Magic E

April 18, 2016

Today I taught a very successful lesson about "Magic E". We began by looking at short vowel words. Students brainstormed as many words as they could think of and I wrote them on the board. I then pulled a couple from their big list and held up my Magic E wand. I told students the story of his special powers. When he adds himself to the end of a short vowel word the original vowel switches from short to long. The students thought I was an actual magician (so of course I went with it). I then passed out wands to each student and had them return to their seats. I had made cards of short vowel words. The students each started with a card and would eventually rotate through the entire set. Each student had a recording sheet to keep track of the words that Magic E worked on and the words that he did not work on.

I was a little nervous that this lesson would get too complicated with all of the rotating of cards; however, it truly went great and the students did very well with the entire concept!

STEM Fairy Tales....Continued

April 13-15, 2016

I spent the rest of the week doing this unit with my class. I am so happy with my decision to do this unit. The students loved it as much as I did.

After reading The Frog Prince, we took a class vote on who would kiss a frog. We then spent the remainder of the time creating a bar graph to look at our results.

Another fun lesson was for the book Rapunzel. As a time-saver I created in advance plates that had the students' faces in the middle and yellow yarn (aka hair) attached. The students loved getting to see what they would look like as Rapunzel. I put the students into groups and they rotated through measuring centers. They used different objects to measure the length of their hair.

STEM Fairy Tales

I am super excited about this post! Yesterday I began my unit, STEM Fairy Tales. For the entire week I am reading a fairy tale to the class and they will do a STEM activity to accompany the book. Yesterday I read The Three Little Pigs. Students then broke up into groups to "build a house for the fourth pig, Sister Pig" using toothpicks, straws or paper. Each group then gave their house the Wolf Test (aka: a hairdryer) to see if it would withstand the huffing and puffing and blowing down of the house. This was so much fun and the students were so engaged. Although some passed the test, I wouldn't say any of my students are prepared to by architects or carpenters.

Today I read Jack and The Beanstalk. After the story the students received their own "Magic" bean and we planted them in plastic cups using just water and a paper towel. We decorated the cups with a cloud and a castle at the top. We talked about germination and what beans need to grow (light and water). I'm hoping that in a couple days we will see some sprouts!

Tomorrow, it is on to Henny Penny!

Long O

I did a fun phonics lesson today that I felt very good about when reflecting on it. The concept was long o vs. short o.

Last week I observed that some students were really struggling with differentiating between between the two sounds.

I created frog (short o) and toad (long o) containers. I also made fly cards with different long and short o words. Students were split up into groups and took turns choosing cards to feed to either the frog or toad.

When the groups finished they returned and we did a whiteboard review as a class. I created a PowerPoint game with the same features of the physical activity they completed.

The students were so engaged and I was very happy with the outcomes.

This entire week I am getting the opportunity to teach phonics lesson that are separate from the book curriculum. This gives me the opportunity to really use my creativity and try out different ideas.

Telling Time

April 7, 2016

Salem Elementary uses the Everyday Math curriculum. This is a spiral curriculum. One topic that is covered is time. There isn't a designated unit for telling time. It may be hit one day, and not covered again for a week or longer.

Some of the students have really taken to trying to master telling time. Constantly throughout the day students are approaching me,or my co-op and asking is it "2:32 right now, is it 11:08 right now?"

A lot of the class is so close to mastering the concept. I truly believe that if they received one or two lessons (in a row) they would be able to really advance in their comprehension of the topic.

They are having such gaps of time in between the lessons that they forget the material learned previously.

I'm hoping to get the opportunity to do a bonus lesson on time.

Where's Miss Stine?

April 6, 2016

I ended up having an extended weekend! School was cancelled on Monday to honor the passing of the district's football coach. On Tuesday I attended the university's job fair.

So, today I am back!

Although I only missed one day (since no one was present on Monday), my co-op said it was chaos yesterday without me there. All day the students kept asking where I was and if I was ever coming back. Even though my co-op reassured them multiple times that I would be back tomorrow they still couldn't grasp that "tomorrow" was only 24 hours away.

Even though I just recently started taking subjects from my co-op, the students didn't understand why I wasn't the one teaching them.

It is so amazing to me how routines are so important to children this young. What a change it will be when I am not there everyday!!

Character Day

April 1, 2016

I have an exciting story to share today! Today was Character Day at school.Teachers and students, and other faculty members dressed up like their favorite book characters. I was Pete the Cat! In my classroom we had lots of superheros and princesses, a Junie B. Jones, 2 Fancy Nancy(s), a Waldo, a Cat in the Hat, an Elf on the Shelf, and more! We also had 2 students that didn't dress up. Both boys were obviously upset about their lack of costumes. I gave myself the challenge of quickly creating them some costumes. I put together some Chicka Chika Boom Boom costumes. My co-op was happy and so were the boys.

Later in the day another 1st grade teacher came to me and said that she had 2 girls that forgot costumes. I had another challenge. I got to work and created a Fly Guy and Fly Girl costume.

Myself and the 2 teachers ended up being especially excited about these last minute creations. The Fly Guy and Fly Girl pair ended up winning an award for their costume during the assembly!  Also, all of the students in costume were able to participate in a character parade around the school. No one in the two classes had to miss out! This was such a fun day at school!!

Pre-Tests and Post-Tests

March 31, 2016

When I was in elementary school we always had pre-tests and post-tests for spelling. However, in my first student teaching placement pre-tests were not used. This has allowed me to some some advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

Not doing pre-tests is definitely a time saver, however, it doesn't save that much time since they only take about 10 minutes to administer.

In my opinion, I am a fan of pre-tests. It allows students, and the teacher, to see growth and improvement. Also, as a teacher it helps show what spelling exercises, activities during the week may have paid off.

I can't speak for all teachers but from my experience if a student receives a perfect score on the pre-test they are able to keep that grade and not take the post-test. This is a nice incentive for most students. In just the few weeks that I have been here at Salem and have been grading the spelling tests it is very common for more than half the class to receive that perfect school on the pre-test. Now those students have the ability to focus their time on other subjects since they have already proved mastery of that word list.