Library Scavenger Hunt

Today we continued my unit on Important People in America. The students became "official investigators". We were going to be using multiple sources of information to fill our fact sheets. The students had their videos from the week before to use, the Chromebooks to search online resources and we were also going to use books.  I originally planned on going to the school library the day before to get books but I decided to change my lesson just a bit. I thought it would be a good idea to take all the students to the library and have them find and check out their own books about their person. To make this part of the lesson sound a little more appealing to the students I called it a library scavenger hunt. (Spoiler Alert: It was a hit!!)

After all of the students checked their books out we returned to the classroom and everyone began working diligently on the task at hand. I had to do a little bit of differentiating for some of the students. I provided some one-on-one attention with the lower level readers. Reading non-fiction texts is a relatively new concept to some of them so we had to do a mini lesson on finding and pulling out important pieces of information. Not all of the students finished so next week I will have to build in extra time in my lesson to finish up the fact sheets. I am amazed at how engaged everyone is in this unit. Social Studies is only done once a week so since last Thursday I have been asked daily, "Miss Stine when are we going to keep working on our people projects?". I can honestly say there is no better feeling than seeing such love for learning in the eyes of your students.

Snow Day and Butterflies

Yesterday was our first snow day of the year! It was nice to sleep in and have extra time to get planning done, however, it absolutely messes up your plans for the week. As a student, snow days were great. As a teacher, snow days are not as great. Some subjects that are only once a week are missed completely. Other subjects that are taught in a five day routine are messed up for entire rest of the week. It's all about being flexible though. That is what I learned from our first snow day. There is no point in stressing out about the missed days because you are not going to get that time back (well you will, but at a later date in the school year and that just isn't the same). My co-op showed me how she altered the weeks plans, and specifically today's plans to make up for yesterday's missed work. Yesterday I was suppose to begin my new science unit. Science is only taught once a week in this classroom, on Tuesdays. I was relieved when I got the word from my co-op that she decided to move my lesson to the next day and not the next week. Which brings me to today, and the second part of my post, my science lesson.

Our new unit in first grade is animal life cycles. We began with butterflies. Looking back, if this was my own class, and I wasn't assigned specific topics to teach, I would have given a pre-assessment on the entire unit. The class was very knowledgeable on the butterfly life cycle from the get-go. I had an idea that this might be the case and that is why I decided to begin with butterflies. I figured that it is fairly simple and would be a good starting point before delving into more in depth life cycles. This lesson also happened to be my first informal student teaching observation from my student teaching supervisor. It was great to get some feedback after my lesson and I was pleased with the compliments and suggestions I got. I attached a picture of an example of student work from the lesson. Overall, I think everything went well and I'm looking forward to my Social Studies lesson tomorrow.

New Student

At the beginning of the month, when the students returned from winter break, we had an addition to our first grade class; a new student! This was such a great learning experience for me to get, especially since the student came half way into the school year. We assigned him a buddy for the first week to show him around the school, help him with classroom routines, etc. The first week went smoothly and by lots of observations we were able to get a grasp of his math and reading levels. He fit in very well with the rest of the class and was quickly accepted as if he had been a classmate for the entire school year.

It wasn't until week two that we began to see some true colors showing. I feel as though new students are on their best behavior at first, are quiet and appear to be exemplar students. Week two was when we (my co-op and I) needed to begin redirecting a lot of his behaviors. Week three was when his behavior began to effect not only his academic work but was a distraction to his peers. Luckily, his common behavior problems (talking while others are talking, calling out, getting out of his seat during instructional time, unable to stay on task while working independently) are fixable. My co-op and I have each talked to him one on one and he seems to really take in what we are discussing. I'm sure I will have more on this issue in future posts to come.

 Overall, it has been very interesting for me to observe this change in the classroom. When we had only 8 in the class, adding one student really switched things up. The students adjusted well and I was surprised at how easy my co-op made it look at getting our new student acclimated into our classroom.

Seating Arrangement

January 22, 2016

During one of our prep periods today we spent a good deal of time discussing a new seating arrangement. When you have a class of only 9 the different possibilities are a lot less. On top of those limited options, you also have to consider which students work well near each other and which students don't. This is our biggest issue. We have students that have behavior issues when they are at the same desk pod. We have students that don't get along with each other when they are next to each other. We have students that won't stop talking when they are next to each other. The list goes on.

