Literacy Lesson - Problem and Solution

By: Alejandra Govea 

11/19/21 

The students were happy to see me and I was excited to teach my lesson plan. I did not teach until 12pm so the students started off with using their Chromebook and solving math problems. The teacher took some groups aside to work on some things independently. If the students were done early, they were able to read a book using an application on their chrome book. The teacher then read them a book and they had to act out the scene. This made the students more engaged by acting out other people’s voices during a reading. I was so excited because I had planned for them to role play in my literacy lesson. 

During my lesson plan the students were so actively engaged and participating in class when I did the anticipatory set and direct instruction which made it easier for us to do the guided practice together and independent practice on their own. Once I started with the guided practice, the students were going crazy. It went from shouting to interrupting to sitting wrong to talking back to other students. This is when my mind was everywhere I was stuck. I did not know what I was thinking of because they lost me. I had to set expectations AGAIN and give them strikes. The students were still misbehaving but I was able to go through the guided practice and independent work.

Field Experience- Cordova

 Hi Everyone!

This was my week off, I took the time to observe the students during Math to see how that teacher manages the class. We were also able to meet after school to discuss possible topics for my lesson. I was nervous at first because Math is not really my strong suit but after meeting with the teacher today I am feeling a lot more confident. Today was a pretty busy work day for the students, since tomorrow they are having a class party before Thanksgiving break. They are lucky and get the entire week off! One of the students who has been having behavior issues was pulled out of the classroom today by the assistant principal. He had to spend the whole day in the office and do his work in there. My MT informed me that they have done this before and the student still continues his behavior once he is back in the classroom. I wonder why they continue the same disciplinary actions if it does not seem to be effective. 

For Science, the students are learning about the lifecycle of a butterfly and there are caterpillars in the classroom. They are in their cocoons
now and we are predicting that they will come out over break. The students are excited to release the adult butterflies and watch them fly away. I also got to teach a lesson today on identifying words with double consonants in a short story. At the end of the day, the students watched a video on how to be confident in yourself and recognize all of the great characteristics you have. They then made a rainbow with 4 positive characteristics that they wrote about themselves beginning with I am. 

Have a great Thanksgiving! 😊

Week #12 by Aranis Samra

    Lesson Day! Today was my fourth lesson, and it focused on literacy. For the first time, I could declare that I was not anxious and that I was confident in my ability to teach my topic. My sequencing lesson went well, and the students enjoyed my anticipatory set. I brought a toothbrush, toothpaste, a cup, and a pretend sink from my kids' toys, and the kids got to explore their prior knowledge of brushing their teeth to discover how sequencing works and how things get strange or feel incorrect if we don't follow steps. This week, I owe a debt of gratitude to my MT, who worked closely with me to ensure that my lesson did not exceed their grade level of comprehension and, most importantly, their reading level. That was really essential to me since I didn't want anyone to feel left out or incapable of completing the job. Throughout the class, the kids were engaged and extremely active, and I was really satisfied with their good behavior and the amount of attention they paid to the subject. They like writing in their journals and illustrating their bat knowledge.

    In the last few lessons, I believe I've gained a lot of confidence and understanding about what I'm doing. It's true what they say about getting comfortable with the students every day; I can attest to that. It's the thing that has benefited me the most in my day-to-day interactions with students, I believe. Not only via my personal experience, but also through my work as a substitute teacher in my district. Something I want to improve for my final lesson is my lesson plan writing; I want it to be great, and I hope that I am just as confident and comfortable in my next one as I was in this one. As the days pass, I become wistful because I've grown to love the kids; they're so kind and inviting it will be difficult to leave them at the end of the semester. If there's one thing I've learned from this experience, it's how much I like my job and how gratifying it is.

