Day 27: Happy Halloween!!

October 30, 2015

Today was the Halloween celebration at school! The students arrived and were ready to celebrate all day long. The teachers got to wear their costumes all day (myself and two other teachers were the witches from the movie Hocus Pocus). The students brought their costumes to school and changed after lunch. The whole class was not in the mood to focus and my co-op adjusted for that. First thing in the morning the class went to their Library special and when they got bock we had a morning meeting and did the weekly spelling test. After that the Halloween celebrating began. We went over to the 2nd grade classroom and did a Frankenstein craft. When that was done we moved down to 4th grade. Myself and the other intern planned an integrated lesson. Each 1st grader was paired with a 4th grader. The older students helped the younger students make a hand print painting of a witch or vampire (student's choice). When the painting was done the students worked together to collaborate on a story about their witch or vampire. The 4th grade students did the writing. When they were done the pair went to the front of the room to share their painting and their writing (pictures to come). This activity went really well. One thing that I really wanted my first graders to gain from this was practicing their descriptive story telling. A lot of their writing is very basic and lacks detail. The 4th grade students did a great job at prompting them with questions to make them think of materiel to add.

The students skipped recess and went to lunch early. After lunch was over parents began arriving to join in the Halloween fun, volunteer to run activities and to help students change into their costumes. After everyone was dressed we did a two-block parade around town as an entire school. We then made our way outside for carnival games where students won candy and treats. The day concluded with a Halloween snack in the cafeteria paired with a presentation from a theater group Popcorn Hat Players. Students had the opportunity to participate on stage and interact with the lady narrating. Overall, it was a great day and it was obvious how much fun the students had. Next week though its back to a full week of "classes".

Happy Halloween!!

Day 26: Running Records

October 29,2015

Today while the class was doing their reading centers I pulled two students out (one at a time) to do running records. The classroom teacher was trying to decide on whether or not it was time to move those 2 students up a level in reading. She uses Reading A-Z. I've done running records with this program before so I was already familiar with how it worked. As much as I'd like to think running records provide a concrete answer on what level the student's reading is, after today my opinion has really changed.

Mike's* Running Record
95 word book
16 errors
4 self corrections

Accuracy- 83%....this would put him in the "Frustrational" category.
If a teacher saw this raw information she would move Mike* down a level and re-do a running record.

Insight: 8 of the 16 errors were exactly the same. Mike said "fast" instead of "faster" on every page in the book. If you only count this as 1 error and not 8, changes Mike's* Accuracy to a 91%. This would put this level text into an instructional level.

The book was about different animals. 2 of the animals used were not on a 1st grade reading level (in my and my co-op's opinion); tortoise and antelope. These also added on 4 more errors (both animal names were used twice).

My co-op decided that we would retest early next week on the same level just with another book. She had very similar views on the possible skewed results. I do find running records very helpful and for the most part fairly accurate; however, I do believe that you have to analyze the errors and recalculate based on that evaluation.

We also finally had our final production of the This is a Moose play that the class has been working on. They all did great!! We had a few parents that came and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade classes. Hopefully by next week it will be up online for all to see.

Day 25: Pumpkin Day!

October 27, 2015

Today was Pumpkin Day in first grade!! The whole afternoon was filled with pumpkin stations. The students began by "picking" their own pumpkin (off of the carpet not from a patch). The class was then broke up into 3 groups. We made sure to mix up the groups up from their everyday reading groups. This gave the students the ability to work with a different set of peers. There were 3 stations the students rotated between. They were all math and science related.

At the first station there was a pumpkin cut open. Each student made a prediction of how many seeds were going to be inside. They as a class then counted all of the seeds. Each student counted seeds into groups of ten and put each group into a plastic cup. After all three groups went through we counted the cups by tens to get the total number.

At the second station students began by predicting if their pumpkin would sink or float. I thought that everyone would predict their pumpkin would sink, however there was a good mixture of answers. We had a container of water on the table and each student took a turn placing their pumpkin in. A lot of them were surprised when their "heavy" pumpkin floated on the top. The second portion of this station was weighing their pumpkin. Each kid weighed them self on the scale, then weighed them self again while holding their pumpkin. Using subtraction they found the weight of their pumpkins.

The final station was all about measurement. Students measured the height of their pumpkin using cubes, and measured the circumference using yarn and a yard stick. They then went into the hall and made a prediction about their pumpkin rolling in a straight line or not. Everyone then got the opportunity to roll their pumpkin and mark how far it went with masking tape. They were all very engaged in this and enjoyed the "competition" aspect of who's pumpkin rolled the furthest.

