Week 6.

A shortened week...but EVENTFUL!

Wednesday - 2/27
This was my first day of truly, truly doing it all (with the help of my cooperating teacher as my "assistant," of course). The biggest event of today was me teaching - and RECORDING - my first ever math lesson. Surprisingly, it went okay. Not great, but not bad either. I think since I've started taking over most things that I have realized how painfully bored the class gets when they have to sit still for more than 15 minutes or so at a time, so I tried to incorporate some alternation between group work and whole group instruction into that lesson. It actually flowed pretty smoothly aside from some altercations between disagreeing group members, but I noticed that the students were engaged and excited to be able to handle manipulatives (it was a lesson introducing the penny; the kids got to handle and count their own pennies).
I think something I need to work on -and I learned this today - is making sure I check over my plans more thoroughly before beginning a lesson. I made a big point in planning over the weekend and discussing my plans with my CT that I wanted to have an organized writer's workshop where the students could conference with me one-on-one about the stories they are writing. Instead (and I can't believe I did this) I forgot about my plan to conference while giving my writing lesson and ended up floating around the tables, helping everyone who was raising their hand. This worked out fine - for the people that were raising their hands! I know that I have a couple of "quiet strugglers" in my room, students who aren't disruptive when they are off-task or need help, but simply sit quietly and stare off into space or work on coloring a picture. These are the kids that need help the most and I likely wasn't giving that help to them. I felt like that was a glaring problem with my execution of my plan, so I'm definitely going to have to work to fix it!

Friday - 3/1
There was a lot going on today in kindergarten! It's Dr. Seuss's birthday tomorrow (March 2nd) so I gave a semi-impromptu lesson on both Dr. Seuss and also looking up information using the Internet. I used the SMART Board to demonstrate using search engines to find out information, then I pulled up the biography of Dr. Seuss and had the students ask me questions about the author. (And such mature questions, too: Did Dr. Seuss ever write adult books? How did he die? And my favorite: Is he going to come visit us?) I thought this went really well. Then, we got to sit in a circle on the carpet as I read The Lorax and, on the spot, connected it to our social studies unit about being a helper. This part of the day went well, even though it was a lot of thinking on my feet. But that's what teaching is all about!
We also had our "publishing party" for our original stories during literacy time this morning. I was happy that I was able to take the basic concept outlined in the basal text and run with it, letting the students create stories, edit them, practice reading them in their small table groups, and then having a day where they could all sit in the Author's Chair and share their pieces. While the kids had a lot of fun doing this activity, I (as always) wish I had allotted more time for it. I knew it was important to the students, but we went about 15 minutes over what we were supposed to and there were still some people who hadn't shared....so I had to cut into a little bit of math time to fit in the rest of the authors.
This was also huge for me in understanding how important it is to differentiate. I let everyone know that if they were not comfortable with reading their stories, they could still sit in the Author's Chair and I could sit beside them and read what they had written. So when our sole ELL student sat down at the chair, I asked him if he needed help. He of course said no, he would read the story himself. And he did an amazing job - but he still couldn't get through a few of the words (I partially blame this on me not reinforcing good handwriting). So I simply asked him again if he needed help, and he nodded. I read the story to the class, and afterwards when the class was asked to share things they liked about the story, everyone's hands shot up. It was so overwhelming to see such a supportive class of students who understand that all of them have different needs, but appreciate the work that was being put forth by each person. While he started looking nervous and a little terrified, he ended up going back to his seat with a huge grin on his face. I don't think that would have happened if I hadn't noticed the aid he needed and given it to him.
Also, it was "game day" in math (we do this every Friday). After teaching math the past two days in mostly whole-group settings, it was AMAZING to see how much more engaged and interested the kids are in a subject when it's presented in the form of a game. I just wanted to quickly write about this as a kind of "note to self" about teaching math next week...when I'll be doing it all by myself! Incorporate games! Learning needs to be fun!