A Lesson on Perspective- Sylvia L. Bradshaw

Today was an interesting day to say the least.  I was so excited to see the scholars, especially since I had not seen them for two weeks, only to find out that half of the classroom was absent due to one positive COVID case. There were only twelve students out of the twenty two that are usually in the classroom and I must say that I did miss having everyone there.  Although there were less student in the room, the classroom routines remain unchanged, in fact they went just a bit faster because there are less students going to the bathroom, and less time spent lining up to transition to other activities. 

I was able to work with two students today on adding two digit numbers. I was happy to see that after the 20 minutes of this lesson that I was able to see a little growth in the students' knowledge. One thing that I noticed working with these two girls is that even though they are two of the lower performers for this subject, I still had to differentiate the instruction between the two of them.  One of the girls needed a lot more visual modeling.  I used the whiteboard with her and had her try to follow my directions step by step so that she was able to get the repetition that was needed to complete the math problems and eventually be able to complete the problems on her own.  It was exciting to help the girls and give them a couple tips that they could use in their future.

Towards the end of the day I taught my first literacy lesson on perspective.  I was restless the night before thinking of all the things I wanted to make sure that I covered in my lesson. I woke up out of my sleep at three o'clock in the morning and started entering notes in my phone that I didn't want to forget for my lesson.  The funny thing is, I didn't feel nervous at all but, I mind was racing with thoughts and I just had to write them down.  Parts of the lesson when really well and then I believe with it being the end of a long day the students were getting a bit board and that is something I was not expecting.  Starting with the positive, I started the lesson with optical illusion pictures to demonstrate the idea of perspective.  I showed a total of three photos and had the students tell me what they saw in the picture.  I made sure to tell them that there was not wrong answer so that they were comfortable answering confidently.  The students loved this activity and you should have seen the look on their faces when they saw the other hidden picture.  I even did something as  simple has having two students standing face to face and putting a printed six in the middle of them and having them tell me what number they saw.  I feel that this was the perfect intro to my lesson. I also think that the book that I choose by Anthony Browne Voices in the Park was an excellent book to have as a read aloud.  This book looks at a day in the park of two families, from four different perspective.  The author of the book is also the illustrator and his pictures and creative imagery gives this book life.  There are so many things to infer from the pictures and so many different tiny details to discover while reading.  I enjoyed getting the students away from their desk and setting with me in a semicircle so that we were able to have an intimate discussion on the book.  This was another area that worked well to have less students in the room.

Overall the day was good, I hope that after the break all the students will be back in the classroom. I'm already thinking about my last literacy lesson and how to make it a bit more exciting for the students because it will take place at the same time of day.

 

Week 12: Eleventh Day in the Classroom

Week 12: Eleventh Day in the Classroom

Date: Thursday, November 18^th, 2021

By: Monica Schrank  

This week I got to teach my fourth lesson to the students. They finished reading The First Thanksgiving book, while also summarizing and gathering the important details from the section that I read to them in class. The summarization part was what I was worried about, but since this was the students’ fourth time summarizing the text using the summarization key word starters (somebody, wanted, but, so then) the students knew exactly what key details to take from the section we read for the summarization of that section in the book. The students also did a Nearpod activity which they really enjoyed. This was my first time using Nearpod, and I thought it went really well! The students were using their book to be “text detectives” to find the answers to the questions either for a quiz, typing or speaking their response or even drawing a picture to answer the question. The students were able to learn about the importance of The First Thanksgiving while also practicing their summarization skills.

 During math, the students were learning how to add using a number line by figuring out how to get a given number to the next whole ten number then learning how many they ‘jump’ or add on to get the end result. About half the class needed more help with this math concept. That said, my MT and I split the students up that needed more help and we worked with them in groups on the math concept. I noticed that by having the students use a hundreds chart as a tool to refer back to as they are figuring out how many tens to add to get, it was very helpful for them to visually understand how many ones and tens to add by drawing the lines across for ones and down for tens. MT teacher and I spent a good amount of time helping the students while the rest of the class worked individually on the math problems. The students that my MT and I worked with were able to understand the concept more after we went step by step to figure out the problem.

