First Grade

I had the opportunity to observe and help a first grade teacher today. The students did not stay at their seats for long. Mrs. Lanier had the students engaged in activities that kept them moving around. She also had the students engaged in centers. I assisted some of the students while Mrs. Lanier did Guided Reading. I enjoyed being in her classroom and it was interesting to see her teaching style.

Observations

Today went by so fast! Although I did not teach I did work with small groups of students. I had the opportunity to observe my clinical teacher as she taught. I had planned to visit another classroom; however, the teacher had a change of plans in her schedule. She called this morning to let me know that her class would not be in the room at the time that I was supposed to visit. I plan to observe other teachers during the week.

Helping in the Classroom

My clinical teacher decided to teach all day. I worked with individual students some of the day. I also helped the teacher assistant get work together for the next couple of weeks. In addition, we started to decorate for Christmas. All the students have Christmas Stockings with their names on them. We put them on the railing of the staircase. The students were excited to see them. The day seemed to go by fast.

Extra Help

My clinical teacher taught for the most part today. While she taught, I worked with individual students. Some of the students need extra help and it does make it easier to do with three teachers in the classroom. Most of the students have improved a lot from the beginning of the school year. It will be interesting to see how much they have progressed at the end of the school year.

Music Class

Music class began today. The students were excited to sing and dance. In order to avoid loosing instructional time, we have music one day a week during our computer time. Our principal thought it would be a good idea so that we the students were not out of the classroom for 80 minutes. During our instructional time, the students did work hard. They are doing a great job with beginning sounds.

Indian Hats

We made Indian hats today for the students to wear. The students decorated sentence strips by drawing pictures on them. We also attached feathers to the strips. The students wore their hats in the classroom as well as to lunch. They enjoyed making the hats; however, it did make them a little rowdy. Mrs. Bennett read books about Thanksgiving and the class talked about the first Thanksgiving.

Turkeys

The students made turkeys using paper plates. They cut their turkey bodies out of construction paper and glued them to the plates. Then they colored the plates to represent the turkey’s feathers. Once they finished, I helped the teacher’s assistant decorate the stair case rail using the students’ turkeys. We also read more books about Thanksgiving.