Ms. Brown's Class: January 25th

I wanted to talk today about a couple times Ms. Brown offered choices in the classroom today.
Sometime earlier in the day before I came to the classroom, the students had filled plastic cups with snow from outside and were asked to make a prediction about how much water would be left after the snow melted-if there would be more water, the same amount of water, or less water than there was snow in the cup. I got to the classroom when the kids were coming back in from lunch and the snow had already melted quite a bit. When it was time for science, I helped Ms. Brown put all the kids' cups back on their desks and they met at the rug to talk about how there was a lot less water in the cups than there was snow and they brainstormed ideas about why that might be. She then told them that after they wrote about what they observed in their science journal, they needed to choose a place to put their cup in the classroom where they thought it might evaporate the fastest. Together, the children brainstormed some advantages and disadvantages to the different places.
There was also an opportunity for the students to make a choice today after they finished their language arts assignments. Ms. Brown gave them choices such as drawing a picture, writing a letter to someone, or reading a book.
Ms. Brown also gave me the choice to prepare a game or an activity for her class and said to just let her know if there was something special I would like to do with them while I was volunteering in her class.

I also wanted to mention some things that Ms. Brown does to make her classroom a positive community. I observed last week when I was in her classroom that one of the other students had pretty bad gas while they were all sitting at the rug together and the other students were laughing at him. Ms. Brown gently reminded the kids that sometimes when we have gas, we can't control it and already feel pretty embarrassed and that by laughing at him, they were not "filling his cup" but taking away from it. Today, one of the kids had a cough and one of the others yelled at him to stop coughing. Ms. Brown reminded him that sometimes we can't control our coughs and rather than yelling, we could make sure our friend is okay. I really appreciate how she helps them work on being a caring community.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk about some clear routines that I have observed. When the class comes in from recess or lunch, the first thing they do is meet at the rug. At the rug, they sing and do actions to a song together before Ms. Brown instructs them on what they will do next. During the instructional time, she keeps them very engaged and involved. She then will give them very clear instructions on what their next tasks will be. When she needs to make an announcement when they're doing their tasks, she'll say "Hey, Kiddos!" and they all call back "Hey Ms. Brown!" to show that they're paying attention. Even though its a first grade class and the kids have a lot of energy, Ms. Brown keeps them engaged and on task with these clear routines.

Ms. Brown's Class: Jan 18th

 

 Today was my first day volunteering in Ms. Brown's classroom. I got there before the kids had returned from lunch so I stopped to take a couple pictures.

When the kids got back from lunch, they were all curious to know who I was and why I was in the classroom. Ms. Brown gathered the class on the rug together and pulled out the class pictures that were taken the two years she was my teacher and told them how I was once one of the kids in her class, just like they are now. She told them that I am going to school to be a teacher and so I was going to be helping out in their class for a couple of months as part of my schooling.

After introductions, we had a short lesson on contractions. On her whiteboard in front of the classroom, she had written some simple phrases like "did not" and "could not" on the left, and words like "didn't" and "couldn't" on the right. She picked volunteers to come up and read the words on the left and then try to match them with words on the right. With each match, she would show how you could see the first word in its match and then showed how the "n" and the "t" were there from the "not" but the "o"  had been replaced by an apostrophe-which looks like a comma floating in the sky-when the words were smashed together to make a contraction. After reviewing contractions as one big group, she sent the kids back to their tables to practice identifying which words were contractions of others on a worksheet. This was an example of cognitivism because the kids were able to use the knowledge they knew about an earlier topic (the words did, not, and could) to build into this new concept to help them learn something else. After looking at it, saying it out loud, and matching them all together, they got to practice those things at their own desks. This is also a good example of how she addressed the different individual learning preferences of her students because there was opportunity to read, write, listen, and visualize things all together. Some of the kids also mentioned a computer program where they were practicing working with the contractions which would give them further opportunities to practice using a variety of learning styles.

While the students were practicing at their desks, Ms. Brown handed me a sticky note with a list of names of students divided into pairs to practice reading some words out loud in a card game called "Poison Star." They were practicing short, long, and double "o"s in words. The students took turns drawing a card and when they read the words correctly, they could keep the card, but if they drew the poison star, they had to pass all their cards to the person next to them and the person with the most stars at the end got a prize. This was one example of how she was addressing the different developmental levels of the students in her class because the students who needed extra practice were the ones who were at the top of my list for this reading out loud practice.

After I finished up helping 6 pairs with this sight-reading game, the principal came over the loudspeaker to announce that because of the poor air quality, we would be having indoor recess. During our indoor recess, Ms. Brown sent a couple students over to me with a game to help them figure out how to play the game and I had a couple different groups of kids who cycled through during the recess.

After recess, the kids returned to the rug where they sang a song about the Water Cycle and Ms. Brown instructed them on an art project they were going to do involving the Water Cycle. I helped pass out the construction paper the students would be using before I had to head out for the day.

Overall, it was a really fun first day and I am really excited to be back in the classroom next week!

Getting Started

Starting next week, I will officially begin doing my Service Learning hours for my Intro to Education class at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Uintah is an older school and has been around for over 100 years. It is tucked away in a beautiful neighborhood with lots of trees and houses and is just a short drive away from a couple coffee shops and small stores. There's typically not a lot of traffic on that street other than at drop off and pick up times. The school is a two story brown brick building. It has an upper and lower playground and a big field outside in addition to the enclosed playground just outside of the kindergarten classrooms.

I chose Uintah because it was actually my elementary school back in the day and the teacher I had for first and second grade is still there. I am excited to be able to be back in Ms. Brown's classroom, but this time as a helper. Ms. Brown is currently teaching first grade. Classes at Uintah go from 8:20-3:00 with a 45 minute lunch at 11 and a fifteen minute recess at 1:15. I've arranged to come in for a couple hours right after the students get back from their lunch.
I did 20 hours of Service Learning in an elementary school library last semester for a different class. From my understanding, Service Learning is an opportunity to have a hands on learning experience by observing the way a class functions and participating in improving that function. At the end of my Service Learning last semester, I was asked how my service benefited the students, the teacher, and the school community over all. This was a good reminder that it is supposed to be a meaningful experience and not just busy work. Ms. Brown assured me there will be lots to do and that she will keep me very busy. I remember when I was in elementary school, there was a volunteer or student teacher in the class who helped explain a math concept that I had a hard time grasping in a way that I understood and stuck with me. I hope to have the opportunity to help Ms. Brown's students the way that aide helped me. I'm very grateful to her and very excited for the opportunity to help.