November 19, 2015
I had a vision for the lesson I did today for quite a few weeks. I spent a decent amount of time preparing for it and was really looking forward to teaching it. We were learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I was incorporating a ton of technology into this lesson (Chromebooks and iPads) and the lesson relied heavily on all of the technology cooperating. After explaining the instructions, and passing out all of the necessary materials the students began their president investigation.
The concept was that the students would be giving a 3-4 sentence speech in place of one of the 2 presidents mentioned above. They each received a speech template to fill in. Using Google Drive I had placed in each students' folder a Google Slides presentation about one of the Presidents. I created them to be on a 1st grade reading level and have all of the information they were looking to use in their speech. Each student was to fill out their own speech paper as they went through the presentation on their Chromebook. At the end of each presentation I provided step by step picture directions on what to do next with the iPads.
The concept was that they would record their speech using the Animate Me! app. This app brings a still picture to life by adding mouth movements and a voice.
The students loved doing this and we all enjoyed showing their recordings to other teachers.
If this lesson would have went just like I planned, it would have most likely been my favorite lesson yet. However, that did not happen. Technology was not first grade's friend today.
Half of the Chromebooks wouldn't connect to WiFi.
...I fixed this by having the students work in pairs.
All except two of the iPads were unable to do the record feature in the Animate Me! app.
....I fixed this by having the myself and my co-op each use man one of the working iPads and we split the class in half to do the recording.
Some of the photos I uploaded to the iPads ahead of time of the Presidents got deleted.
...Luckily I anticipated this one and showed the students where the backup photos were saved.
Lastly, the app was a trial and only allowed you to record yourself for 10 seconds. I didn't anticipate this when I was testing it out. Unfortunately this wasn't something I had an easy fix for and the students just had to record as much of their speech as they could in 10 seconds.
Even with all of the complications that came from the lesson the students still really had fun during the lesson and most importantly learned a lot! During the review they were able to answer any question I asked and they have had more questions for me that we got to explore and answer as a class.
Even though this lesson didn't go as planned it was a great learning opportunity.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Day 35: Christmas Morning?
November 17, 2015
Well as you can see from the date above today was obviously not Christmas morning in the first grade classroom. However, based on the facial expressions and excitement the students had today they may have been able to make you think twice about that.
Yesterday I got everything set up on the Chromebooks that needed to be setup. Today we began the preparation for the roll out. I gave a mini-lesson to the students on how to start-up and use their Chromebooks. As of right now Google Drive is their "home base". This is where their folders are with their documents inside. I put a practice document in with a list of their spelling words. Step-by-step the students followed directions on how to access their folders and find the documents that would be inside. I was impressed with the usability of the Chromebooks and how easy the learning curve was. The students had little to no difficulty. They stayed on task the entire time and kept screeching "THIS IS SOOOO COOL!" The mini-lesson was concluded by numbering each student's Chromebook and iPad and informing them that this was going to be their's to use all year. Each student was individually shown where and how to plug in their devices. I made a big deal about how important charging them is and that is their responsibility to make sure it is charged and ready to be used for whenever we may need them.
I will be using the Chromebooks and iPads in my lesson this Thursday. The classroom teacher also had plans to use them Chromebooks this week. It is so exciting to get students involved with technology and see how much enjoyment it adds to their learning.
Well as you can see from the date above today was obviously not Christmas morning in the first grade classroom. However, based on the facial expressions and excitement the students had today they may have been able to make you think twice about that.
Yesterday I got everything set up on the Chromebooks that needed to be setup. Today we began the preparation for the roll out. I gave a mini-lesson to the students on how to start-up and use their Chromebooks. As of right now Google Drive is their "home base". This is where their folders are with their documents inside. I put a practice document in with a list of their spelling words. Step-by-step the students followed directions on how to access their folders and find the documents that would be inside. I was impressed with the usability of the Chromebooks and how easy the learning curve was. The students had little to no difficulty. They stayed on task the entire time and kept screeching "THIS IS SOOOO COOL!" The mini-lesson was concluded by numbering each student's Chromebook and iPad and informing them that this was going to be their's to use all year. Each student was individually shown where and how to plug in their devices. I made a big deal about how important charging them is and that is their responsibility to make sure it is charged and ready to be used for whenever we may need them.
