.  I have no idea what Smartboard activity I was thinking of, but while they are working on their worksheets, I may take a look on the computer and see if I can find one online to play with them afterwards.  We’ll see how that works.  I do wish I could access the internet on my laptop here because then I’d be able to do that now before the kids get here.

A little later this morning: I decided I did want to have a Smartboard activity to use in case the class finishes the worksheets early and just as a follow-up activity.  I think I will have them do only side 1 of their worksheet and then do the Smartboard activity.  Since I can’t get onto the Internet, I figured out how to create a quiz using the Smart Notebook software.  It’s actually pretty cool and I think it’ll work well.  I’m wondering if I should record myself doing my lesson today just to have as one choice to submit – I need to submit one video taped lesson (or audio recorded lesson) at some point.  If I can figure out a simple way to do this, I may.

Now we are planning for next week and my Cooperating Teacher will be out on Thursday, so she is writing up plans for a substitute.  There is also an assembly that day, so it sounds like it will be pretty crazy.  I will teach math and handwriting and also word work for the first time, so that will be interesting.  I think I still need some clarification of what word work entails, so I will ask about that soon.  My Cooperating Teacher explained it to me and I know the students know how it works too, so it should go ok.

We just had the kids in for about 15 minutes.  We did morning meeting and then it was time for recess and then lunch!  It’s a pretty strange day.  When they get back, it should be a little more normal.  They’ll have a spelling test and then pit and math and then it should be time for specials (art today) and dismissal!  I think it’ll go fast.  I must admit, I was kind of hoping for a snow day today so I could do a little more planning and other chores around the house that I’ve been putting off, but it’s also good to get a day in.  I don’t know how many extra days we have built into our schedule before we need to make up days.  We have some but my university doesn’t tell us how many.  So if we can get the day in, it’s good news in the long run.

Afternoon:  I did my next math lesson – doubles plus one.  It went well, but the class was chatty again.  I got some great pointers from my cooperating teacher.  She said she thought my pacing was great and that I seem to have a really good sense of when to move on to the next thing.  I was doing a lesson on adding “doubles plus one” and we had a cool dice game to play with it.  They take turns rolling a die and doubling the number then add one.  Then they mark their square with a crayon.  They seemed to understand pretty well when I explained it but when I sent them back to their seats it seemed to turn into chaos.  I tried to get their attention using “bum buh de bum bum” but they didn’t respond.  I thought I needed to be louder so I clapped and they clapped back.  I did a few clapping patterns that they repeated and finally I had their attention.  I asked for a show of hands to see who knew how to play the game.  Only a few raised their hands.  I asked one of them to tell me what would happen if I rolled a two and he explained it correctly.  I repeated this and the class seemed to get it.  I told them to try again.  They did a pretty good job and the rest of the lesson went pretty smoothly.  The tips my cooperating teacher gave me were good though.  Instructing them to put their hands on their head and then praising one of the students that does it helps because with everyone’s hands on their heads, they can’t continue working when they should be listening.  The other helpful suggestion was to have the pictures we used to remember doubles up in the front of the room so they could refer to it.  That would have been helpful throughout the game and lesson and I wish I had thought of that beforehand.  I even realized during the lesson how helpful that would have been.  That is definitely something I will remember for next time. 

Crazy Thursday

I am going to do some thinking on my feet today.  I was scheduled to do only one handwriting lesson this morning, but it sounds like we are also going to try to squeeze in a quick math review and test lesson that I have been preparing for tomorrow. 

I am planning on using the handwriting video for the letter K at www.netrover.com/~kingskid/Printing_Alphabet/Printingl.htm to illustrate how to write a k.  My Cooperating Teacher has been using these videos but I find the voices really irritating and I’d like to find a new website or tool to use.  Any suggestions?

During Daily 5 today, one of the compound word games on the Internet didn’t work.  Also the file that my Cooperating Teacher uses for students to choose their centers each day became corrupt and wouldn’t open.  I thought it was good how she quickly decided to let the students choose their centers.  She has been working towards them making independent decisions anyway, though she will continue to watch which centers they choose and ask them to switch to different centers if they continue to choose the same ones over and over.  I am also keeping an eye on their choices.  When one student chose “read to buddy” we realized that there was no simple way of having them know who else wanted to do read to buddy.  My Cooperating Teache quickly realized that we needed a meeting place for anyone who chooses this center.  This worked out really well and it seemed like a lot of kids then decided to do “read to buddy.”

Wow, I have a headache.  Writing and math today were pretty tough.  I think it’s definitely harder to teach lessons at the end of the day when the class is starting to get tired and antsy.  The lessons went pretty well and I got some good feedback from my Cooperating Teacher.  I find that the hardest thing for me is transitioning still – getting them settled in between lessons.  For math today, I transitioned right from snack and I forgot to tell them to get their white boards that they needed for my lesson.  I decided to forget the white boards and do it without them.  It worked ok but it threw me off a little.  Instead of working in pairs with the white boards I had them whisper to the person next to them, all say the answer out loud, etc, varying the types of responses.  Then I had them take the tests back to their desks and set up their offices so that my Cooperating Teacher could give the test.  I had told them to start the test, not realizing that my Cooperating Teacher usually goes through each question individually.  Next time I will remember that and know what to instruct them to do when they are getting ready for a test.  Overall the lessons went well, I think I just need to build up my own stamina and ability to transition, manage behavior, and keep lessons running well.  It’s a lot to juggle, but I’m getting better at it (I hope!)