After all the stations were complete everyone got to paint their pumpkin. This was a great conclusion to Pumpkin Day and it was fun to see how each student's pumpkin was decorated differently.

Day 24: Extended Excused Absences

October 26, 2015

Today was the first time in over 2 weeks that we had a full class of students. There have been kids out sick and 3 students had extended excused absences in the past month. One student spent a week in Disney, another spent a week in Boston and another spent 2 weeks in Hawaii. Students get absences of this length approved ahead of time. This allows them to also get their work in advance. This is nice because they don't get as far behind. However, it is challenging from the teacher's point of view to prepare work for a single student two weeks in advance. Two students returned from trips today and I spent the beginning of the day correcting their many packets of work. Each of them had an error here and there but there were no major issues with specific topics. This indicated to us that they are able to take the tests they missed while they were gone. Since there are multiple we will spread them out through the week so they are not overwhelmed with so many in one day.

It is definitely difficult when students miss school, for both the student and the teacher. You have to add in to your daily plans upon their return on how to get them back on track. Students also get out of their usual school routine.

We have an exciting week ahead of us. It may be challenging to keep the class' attention throughout some of the days because they have a lot to look forward to.

Tomorrow is Pumpkin Day.
Thursday is the This is a Moose Play
Friday is the Halloween Parade and Carnival

I'm excited for this week, I can't imagine how the students are feeling!

Day 23: White House

October 22, 2015

Today I taught the second lesson in my American Symbols unit. We learned about the White House. I was very pleased with how everything went. The students were very engaged in the virtual tour we did. On the virtual tour the students looked at a colorful blueprint of the house and they each got to choose 3 rooms to explore as a whole class. It was interesting/surprising to see which rooms some students were interested in. For example, on the final floor of the tour there was one student left to pick his final room to visit. Some of the rooms left were the Music Room, the Workout Room, various bedrooms and the last room that student wanted to view was the Storage area. Out of all the rooms the class got to view there was one room that they were disappointed they couldn't get a look at; a White House bathroom. To conclude the section of the lesson using the SmartBoard, we used Google to look at what a White House bathroom looks like. When the class was done we completed White House graphic organizers as a class (see pictures below). As I was teaching I made some changes from my original lesson plan. For example, I originally allowed more time to work on the graphic organizers so that there would be time for the students to draw pictures to accompany the text on their graphic organizers. However, after seeing how engaged they were during the virtual tour I decided it was more beneficial to spend more time on that. Overall, I was pleased with how the lesson went. One suggestion I had from my co-op after my first lesson was to allow more "wait time/think time" for the students after asking a question. This was something I tried to be conscious of during this lesson.

We continued to practice our This is a Moose play. We set a final performance date of one week from today, October 29th. Letters are going to be sent home to the parents to invite them to come in, and the elementary grade classrooms are also invited to attend next week. We began practicing on the stage in the cafeteria. The students seemed to really enjoy this change of scenery and in my opinion they put more "life" into their lines and acting.

Next week we should finally have a full class. This has not happened in over 2 weeks due to illness and extended excused absences (I will discuss this in more detail in my next post).

Day 22: Early Dismissal

October 20, 2015

Yesterday construction started outside of the school to fix the water main. There was a lot of noise yesterday, and we knew today it wasn't going to be much better. The principal discussed the situation during the morning announcements and told students to try and tune out the noise and stay focused on what is going on in class. Around 10:45 the principal made another announcement that the water was going to be shut off for approximately an hour. Luckily, 10 minutes prior to that the secretary had come to our room and gave us a heads up. We sent the whole class to use the restrooms and get a drink before they wouldn't be able to. Being curious children, as soon as the announcement was made that there was no water, every student had to go to the bathroom, was in desperate need of a drink, or absolutely had to wash their hands because GermX would not do. Of course, none of this was actually true, all of the students just wanted to see that turning a faucet would not make water come out; flushing a toilet would not actually result in a flush; and pressing the water fountain bar would not result in a burst of water. Needless to say, the entire situation was a huge distraction for all students.

11:45 came around (an hour after the announcement) and we were not informed that there was water back in the building, students returned from lunch at 12:30 and still not water. We continued with our afternoon schedule and got through the daily read aloud and the math lesson. We had just began practicing the This is a Moose play we started yesterday when we got an announcement at 1:10 that we would be dismissing in 20 minutes since water still had not been restored. This wasn't much notice so we had to abruptly conclude the activity and get the students packed to go home.

