The preservice teachers participating in the USA 100 Black Men Summer Enrichment Program are an outstanding group of students at the USA College of Education. This blog is a safe environment designed for journaling reflections, sharing ideas, and communicating challenges and successes during the program.
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Monday, June 20, 2011
Week Three Post One
Hi Everyone,
Post your first reflection for week three here.
I must say that I was terrified when I was asked to teach fifth grade math this week, but I DID IT! And it was great. Again I am learning to be flexible. At first, I thought that I was not going to like not having my own classroom. Though I do miss the idea, I feel like I am getting the most out of this experience. It has forced me to face and overcome my teaching fears.
I can handle fifth graders. I can teach math. I can teach fifth grade math! Whooooooo hooooooo!
CASE was a little crazy today, but the boys had a great time doing the fish prints. I enjoyed it too. And I must say that I LOVE our new dismissal procedure.
Today was a little hectic because all the students were off schedule. I missed my first class so I had to figure out different plans for the day so that the other classes would not jump ahead of that one. One of my mentor teachers for math helped me come up with a plan to work with the hundreds chart.
I hung up my large hundreds chart and asked them what they noticed about the chart. They noticed things like they could skip count by 2s, 5s, 10s, and even 11s. They picked out the row of numbers that were even and odds. After we talked about the hundreds chart we played a game called "arrow math". I gave each student their very own hundreds chart. Next I wrote a number on the board for the starting point. Then I drew a series of arrows on the board, the students had to then follow the arrows to find the number. Once they found the number they had to determine if the number found was even or odd. The activity was good for an impromptu day. Tomorrow I look forward to going along with my lesson plans with working with prime and composite numbers.
Last week in math I introduced addition and subtraction with three digit numbers and word problems. My first class was ready to move on to money but my other three classes were struggling with carrying and regrouping and I did not feel comfortable moving on without them being confident. When our schedule got changed Monday morning and we did not have our first class I had the opportunity to continue to work with regrouping without holding one of my classes back. I gave each student a step meter and they ran in place for thirty seconds and then they recorded their number of steps on a sheet of paper. The students went pair up with different students and add together or subtract their number of steps with their partner. The students loved the activity! Today we moved on to money and it is hard to believe that I only have two more full days to teach. They were very excited about working with money but they had a lot of difficulty with it. I had the students write down what they know about a quarter, nickel, dime and penny and then we made charts and discussed the different coins. I paired the students up to play Roll a Dollar to help the students practice counting change and I walked around and had the students count their change for me so that I could assess. I was amazed when the majority of my students could not count coins. We are going to use hundreds charts tomorrow so that they can see how numbers are counted by fives and tens.
This week is off to a great start! All four of my classes are working on different lessons due to the schedule change Monday and the various experiments that two of the classes are conducting for their science boards to be displayed during the open house next Friday. At first, I was concerned about not having each group working at the same pace, but it has been a nice change. I enjoy not doing the exact same lesson four times a day! Today it really hit home how little time we have left to wrap up our lessons! With only two full teaching days left, I'm feeling the stress of trying to complete the individual science boards and also finish up with lessons that I feel are important for the students learning of the content to be covered in the assessment on Tuesday!
It's a great feeling when you can say this week has been the best so far, knowing that you said that the previous week as well! The weeks just keep getting better. Monday was so much fun with the fish printing activity for CASE. I promised my students that I would bring in real fish, and I did just that. I walked in with my cooler full of fish, fresh from the previous night. What is funny is my boys were the ones who wanted me to bring in the fish, yet the girls were the ones who ended up painting with the real fish instead of the boys, who thought it was gross. That whole afternoon was fun and filled with laughter. My girls thoroughly enjoyed the fish printing, and their artwork speaks for itself.
Besides the fish printing activity being fun, this week's lessons have been fun and engaging as well. We finally got into our chapter book, where we have been applyinh everything we've learned about this summer. The light went off for my students when they said, "Oh, this is how you really read and undertsand a book." I excitedly screamed, "YES!" The fact that all four groups, even the all boy group, enjoy the part of the day where we gather 'round for Ms. Benton's Book Club is enough for me to be happy and know this summer has been a success for my students. I know that reading may not be their favorite subject, but knowing that they enjoy reading while they are in reading is an accomplishment.
I am really excited for today's lesson and tomorrow's water day. Today should be interesting becasue we are doing a science experiment in reading. I know it sounds crazy, but it relates to what we have been learning about this week, which is main idea and supporting details. I'm eager to see if my classroom management that I have estabilshed goes out the window after today's lesson. (lol) I know my students will enjoy today's activity though, so it is worth it. Tomorrow will be just as much fun with our afternoon involving water activities. This summer just keeps getting better each day!