During guided reading this week, I met individually with four students as they read three passages for me for their reading fluency. I was able to meet with the students that are higher academically, and they did very well with their reading fluency. However, one of the students kept reading fast just to get more words in but kept missing words along the way. Another student would read one line and not move down and pick back up at the line ahead of where he should be reading. I mentioned to this student that they should use their finger to help them read so they follow along and do not accidently move up a line. All of the students that I met with improved with how many words that they used to read in a minute which my MT was going to provide for each student during parent teacher conference next week. Overall, this was a busy day filled with so much learning, reviewing, and helping the students to improve in their understanding of what they are learning.

What Do You Think?

 By: Melissa Cabrales

Thursday, November 18, 2021

    Today I taught my first literacy lesson. I was nervous because I knew I was first to teach on the schedule at 10a. I was well prepared and ready to go with my lesson when it was time. I really enjoyed this lesson because it was fun, interactive, and the students learned something new. My lesson was on inferencing. I taught them how we can make inferences depending on the music in movies and t.v. shows and in books when we use text evidence and schema which is our prior knowledge. The students really liked the book I chose for the read aloud. They were laughing and having fun all throughout the reading. It was a fun book! I showed them a game called splash the sub which gave scenarios and whichever teacher that was clicked on that was holding the correct inference, got to get splashed with a water balloon. It was a fun but educational game. I also had them play a Kahoot! during the IP and the students really enjoyed it. I think any time the teachers can do something with technology instead of a boring worksheet, it's definitely worth it. The kids are so engaged. This was my best lesson to date. I felt so comfortable and really had a good understanding of what and how I wanted to teach it. 

After my lesson was done, I got to work one-on-one with a student who's reading at the 1st grade level in second grade. I like being able to work with him because I know he needs a lot of extra help and I found ways to motivate him. He likes when I set goals for him and make a game out of the work he has to complete. I feel that when he thinks it's more of a game than learning, he can have fun with it and he's more encouraged to work harder. I set goals for him because it motivates him to try. I started off with an easy goal and every time he hit the goal, I would set a new goal. I told him I would bring him a treat the next time I came for working so hard and hitting all his goals....and he asked for Takis. This made me laugh. Kids and their hot chips! 😂 

After lunch the students began working on Thanksgiving activities. They were able to watch a virtual field trip with the National Geographic Channel and learned about the Native Americans and the different tribes. They got to see how Native Americans look today and the work they do on their farms. A young woman spoke about how she became a journalist to to be able to tell the real stories of people from different tribes and not have fake news out there misrepresenting them. I'm so excited for Thanksgiving. I can't wait to eat all my mom's cooking and get a break from school work while enjoying time off with my family. This break is much needed so I can finish strong this semester when we come back after the holiday!

Week 10: First time with a sub!

Week 9

Alexandra Slater

Thursday, November 18th 

    Today when I walked into the classroom we had another new student! This is our 4th new student of the year. As usual, I introduced myself and ensured he was supported the whole day because today was only his second day. I worked individually with him on math on foundations. I explained to him that everyday we will be doing math, literacy, and foundations. He seems to be adjusting well already which is great! Besides our new student, I did my typical routine of the morning opener, yellow book, and foundations. I really enjoy doing foundations! Doing foundations is probably my favorite part of the day. My MT had a doctors appointment today so she left at lunch time. We had a sub come in during lunch which I introduced myself to and helped her get ready for the afternoon. The students had some behavior issues with the sub so luckily I was there to help her and put them in check. I had to have a couple students clip down because they had been asked multiple times by the sub to pay attention or not shout out. These are rules and procedures they already know. It seems with this class whenever the teacher leaves they think it can become silly time. With that being said, it's important to set the rules and expectations for the students as soon as my MT leaves the room or when you are in charge. We did a lot of thanksgiving activities today which I found a little strange because I thought we weren't allowed to celebrate specific holidays at school? I also heard the word Indiana serval times, which I know now a days isn't appropriate. So, I thought that was pretty interesting. We made handprint turkeys and read a story on the first thanksgiving as well as mini stories on thanksgiving. 