I will be using the Chromebooks and iPads in my lesson this Thursday. The classroom teacher also had plans to use them Chromebooks this week. It is so exciting to get students involved with technology and see how much enjoyment it adds to their learning.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Day 34: Chromebooks
November 16, 2015
A few weeks ago I talked about getting the school's iPads set up and ready to be able to download apps. Today I decided to take on the task of setting up the new, unused school's Chromebooks. My co-op and I had talked about different ideas of integrating the Chromebooks but it never would be able to happen if they weren't set up. I brought enough Chromebook's into the classroom to have one for each student, charged them, connected them to the wifi (after going on a mission to unveil the wifi password) and began familiarizing myself with how they worked and what all they were capable of. On Google Drive I created a folder for each student to keep all of their documents and materials. My co-op and I also spent some time researching "apps" and ways to use them in the classroom. I think we were just as excited about beginning to use them as the students were about seeing them in the classroom. I set up a table in the room to use a holding/charging station for all of the Chromebooks and the iPads. We decided to number each device so each student would have their own to use/be responsible for charging. Tomorrow I will be doing a small lesson to teach the students how to use them, charge them and access the materials we (myself and my co-op) will add to their Google Drive folders.
The 7th and 8th grade English teacher heard about the integration of the Chromebooks and he wanted to begin using them too. He recruited me to come up to his room and set up a set of Chromebooks for his classes to use. The current lesson he was doing was perfectly primed for the Chromebooks. The 8th grade students were collaboratively writing a script. Using Google Drive, each student can access and contribute to one single word document containing the script. Each student had their own device and it was evident that the technology really enhanced the learning going on.
I don't have a strong opinion yet on the Chromebooks, I haven't used them enough to decide if I like them or not. However, I have made an interesting conclusion on how to classify them. They are more than a tablet, but lack all of the capabilities of a laptop. The best way for me to describe them would be tablets with keyboards. I'll share my thoughts in a later post after spending more time using them and observing the students use them during instruction.
A few weeks ago I talked about getting the school's iPads set up and ready to be able to download apps. Today I decided to take on the task of setting up the new, unused school's Chromebooks. My co-op and I had talked about different ideas of integrating the Chromebooks but it never would be able to happen if they weren't set up. I brought enough Chromebook's into the classroom to have one for each student, charged them, connected them to the wifi (after going on a mission to unveil the wifi password) and began familiarizing myself with how they worked and what all they were capable of. On Google Drive I created a folder for each student to keep all of their documents and materials. My co-op and I also spent some time researching "apps" and ways to use them in the classroom. I think we were just as excited about beginning to use them as the students were about seeing them in the classroom. I set up a table in the room to use a holding/charging station for all of the Chromebooks and the iPads. We decided to number each device so each student would have their own to use/be responsible for charging. Tomorrow I will be doing a small lesson to teach the students how to use them, charge them and access the materials we (myself and my co-op) will add to their Google Drive folders.
The 7th and 8th grade English teacher heard about the integration of the Chromebooks and he wanted to begin using them too. He recruited me to come up to his room and set up a set of Chromebooks for his classes to use. The current lesson he was doing was perfectly primed for the Chromebooks. The 8th grade students were collaboratively writing a script. Using Google Drive, each student can access and contribute to one single word document containing the script. Each student had their own device and it was evident that the technology really enhanced the learning going on.
I don't have a strong opinion yet on the Chromebooks, I haven't used them enough to decide if I like them or not. However, I have made an interesting conclusion on how to classify them. They are more than a tablet, but lack all of the capabilities of a laptop. The best way for me to describe them would be tablets with keyboards. I'll share my thoughts in a later post after spending more time using them and observing the students use them during instruction.