Today was hectic, quick, messy, and off! I get to school around 7am as I always do and go in to find my room door unlocked and all the lights on. I didn’t think anything of it, then someone asked me if my room was okay. I was confused and said yeah and then asked why they were asking. They said there was a break-in last night and some people’s rooms got vandalized and some things got stolen. Nothing of mine was touched, thankfully. I wondered how they broke in because all of the windows have burglar bars on them, but then I saw the broken glass in the stairwell. Someone had smashed the glass to the door and broke in. I think the only things stolen were an iPod and its chord. It must have been kids that did it because there were so many more things that could have been taken. So the police came shortly after 7 and did an inspection of the damages. School is supposed to begin at 8am, but the police wouldn’t let the kids leave the gym until the report had been finished. They finally left around 9am and our kids could now enter our rooms. We had to completely skip the first class because they switch to their next class at 9. Then the day went on as usual.
Today we learned about the main idea and supporting details of a story or paragraph. We made main idea hands! They turned out really cute :) For art today we did fish-printing, or gyotaku! It was pretty crazy. I made blue bubbles that the kids used as a background and then they did the fish printing. They didn’t turn out great because there were 4 teachers helping and about 22 kids. Most of the kids put too much paint on their fish and you couldn’t see the details. It was fun for them though! It was a lot to explain, hand out materials, clean up, and pack up to go home all in one hour! Phew!
What an interesting week so far... Monday was crazy because we could not allow the children into the classrooms until second period. I taught my lesson as normal (we just built propellered vehicles from the AMSTI kit); I am not very fond of the fourth grade AMSTI kit. While some of the material may be interesting, it does not allow for much manipulation. I prefer making my lessons my own or finding fun lessons because I feel as though I can work in other subjects as well. I love that I do not have to start planning as early with the kit, but I feel as though it is just good for when I am feeling lazy and I do not want to have to think to teach. My students and I had more fun working on the lessons I came up with without support of the kit. I enjoyed using the kit in the thrid grade last school year, so I guess, it would just depend on the concept being taught. I am just glad that I only had to use the kit for one week.
The rest of my week was quite intersting. I had 4 seperate incodences break out where two students hit each other. I think I need to have students doing some form of writing when they walk in the room to get them to enter calmly and quietly. Fights began because of name calling, "she took my chair", "she hit me first" "but I was just playing I didn't mean to hit him, then he hit me, so I hit him back", etc. Most of this all took place on Wednesday after I had been told if I had to talk to anyone for any reason, they will have detention. Well, none of the students who were fighting ended up with detention. This is after I told them, they know the consequences and fighting is not a good option for being in a classroom. So, when students still got to participate in water day when I and other teachers told them, you will have detention, I feel as though I have no grounds to have rules now. I just cannot imagine going in on Monday and having anything to hold over their heads or any reason for them to do as they are told, because next week they will say, "it doesn't matter what I do because they won't do anything about it; they won't expel me for fighting, they won't give me detention for fighting, they will just say they are taking away New Orleans, but when Thursday comes around at 6 am, no matter how crazy and disrespecttful I am I will still be there."
Water day was a lot of fun. I enjoyed being with the girls. I liked the presentation as well. I am worried about when Monday comes around, what the boys will be like because "we have taken away their New Orleans trip" and they have to "earn" it back. I bet they could still act foolish and they will still get to go. I guess the more I do this the more strict I become. I have found that when I am strict we can have more structured fun. I cannot wait until my second year of teaching, because my first year will be getting the "mean" profile and the second will be proving that the mean is there because my class has the most fun out of all the teachers and coolest prizes when they behave.
THANK you Dana Cook for substituting for my fifth grade class. I had a great time on the Disney Cruise with my family those two days, and it wouldn't have happened as smoothly without you!
Missing those two days taught me how much goes into preparing for a substitute because they can't read your mind! Fortunately, we had the awesome help of Ms. Dubose and Mrs. Byrd who came to the rescue to fill in any gaps that I am sure I forgot.
I missed my boys while I was gone, and I sure was happy to come back-- but I will save more about what I was greeted with in my next reflection post!
I must say that Ms. Cook is a substitute (and thereby teacher) that I would love to have again. Although I think my boys gave her a run for her money, as they do for me often, she still reported as many positive things to say about those boys as she could pull from her Mary Poppins hat. The praise came endlessly, despite the negative turn that she chose not to take. Kudos to you Dana!
