This past week was such a fun week!
On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I had my take over days where I taught the class solo while my SP was in another room. It was a lot of fun and great learning for all!
Our math subject this week was on measurement. We worked on measuring in feet and yards and gallons/quarts/pints/cups. For our liquid measurement lesson we each colored a GallonBot and to use as a key and a study reference about how many of the smaller units make up a bigger unit!
For Social Studies, we took our Northeast test on Friday which was preceded by a fun game of "Ring That Bell," which the entire class loved! It is always a fun time!
In Science this week, we began to work on our wind packet. We learned about land and sea breezes, as well as the five wind belts. We are going to be working more on our wind packet this week. Learning more on types of winds and their strengths and what we have here in Massachusetts.
We are nearly finished with Snow Treasure, and the cliff hangers are so suspenseful! Thankfully, our class can finish it Monday to find out what happens! Lastly, we have all been working hard on writing our narratives! Great pieces are in the making!
I loved every moment of my takeover days. It was such an enlightening experience; everything they teach in the college classroom does not compare to the real thing. Classroom timing and management are key to a concrete learning experience. Even though some may think of a school day being long, those six or so hours simply fly by! Preparation for the school day is one of the most important aspects because timing can really make a day go from great to fantastic.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Learning, learning, and more learning!
Here comes an end to another week! They are flying by! A part of these week that I am most excited about and proud of is a fractions quiz that I gave the class yesterday. For some background information first, over the past two weeks I have taken over teaching math with the focus being adding/subtracting fractions and mixed numbers (with and without regrouping) as well as decomposing fractions. Through these two weeks there were many crests and a few troughs, but everything went well! My co-teacher, Cassie, and I planned a centers review lesson with both of our classes on Thursday incorporating all our fraction skills and mixed in some weather knowledge! We are really trying to improve our skills on teaching together and give the students the best learning experience. The quizzes yesterday made me feel so great because... the students all did SO well! Each quiz just made my smile grow more and more!
The fractions quiz marks the end of my TWS unit and now it is time to start showing the growth of the students and their knowledge of fractions :) My TWS is such a daunting task, but I am so glad I have my co-teacher with me because without her, I would be lost in the see of paperwork we have to complete!
As for the "fit" part of "fit and teaching," I am back to the gym and loving it. Balance is key to life and making time for what is important to you. I was really happy to see my numbers not decline too much in my powerlifts because I can still deadlift at least 225 lbs!
This week we also had a dictionary skills test where the students also did a fantastic job!!
The week after February vacation is going the be the week of my three take over days. I am quite excited to have this experience and am trying to not let my nerves get the best of me! There are a lot of fun lessons being planned, and we are going to be diving into a measurement unit in math and wind in science!
In the words of my SP: don't practice, prepare! This February vacation is going to have a lot of preparation for the 25th-1st!
As for the "fit" part of "fit and teaching," I am back to the gym and loving it. Balance is key to life and making time for what is important to you. I was really happy to see my numbers not decline too much in my powerlifts because I can still deadlift at least 225 lbs!
Friday, February 8, 2013
Successful 3rd Week
I have just completed my 3rd week of student teaching! It has been an amazing ride so far. My SP, supervising practitioner, and the students are absolutely amazing!
I am slowly teaching more and more of the subjects such as spelling, English, Reader's Workshop, and Math. One of the broadest subjects is reader's workshop. There is so much that goes into making it so spectacular. One of the most amazing aspects of this classroom's Reader's Workshop is that it is a formulated reading curriculum, but was created to fit the needs of the classroom to help them grow as readers. At the beginning of each Reader's Workshop there is a part that we call "Housekeeping," this gives the students time to write journal entries on the books they have read, track what types of books they are reading and where they were set, look for new books to put in their book bags, and for the teacher to do status of the class and see what progress they are making in their books. Honestly, I could go on and on about the layers that Reader's Workshop has.
Many of the other subjects have multiple layers as well. In my first week, trying to keep track of all of them seemed like a very daunting task. Even our morning work has so many parts, like morning yoga and keeping track of homework with stickers! Now, though, it has worked itself into almost being second nature, which is what I was hoping for! I still may forget parts, but every day is a new learning experience!