Day 33: Liberty Bell
November 12, 2015
I concluded my first unit today with a lesson on the American symbol, the Liberty Bell. I spent a great deal of time trying to find a "wow" activity for the Liberty Bell. Unfortunately I came out empty handed from my many online searches. My co-op shared the same past experiences and we decided to do more of a "mini-lesson". I lacked the same excitement for this lesson that I did for my others. However, my attitude quickly changed while the lesson was going on and after it was over. I ended up doing a cloze passage activity. I wrote up a 1st grade leveled summary of the story of the Liberty Bell. I had printouts for each student and I had a version on the SmartBoard. I called on students to come up and write the answers on the SmartBoard while the rest of the class filled in their answers on their own printouts. We concluded the lesson by looking at a picture of the Liberty Bell and each student drew a replica on their own paper. As students finished they each verbally told me some of their favorite American Symbols we learned about throughout the unit.
The next social studies unit won't begin until after Christmas break. Because of this next week I will be doing a stand alone lesson.
I concluded my first unit today with a lesson on the American symbol, the Liberty Bell. I spent a great deal of time trying to find a "wow" activity for the Liberty Bell. Unfortunately I came out empty handed from my many online searches. My co-op shared the same past experiences and we decided to do more of a "mini-lesson". I lacked the same excitement for this lesson that I did for my others. However, my attitude quickly changed while the lesson was going on and after it was over. I ended up doing a cloze passage activity. I wrote up a 1st grade leveled summary of the story of the Liberty Bell. I had printouts for each student and I had a version on the SmartBoard. I called on students to come up and write the answers on the SmartBoard while the rest of the class filled in their answers on their own printouts. We concluded the lesson by looking at a picture of the Liberty Bell and each student drew a replica on their own paper. As students finished they each verbally told me some of their favorite American Symbols we learned about throughout the unit.
The next social studies unit won't begin until after Christmas break. Because of this next week I will be doing a stand alone lesson.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Day 32: Math Night
November 10, 2015
Instead of posting about events during today's school day I am actually going to gear my lesson more towards an after school activity. Tonight was Math Night! Students from an upper level education class at Bloomsburg University pair up with another student to create an interactive math station for the St. Joseph's students to rotate through. When students arrived they were directed to their homerooms to wait before the event began. Students then moved with their peers from the class from station to station.
There was a decent turnout (approximately 50 students plus parents and siblings) The students that were there to got a lot of attention from the university students and a chance to experience all of the stations. Some of the activities included:
-Dice math (role two foam dice and add/subtract/multiply the numbers)
-Math fishing (pick an index card with a math problem and catch the fish with your answer on it)
-Math Jeopardy
-Place value stomp (lay out large number cards to create a number and then stomp on the correct place value when instructed)
-Math Basketball (Answer a math problem correct, get a shot with the basketball)
-Math twister
-Math bingo
-AND MORE!!!
Many of the games had incentives at the end (candy, pencils, etc.) for the students to take. A lot of the parents stayed and walked around with the kids. All of the teachers were there as well. I spent the evening taking pictures of the event for the school's yearbook as well as for the university students involved.
I participated in Math Night when I took that course last semester. I had a lot of fun creating my activity and executing it for the students who came. I created a jumbo connect four board. Students answered math problems to receive connect four chips. They competed against their peers to see who could get four in a row quickest. This was a huge success and I even saved the board to use in the future.
In the spring the school has a similar science night and I am looking forward to see if that will be as successful as tonight was!
Instead of posting about events during today's school day I am actually going to gear my lesson more towards an after school activity. Tonight was Math Night! Students from an upper level education class at Bloomsburg University pair up with another student to create an interactive math station for the St. Joseph's students to rotate through. When students arrived they were directed to their homerooms to wait before the event began. Students then moved with their peers from the class from station to station.