I can’t believe week three is over and Monday morning starts our final week of this program. I love trying to find fun and engaging activities to make reading fun. This week we worked on main idea and supporting detail. We used magazines to cut out a picture and determine the most important part about the picture, and giving proof as to why. Our sentence for the week was, “Where’s the proof, yo?” I found the cutest rap on teacher tube that the students used to learn main idea and supporting detail.
Tuesday was the best day of the week for both the students and me. We made “main idea pizzas.” The crust represented the main idea and the ingredients that went on the pizza represented the supporting details. They had a blast making and eating theses snacks; and I loved watching them have such a good time while understanding the objective I was teaching.
This week got off to a great start! I really enjoyed just focusing on teaching the science. Monday was kind of hectic, but I was able to adjust to the schedule. CASE class was great because the kids got to paint. The boys were so excited when I told them that they were making fish prints. Their pictures turned out really well!
Monday morning I came into my classroom and there was a lot of stuff moved around. I had heard other mentions of things being out of order so I immediately went to report what I had found. Of course we all know there was a break in and we all missed our first class. This was my first lesson in adaptation. This is my class that is usually a little behind because I don't have all of the bugs worked out yet. Monday we had started our science centers. This was the first time I had introduced centers and I knew it would require a lot of structure and explanation. I was also introducing the science fair on this day. I knew I would have to make sure that my other three groups didn't get too far ahead. It was a slightly stressful morning but I think it gave us all a good dose of reality. As teachers there will constantly be something unexpected coming up that we will have to plan around and adapt to. I think there are many lessons we can all take away from this incident.
I would say Wednesday was my best day this week. One moment that stood out for me was when we were reviewing everything that we had learned about so far. It was the beginning of my second class and as the students were coming in, Mr. Lewis had also come into the classroom and taken a seat along with the students. I wasn’t nervous but I don’t know how I felt. Every day before we get into our activity, we review what we have been learning about. So, we reviewed and I asked the first question, “Who can tell me what a variable is?” Almost every hand went up! I was smiling on the inside and the out and I am pretty sure Mr. Lewis was as well. After I would call on someone and they gave a correct answer, Mr. Lewis would give them a high-five. That kept the students motivated and they wanted to answer every question. They did a brilliant job reviewing. I was so proud of them as well as myself.
CONQUERING FEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI must say that I was terrified when I was asked to teach fifth grade math this week, but I DID IT! And it was great. Again I am learning to be flexible. At first, I thought that I was not going to like not having my own classroom. Though I do miss the idea, I feel like I am getting the most out of this experience. It has forced me to face and overcome my teaching fears.
I can handle fifth graders. I can teach math. I can teach fifth grade math! Whooooooo hooooooo!
CASE was a little crazy today, but the boys had a great time doing the fish prints. I enjoyed it too. And I must say that I LOVE our new dismissal procedure.
Today was a little hectic because all the students were off schedule. I missed my first class so I had to figure out different plans for the day so that the other classes would not jump ahead of that one. One of my mentor teachers for math helped me come up with a plan to work with the hundreds chart.
ReplyDeleteI hung up my large hundreds chart and asked them what they noticed about the chart. They noticed things like they could skip count by 2s, 5s, 10s, and even 11s. They picked out the row of numbers that were even and odds. After we talked about the hundreds chart we played a game called "arrow math". I gave each student their very own hundreds chart. Next I wrote a number on the board for the starting point. Then I drew a series of arrows on the board, the students had to then follow the arrows to find the number. Once they found the number they had to determine if the number found was even or odd. The activity was good for an impromptu day. Tomorrow I look forward to going along with my lesson plans with working with prime and composite numbers.
Last week in math I introduced addition and subtraction with three digit numbers and word problems. My first class was ready to move on to money but my other three classes were struggling with carrying and regrouping and I did not feel comfortable moving on without them being confident. When our schedule got changed Monday morning and we did not have our first class I had the opportunity to continue to work with regrouping without holding one of my classes back. I gave each student a step meter and they ran in place for thirty seconds and then they recorded their number of steps on a sheet of paper. The students went pair up with different students and add together or subtract their number of steps with their partner. The students loved the activity!
ReplyDeleteToday we moved on to money and it is hard to believe that I only have two more full days to teach. They were very excited about working with money but they had a lot of difficulty with it. I had the students write down what they know about a quarter, nickel, dime and penny and then we made charts and discussed the different coins. I paired the students up to play Roll a Dollar to help the students practice counting change and I walked around and had the students count their change for me so that I could assess. I was amazed when the majority of my students could not count coins. We are going to use hundreds charts tomorrow so that they can see how numbers are counted by fives and tens.