    Overall, it was a great day! Im glad I got the experience to work with a sub and see how the class acts when their teacher is gone. My MT and I discussed my lesson plan for when we return December 2nd. This allows me to have the whole thanksgiving break to work on it and get it done so it is perfect! Below I attached some drawings the students made for me! <3 They're the sweetest and I am seriously going to miss them when this experience is over. 

Week 11: Tenth Day in the Classroom

Week 11: Tenth Day in the Classroom

Date: Thursday, November 11^th, 2021

By: Monica Schrank  

This week was fun day in the classroom. During math, the students were learning how to subtract with re-grouping using a number line. The students first reviewed subtracting using a hundreds chart which made it easier for them to visually understand how to subtract by tens and ones. Some of the students were adding instead of subtracting, so I worked individually with a group of students focusing on the concept of going up on the hundreds chart because you are subtracting and the number is getting smaller (as opposed to going down where the number is getting bigger). This concept can be difficult for students to understand which is why it is important to use visual representations (a hundreds chart) and to review constantly with them because this is new for them. The more practice we give students on learning new skills, the easier it will be for them to understand and master the skills

Since I taught the students about the ocean habitat last week, my MT asked if I wanted to teach them about the arctic habitat. I put together some information on a PowerPoint about the temperature, plants, animals, and how the arctic is changing due to the warming of the climate. The students were so engaged and loved using their science notebook to write down the information that they heard about plants and animals in the arctic. When I talked about an animal that lives in the arctic, they shouted the name of the animal and wrote it in their science notebook. You could tell it was fun for them because it helped them to be more engaged and focused during the lesson to keep an eye or ear out for the different animals or plants that live in the arctic.

For Daily 5 this week I got to meet individually again with three groups of students. The students were practicing their nonsense words. The first group of students I met with had more difficult nonsense words because they are the more higher-level students academically. The lowest group academically had nonsense words plus real words that had the same vowel sound being pronounced in the nonsense words to better understand and pronounce the words. For each group, we highlighted the vowel sound which was a short or long ‘a’ (depending on the group) to make it easier for the students to pronounce the nonsense words.  

            The students were practicing their writing skills today by re-writing their stories about fall. The students were only rewriting the first part of the paper such as the attention getter(s) and topic sentence. One of the things I thought was a really fun idea was that my MT had the students put on plastic glasses (without lenses) which were called their "Zoom Zone" glasses to ‘zoom in closer to their writing’ while they used their writing buddies which was ring that they wore that had eyeballs on it to help them to track their writing and use special handwriting pencils. The little writing buddies helped the students to see what they were writing and helped them to catch any spelling or grammatical errors while writing. The students were so excited to use these materials as they wrote to help them to be more focused an engaged, and I could tell it did help the students a lot. The littlest of things that teachers can do in the classroom to help the students to enjoy an activity is very important to help them to want to do the activity more and make it more fun for them.

Week 10 by Aranis Samra

    I got to teach for this week. I had the opportunity to teach social studies, and I think it was a fantastic experience. The students loved it a lot; they liked the concept of goods and services, and they appreciated working in groups. Because of the covid restrictions, they don't do it very often. I believed my instruction was okay; it might have been better, but I gained a lot of knowledge from it. I need to improve on my performance more. I believe everything goes okay, but when it comes to the end of the lesson, I'm more concerned with what I have to say than with simply being myself, which makes me uneasy and makes me feel like I'm being repetitious.

    So in my list of things to improve for the next weeks definitely would be my focus on the lesson to be when I write it and my focus on teaching to be myself. I'm not sure why I get anxious while delivering my lessons since I'm so comfortable with the kids and teaching them on a daily basis. Perhaps it's the observation component that's affecting me. I am glad for this chance because he has taught me so much about being in the field. I believe that being in a position where we have a relationship with kids, professors, and the entire school environment gives you a new perspective on your job. I enjoy being in classrooms, working with children, and being at a school.