Besides issues with pairs of students unable to sit by each other we also have classroom environment issues that add to the problem. Some students are distracted by what's going on outside by looking through the windows. Some students can't be facing the door because they are constantly paying more attention to what is going on in the hall than what is going on in the classroom. Some students can't sit by the teacher's desk because they become more engaged in what is happening at the desk (conferences with another student, grading, etc.) than what they should be working on at their seat.

Rearranging the seating chart may seem like an impossible task but I promise it's not. There is a way (multiple actually) that will work. You just have to sit down and figure it out. I remember learning about this in classes and being given hypothetical scenarios to try and challenge you in rearranging the seating chart. I honestly never thought it could be that hard. I was wrong. However, this is just another great learning experience for me in classroom management.

Define Important

"Imagine being in a room where everything is black and you're not allowed to hear!"

This was one of my students expressing his fascination with Heller Keller's life with one of his peers. Today I began my unit on Important People in American History. My students became so much more engaged with this lesson than I ever could have imagined. After a mystery themed motivational device the entire class was focused in on the task at hand. Everyone was assigned a person from our class's "Wall of Fame" (which was made up of 9 important people from American history). We spent a while talking about what "important" means for the sake of this lesson. To my surprise this concept was easily grasped which made me confident the rest of the lesson would go smoothly. Using their iPads, QR codes and YouTube they each separated into their own area in the classroom to begin their research. After my last technology heavy lesson having many technology issues I was extremely relieved to have everything work as planned.  My original idea was to have them watch their video and then spend time in the class library until everyone was finished. To my surprise after they finished I saw them eagerly finding other peers to share the story of their important person. Even after we concluded their lesson they were talking about their findings on their way to health. This made me so excited to continue this unit with everyone.

Today we had a lot of behavior issues with the students. How the day is structured and how each subject is designed the students spend very little time actually in their seats at their desk. Surprisingly though, even during this minimal seat work time, a majority of the children are constantly getting up and walking around the class to see what everyone else is working on. This obviously causes a disturbance to other students, and in the long run, their work is not getting done. The classroom I'm using a clip chart for behavior. You start in the middle each day, for positive behavior you move up and when you need re-corrected you move down. There were points in the day where almost half of the class had their clips on "moved down" spaces. Prior to Christmas everyone's behavior was similar to this, but I thought after getting back into "school mode" come January things would settle down. My co-op shared the same opinion and we are both thinking of ways to get these common behavior issues ironed out. Let's hope for a better behavior day tomorrow.

Today I am a STUDENT TEACHER

I have very fond memories from elementary school of having student teachers in my class. They were the best thing in my mind at the time. Since I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a teacher I always looked forward to my time to be the classroom student teacher. Today, that dream was finally achieved for me. Even though I have been in this classroom, with the same teacher and the same students for the past 6 months I was no longer the "intern" I had a new title and I am so excited to embrace that.

Gradually over the next 8 weeks I will be adding subjects to my workload until I will be teaching all day, every day. I spent a lot of time outline and preparing for my time in the classroom. I am beginning a new Social Studies unit tomorrow. We will be exploring Important People in American History. Next week I am adding on Science and we will be exploring Animal Life Cycles. Its surreal to me that I am already at this stage in my teaching journey. After this post is complete I'll be spending the remainder of my night lesson planning and brainstorming activities that would engage my students. As excited as I am I must admit that part of me is still nervous. I hope you enjoy following this adventure with me as I am eager to share it with all of you!!

Next Journey

I've been away from the blog for a short while, however, starting tomorrow I will be back daily. Tomorrow is the official start of my student teaching and my final semester as a Bloomsburg University student. My followers can expect the same type of posts from me but I will update you on some changes that will be occurring:

• The classroom: For the next 8 weeks I will be continuing to share my experiences from the same 1st grade classroom you have all been reading about since August. However, beginning in March you will get the opportunity to follow me on my next adventure in another 1st grade classroom at Salem Elementary. 
• The title: Don't get confused when the color scheme and title of the blog changes (it's still me!). I chose both of these things based on my previous internship.

I'm excited to continue sharing my experiences and passion for teaching with all of you!