A Hectic Day

Today was so hectic! This morning my clinical teacher took a student to the principal’s office. The student has been misbehaving a lot and his father gave the principal permission to spank him. After his punishment, he did seem to act better. At PE, we had another child fall off the slide. We called his mother and she took him to the hospital. We found out that he broke his elbow. My supervising teacher also visited me. I was glad when the day was over!

Pumpkin Carving

The students were talkative today. We carved a pumpkin and they could not wait to look at the inside. They were so excited to see what the inside of a pumpkin looks, smells, and feels like. We took the seeds and pulp out. After washing the seeds, we let them dry. Then we used the seeds for a math activity. The students guessed how many seeds were in the pumpkin. Afterwards, we counted to see how many seeds were actually in it.

A Talkative Student

The students did not behave very well today. They wanted to talk a lot. During our instructional time, I had to keep calling one particular student down. He is a new student; therefore, we are teaching him the rules and procedures. It takes away from the other students whenever I have to stop teaching in order to get his attention and it does make it hard for me to teach.

Pumpkin Unit

I started to teach my pumpkin unit today. The students were excited whenever they saw the pumpkin. I allowed them to hold a small pumpkin so that they would be able to tell me what it felt like. They seemed to enjoy our discussion on what a pumpkin looks and feels like. For the most part, the students behaved well.

Pre-test

I administered my unit pre-test yesterday and today. Today, I used objects such as an apple and bell pepper as part of the test. The students seemed to do much better with the objects. In addition, I did this part of my test on an individual basis. I believe this helped the students as well. The majority of students did better with the representations.

Behavior Issues

A few of my students misbehaved a lot today. One little boy has started to play in his food at breakfast and lunch. He seems to be very immature for his age. The other student has a bad home life; therefore, we believe many of his problems are a result of it. We are trying to work with both of the students on their behavior.

AB Patterns

We went over AB patterns again today. The students were responsible for adding to a pattern as well as coloring it. Some of them seemed to get confused whenever they had to color their pattern. I worked with a small group and so did my clinical teacher. They seemed to work better with us working with them and their behavior was better too.

Hot Potato with Shapes

The students behaved well today and they worked hard. During our math lesson, we played a game. I introduced the students to the concepts of spheres and cubes. After we discussed the shapes, we played hot potato using the shapes. I passed the shapes to each student and they had to tell me what the shapes were. By the end of the lesson all the students could tell me what the shapes were.

Fire Trucks Visit

We had a busy day. This morning we had to administer our weekly theme skills test. My clinical teacher and her assistant worked on the test while I taught the class. During our break, we discussed the results. The majority of the students seemed to have done well. After lunch, the fire trucks came to visit. The firefighters talked to the students about what to do in case of a fire. They also allowed the students to hold a water hose and to try on some of their equipment. Thankfully, the visit was towards the end of the day and it did not interfere with our instructional time.

Patterns

We worked on patterns today and the students seemed to catch on fast. I allowed them to make a pattern using their bodies and they seemed to enjoy it. We created an AB pattern by every other student standing, while the other student sat down. All the students participated in the pattern. We also used marsh mellows to make patterns. I used two colors of marsh mellows and allowed the students to create a pattern of their own. After making the patterns the students were allowed to eat their marsh mellows.

Halloween Pictures

The students created Halloween pictures today. We used big pieces of construction paper in order to complete the project. Each student colored a picture of a haunted house. Afterwards, we glued the pictures to their construction paper. The students completed a sentence about what they saw in their haunted houses and they drew pictures based on their sentences. The students did a great job on their pictures and we are displaying them in the cafeteria in order to show off their work.

Marsh Mellow Prints

The students worked hard today. They listened well during circle time and I could tell that it helped them during our group time. We use group time to complete work sheets that accompany our Basal Reader and the students were able to complete them with little assistance. We also made a craft with the students today. Since our beginning sound this week is /m/ we made marsh mellow prints. I used blue construction paper to make an outline of the letter m. The students dipped a marsh mellow into white paint and made prints inside the m. Although it did take some time, the students seemed to enjoy it.

Beginning Sounds

Today’s lessons went well. The students did a great job with beginning sounds. We played a game where they had to listen to two words. If the words had the same beginning sound, the students gave me a thumbs up. If the words did not, they had to cover their ears. Most of the students were able to identify the words that had the same beginning sound. I was pleased with their progress.

Classroom Behavior

The students did not behave very well today. Some of the students that are usually well behaved wanted to play during circle time. I believe it has something to do with it being fair week. They wanted to talk a lot and it was hard to keep their attention. I reviewed the rules and procedures for the classroom with the students and once they learned that I was not going to allow them to talk they settled down some. I discussed the matter with my clinical teacher and she said that during the fair the students usually seem to misbehave more.

New Student

We got a new student in our class today. He has been in pre-k; however, they finally got a copy of his birth certificate and he is too old for the program. We were not sure how he would react to a new class; however, he seemed to do well. He does not speak English; therefore, it does make it hard to communicate with him. On the bright side, his cousin is also in our class and he is bilingual. We also have another bilingual student and he helps us translate to another non-speaking English student. I would like to learn Spanish so that I can communicate with the students.

Mid-point Evaluation

My supervising teacher came by today to complete my mid-point evaluation. His visit was brief and everything went well. It is hard to be believe that my student teaching is half way over. The students were well behaved today and they worked hard. We have more time for instruction whenever the students behave because we are not spending instructional time going over the rules.

Field Trip

We went on a field trip to the fair today. Some of the students have never ridden the bus; therefore, they were excited about the bus ride. All of the students were excited to be going to the fair. We had the opportunity to go on a hayride and look at farm animals among other things. We were supposed to ride on the carousel; however, it was closed down by the time we got to it. We had several parent volunteers and they helped up tremendously. All of the students were well behaved and they all seemed to have fun. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted.

Fishing for Numbers

As part of today’s math lesson, I allowed the students to fish for numbers. I used a small inflatable swimming pool, magnetic fish, and small toy fishing poles. Prior to teaching the lesson, I write numbers 1-5 on masking tape. I placed the tape on the underside of the fish. The students took turns fishing for numbers. Once they caught a fish, they were responsible for telling the class what their number was and the class clapped the corresponding number of times. The students enjoyed the activity and wanted to play it over and over again.

Music

This week I gave the students a CD with songs that correlate to the Alpha Friends used in our reading series. Each song is based on one letter of the alphabet and its beginning sound. We also sent a letter home to explain to parents what the CD was. One of our parents called us and told us how much her son enjoyed listening to the CD. She said that he sang from the time he got home until it was time for bed. Other students in our class told us that they listened to their CDs and which song was their favorite. One of the students asked us to make him another CD with some of the other songs that we sing in class. This weekend we are going to make them another CD.

Tooty Ta

As part of our morning routine, I play songs and sing with the students. One of our songs is the Tooty Ta by Dr. Jean. The students love to sing and dance to the song. I believe it is their favorite song. Although they sing and dance to other songs, they really get into dancing to the Tooty Ta. Before class this morning, I asked the teacher assistant to take pictures of the students as they danced.

Today's Instruction

I feel good about today’s instruction. Mrs. Bennett and her assistant pulled students for intervention groups while I worked with the rest of the class. We also did our small groups. My group worked on writing sentences with their spelling words. After lunch, we did our math lesson. I wrote a number on the dry erase board and the students had to identify it. Using bear counters, the students had to count out the number shown. During the lesson, I noticed that some of the children were having trouble using one-to-one correspondence. Mrs. Bennett also helped the children; therefore, it gave her an idea of who needs help.