JK/K Class

    I have now subbed in a classroom that has around 15 kids of ages 3, 4 and 5. Think of it as having 5 kids of each age in one classroom. Wow, differentiation at its finest. It is unbelievable not just the different ages of students, but also their academic and social levels. There are students that are learning how to write their first names mixed in with students that are beginning to read books and write stories. Yesterday I got a good understanding of how one could tackle a classroom with so many different levels, but one thing I noticed right away is that it is hard work. As a teacher with so many academic levels, one could just teach to the middle/average student, but the lower and higher students would not receive the attention they truly need. Instead this teacher looks at each individual students' level and teaches to where they are at academically. This means that there are two different spelling word lists, three different levels of math and 3+ different types of homework! Throw in the mix that your class looks different every single day, meaning that the kindergartners come to school every day (by the way it's a full day of school) while the 3 and 4 year olds come 3-5 days a week depending on what fits their parent's schedule and their parent's belief on how often they should be in school. This is an amazing situation that I believe shouldn't be happening because of how different the ages are academically and socially, but if I were put into this situation I would have to roll with the punches just like this teacher.

    As I said, I saw a bit yesterday how the classroom actually functions on a day to day basis and it is a lot of work. In the morning they do a group time, which is just like our calendar math, where you talk about the date, a pattern, money etc. For math (1 hour) the teacher does a 'Daily 3 Math' which is very very similar to Math Workshop I did in the 2nd grade classroom. It's a 15 minute rotation where the students go to the same three rotations, 1. Working with the Teacher 2. An activity related to their current unit 3. A math game or activity. Luckily, this teacher has two para pros/helpers that come in the morning to help out because I don't know if this would be possible without the help. These kids are too young to be able to stay motivated on their own. Personally I would have a couple minutes where the students could just share what they did during their Daily 3 or something they did just as a reflection period.

   Next the students have a literacy block (1 hour) where they are grouped in 3-4 students where the groups go to four different centers (there are five groups). The center they do every day is work with the teacher, where they work at their level on different literacy skills (because there are four rotations a day and five groups two groups meet with the teacher at once, but they are all the same level) while the other students are doing different centers. Not one group does the same center that day, so there are literally 15+ centers to set up or do every day. The centers range from writing, listening, writing the room to an art center, playdoh/water table where they practice writing/making words to games, lacing and computers. I like how the students do different centers so they could never become bored with one center because they only do it once a week, but that is a lot of setting up and prepping for the teacher. The only change I would make is to have 6-8 centers set up where a couple of the groups would do the same center during the day, so that it is not as much work for the teacher. The way students transition from one center to another is by listening for their teacher to ring the wind chime in their room. They know when they hear this that they need to freeze, listen for directions, and get ready to move to another center. Once again their are 2 para pros helping out in the morning during this time, which some centers are impossible to do without the help of an adult.

   Because of the huge gaps between the students by age and academics, I don't know if teaching could be done any other way other than centers or rotations. You can't teach to a full group all the time because some of the material would be too hard or too easy for a good chunk of the kids. By having meaningful centers or rotations the students are being taught to their needs and students are not working on one activity for a long period of time where they would become bored or off task. I think also it is important to have math and literacy taught in the morning because that is when these young students have the most attention because many of them begin to shut down or lose focus in the afternoon, since they are there a full day and that a long time for some students. There are definitely some good things I took away from this classroom and enjoy being there to impact those young kids.
   

Cell Phones in the Classroom?

Today in church our campus in Lake Orion streamed live into the campus at Troy to watch a message. This was really cool to experience, but the best thing was throughout the message we could text questions to the people that were onstage and they could read them on an iPad. This got me thinking about how you could do this same thing in a classroom! I could see this happening in high schools or middle schools. I was thinking that students could text in questions to the teacher instead of raising their hand and the teacher could answer these questions throughout the lesson. I think this would be very beneficial for those students that do not like to raise their hand or admit to their peers that they don't understand or are confused. I wish the students in my second grade class would ask more questions and tell me that they don't understand so I could explain the content in a different way. I think they prefer not to though because they don't want their peers to see them as weak or dumb. There would defiantly have to be rules and expectations in place for this to become a reality in the classroom because the issue of students texting their friends and not the teacher to ask question would arise, but I think this is something that could be used in the future. Just a thought!

Starting off 2012

I've come to realize that I jot a lot of notes and ideas down, but I never seem to transfer them to one area, a.k.a. this blog, which I hope to do more this semester. I also do a lot of reflecting and writing of ideas in my weekly reflections for class which is probably another reason why I haven't been writing ideas down in my blog. I figured with the start of a new year I need to set some goals for myself for the the rest of the school year and my internship. I want to do some things that will set me apart from other teacher candidates in the future and I don't want to wait until March to figure out some things to do to improve my school and get more involved. I have been thinking a lot about in the past few days and these are some goals I have for the rest of my internship year. 

- Use my time more wisely: This is my big overall goal for the year. I have a lot of time in the day that I waste watching TV or looking up random things on the computer and if I used that time to complete projects, assignments or coming up with creative and different ways to teach then I wouldn't feel so stressed and that I have made some type of difference in my school.

- Create a program or event for the entire school: What I have been thinking a lot about the past couple months is implementing a contest or event for March's reading month. I want to encourage students to read for enjoyment and not just because it's something you have to do. I was thinking about either creating a train around the school where students would write the names of the books and the authors of those books they read on a piece of construction paper and then watch it grow around the school, or I thought we could do a bare tree and every time a student read a book they would write the author and title on a leaf and we would add it to the tree. I would love to be able to set a goal for the school of 2000 books or something and if students met that goal they would get some prize or reward, much like how we did when I was in elementary school where all the students were able to try to dunk the librarian in a dunk tank. I think this would be a lot of fun and it would encourage students to read more than just what they normally do for homework.

- Make lessons more fun and get more family/parent involvement: This first semester I really was trying to get into the groove of teaching and just going through the motions while adding some fun projects or experiments, especially in social studies and science. I also tried to use our Promethean Board as much as possible in different lessons, but I want to go even more outside the box. I want to try using movement and kinethetics to get students up and moving. I want to try to incorporate our special subjects by bringing in music, art and more technology. I want to try to create more of my own lessons and really think through how I want to implement them in different ways to meet the needs of all my students. I want to try new techniques and new ideas just to see what will happen! I want to take more risks and try out things that we talk about in class or that I read on other people's blogs. To me this also includes doing more 'bonus homework' that will get the students more involved in their community and families will be more encouraged to participate in their students' education. I want students to bring things in from home that they can share with the class that relates to something we talked about. I want students to find examples from home and notice that the things they do in school is important for their everyday life. I hope to have more students engaged more throughout the school day and that every one of them will be excited to walk through the school doors every morning and leave wanting to share with their families one thing they learned. 

- Make an impact in the Green Committee: I want to do something that will encourage more students to be a part of recycling, reusing and reducing by coming up with fun projects that students and parents can get involved in as well as coordinating assemblies or fun family after school projects that will encourage student to think about what they can do to help make a difference in their home, school, community etc... I need to think a little more about what I want to do concerning this committee, but I want to make more of an impact and a difference than I already am.

In closing what I really want to do is step up my game. I want to separate myself from other graduates that are going to be going out searching for teaching jobs. I want to show people what types of things I could potentially do in their school through the actions I take this year. I am excited for the students to come back tomorrow. I feel like my battery is completely recharged and I can't wait to jump into the second half of my student teaching!