Week 9 By Aranis Samra

    In small groups galore, I had the opportunity to participate in two small group lessons this week. I got to witness my MT working on a simple division and reading activity. We utilized little rainbow chips and dry erase boards in the math small group to focus on division. I was highly engaging, and we provide students with a variety of ways. I had the opportunity to take a turn and participate in the small group activity.

    What I like about watching my MT is that I can see how she divides each group and students into those who are in the same math levels. I also had the opportunity to participate in the guided reading and instruct children on how to read and practice their trick words. Something I'm more comfortable doing when I'm proved is taking command. In the following weeks, I aim to improve my transitions and make them more fluent in my lesson plans. This week was really helpful in helping me comprehend the notion of small group lessons and how crucial they are in leading classroom work. Something I'm proud of is the relationship I've built with the students, and how grateful they are for it.

Week 10: Ninth Day in the Classroom

Week 10: Ninth Day in the Classroom

Date: Sunday, November 7^th, 2021

By: Monica Schrank  

This week was my third day of teaching the students, which was about the ocean habitat, specifically the three ocean zones. I was a little worried about this lesson because I was unsure if the students would be interested or would understand the ocean zones, their characteristics and the creatures that belong in the different ocean zone. However, I was blown away that when I first introduced the ocean zones to the students, a few of the kids already knew what the ocean zones were called which made me feel so excited because they had this prior knowledge. As I continued to teach the students about the different characteristics of the ocean zones, they were so interested and excited that they kept asking me questions and talking about them. This made me feel so excited because they were not only learning more information but they were also teaching me and the other students what they knew about the different characteristics of the ocean zones. For my guided practice, I provided three short movie clips from the movie Finding Nemo that showed each of the three different ocean zones and creatures that belonged in each of those zones. The students had to guess which zone was being shown in the movie clip which they loved because it allowed them to visually see what these ocean zones looked like. It also made learning fun for them because it was a movie clip that they have all seen before so it allowed them to make that connection. I truly enjoyed teaching my science lesson about the ocean zones to the students this week because they were so engaged and willing to learn. Because of this, I wish I could have kept teaching them more about the ocean zones since they were so interested about the ocean habitat, the three zones’ characteristics, and creatures that belong in each of those zones.

For Daily 5 this week I got to meet individually again with three groups of students. The students were practicing turning singular nouns into plural nouns which they have learned before but were reviewing. The students reviewed that a singular noun is one item and a plural noun is more than one item. The students were learning about the rules of turning a singular noun into a plural noun by just adding an 's' to the end. However, the students were struggling with the rule of if the word end in a 'x', 'z', 's', 'sh', and 'ch', then you add 'es' to the end of the word. To help the students, I asked them to pronounce the words that you add an 'es' to the end, and then pronounce that same word with an 's' at the end. For example, boxs and boxes. By having the students saying the word, they understood that the word box with an 's' did not sounds right but it sounded right with the 'es' at the end. The students were using the pronunciation trick that I taught them to explain to me that the word needed an 's' instead of an 'es' and vise versa. The students really enjoyed this lesson and wanted me to come up with words and ask them if they should add an ‘s’ or ‘es’ to the end of the word

Place Value-Sylvia L. Bradshaw

What a day!

I taught my math lesson today and I must say that it was the most comfortable that I felt doing any of my lessons. I really enjoyed the entire lesson and the students enjoyed using the value charts that I made for them.  I'm still trying to figure out what was so different about this lesson that didn't have me nervous or losing any sleep the night before.  I was confident even though math is not my favorite subject.