This week is off to a great start! All four of my classes are working on different lessons due to the schedule change Monday and the various experiments that two of the classes are conducting for their science boards to be displayed during the open house next Friday. At first, I was concerned about not having each group working at the same pace, but it has been a nice change. I enjoy not doing the exact same lesson four times a day!
ReplyDeleteToday it really hit home how little time we have left to wrap up our lessons! With only two full teaching days left, I'm feeling the stress of trying to complete the individual science boards and also finish up with lessons that I feel are important for the students learning of the content to be covered in the assessment on Tuesday!
It's a great feeling when you can say this week has been the best so far, knowing that you said that the previous week as well! The weeks just keep getting better. Monday was so much fun with the fish printing activity for CASE. I promised my students that I would bring in real fish, and I did just that. I walked in with my cooler full of fish, fresh from the previous night. What is funny is my boys were the ones who wanted me to bring in the fish, yet the girls were the ones who ended up painting with the real fish instead of the boys, who thought it was gross. That whole afternoon was fun and filled with laughter. My girls thoroughly enjoyed the fish printing, and their artwork speaks for itself.
ReplyDeleteBesides the fish printing activity being fun, this week's lessons have been fun and engaging as well. We finally got into our chapter book, where we have been applyinh everything we've learned about this summer. The light went off for my students when they said, "Oh, this is how you really read and undertsand a book." I excitedly screamed, "YES!" The fact that all four groups, even the all boy group, enjoy the part of the day where we gather 'round for Ms. Benton's Book Club is enough for me to be happy and know this summer has been a success for my students. I know that reading may not be their favorite subject, but knowing that they enjoy reading while they are in reading is an accomplishment.
I am really excited for today's lesson and tomorrow's water day. Today should be interesting becasue we are doing a science experiment in reading. I know it sounds crazy, but it relates to what we have been learning about this week, which is main idea and supporting details. I'm eager to see if my classroom management that I have estabilshed goes out the window after today's lesson. (lol) I know my students will enjoy today's activity though, so it is worth it. Tomorrow will be just as much fun with our afternoon involving water activities. This summer just keeps getting better each day!
(Written on Monday)
ReplyDeleteToday was hectic, quick, messy, and off! I get to school around 7am as I always do and go in to find my room door unlocked and all the lights on. I didn’t think anything of it, then someone asked me if my room was okay. I was confused and said yeah and then asked why they were asking. They said there was a break-in last night and some people’s rooms got vandalized and some things got stolen. Nothing of mine was touched, thankfully. I wondered how they broke in because all of the windows have burglar bars on them, but then I saw the broken glass in the stairwell. Someone had smashed the glass to the door and broke in. I think the only things stolen were an iPod and its chord. It must have been kids that did it because there were so many more things that could have been taken. So the police came shortly after 7 and did an inspection of the damages. School is supposed to begin at 8am, but the police wouldn’t let the kids leave the gym until the report had been finished. They finally left around 9am and our kids could now enter our rooms. We had to completely skip the first class because they switch to their next class at 9. Then the day went on as usual.
Today we learned about the main idea and supporting details of a story or paragraph. We made main idea hands! They turned out really cute :) For art today we did fish-printing, or gyotaku! It was pretty crazy. I made blue bubbles that the kids used as a background and then they did the fish printing. They didn’t turn out great because there were 4 teachers helping and about 22 kids. Most of the kids put too much paint on their fish and you couldn’t see the details. It was fun for them though! It was a lot to explain, hand out materials, clean up, and pack up to go home all in one hour! Phew!
What an interesting week so far... Monday was crazy because we could not allow the children into the classrooms until second period. I taught my lesson as normal (we just built propellered vehicles from the AMSTI kit); I am not very fond of the fourth grade AMSTI kit. While some of the material may be interesting, it does not allow for much manipulation. I prefer making my lessons my own or finding fun lessons because I feel as though I can work in other subjects as well. I love that I do not have to start planning as early with the kit, but I feel as though it is just good for when I am feeling lazy and I do not want to have to think to teach. My students and I had more fun working on the lessons I came up with without support of the kit. I enjoyed using the kit in the thrid grade last school year, so I guess, it would just depend on the concept being taught. I am just glad that I only had to use the kit for one week.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of my week was quite intersting. I had 4 seperate incodences break out where two students hit each other. I think I need to have students doing some form of writing when they walk in the room to get them to enter calmly and quietly. Fights began because of name calling, "she took my chair", "she hit me first" "but I was just playing I didn't mean to hit him, then he hit me, so I hit him back", etc. Most of this all took place on Wednesday after I had been told if I had to talk to anyone for any reason, they will have detention. Well, none of the students who were fighting ended up with detention. This is after I told them, they know the consequences and fighting is not a good option for being in a classroom. So, when students still got to participate in water day when I and other teachers told them, you will have detention, I feel as though I have no grounds to have rules now. I just cannot imagine going in on Monday and having anything to hold over their heads or any reason for them to do as they are told, because next week they will say, "it doesn't matter what I do because they won't do anything about it; they won't expel me for fighting, they won't give me detention for fighting, they will just say they are taking away New Orleans, but when Thursday comes around at 6 am, no matter how crazy and disrespecttful I am I will still be there."
