Drayton Hall Week 5

This week at Drayton Hall I taught my second lesson. I felt like I had learned a lot from teaching my first lesson so I felt a lot more confident going into this lesson, especially with the behavioral expectations for the students. The lesson went well overall. The students really understood the lesson that I taught (on short and long I vowel) and they loved soring the words into the correct categories on the smart board. They also loved alphabetizing their spelling words on the smart board as I wrote them on the smary board and then they put them in order from one to ten. They listened well and loved the glueing part where they glued their sorted words down in their word sort. The only negative aspect of the lesson is that is was too long and I taught it on two seperate ideas which I think confused them. If I could go back, I would only do the lesson on sorting short and long I and I would just add more words to it.

Other than the lesson being too long it went so well. I know all of their names and I can tell that they feel comfortable with me teaching now and they have gotten used to having us in the classroom. I could tell that they liked doing something different and new as they had not done a word sort in class before!

Drayton Hall Week 4

It was a good week this week because it was probably the most normal day of observation I have had so far. Right when we walked in this week several of the children came up to hug us and seemed excited that we were there which made me feel good. Allison taught her first lesson and it went really well, other than that it went a little long and the children started to loose their attention. I feel like I am really starting to get to know the children in my class and I almost have all of their names down. I tried to observe my case study child closely but I realized how quiet she is so I am going to have to work a little harder to get to know her. This week Allison and I got to do some leveled reading and lead the groups again which I love doing because I really get a good grasp of where each child is in their reading level, I am still so amazed at how different all of their reading levels are! (from kindergarden to third grade level for a first grade class). 

Drayton Hall Week 3 (First Lesson)

So, today was somewhat overwhelming. I taught my first lesson to my first grade class on centimeters. As part of my lesson, I had prepared small ziploc bags for each child that were filled with 5 pieces of long candy that they could measure in centimeters. As I began to give the lesson I could tell that they were so excited, so excited that I had a hard time managing them as they were all wanting to know if they were going to get their own bag of candy to eat. The lesson went very well, I had their full undivided attention on the rug, and I could tell that they were understanding the concept of measuring in centimeters.

After the lesson, I had them go back to their seats and I passed out a bag of candy to each child and a worksheet. What I found was that they were almost too excited about the candy to even complete the worksheet. I told them that they may have one piece of candy after they have completed the worksheet though so that they would have their focus on the worksheet and its completion and not just the candy. Overall, I feel like the lesson went very well. The students did a great job with the worksheet and seemed to really understand what we were doing. I did have to answer a lot of questions at each child's desk and give a lot of individual attention. I also had to modify the lesson quickly as I realized that their everyday math rulers only went up to 15 cm and the pencil I had given them to measure was 19cm. I had to change things up and put them in pairs to answer this question so that they could use two rulers and measure as best as they could to the nearest centimeter. I called this more of a challenge question to get them to think and they seemed to love it.

The only thing that I had some difficulty with was classroom management because they were so excited about the candy it was a little bit difficult to keep them focused on the task at hand and several times I had to raise my hand to get them to quiet down and re-focus. Other than that, I feel that the lesson went very well and I look forward to teaching more as they will get easier and easier the more that I do and the better that I know the students in my class.

Drayton Hall Week 2

Today was my second day at Drayton Hall and I had another great day. I am already starting to learn about the children and their personalities and their interests, I am still working on their names though. Today was great because we got to see more of what a real day is like for them as last week was only a half day. I got to experience the morning meeting where they did calender and did a show and tell and it was so neat just to be a part of that. Next we did some leveled reading and Mrs. Fisher let me lead two of the groups where she gets them into a small group in a circle on the floor and the children take turns reading each page this was really interesting to see as each group is a different level of reading I was also able to see Mrs. Fisher give a math lesson which was great as I will be teaching one next week. 

The only negative part of my day is that I feel that there are so many projects and assignments that each time I go in the classroom I am overwhelmed and I am overwhelming my teacher by bombarding her with so many questions and I am taking time away from her that she needs to be with her students and time that I could be observing the class. Hopefully I will get a better grip on all of these assignments and I will not feel like this all semester.