My goal in this lesson was to reteach place value to the lowest performing students in the class and for the rest of the class I was hoping to show them some new strategies for identifying place value.  I was surprised how excited the students were to participate in this math lesson, even the students that I was most concerned about were enthusiastic about answering the questions during the lesson and using the manipulatives to create their three-digit numbers.  I ended this lesson with a Kahoot! and I wish that I could have used my own computer to get the results from the quiz to further document the students' learning.  Although Kahoot! is a great program for review it doesn't account for user error, during the quiz I heard a few students say that they hit the wrong answer by mistake.  For this reason, I'm glad I didn't make the quiz a major part of my assessment.

Since my lesson was pretty early in the morning, my mind was at ease for the rest of the day.  I was able to observe my MT teaching three different small group lesson on this day.  It was great to see the small groups done in the progression of the students' ability levels. I saw exactly how she differentiated her instruction for each groups.  My MT is a really great teacher and I love it when I see her drift away from the curriculum and insert her own personality into her lessons.  The way that she explains things so that the students are able to understand is always impressive to me.  Her dedication to making sure that her class is managed in an orderly manner is not an easy task, it takes constant communication with the students and making sure that they adhere to her classroom expectations.

In a couple weeks I will have my first literacy lesson and I'm really looking forward to it.

 

Math lesson Complete

 Alexandra Slater

Thursday, November 4th 2021 

     Thursday was a very long day but productive day. My teacher mentor had me teach pretty much the whole morning, which I am grateful she allowed me to do and trusted me enough to do so. We started with the morning announcements and morning opener. During the morning opener, we go over the calendar, the weather, number of days we've been in school, and shapes. I made sure to let the students know that I was teaching for majority of the morning and that they needed to
give me the same respect that they give my MT. I feel I needed to addresses this because we have had classroom management issues in the past when I teach. With that being said, I made sure to be assertive and use the clip charts to my advantage. I also started doing table points with the students which motivated them to act as they should. After morning opener and announcements, we jumped into phonics. I called off letter sounds and they found them on their magnet boards. This was my first time doing this with them but I felt prepared because I have watched my MT do it with them for serval weeks now. I really liked that my MT trusted me to do this with them and I really enjoyed doing it! After that, we worked on building words and then moved onto the topic of adjectives. The topic of adjectives was the only portion of the morning that my MT wanted to teach. So I sat back and observed all that I could. After that, it was time for snack which I transitioned them to. 

    Before you know it, it was time to teach my math lesson. I was pretty nervous because math is not my strong suit but I ended up doing better then I have with my past lessons! I felt this time around for my lesson I had the class and students under control as well as their attention. I think taking the reins on most of the morning helped them be ready for me to teach. All the students were able to complete the exit ticket for my lesson correctly which was a huge accomplishment and was the objective for my lesson. Overall, this math lesson that I taught took math anxiety away for the most part and has made me feel more confident when it comes to math. 

Reading, writing, and reflecting

 By: Melissa Cabrales

Thursday, November 4, 2021

This week was an easy but fun week. I had a substitute this week and I always feel like its an easier day with a substitute even though my MT does keep a schedule for the class. Today I was able to give the read aloud reading during the literacy lesson. The students were really paying attention to this story. As I read the story, I would pause and ask them questions and they all seemed to understand what was happening in the story. This was a longer story and I was thinking they would get bored of it quick but they didn't. I think what kept them on their toes was them wanting to know how the story was going to end. I had them turn and talk with a neighbor to discuss the book and they seemed to enjoy that part. 

In the afternoon, the students completed their "scary" stories they came up with. They were given a setting, characters, and different items to write about in their story. I went around the classroom to edit the students' papers. I was actually surprised by some of their writing skills. I have already noticed that a lot of the students have improved in their writing skills since when I first started with them. This one student in particular wowed me because even though he spelled the hard words wrong, they tried by sounding them out and a lot of times, he was only off by a letter. I made sure to tell him he was doing a good job with sounding out. The best thing students can do is try when they don't have the teacher around to tell them how to spell everything. This really made me happy to see that the students were improving. 

I really enjoy being with these students every week and then I start thinking about how my time with them is ending soon. Instead of counting down the days with them, I'll count the many lessons I've learned from them. They have already taught me so much by being in the classroom with them. 