There was a decent turnout (approximately 50 students plus parents and siblings) The students that were there to got a lot of attention from the university students and a chance to experience all of the stations. Some of the activities included:
-Dice math (role two foam dice and add/subtract/multiply the numbers)
-Math fishing (pick an index card with a math problem and catch the fish with your answer on it)
-Math Jeopardy
-Place value stomp (lay out large number cards to create a number and then stomp on the correct place value when instructed)
-Math Basketball (Answer a math problem correct, get a shot with the basketball)
-Math twister
-Math bingo
-AND MORE!!!
Many of the games had incentives at the end (candy, pencils, etc.) for the students to take. A lot of the parents stayed and walked around with the kids. All of the teachers were there as well. I spent the evening taking pictures of the event for the school's yearbook as well as for the university students involved.
I participated in Math Night when I took that course last semester. I had a lot of fun creating my activity and executing it for the students who came. I created a jumbo connect four board. Students answered math problems to receive connect four chips. They competed against their peers to see who could get four in a row quickest. This was a huge success and I even saved the board to use in the future.
In the spring the school has a similar science night and I am looking forward to see if that will be as successful as tonight was!
Monday, November 9, 2015
Day 31: Conference Prep
November 9, 2015
Parent-Teacher conferences are only 2 weeks away. I will get the opportunity to sit in on conferences with my co-op and I am really looking forward to this. There are a few "assessments" she wants to get done before conferences to have to show to parents. Today she gave me the first one to begin administering. This assessment was to test students' counting abilities. I have them count by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s up to 120. Similarly to a running record in reading, I marked the numbers they got correct, the numbers they omitted, the numbers they said incorrectly and the self corrections they made.
I was surprised with how many students struggled with counting by 2s. A decent amount of them could only get to 12 and were lost after that. I was even more surprised with the challenges 5s and 10s presented. Money concepts are covered twice a day every single day in their classroom; during morning meeting and math warm up. Counting by 5s is obviously done when counting nickels, and counting by 10s is done when counting dimes. A lot of students seem to have little difficulty when counting their money. However, it was evident that they could not make the connection when rote counting for me during the assessment. An example of how one of the students counted to ten was; 10, 17, 16, 15, 88, 120. This student is one of our highest in reading but has shown signs of struggling in math all year. She is someone that if her struggles are not addressed early will most likely be pushed into higher math groups just because of how strong of a reader she is. The math difficulty will likely get overlooked. This definitely happens more often than it should. It is important to know that students can have strengths in one subject and weaknesses in another.
Tomorrow I will be finishing the assessments and I am curious to see how the rest of the class will perform.
Parent-Teacher conferences are only 2 weeks away. I will get the opportunity to sit in on conferences with my co-op and I am really looking forward to this. There are a few "assessments" she wants to get done before conferences to have to show to parents. Today she gave me the first one to begin administering. This assessment was to test students' counting abilities. I have them count by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s up to 120. Similarly to a running record in reading, I marked the numbers they got correct, the numbers they omitted, the numbers they said incorrectly and the self corrections they made.
I was surprised with how many students struggled with counting by 2s. A decent amount of them could only get to 12 and were lost after that. I was even more surprised with the challenges 5s and 10s presented. Money concepts are covered twice a day every single day in their classroom; during morning meeting and math warm up. Counting by 5s is obviously done when counting nickels, and counting by 10s is done when counting dimes. A lot of students seem to have little difficulty when counting their money. However, it was evident that they could not make the connection when rote counting for me during the assessment. An example of how one of the students counted to ten was; 10, 17, 16, 15, 88, 120. This student is one of our highest in reading but has shown signs of struggling in math all year. She is someone that if her struggles are not addressed early will most likely be pushed into higher math groups just because of how strong of a reader she is. The math difficulty will likely get overlooked. This definitely happens more often than it should. It is important to know that students can have strengths in one subject and weaknesses in another.