Today was great practice for me in how to handle unforeseen, unavoidable distractions to the classroom instruction.

Day 21: This is a Moose

October 19, 2015

A few weeks ago at the end of the school day my co-op did a read aloud for the class of the book This is a Moose by Richard T. Morris. When we read the book I had mixed feelings about it. The plot was weak, and overall the book was hard to follow. However, the students loved it. Ever since then they have been quoting the book and requesting it to be read again. Today two of the girls in the class pulled the book from the class library and were reading it aloud together. They were taking turns reading the different characters' parts. My co-op and I both had the same idea at the same time, we should turn the book into a play and the students can act it out. I spent a good portion of the morning typing up the book into script from, finding clip art animals to attach to paper headbands to identify each character and highlighting lines on each script. We didn't tell the students the new plan for the afternoon but we were anxious all day to introduce our idea to the class.

After math concluded we shared what was about to happen next (the play) and the students were ecstatic. We assigned each student a character (see ** below) and presented them with their own script and fitted their character headband. This was the first time the class has read something in script form. We formed a circle on the carpet and read through the lines about 3 times to get the students used to following along so they know when it is their turn to read without being prompted. After the line reading was going smoothly we stood the class up and had them began adding "acting" and movements into the play. The first run through was rough but overall the students were really enjoying the concept. When the students were lined up and leaving for the day they were already asking if they would get to practice tomorrow. I can't wait to see their final result!

**As I was typing out the lines and pre-assigning roles to students I realized how easily and beneficially you can differentiate through this type of activity or similar reader's theater activities. I picked strong readers for roles with more and longer lines. I chose roles with repetitive style lines for students  that "robot" read. Roles with lines that had fewer words per sentence were great for our lower level readers. It is so common for students to be broken apart into leveled reading groups. This is a great way to have mixed ability reading. You don't have to pick a text that will leave half the class frustrated and the other half bored. After seeing how much the class is enjoying this activity I'd like to find ways to implement similar activities throughout the year.

Day 20: The American Flag

October 15, 2015

Today, I felt like a teacher. I taught my first lesson. I began my unit on American Symbols and for my first lesson we explored the American Flag. Overall, I was very happy with how smoothly the lesson went. I began by questioning my students on what symbols are, and I had them look around the room to see if they could find any American symbols. Many of them spotted the American Flag hanging in the corner. We talked about why there are 13 stripes and 50 stars. I created an interactive PowerPoint activity that displayed how the stars on the flag equal the number of states in our country. In this activity students got to see how many different times our flag has changed over time. To conclude the lesson students constructed their own American Flag. They were provided with construction paper, a blue rectangle, red and white stripes and white star stickers (I prepared everything and cut everything out in advance). Students got to chose whether they wanted to make the first United States flag with 13 stars or today's flag with 50 stars. After they constructed their flag they wrote 2 facts about the flag. 

One positive of my lesson was that I managed my time very well and that all of the students finished right before it was time for their Health teacher to take them to their special.

One thing I was unhappy with was that my SmartBoard PowerPoint activity was having some technical difficulties. I think next time I create something I will try to use the computer program designed for SmartBoard rather than using Powerpoint. 

Next week I will be continuing my unit by teaching a lesson on the White House.

Day 19: Math Apps

October 13, 2015

In previous posts I have talked about the classroom iPads and my task of finding apps to use during class time. During my search I came across a math app that really appealed to me. The name of it is "Math Bingo Games- A Racing Game for Kids". I don't care for the title but beyond that I really like what it has to offer. You can set up accounts for each of your students using their name, an e-mail (I used the same class g-mail account for each e-mail) and their grade level. They can design their own avatar and chose their own race car. Students play math games to collect stars. They then use their stars to complete races. Students high scores are displayed on a leader board so they can compete against their classmates. I like that the leader board aspect did not compare students based on their math skills, rather just a regular racing game which is within the app. Students have 2 options to earn stars. The first one is Math Race. During this there is a race car at the bottom driving towards a math problem (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division sentence). Before your car reaches the problem you have to determine if the math problem is right or wrong. You have 3 lives, or 10 problems. Which ever comes first is how the game ends. The other way to earn stars is through Math Bingo. This is fairly self-explanatory. Students see a math problem at the top of the screen and they chose the number on the bingo board that is the answer to the problem. The objective is to get bingo. After students chose their game they get to select if they want addition, subtraction, multiplication or division problems and the level of difficulty they want (easy, medium or hard).