Social Studies Teaching

 This week I taught my Social Studies lesson, I introduced the topics of maps to the students. I was nervous about making the topic too complex especially since it was new to them, but they understood the material pretty well. It was difficult at first to find a topic that I could make interactive and keep the students engaged. The MT advised me that the curriculum for Social Studies was pretty complex and bland. In my lesson I had the students go into groups where they were to follow a classroom map and find the hidden treasure. Luckily the activity went pretty smoothly and the students really enjoyed the hidden treasure, which were stickers. This time I did not run out of time like I did with my last lesson, I feel like I better paced myself and made sure I was not running behind. Aside from my lesson the students are exploring the lifecycle of a butterfly and now have caterpillars in the classroom. We took a moment to explore the caterpillars and note some of the characteristics they had. I really enjoyed watching the students being excited about the activity because it reminded me of when I did it in school and how fun it was to release the butterflies. 

The class has also been discussing gratitude and what it means to be thankful for something. At first, the students kept thinking about tangible items. They would give examples such as toys and video games, they soon understood that we can be thankful for things we can not physically hold such as life and our health. This topic made for a great class discussion and once the students had a better idea of what gratitude is, it was interesting to see their insight on it. So, next week we have off so I will definitely take that time to brainstorm for next lesson plan which is Math. I think this subject is pretty straight forward and there are a lot of fun interactive activities you can do with math so I am excited. 

I hope you all enjoy this next week we have off from our field experience 😊

Guided Reading and Independent Work

 By: Alejandra Govea 

 November 4, 2021 

Today was a better day with the students' behaviors. The students were excited to see me today and it just makes me happy that they enjoy me in their classroom. I get so sad because we are close to the end of the semester which means my last day here is close. The students had to read a small paragraph and answer 4 questions. I noticed that they had a difficult time reading the paragraph and answering them. I suggested that if they needed help, we could read the paragraph together aloud. They thought that it would be better for me to read it and the questions as well. The students listened to me read the passage and questions and they had to write the answer down. 

I was able to individually help each student with individual work while my MT was taking students into guided reading. It is beneficial for them because they are getting the help that they need in groups. The students are actively engaged working on near pod learning about the statue of liberty and a refreshment of the water cycle.  The students learned about the water cycle last week when I taught them. They were interested in designing their own. I even heard a student sing the water cycle song that I introduced to them. This makes me happy to know that the students learned.

Week 9: Another new student!

 Alexandra Slater

week 9

On Thursday we had another new student! I introduced myself to her and as a class we did a talking circle. In the talking circle we said our name, favorite food, and an activity we enjoy. She seemed to settle into the class nicely. I supported her during math, phonics, and writing. She is going to need extra support and time to catch up to the other students but besides that I think she is going to do great! It was a lot of work though bouncing back from her and to the other new student who started a few weeks ago. Our other new student who started a few weeks ago is moving down to kindergarten so he needs a lot of help and support during the day. He has also become very dependent on me when I am there which makes it difficult to help other students when they need it.

Besides that, I taught my second lesson which was social studies! I had the chance to teach the students school rules. I think it overall went pretty well. Students were engaged and excited about my lesson. At the end of the lesson I had them complete a T chart and all students were able to complete the T chart with 3 school rules minus 2 groups. The two groups completed 2 of 3 rules on the T chart. Moving forward on my next lesson plan, I really need to make sure the students are giving me the same respect they give my MT. The students always believe its time to get silly and be talkative when I teach. At first, i thought my teacher was a little harsh on the students but now i know she does it because if not then the students believe they can do whatever they want. I need to become more strict and stern with my students like my MT does because none of my lessons will go smoothly if i have to constantly stop and tell them to pay attention and stop talking.  Overall, Im glad may students learned a lot from my lesson and enjoyed it! Next up is my math lesson, I am nervous!  Hope everyone is doing well! We are half way there!!! :)