Tomorrow I will be finishing the assessments and I am curious to see how the rest of the class will perform.
Day 30: Lady Liberty
November 5, 2015
I taught my third lesson in my American Symbols lesson today. It was by far my favorite one yet! The students were so engaged throughout and everything flowed smoothly. As my motivational device I had one of my students come to the back of the room out of site of the other sites and put my Statue of Liberty crown on him. I told the students that Mike* and I went on a trip to borrow this crown for our lesson today. I prompted the class about who we borrowed the crown from in order for them to say "the Statue of Liberty". This really got all of the students focused on the task at hand. I made Statue of Liberty "puzzles". The pieces had a true or false facts next to a section of the statue. The students had to put the pieces in order. The false facts would not fit into the puzzle so that helped students determine what was true and what wasn't. I paired students up to help each other with reading the pieces. I had strong readers with weak readers and this seemed to really help. After each student had their puzzles completed I brought them over to the SmartBoard rug. Each student got an iPad and I used the website Kahoot! to check the students puzzles in quiz form. I discovered this website recently and I was so excited to try it in an actual classroom. You can make quizzes, discussions or surveys. You can also choose from quizzes that other users have made and allowed for public access. The quiz questions were up on the SmartBoard and the students answered on the iPads after entering the quiz using a game pin.
My co-op gave me great feedback and she asked for a copy of the activity to save for future use. We also discussed other ways we could use Kahoot! in the classroom. We had slight technology issues but for the most part it all went smoothly.
I taught my third lesson in my American Symbols lesson today. It was by far my favorite one yet! The students were so engaged throughout and everything flowed smoothly. As my motivational device I had one of my students come to the back of the room out of site of the other sites and put my Statue of Liberty crown on him. I told the students that Mike* and I went on a trip to borrow this crown for our lesson today. I prompted the class about who we borrowed the crown from in order for them to say "the Statue of Liberty". This really got all of the students focused on the task at hand. I made Statue of Liberty "puzzles". The pieces had a true or false facts next to a section of the statue. The students had to put the pieces in order. The false facts would not fit into the puzzle so that helped students determine what was true and what wasn't. I paired students up to help each other with reading the pieces. I had strong readers with weak readers and this seemed to really help. After each student had their puzzles completed I brought them over to the SmartBoard rug. Each student got an iPad and I used the website Kahoot! to check the students puzzles in quiz form. I discovered this website recently and I was so excited to try it in an actual classroom. You can make quizzes, discussions or surveys. You can also choose from quizzes that other users have made and allowed for public access. The quiz questions were up on the SmartBoard and the students answered on the iPads after entering the quiz using a game pin.My co-op gave me great feedback and she asked for a copy of the activity to save for future use. We also discussed other ways we could use Kahoot! in the classroom. We had slight technology issues but for the most part it all went smoothly.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Day 29: Substitute Teacher
November 3, 2015
Today my co-op was only at school for half the day. She left at 11 and I was going to be teaching the remainder of the day. I knew about this a few days in advance and I was excited the whole time leading up to it. So far I've just been doing Math Warm-Up daily and Social Studies. Today I got to teach Handwriting, Science, Math and do a read aloud for the class. I was surprised at how not nervous I was. I felt extremely confident going into the remainder of the day. Today was my 29th day in the classroom so I had 28 days of observing and helping out with the other subjects to know what I had to do.
The Handwriting and Math lessons were straight from their textbooks/teacher edition books. I created the Science lesson. My co-op received information a few weeks ago on a energy conservation poster contest. She asked me to get them started on this. I did a brief overview of what it means to save energy using a website a found that gave you a virtual tour of saving energy throughout your house. The class then went back to their desks to begin working on a rough draft of their posters which needed to display a way they can help save energy. This concept proved to be a little challenging for them. They were able to verbally talk about what they would do but they struggled when it came to representing that concept in picture form.