Lastly, I taught a math lesson that is part of my Teacher Work Sample (TWS) that went extremely well! In order to follow the Common Core, the 4th grade teachers get together to make a math curriculum that aligns with the standards, which I (and the other student teacher, my co-teacher) were part of. We had to adjust out fractions curriculum in order to have everything the Core requires. Yesterday's lesson was on decomposing fractions. I loved this lesson because it had layers, which I am learning a lot about! We started off with turning and talking about what we think decomposing means because we saw it the day prior on our pre-assessment. Some students "hit the nail on the head" while others were in the ballpark, which was great!
After we discussed, I used our document projector with shape tiles to try and represent what is going on in decomposition and had the students write on their white board slates what they think a hexagon (6/6) could be decomposed into (1/6+1/6+1/6...)
We followed our slate work with a video from Learnzillion.com to help give moving visual representation of decomposing.Half way through the video I did a comprehension check to see if the idea of decomposition is becoming clearer by asking for answers to a decomposition question and most of us were really getting it! After completion of the video, we completed a worksheet as a class (as I was writing their answers on my paper under the document projector) and then we did some more slate work for problems!
The class was really excited about decomposing fractions! Lastly, the students paired up to complete a worksheet with both fractions and mixed numbers. I told them to see me before moving onto the mixed number side to see if they were understanding it. While some students worked, I worked with another student 1-on-1 to make the concept concrete. When the students finished, I called on students to write their answers on the board and we went through each problem together.
I then transitioned our class into Reader's Workshop and read two chapters of our Interactive Read-Aloud, Snow Treasure, followed by an open response completed by the students.
It really was such a great day! I could go further on the day, but now I am sitting cozily because of the snow day!
Forever learning.
I am slowly teaching more and more of the subjects such as spelling, English, Reader's Workshop, and Math. One of the broadest subjects is reader's workshop. There is so much that goes into making it so spectacular. One of the most amazing aspects of this classroom's Reader's Workshop is that it is a formulated reading curriculum, but was created to fit the needs of the classroom to help them grow as readers. At the beginning of each Reader's Workshop there is a part that we call "Housekeeping," this gives the students time to write journal entries on the books they have read, track what types of books they are reading and where they were set, look for new books to put in their book bags, and for the teacher to do status of the class and see what progress they are making in their books. Honestly, I could go on and on about the layers that Reader's Workshop has.
Many of the other subjects have multiple layers as well. In my first week, trying to keep track of all of them seemed like a very daunting task. Even our morning work has so many parts, like morning yoga and keeping track of homework with stickers! Now, though, it has worked itself into almost being second nature, which is what I was hoping for! I still may forget parts, but every day is a new learning experience!
Lastly, I taught a math lesson that is part of my Teacher Work Sample (TWS) that went extremely well! In order to follow the Common Core, the 4th grade teachers get together to make a math curriculum that aligns with the standards, which I (and the other student teacher, my co-teacher) were part of. We had to adjust out fractions curriculum in order to have everything the Core requires. Yesterday's lesson was on decomposing fractions. I loved this lesson because it had layers, which I am learning a lot about! We started off with turning and talking about what we think decomposing means because we saw it the day prior on our pre-assessment. Some students "hit the nail on the head" while others were in the ballpark, which was great!
After we discussed, I used our document projector with shape tiles to try and represent what is going on in decomposition and had the students write on their white board slates what they think a hexagon (6/6) could be decomposed into (1/6+1/6+1/6...)
We followed our slate work with a video from Learnzillion.com to help give moving visual representation of decomposing.Half way through the video I did a comprehension check to see if the idea of decomposition is becoming clearer by asking for answers to a decomposition question and most of us were really getting it! After completion of the video, we completed a worksheet as a class (as I was writing their answers on my paper under the document projector) and then we did some more slate work for problems!
The class was really excited about decomposing fractions! Lastly, the students paired up to complete a worksheet with both fractions and mixed numbers. I told them to see me before moving onto the mixed number side to see if they were understanding it. While some students worked, I worked with another student 1-on-1 to make the concept concrete. When the students finished, I called on students to write their answers on the board and we went through each problem together.
I then transitioned our class into Reader's Workshop and read two chapters of our Interactive Read-Aloud, Snow Treasure, followed by an open response completed by the students.
It really was such a great day! I could go further on the day, but now I am sitting cozily because of the snow day!
Forever learning.
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