1st Day Back

Morning: Well today is our first day back to school in 5 days.  We had an in-service day last Friday, then, Monday was MLK day, and yesterday was a snow day!  Lots of kids were out sick last week, so they are returning to school for the first time in a while!  I was sick last week too.  I’m still feeling it, but I’m really glad to have my voice back.

Today is my first observation.  My University Supervisor will arrive at 12:30 today to observe a math lesson.  We usually don’t start math until 1:30, so we had to change our schedule around a bit to accommodate his schedule, so I’m hoping that won’t mess the kids up at all.  It’s been so long since they’ve been here that I’m hoping it won’t matter.  I am teaching a math lesson on adding doubles.  I plan to do a share in our class’s morning meeting to tell them that we will have a visitor after lunch and let them know why he will be here.  I hope that will help them to be more well-behaved when I am teaching.

This morning, I worked with students who were absent last week to make up tests that they missed.  I felt really comfortable giving the tests and they all did very well.  It was 2 spelling tests and a mad minute math quiz.  I also got to watch my Cooperating Teacher do a DRA with one student, to test his reading level.  It was interesting to see it in action.  She asked about the pictures, then did a running record for accuracy and then asked them to retell for comprehension.  I had heard about these techniques but hadn’t gotten to see them in action yet.  The attention getting techniques my cooperating teacher uses are really useful for when the class is too chatty or not on task.  A simple phrase or ring of the bell will make them pay attention and then she can give instructions.

I took over to have the class do their jobs and go out to recess.  I was confused about which jobs needed to be done, so they kids started getting loud trying to explain to me.  The cooperating teacher stepped in to quiet them down, so that was helpful.  It shows the importance of knowing what needs to be done next to maintain control of the classroom.

Afternoon/First Observation:

My first observation went well and I was really impressed with how well behaved my class was.  They are a really great class and my lesson went smoothly despite one small error in a matching game.  I used the website superteachertools.com to generate random pairs.  My teacher has done this is the past so our class list was already saved to the website.  It is a great way to generate groups of 2, 3, or 4.  There are no hurt feelings or arguments about the pairs.  I also used a Smartboard game where students were given the opportunity to be “teacher” and sit in the teacher’s chair and call friends to the board to select the answers to problems.  It ran very well – they were quiet and on task.  They had done similar activities before so they knew what was expected of them.

I found a mistake in the matching game we did in pairs.  The picture of eggs was supposed to have a dozen eggs, but it only had 8 in the picture.  I told them in groups to pretend that it was a real carton of eggs with 8 eggs on each side.  When I brought the class back together, I asked who noticed what the mistake was in the game.  I think bring the mistake out in the open rather than trying to hide it or pretend it wasn’t there was helpful. 

My supervisor really liked the pacing of my lesson and that there was never a time when the kids were idle or wondering what to do and that the class knew and followed their rules and instructions so well.  There were always activities for when the kids finished one thing, and no one was ever wandering around or off task.

Reflection on First Observed Lesson:

I am really relieved to have my first observation under my belt and over with.  I was more nervous than I thought I’d be last night, though today I was pretty calm, and I felt ready.  My supervisor did notice that I seemed a little tense at first, but he understood that, especially for a first observation. 

Overall, I feel the lesson worked really well.  Every student got all of the problems correct on both the worksheet and in the matching game.  The class was well-behaved and I also felt that the pace of the lesson felt good.  We weren’t rushing, but we got everything in and kept it moving so that nothing became stale or boring and the kids didn’t start getting antsy.  I am looking forward to doing more in front of the class and getting more comfortable with it.  The most difficult thing for me is starting and ending a lesson.  I haven’t been sure about what comes next when I finish my part, so my transitions are not the best.  I think I will improve on that as I teach more, and especially as I teach more than one lesson at a time, because I will then have a plan for the next part and can go right into it rather than make sure that my cooperating teacher is ready to continue.  I only teach one lesson tomorrow but them it will go up from there.  

Hi!

Hello there!  This is my first blog post in a very long time and I’m hoping I can still do a good job at it.  I’m Lauren and I am currently student teaching in a 1^st grade classroom in Bucks County, PA.  I am in graduate school, career-changing from a business/pharmaceutical background.  I have previously worked in marketing research for the pharma industry, as a manager of a local independent bookshop, and as an assistant at a pharmaceutical clinical research imaging core lab.  Teaching has always been my passion, and I am finally returning to the career path I was on back in 2001-2003 when I first began my undergraduate career.

I began student teaching just two weeks ago, and I am already overwhelmed with the amount or work and preparation that goes into each day.  I was aware that student teaching was a full-time job and that it is a lot of work, but I don’t think I quite grasped how much there is to do.  I have gotten quicker at writing out lesson plans, though, and learned in a recent online class that I do not have to write long-form lesson plans for each and every lesson I do – only those that will be observed or video taped.  I think that will help a great deal.

So this blog is really to gather my thoughts, generate discussion among teachers, and share resources and ideas that I have found to be helpful along the way.  I have a journal writing requirement, so I think that blogging will work alongside my journaling requirement.  I can use portions of the blog in my journals and vice versa.  I look forward to sharing my experiences!