Week Three

I got to teach my first 30 minute lesson this week!! My topic was on characters so the lesson was pretty straight forward and easy to teach. The children did a great job during the lesson though! They paid attention the entire time and even raised their hands to answer my questions. I believe my cooperating teacher must have done a really great job at the beginning of the year with what she expects from them, and how to behave when inside a classroom. The only messy part of my lesson was at the end. The end of my lesson plan had the children sharing their pictures with one another, but when I got to that part I realized that the children still needed to put their material cups away, turn in their papers to me, and then have a seat back onto the carpet. Since I had not planned on this the children were up out of their seats and doing the above things in no real order. Again I realize I am mostly to blame for this transition and therefore next time I plan a lesson I need to make sure my stopping point is when Mrs. E takes back over.

In our reading this week, Technique 30 (Tight Transitions) really stuck out to me. This is the technique that has to do with transitions and of course that is what our third field experience is all about. The children in Mrs. E's class are very good when it comes to times of transitions. Again she must have spent a lot of time at the beginning of the year teaching the children when to line up, where to line up, how to walk in the halls, and how to enter/exit the classroom. The children always know that they are to return to the carpet when they enter back into the classroom from everywhere else in the school. Mrs. E also uses helpers to make the transitions more smooth. She has a line leader, and a door holder. Of course the kids really love being able to help and having someone at both of these "posts" really keeps all the children in line and going where they should.

Week Two in the field

I had a really great time while out in the field this week!!! I got to be very interactive with the children and therefore the time just flew by!! Kerri and I got to accompany the children to their special area again this week. Every week they rotate which special area they attend, so music for 5 days, gym for five days and then art for five days. This week was gym week, but instead of getting to see a kindergarten gym class we got to witness health screening and testing. They got their eyes checked, ears checked, and height/weight recorded. What was awesome about this was that I got to help a volunteer give the children their sight tests. I would stand right next to the child while the other volunteer would be further away next to the sight chart. The reason I was so close to the children was so that I could understand what they were saying if they spoke to softly. Good idea huh? I also found it cool that the sight chart was full of pictures instead of letters!!! Of course some young children might not know all the letters of the alphabet yet and therefore using pictures to test their sight is a genius idea!! Well at least I was impressed! :) The other fun thing I got to do with the children this week was a one on one activity where each child got to make a hand print. I would pull each student aside during the lesson, paint their hand with blue paint, and then have them press it down onto an individual piece of paper. I thought this was great because not only did I get to have a moment with each individual child, but it was also an opportunity for me to learn the children's names. The children had a lot of fun with the activity and I really enjoyed being able to work with them one on one.

The techniques we read about this week were Cold Call, and Call and Response. Since I worked individually with the children this week I sort of missed out on watching our teacher give her lesson in the afternoon. I do not have a sense of what techniques she uses yet when calling on the children. I will definitely keep both of these in mind this week while I am observing her though. I teach my first lesson this Thursday and I am going to try to use the "Format Matters" technique that we learned about early this semester. When I receive a one word answer from my students, I am going to ask them to please put their answer in a complete sentence. I will let you know how that goes...fingers crossed!!!

First week in the Field! Sept. 13th

The first thing I noticed about SPANN Elementary was that it is HUGE! I think there are about 6 classrooms per grade!!! The school seems to have a great administration as well. The principal introduced herself to all of us when we arrived and they even gave us a little school notepad to make us feel like we were now apart of their team! :)

I think I am going to learn a lot this semester from my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Eustace. She has taught both 4th grade and 1st grade before she became a kindergarten teacher. Her students are very well behaved and really seem to know the routines of the classroom even though school has only been in two weeks. I look forward to getting to know her and her students better as the weeks go now!

Our reading in the Lemov book this week was all about "I/We/You" teaching. I believe this philosophy is a must have when it comes to early childhood teaching. Children learn best when the teacher first models the activity, then helps them with the activity, and then sets them free to do the activity on their own. It really is and really always should be a process of gradually releasing the information instead of just throwing it at them. I try to follow this philosophy when planning my lessons but I know I have a long way to go before I am a "good" teacher! :) I really enjoy reading the Lemov book though, and look forward to picking up other tricks that I can use inside my classroom.

Blog entry #1 - Sept 5th

What do I expect from this semester's field placement?

I did not get my first choice this semester when it came to the grade level I wanted to have my field experience in. My first choice was 1st grade, and my second choice was CD. I wanted first grade because I really think the grade I want to teach when I get out is Kindergarten and therefore I wanted to experience one grade higher to see what the children would be like and how they might differ from children only one year younger. I ended up getting placed in a CD class though this semester and I can honestly say that I am now very excited about my placement! I have never worked with four year olds before so I am quite excited to see what they will be like as well. It will be very interesting for me to see what preschool vs. kindergarten programs are like.

My reaction to our class' performances of Lemov's techniques -

So far I really like the "Teach like a Champion" text. I feel that all of the techniques we read about this past week will be useful to us as teachers. I do believe that we will have to use our own judgement as to when to use them, and which one to use at that given moment. I found it very helpful to watch all our classmates come up with and perform the techniques on their own. It just went to show us that these techniques are easy to use if we just take a moment to think about them and apply them. Now of course it will be much harder to do on the fly while teaching a lesson, but hopefully if they are always on our mind we will be able to use them from time to time. I definitely will try to use at least two of them during the lessons I teach this semester. My favorites are "No opt out" and Right is right". I think both of these could be used easily inside an early childhood classroom.