Water day was a lot of fun. I enjoyed being with the girls. I liked the presentation as well. I am worried about when Monday comes around, what the boys will be like because "we have taken away their New Orleans trip" and they have to "earn" it back. I bet they could still act foolish and they will still get to go. I guess the more I do this the more strict I become. I have found that when I am strict we can have more structured fun. I cannot wait until my second year of teaching, because my first year will be getting the "mean" profile and the second will be proving that the mean is there because my class has the most fun out of all the teachers and coolest prizes when they behave.
THANK you Dana Cook for substituting for my fifth grade class. I had a great time on the Disney Cruise with my family those two days, and it wouldn't have happened as smoothly without you!
ReplyDeleteMissing those two days taught me how much goes into preparing for a substitute because they can't read your mind! Fortunately, we had the awesome help of Ms. Dubose and Mrs. Byrd who came to the rescue to fill in any gaps that I am sure I forgot.
I missed my boys while I was gone, and I sure was happy to come back-- but I will save more about what I was greeted with in my next reflection post!
I must say that Ms. Cook is a substitute (and thereby teacher) that I would love to have again. Although I think my boys gave her a run for her money, as they do for me often, she still reported as many positive things to say about those boys as she could pull from her Mary Poppins hat. The praise came endlessly, despite the negative turn that she chose not to take. Kudos to you Dana!
Great thinking Kirby! We had a blast with the step meters as well. I like how easy it is to adapt lessons for different grade levels.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading about all the gyotaku fish paintings, I am sad I missed out-- however, seeing my boys final product was a nice treat.
I can’t believe week three is over and Monday morning starts our final week of this program. I love trying to find fun and engaging activities to make reading fun. This week we worked on main idea and supporting detail. We used magazines to cut out a picture and determine the most important part about the picture, and giving proof as to why. Our sentence for the week was, “Where’s the proof, yo?” I found the cutest rap on teacher tube that the students used to learn main idea and supporting detail.
ReplyDeleteTuesday was the best day of the week for both the students and me. We made “main idea pizzas.” The crust represented the main idea and the ingredients that went on the pizza represented the supporting details. They had a blast making and eating theses snacks; and I loved watching them have such a good time while understanding the objective I was teaching.
This week got off to a great start! I really enjoyed just focusing on teaching the science. Monday was kind of hectic, but I was able to adjust to the schedule. CASE class was great because the kids got to paint. The boys were so excited when I told them that they were making fish prints. Their pictures turned out really well!
ReplyDeleteMonday morning I came into my classroom and there was a lot of stuff moved around. I had heard other mentions of things being out of order so I immediately went to report what I had found. Of course we all know there was a break in and we all missed our first class. This was my first lesson in adaptation. This is my class that is usually a little behind because I don't have all of the bugs worked out yet.
ReplyDeleteMonday we had started our science centers. This was the first time I had introduced centers and I knew it would require a lot of structure and explanation. I was also introducing the science fair on this day. I knew I would have to make sure that my other three groups didn't get too far ahead. It was a slightly stressful morning but I think it gave us all a good dose of reality. As teachers there will constantly be something unexpected coming up that we will have to plan around and adapt to. I think there are many lessons we can all take away from this incident.
I would say Wednesday was my best day this week. One moment that stood out for me was when we were reviewing everything that we had learned about so far. It was the beginning of my second class and as the students were coming in, Mr. Lewis had also come into the classroom and taken a seat along with the students. I wasn’t nervous but I don’t know how I felt. Every day before we get into our activity, we review what we have been learning about. So, we reviewed and I asked the first question, “Who can tell me what a variable is?” Almost every hand went up! I was smiling on the inside and the out and I am pretty sure Mr. Lewis was as well. After I would call on someone and they gave a correct answer, Mr. Lewis would give them a high-five. That kept the students motivated and they wanted to answer every question. They did a brilliant job reviewing. I was so proud of them as well as myself.
ReplyDelete