Second To Last Class

It was so weird not to go back to Summerville Elementary this week! I really enjoyed my time there and am going to miss (I already am) Mrs. Young and my students. I can only hope to have a practicum teacher liker her. I truly learned so much from her and I will take her behavior management techniques with me througout my teaching career.

I loved class this week. It was so wonderful to finally hear about everyone's family and case study child that they used for their systems model project. I loved hearing about all different kinds of families, and it seemed that with everyones presentation there was an extreme varitety of family types which made the presentations so interesting. I also found it so interesting to see how each childs family system is so distinct and individualistic. Not one of the models seemed even remotely close to another for me and it really allowed me to see as a teacher how different child is and what kind of influences each has on his or her life. It allowed me to remeber to take this information into consiteration that every child has a different background and therefore they are going to experience things in the classroom differently and learn differently as well. I truly enjoyed listening to all of the different situations that the children in our classrooms have.

Family Visit

So, I have not had a chance to post about my family visit because we have had several schedule conflicts and the mother of our case study child has cancelled a lot on us. But, finally today I was able to go to their house in Summerville with Virginia for a few hours. I was so nervous at first because I always think that it is uncomfortable to go into someone's house that you do not know very well. But the visit ended up going great! Mrs. McMann allowed for us to ask her all kinds of questions and we were able to find out so much information about Charlotet's family life and home routines.

Charlotte especially loved our book bags that we gave her. I thought this was a great idea to do this project because it was nice to not only have something special to bring the case study child and do with her, but something that could break the ice as well. We each read our books with Charlotte and played our games with her and she loved it! She also showed us around her playroom and her room and she showed us all of her collections. It really makes you understand why home visits are so important for the first year of school because you are able to tell so much about a family and how it runs just by being in their house for a few minutes. I was able to gain a lot of insight on Charlotte by going to her house and ended up really enjoying the experience even though it was not something I felt comfortable doing at first.

Final Visit

So, this week was my last week ever in Mrs. Young's class. It was so sad to leave the children, I really feel like I had become a part of their classroom community and I will be sad to not visit them on Thursdays anymore.

This was a wonderful week. I finally decided to get up to Summerville early. This was something that I have wanted to do all semester but have never done. I got to see the children during their phonics lesson, in their reading time, as well as during their special area of art. It was so wonderful to see the children in the morning when they are so fresh. Let me tell you, writing/literacy centers were COMPLETELY different from their math centers that are at the end of the day. The children were focused, clam, and well behaved. It was a totally different world. It almost makes you think about what switching up a schedule might do so that each subject gets the children when they are at this wonderful state! I loved seeing them in the morning and it made me regret not doing this more often this semester. Children are a totally different world in the morning, sometimes I just think that school days are too long for these kindergartners and that is why the behavioral problems come out so much in the afternoons because that is when the children are exhausted and can't even focus on anything for a minute. How are they supposed to learn like that?

The children were so cute about us leaving they gave us each a card with a Starbucks gift card in it and they had all signed the card. It was so sweet because you could tell they had been so excited to give it to us all morning. We also had a little gift card for Mrs. Young and some dog treats for her dogs which the children thought was hilarious. I have learned so much from Mrs. Young this semester but mostly I have learned A LOT about classroom management. This is something that she is wonderful with and some days I don't know how she does it. I also learned a lot about parent teacher relationships from Mrs. Young. She has an open door policy in her classroom and her parents love this and come and volunteer often which I know is so nice for her.

I loved being in Mrs. Young's class this semester and I hope to go back and visit next semester!

Week 10

This week was another quiet week. The children were back to normal since Mrs. Young was back and in full force. The time that I observe is a little bit different because it is always during lunch, recess, math centers, and writing. This week the children did something a little bit different in writing which was so cool. The standard was on list making and the children made lists of their favorite colors. I found myself working with one child in the class who just came to the class last month and is in foster care. I can see that he is a very bright boy, but he does not believe in himself which I am sure has come with his life situations. I sat with him almost the whole time and worked with him on his list to sound out the names of his favorite colors. With individual scaffolding and encouragement he did great! When he finished he was SOOO proud of himself and it was such a rewarding thing to see. I could see the look in his eyes was like "Maybe I can do this." It is amazing what a little bit of encouragement can do.

I am excited for next week as I am going to go in the morning for my last day. Mrs. Young has been encouraging me to do this all semester as she says the children are much more focused in the morining and that there are not as many behavioral issues. I am not surprised about this. I will let you know how it goes.

This week for class we went and saw the presentation on Three Cups of Tea. I really enjoyed it but what I got out of it the most that hit home since I am teaching at Summerville was the part about poverty. He said to understand it you must smell it, taste it, and understand it. This made so much sense to me and I think what he really means is that we need to be empathetic and understand where these children are coming from and help them overcome that in their learning and not be just sympathetic. This is how the children will get the most out of their learning experience.

Week Nine

This week was somewhat of a quiet week. My co-operating teacher has been out all week with a death in her family which is so sad, but the assistant Mrs. VonDohlen was so happy to see us. She thought that we would be teaching and provide a little bit of relief for her but we were not scheduled to teach anything this week! I was feeling so badly for her because the children were a little loud and crazy without Mrs. Young there so I offered to do the literacy lesson for her.

Overall, it went great. I was a little bit nervous to do it since I did not have a lesson plan or any prep time whatsoever, but I knew that I should push myself because it was a good skill to learn to be able to teach a lesson at the drop of a hat. I am proud of myself for doing it and it went very well considering I had not prepared at all!

Week Eight

This week went really well! I was a little bit nervous about teaching this week because it was the long lesson that I have been dreading but it went better than any of my other lessons! The classroom was a little wild and crazy because of Halloween being so close but I still managed to do a great job controlling their behavior. The writing lesson went so well and the children really seemed to understand it which is such a rewarding thing! It was a lesson on writing and saying complete sentences that include two parts the who or the what and the action. The students did a great job writing their own sentences and some even labeled which part was the who or what and which part was the action! It made me feel so good that they really understood how I had explained it because my cooperating teacher said they had neve had a lesson on this before!

My math lesson also went very well. I brought in gummie snacks and chex mix for the children to sort on plates in front of them in circle and they loved it! I think anytime that you involve food the children get so excited and into the lesson.

Week Seven

This week was a great week at Summerville. No one taught a lesson in my classroom so it was so nice to just be able to observe after teaching two lessons so that I could learn even more for my third and final lesson. The kids were great! Virginia taught her lesson earlier in the week so it was just me in the classroom which was so nice to be able to have the kids all to myself and they were so excited to see me. I got to watch Mrs. Young teach the writing lesson and the math lesson that I will be teaching this week and it was so great to be able to see everything that I will be teaching this week. Overall, it was a very relaxed and fun day and I loved being able to participate in all of the activities with the children.

I loved class this week. I though the woman that spoke for us about parent education programs was so informative and wonderful and to be honest I had no idea that these kinds of programs existed as a resource for new parents. What a wonderful thing that they do and it is definitely something that I want to be a part of later in life. I think it is such a great thing for parents to have as well as for the children. It is so difficult to be a parent and also prepare your child for school and I think this program is so wonderful in that it helps parents know what is developmentally appropriate for their children and what kind of activities and things they can work on while they are at home.