Welcome to Week 4

Welcome 4

I had an awesome day with my CE.

My proudest moment in the classroom was supervising two teams in tic tac toe competition. I had just taught a lesson about exclamation marks, question marks, and periods. There were nine blocks, three for each row. Each block contained a sentence. Students had to say whether the sentence should end with a period, exclamation point, or a question mark. The students were on the rug so I split them into two groups. Each group would discuss what answer they would give me. I can not describe how much I enjoyed their excitement and enthusiasm. Some of the students before the game had gotten the answers wrong whenever I had asked them questions. Pressed for time we could only do seven out of the nine squares, but six of them were answered correctly. A great lesson I can use in my classroom is to inspire competition. Students LOVE it. This practice also connects with the NCTCS in standard 4f  that teachers will assist in team work. I divided the students up into teams and supervised their planning. I really was able to experience how important teams are and how they affect student learning. So with the reflection of the information, I have learned, I want to integrate as many activities as possible to make learning fun and interactive for the students. Whether games could be bingo or tic-toe, as the teacher it is my responsibility and pleasure to present the content or as questions in the best way which inspires student learning. 

One of the things I have struggled with in the classroom is paperwork. Every day my CE or the assistant must put papers in homework folders for students to take home and take out the paperwork which needs to be graded. My CE has been letting me work on this when I volunteered my two days this week. I am trying to establish a system of being able to do this task efficiently. For example, on Thursday,  I had to take math papers out of their folders and check their reading notebooks for their one book report. I wrote notes home to students parents because the homework had been left out. To put in their bags, I had to give each one of them a note from the office and a math work sheet. Though I am slow, my main goal is not to make any mistakes with students homework I think I will feel more comfortable with the job the more I do it. 

The work which gave me the most satisfaction this week was that I was able to teach two more lessons in the classroom. Along with the literacy lesson I taught which was about exclamation marks, periods, and question marks, we also did a quick math lesson on what numbers add up to 10. We had to hurry on the math lesson since we were running out of time. I am so glad my teacher will allow me to instruct students for I know this is the only way I will be able to learn. Though the reason why my teacher let me teach the two lessons was that she had to test students for the M-Class, I told her I would love to teach anytime even after stops testing. Of course, I will be teaching my five literacy lessons sometime in early October. In reflecting on the information I learned, I was able to see first hand how time can slip away. I took so long in the literary lesson that we were not able to completely finish math. My CE showed me today, how many alarms she has on her cell phone. She will set the alarm to five minutes before she has to stop teaching a lesson. When the alarm sounds, she will be able to wrap up a lesson quickly and then move on to the next one. 

My actions I would like to complete next week are to go to my CE's classroom on Monday and Wednesday, get a jump start on the Water Cycle Project, start working on my chapter 8 Text Facilitation and continue to dig deeper into my Science Project experiment. 

For the class this week, I have been on the email trying to communicate with my Science Fair Group. I help my group by sending out emails for times on when we can meet. For next week, I plan to work hard on the Water Cycle Project. I am going to research materials and insert them into the document. 

For the outside learning/research, I found a great series of books which are third to sixth-grade reading level. They are called Carole Marsh Mysteries. These books range from Science, Culture, and History. What a great way to incorporate literacy into all three of these subjects. Some of these books even include five SAT words. The books I have is The Mystery at Mount Fuji (a great book for discussing mountains) and The Mystery in the Amazon Rainforest (great for discussing the rainforest ecosystem). I love it when students love to read and they can learn at the same time. The author even has a book club students can join online. Check out the website. Here. For the future classrooms, I would use these books for unit plans. For example, I could be teaching students about Japan(culture) or about mountains (science)when looking at The Mystery at Mount Fuji. This book would give students a chance to see the information through the eyes of children. For The Mystery in the Amazon Rainforest, I could discuss ecosystems and different types of animals in the rainforest. 

Welcome to my Tweets

I love the way Star Sackstein explains the ongoing learning of a teacher. As future educators, we need to remember that we will never stop learning new information which we can apply to our classrooms. Every day we should seek to learn new information for which we can apply in tomorrow's lesson.

To have a successful classroom, a teacher must have excellent classroom management skills. I like how consistency is in the middle as if to connect all of the other circles together. Students need the consistency so that they will know what to expect. Teachers establish a strong foundation for all the students at the beginning of the semester so that she can have "effective relationships w/students" and have set rules for them to follow. She also must be able to engage her students through the high-quality material: special technology and hyperdoc lessons. All five areas make up a consistent classroom for learning.

If I were teaching a lesson about space, this picture would be my engagement tool to begin the lesson. Some insightful questions I could ask would be: " Where do you think this is happening." What makes up the bright light in the middle of the picture." and Is it possible to see this happening with the naked eye." As Dr. Parker said in his video for week 4, insightful questions bring insightful answers.  

Scientific Thinking for the Week

The specific current event related to science happened with Hurricane Irma. The impact of a catastrophic hurricane never ceases to amaze me. Nature is amazing in that warm water in the ocean can trigger the build up of a deadly hurricane. What is so strange is that we in western North Carolina can experience the effects of the hurricane with high wind and rain.  A science methods component to connect to the current event would be a prediction. Though scientist and weather experts may be able to predict that a hurricane is forming, they can never tell for sure if the hurricane will strike land or if it will change direction and turn away from the land. September is the worst times for hurricane weather because the water has been warmed by the hot summer. The change in a cooler temperature is the perfect situation for a hurricane. 

Our science text facilitation this week discussed chapter 2 of the textbook. I enjoyed the experience of putting together a hyperdoc which was packed with information about the inquiry. By using the five E model, everything was put in its right place. In connecting NCTCS with my future science instruction, 3D standards apply to the hurricane content. "Teachers make instruction relevant to students." As teachers, we need to be aware of the current events and what causes those events to happen in our world. We can teach those events in our classroom to make it more real to the students and we can be prepared if students ask a question. As a future teacher, I am learning to make the content real to students by making sure it connects with prior knowledge or something which they can apply outside of the classroom. 

I hope all of you have a happy Friday and a great weekend.