I was pleased with how much students enjoyed this app. They were engaged the entire time and really like the games that were offered. This was great practice for them with their math facts. I mentioned in a previous post that the students began doing timed math facts. The Math Race game is great practice for this because they have a short amount of time to solve the problem. During their timed math facts they are given 36 problems to complete in 2 minutes. This does not allot for a ton of time on each problem.

I attached a link to view a description and images of the app. I also attached pictures of on of the students using the app during their centers today.


Click here to view app.

Day 18: Book Fair

October 12, 2015

Last Thursday I was supposed to teach my first lesson. Last Thursday I had to call off of school because I was sick. I was very upset and I felt like I was letting my co-op down. I've always hated missing school as a student and it is no different as a teacher. I spent part of the day communicating with my co-op and figuring out the new plan. She was very understanding and accommodating. She realized there were some previous miscellaneous activities from social studies that needed completed and she was able to spend the time on Thursday getting everyone caught up. My lesson is moved to this coming Thursday now. 

The book fair started today! It will be set up all week in the library. Since today was the first day each teacher took up their entire class to browse and make a wishlist. I'm not going to lie, I think I enjoyed exploring all of the books just as much as the kids did. I got so excited thinking about my future classroom library. Like the students, I even wrote down my own list of books that I'll want to buy eventually. Tomorrow students will likely begin to bring money into school to make purchases during the school day. I think it is great for students to get excited about reading and book fairs definitely seem like an effective way to accomplish that. 

Day 17: Free Field Trips

October 6, 2015

In all of my education classes we seem to talk about ways to give our students experiences beyond the classroom on a budget. Two common topics are walking field trips and virtual field trips. Today first grade got to take a "field trip" to tour the church. The church is approximately an entire 25 steps from the school and we were back into the classroom within 30 minutes. We walked over to the church and met the priest there. He gave the class an excellent tour of all the different areas of the church. For a good majority of our time there he brought the class up on the altar and allowed them to touch some different items and get a closer look. I was surprised how engaged all of the students were. In their religion lesson the day prior we looked at things that are found in all Catholic churches. This gave the students some certain things to look for.

3 weeks ago the students began doing timed math facts. Twice a week they are given a paper that has 36 addition problems. The students are timed for 2 minutes to see how many they can get done. After each set I go through and date their papers and write their score down. It then goes in a folder that keeps all of their completed timed papers. Today I decided to create a log to track their scores. I created a word document and printed one off for each student. This was a much easier way to visualize the students progress and see whether or not they are improving or going backwards. There were only 2 students that seemed to make some progress each time. The other students have "roller coaster scores". By this I mean one timing they're high, the next they're lower and then they may go back up. The goal is to begin to see an improvement from the 1st set in the week to the 2nd set in the same week. Once students complete the entire paper in 2 minutes or less, 3 times in a row, we will decrease the time they have to complete the problems.

Day 16: Teaching

October 5, 2015

Today is Monday. On Thursday I will be teaching my first lesson. Over the weekend I finalized my lesson plan and the specifics for the lesson. Today I reviewed my plan with the classroom teacher. She showed me some additional things to include and some ways to cut down on time in the lesson. Part of the lesson includes using technology. I tested out how this part of the lesson worked and luckily there were no issues. I'm so excited to begin teaching actual lessons on a regular basis. I am starting with Social Studies.

Without warning today I began doing the math warm up with the class today. My co-op told me right as it was time to begin but luckily I have observed this enough times that I knew exactly what to do. Even though it was a basic task, and not a lesson I created, it was still a great feeling being in front of the class. I really got the feeling today that I'm so close to being an actual teacher.

Day 15: Books Books Books

September 29, 2015

Today the students' first Scholastic book order arrived. Only 2 students ordered books this month. This made me sad actually. When I was in elementary school my parents always had me pick out one book per month ($5 limit). This made me excited about reading, especially since I got to pick out the books. The students that had not ordered were noticeably upset that they weren't receiving something. I'm hoping that because of this next month students will be able to talk to their parents about ordering books.

My co-op showed me the special teacher book order form that came. The books are at such great prices and I even picked some out to order myself. I learned that depending on how many books your students purchase the teacher receives free book vouchers. I think this a great incentive for teachers to motivate their classroom parents to order books.

In October, students will begin the BOOKIT! program. This is through a partnership with Pizza Hut. Students had a reading goal each night (Monday-Friday). If they complete their goal their record it on a log. If students complete their goal everyday for an entire month they receive a voucher for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. I was not overly familiar with this program. I have heard of it before but I have never seen it in action. I'm curious to see how it works out.