There was a substitute in the room with me the whole time I was there. She taught religion at the end of the day. It was interesting to see the class taught from a different person. Although the lesson was out of their books she put her own twist on it. The students were very engaged and did exceptionally well when answering review questions. The substitute asked them if they had any questions about what they learned about and a lot of the students had higher order thinking questions to ask. This really impressed me.
I really enjoyed getting to teach for half of the day today. It made me even more excited for student teaching to begin when I will be adding more and more subjects to my work load. Today was a great day!
Today my co-op was only at school for half the day. She left at 11 and I was going to be teaching the remainder of the day. I knew about this a few days in advance and I was excited the whole time leading up to it. So far I've just been doing Math Warm-Up daily and Social Studies. Today I got to teach Handwriting, Science, Math and do a read aloud for the class. I was surprised at how not nervous I was. I felt extremely confident going into the remainder of the day. Today was my 29th day in the classroom so I had 28 days of observing and helping out with the other subjects to know what I had to do.
The Handwriting and Math lessons were straight from their textbooks/teacher edition books. I created the Science lesson. My co-op received information a few weeks ago on a energy conservation poster contest. She asked me to get them started on this. I did a brief overview of what it means to save energy using a website a found that gave you a virtual tour of saving energy throughout your house. The class then went back to their desks to begin working on a rough draft of their posters which needed to display a way they can help save energy. This concept proved to be a little challenging for them. They were able to verbally talk about what they would do but they struggled when it came to representing that concept in picture form.
There was a substitute in the room with me the whole time I was there. She taught religion at the end of the day. It was interesting to see the class taught from a different person. Although the lesson was out of their books she put her own twist on it. The students were very engaged and did exceptionally well when answering review questions. The substitute asked them if they had any questions about what they learned about and a lot of the students had higher order thinking questions to ask. This really impressed me.
I really enjoyed getting to teach for half of the day today. It made me even more excited for student teaching to begin when I will be adding more and more subjects to my work load. Today was a great day!
Day 28: Schedules
November 2, 2015
I cannot believe it is already November!! I decided I wanted to focus today's post on the "scheduling" aspect in a 1st grade classroom. This was always something I wondered about coming into the room. I was curious if certain subjects were always at the same time, if some subjects were taught everyday or just some, if there was allotted time on the schedule for each subject, etc. What I have learned after being in the classroom for over 10 weeks now is that how you schedule your elementary classroom is up to you and each teacher has their own method. I like the schedule my co-op has. She has times for each subject, as I will show below. However, I have more importantly learned in my 10 weeks that this schedule is 100% flexible. I don't think there has been a single day where we begin each subject at the start time on the schedule. AND THAT IS OKAY!! The time frames give a rough estimate of when you should wrap one thing up to prepare for the next. Other teachers in the school don't even use times on their schedule, they just list the subjects in order that they will be completed. For some people they don't want to have the feeling of being done with something too early or running over time with one activity. Everyone has their own preference. Personally, I like the idea of having times. It allows me to gauge if we are on track to complete everything for the day or if we will have some catching up to do. Here is what a Monday looks like in first grade...
7:40- Unpack
8:00- Morning Meeting
8:15- Whole Group (Phonics, Spelling, English)
8:45- Technology
9:35- Snack
9:45- Reading Centers
10:10- Music
11:00- Reading Centers
11:30- Recess/Lunch
12:15- Drink/Bathroom
12:20- Read Aloud
12:45- Math (and Math Warm-up)
1:20- Kid-Writing
2:00- Religion
2:35- Pack Up
Each day's schedule is a little different. There is always Morning Meeting, Whole Group, Reading Centers, Math and Religion. There is at least one special each day (some days there are two). The three days without a second special the class does Handwriting. Kid- Writing is done Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Science is done on Tuesday and Social Studies is done on Thursdays. This gives the students and teacher a little change each day and it also allows for a variety of subjects to be covered.
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