Ap. 3 – Ap. 7
- MON: English Language Arts: Writing Book – What did you do on the Weekend?
- (W2) Writing Book Lesson
- Reflection & Ways to Improve:
- Ensure all students are ready when reading the sentence written on the board aloud
- Writing words on the whiteboard students may need help writing in their books (specific to this lesson would be Totem Pole, park, rope) or having a mini whiteboard while circulating to write words down for them to copy
- Mathematics: Height
- (W2) Math Measurement; lesson 3 height
- (W2) Math Measurement; lesson 3 addition height
- The first lesson plan was the expanded version of what I had included in my mathematics unit plan, however I thought of a plan that I thought would be more exciting for the students. The second lesson is the outcome of new idea and the lesson I executed.
- Reflection & Ways to Improve:
- Having to find two items of each was too much on a Monday also since I only showed one row during the modelling students were confused when I asked them to complete a second row
- I should have taken more time for drawing my examples, many students who I know can draw better did a quick drawing, possibly due to my example and possible due to the requirements of the activity
- Finding one of every item would have been better as well because I could have asked them to try to write what the item was; at the end of the activity I had to rush to ask students what they drew and label the items accordingly
- I forgot to put the papers on clipboards; some students realized they wanted a clipboard and got their own but others would look for an item and then return to a table to draw it; this actually showed that some students recognized they needed a clipboard while others resolved their problem by returning to tables
- Pictures were helpful for some but others still forgot what each column was asking for; having the students repeat the titles could have been more efficient than myself repeating them several times
- Nature School:
Students looking at the salamander
- A student found a salamander!
- TUES: English Language Arts: Book of Letters Vv
- Vv Book of Letters
- Reflections & Ways to Improve
- This book of letters went much better than the first one as I made sure to remind the students to use nice singing voices or we would stop the video
- Students sang nicely and participated with the actions
- There were some issues with students not completing their drawings (they are told to draw at least four) mainly because they see their friends/other students beginning to play after they finish their worksheet
- I had to ask several students to return to their worksheet to complete it but they did so without complaint which further tells me that they knew the requirements and had been distracted by the play
- WED: Played a Whole-Class Game & Song
- I began by having the students sit in a circle and pretend to write something in the air with their right hands and hold their left hands in the air flat like they were serving something; I then asked them to slowling bring their hands down so that their right hand was laying flat on the left hand of the person sitting beside them and their left hands had a friends hand on top of it
- Some students recognized right away we were going to clap each others hands around the circle; we did this a couple times – I switched when students began hitting hands too hard or hitting other parts of their friends bodies
- We ended with singing three verses of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”: clap your hands, stomp your feet, and wash your hands for snack
- Reflection & Ways to Improve
- Since I squeeze this activity in after music class, where there is 15 minutes before snack time, students are often restless, thus having them sit in a circle was challenging for some
- While no one vocally complained about the activity it was clear, shown with body language and silliness, that some did not wish to participate although everyone did
- The second time we went around clapping hands it actually went slower despite challenging the students to go faster the second time around
- THURS: Arts Education: Directed Drawing
- Directed Drawing – Art Lesson
- Reflection & Ways to Improve:
- During the exercise I had students hold their Sharpie in the air once they had added the various parts to their drawings – this was very effective and it took away temptation to draw on the paper and it visually showed me when everyone had completed that step
- It may have been more effective to tell students we will write our names on them later, I just told them not to do it at the beginning, but some ended up writing their name on the front with Sharpie
- They seemed to enjoy the guessing game of what they were drawing, I also added some questions in (what are we missing for a sun?) and positive reinforcement for those who, although a step ahead, had successfully completed the next step (I see student knows the next part, our butterfly needs wings on the other side)
- FRI: Nature School
- The group I went out with was different than my classroom because the community needed to be divided in half – due to this I did more interacting with students than recording their learning (particularily the ones that are not in my classroom)
- A student did find a dead mole, a group of us chatted about how we thought it died and then we laid sticks around it and covered it with leaves – one student saw that its’ eyes were opened so she thought it might just be resting, the leaves would warm it up
Leaves used to cover the mole.
This stump is often used as a ship – today the ship held soldiers.
Investigating the different colors of bark on one tree
- Cooking – Greek Salad
- This was my first experience with cooking since the previous dates have not overlapped with our visits or the short practicum
- Since we were short parent volunteers for my group I led a group
- Reflection & Ways to Improve:
- Making Greek salad was really fun not only for myself but also for the students
- Everyone helped in the preparing, cleaning, and setting/clearing of the table
- I only had three students in my group so it made it easy to distribute responsibilities (for example the recipe called for 1 1/2 teaspoons of oregano so we used the half teaspoon ensuring each student could participate in this step)
- I was extremely worried that someone would cut themselves but no one did
- I successfully convinced two students to try things that they said they did not like (feta cheese and orange peppers) and both said they liked them after trying – here I think it played a role that I ate everything in the salad but also expressed that I was not the biggest fan of olives but ate them anyway
Week Two Reflection