Week 10

Hello Everyone,

I would give my week a four. I was able to experiment with some lessons this week since we did not have to do the regular phonics and LIF (literacy instruction framework) because of the three day week. I experimented during the time by having students use technology to display their learning.  I had several unusual instances which I will discuss on my blog. I discussed different cultures around the world and I had students to create a pages sheet and pic collage as an assessment of their understanding. Though students had never heard the word cultures, pages, or pic collage, they did a good job adapting to new information.

Questions to ask for the Week:

1.What technologies do your students use to create something to prove what they have learned?

2. What are some excellent math manipulatives do you use which help students better understand math principles?

3. What are some good activities does your class do in the month of March?

4.Do your school use time magazine kids and if so how do you integrate the material into your classroom?

5. Do you use a timer in your classroom to speed up student answers?

6. What does your teacher do for a bulletin board?

7. How do you keep up with field trip information?

Observe: The students learned about the elements of culture this week. The first day I gave some students assigned words to say when I said the word culture. I assigned words to students which pertained to cultures such as different clothes, different foods, different stories, different language, difference dance, and different art and music. Students loved the game and were able to get a quick sense of the what the word culture meant.

Reflect: For math, students are relearning how to complete number bonds. This week I used a tape diagram to help students understand the concept. The tape diagram is a number bond completed visually. The number on the top of the diagram is the total amount. The numbers on the sides are visually the numbers which add up to the top. Students draw circles to represent the numbers. Next week, I will keep reteaching the concept of number bonds as students start adding more harder two-digit numbers. Students use a number bond to break harder numbers down so they are able to add easier.

Focus: My short-term goal is to use a graphic organizer for as many lessons as I can when completing literacy. Therefore, students will be able to have a visual which will break down into simpler components. For example, when reading a book, we can focus on the main idea and key details chart. What is the main idea of the story? What are the key details which relate to the story? My long-term goal is to continue my PDP in contacting parents every week to keep them informed of their student’s progress.

Be Productive: I wish I had spent more time with the pic collage app before I began showing it to students. I had planned to have students insert their own pictures into the app and then write words explaining the pictures. Unfortunately, some of the pictures on images are filtered in from the bing search engine. My TA and I ended up doing the app with groups of students since some of the pictures on the search engine were naughty. Some of the student's pic collage still turned out well. Unfortunately, we were not able to get every student’s pic collage completed because of time. If I had this to do over again, I would have saved pictures to students camera’s and then instructed students not to use the search engine. I would still have had groups, however, the groups could have been larger.

Have Courage: I wanted to cram so much technology into this week, I think I planned for too much. I had students complete a page document of what culture they live in. I should have just completed the pic collage to make sure everyone had a chance to do it instead of doing pic collage and pages on the same day. Next time I will know not to expect so much out of my little first graders.

Begin Anew: Next week, I hope to complete the pic collages with the kids for our culture unit. Unfortunately, we will be back to our normal schedule so the only day I foresee I could add in a pic collage activity is on Wednesday or Friday.

I was pleased and somewhat disappointed at my scores for the phonics test. I had five students who scored much better than last Friday. 6 students, however, are still scoring badly. Unfortunately, I will have to move on since the majority of the class is understanding the ai and ay sounds. However, for next week I will continue to go over the ai and ay rules as we begin to focus on oa and ow. For math, students are ready to move on to more complex two-digit numbers. I have used the exit ticket or I have asked for students to complete the last few problems on their worksheet by themselves as proof to show me they understand the work.

Advice: Never be afraid to try something new as long as it is child safe and standard based.

Standard 1: Teachers lead in the classroom by learning new information to help them in their carrier. I have found a great website which has several different webinars daily of how teachers can better their classrooms. I have listened to one on field trip planning, helping ESL students, and academic foundational reading skills.

https://home.edweb.net/upcoming-webinars/

Standard 2: This week I taught about cultures around the world. To help tie in global and cultural understanding, I assigned students to read a book about a different country around the world. Students wrote notes on the different country and then they made a pic collage about that country. I had students to focus on the countries culture: food, language, ideas, music, dance, and art. Students enjoyed seeing how other people around the world live.

Standard 3: The standards will be changing in North Carolina for English and Math. On Thursday, I went to another school for a professional development day to learn more and understand the changes in the new standards. ELA has not changed for the most part accept a few standards have been added on. For example, teachers will now need to teach more in-depth instruction for conclusions in the story.

Standard 4: Students use technology in the classroom. They created a pic collage and explained about their culture on pages. Students also listed and watched a few quick videos about culture and they read books on their epic account located on ipads.

Standard 5: Teachers reflect on their student success. I reflected on my culture week. The only student who I do not think completely understood all about culture was my EC student. He refused to work on his paper for his country. I am reflecting on how I can better help him in the classroom. He does not like to do any type of writing. I am going to start making it my mission to ask him every time we have an independent assignment what he is going to put down on paper. If he is able to explain the idea do me first, I will know he is understanding the topic. He will also be able to express his ideas in a speech which will help make it easier for him to write.

In order to complete my PDP for parent communication every week, I have started sending out weekly newsletters to help parents understand what their child is doing every week in school. For example, this week I sent out words which will be on next Friday’s spelling test, math problems similar to what students will be completed, and the book focuses on literacy next week. Parents will be knowledgeable on what students are learning about and what to help students at home.

My CE and I have no questions for Ms. Suttle as of now. I will email if I do.

I hope each of you has a happy weekend and a productive next week.