Drayton Hall Week 8

It is hard to believe that this is my eighth week at Drayton Hall. Today, Allison taught her third lesson on plants. It went great! She did such a great job of explaining to the students about what a plant needs to grow and then she related it to them and what they need to live and grow. They thought it was so exciting and they also loved that they got to go outside and plant some lettuce seeds. They got a little bit excited, but Allison did a great job with her management of their behavior and each time calmed them down and refocused them on what they were doing. 

I got to lead all of the leveled readings today and it was so neat to do. Mrs. Fisher has let us do this from the start and I love it because we get personal time with the children in small groups which lets me get to know them better but also it lets me see where they are as far as their literacy levels which in this class is very interesting because they are so different. It was so neat today because I noticed that one of the students who reads at the lowest level in the class has improved so much! He did a fantastic job today and I can see his confidence starting to emerge and because of it he seems to like reading even more. He is reading faster and louder and is trusting his instincts on the words that he is sounding out. It is such a neat thing to see a student progress in such a little amount of time! 

Drayton Hall Week 7

So, I taught my third lesson today on maps and where the students are located on the map. Overall, I do believe that the lesson went well however I had an extremely difficult time with this lesson because of the information that it covered and the amount of information as well as with behavioral issues. The lesson itself went well, but the children were very chatty as it is St. Patrick's day and they were all so excited about the leprechaun that came in the classroom as they had just done a scavenger hunt right before I taught where the leprechaun had left them a pot of gold chocolate coins. They were soooo excited that it was very difficult to calm them down and get them back on task. They knew that today was a special day and therefore they had a hard time focusing in on what we were working on. 

Mrs. Fisher had expressed to me that the children needed some work on maps and their location on the map so I put together a lesson where I showed them their city, their state, their country, their continent, and then their planet. This was a great concept for them to review and Mrs. Fisher had already gone over this concept with them yet they did not seem to fully grasp it during the lesson. They had a difficult time because each location had two names that they needed to remember for example their state is South Carolina, their country is The United States of America. Because it was so much information it seemed to be overwhelming and only a few of the students seemed to get it during the lesson. 

I found myself getting easily frustrated as the students would not stay focused and had a hard time with the information. In the future for this lesson I think that I will just focus on a little bit less information and try to present it in a way that may be easier to understand such as maybe starting with a book about maps and where they are on the map. Overall it was a great lesson learned as the lesson was quite difficult for them and they had a hard time understanding the concept. It was also a great experience as I had to control the behavior for the majority of the lesson while keeping my cool and not letting my frustrations get the best of me. I keep expecting each lesson of mine to be perfect and they never are and I have to keep reminding myself that I am a new teacher and that no lesson will ever be perfect because every class is different. 

Drayton Hall Week 6

It is hard to believe that this was my sixth trip to observe at Drayton Hall. I am still learning so much from Mrs. Fisher and I still love how great she is with the children and how she is so willing to help us learn as much as we can when we are in there. Her classroom management skills are out of this world and I feel like I am learning so much about how to manage myself. Today Allison taught her lesson which was on descriptive words. She had a powerpoint on the smart board and the children loved it! They were so chatty today and she did such a great job of bringing them back to focus and quiet down, although she did have to do it a lot. They filled out a worksheet about themselves using descriptive words and they really understood and had great and hilarious answers. I think her lesson went very well. I also got to lead all of the leveled readings for the class which is so neat. As everyone knows after out DIBELS presentation, our class is full of diverse learners as far as literacy levels go so it was amazing to be able to read with all of them and witness this first hand again.