Lauren+Ruben

Week of 11/26-11/30
===I worked on my center project all week. I started by observing and talking anecdotal notes while the children played. I then took an inventory of all the supplies in this center. I sorted through everything and determined what should stay in housekeeping and what would be better suited in a different area. I found a lot of items mixed together without organization and was able to see how this can cause a lot of confusion. I sorted the items into sections and focused on making a restaurant. I decided to have a holiday theme in our restaurant. I also included dress up clothes for community helpers and some princess items. I took out all the excess food and left food grouped in bins based on the food pyramid. I had a meat basket, grain basket, fruit basket, and vegetable basket. I thought this tied along to our monthly theme of "food" nicely. I also brought in a real server book with guest checks and pencils. I was able to get take out containers from a local restaurant, plastic kids cups and straws, and real plates, cups, and towels. Throughout the week, the students made menus during choice time. They cut out photographs of food from magazines and glued them to a piece of paper creating a menu. I liked this idea because it gave the students ownership of this center and also encouraged fine motor and hand eye coordination. The students also made placemats using roller paints and marble painting. When I introduced the center to them I showed them the dress up clothes available and asked what they wanted to do first. One student took the lead and said, "A cop and a firefighter are coming to eat at my restaurant." She told her two friends to put on their dress up clothes and sit down. She was the waitress. She also enlisted another child to be the cook. I finished up by taking notes again observing the levels of play.===

BEFORE
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AFTER


Week of 11/19-11/23
Obviously we all had a (much needed) short week due to Thanksgiving. I paid close attention to centers this week and decided where I want to __#|complete__ my project. I started by taking notes in four different centers. The first area I went to was the block center. I saw a lot of collaborative play there and lots of materials conducive to a great learning experience. I decided the block center is functioning well, so I moved on to the art center. I saw a lot of solitary play and took notes for a while. The space is great. There is an __#|art table__ that is the "messy" table meaning if paint or markers or whatever gets on the table.. oh well. I thought that was great. The art center has lots of materials and is pretty well organized. I decided the art area didn't need a boost. I moved on to the science center. When I first discussed the project with Miss Amy, this was one area she thought could benefit from some help. There are tons of materials but perhaps they could be presented better or rotated to be less overwhelming. My final area of observation was housekeeping. There is an overwhelming amount of items in this center. After talking with Miss Amy, we decided we could better organize the science center fairly easily and that my focus would be on housekeeping. I'll be working on my project all during this upcoming week.

Finally, one of the lessons I did this week was in small groups and we made __#|playdoh__. We let the playdoh dry for a day then I did a lesson constructing letters from the playdoh. We were doing a review week so we made the letters "m", "i", and "s". We used a paper with the letters already on it and made the playdoh fit then we also made freehand letters.

Week of 11/12-11/16
===This week I taught a science lesson. Our goal was to combine 2 "ingredients" together and guess(predict) what might happen. The word "ingredients" was crucial because we were working on the letter "i". We mixed baking powder and vinegar and created the explosion you've most likely scene before where the liquid bubbles up. I also did the experiment with water and asked them what changed and why it was different. I started this lesson by using a chart behind me, and filling out the chart as we worked. After the first small group I found it incredibly hard to keep up with our science chart and perform the experiment. Keep in mind, we were working in small groups..3 to 4 children at a time and it was still difficult. I had to make some adjustments. When I worked with the second small group I drew their attention to the chart in the beginning and then at the end of lesson. I asked them to recall events that had just occurred instead of stopping while we were working to write, we wrote afterwards. I was actually glad I made this adjustment because it allowed for the students to practice re-telling me and using step by step directions.===

===Not sure if I've mentioned this somewhere in my blog but I wanted to talk about the visitors we've had in our classroom. I thought they were pretty entertaining and educational. We had a woman visit is from gateway to the arts who came and did a very interactive story about the gingerbread man. She visited four times and each day had a very hands-on lesson for the students. She had stick puppets, actual puppets, baking equipment, and even led the students on a parade using their own puppets.===

Week of 11/5-11/9
This was my first week actually being able to get a feel for the routines in the classroom and getting to know the __#|children__. I was able to observe various types of __#|play__ and was able to guess, for the most part, the ages of the students in the mixed age classroom based on the types of __#|play__ I was seeing them engage in. I thought that was interesting. I observed cooperative play mainly among the older students(older 4's and 5 year olds). They were able to have a dialogue about their play scenario. I saw children of all ages engaging in dramatic play. Both genders love taking on roles and acting them out. Some students chose to engage in cooperative play while using dramatic play as their tool. I saw a few younger children dressed up and doing "beauty shop" but not engaging any other classmates in their play. To me, this looked like solitary play. At one point, a little girl sat down next to a friend and watched her build a puzzle. Miss Amy commented that this was the first time she observed this little girl even attempting to engage another child. She is also one of the youngest children in the room. It appeared to me to be onlooker play. She did show an interest in the puzzle but mainly wanted to watch not __#|participate__. I saw a lot of associative and parallel play. During choice time, I saw many boys and girls engaged in housekeeping who were mimicing the moves of their __#|friends__ or even sharing their props, but not having a dialogue about what they're playing.

It was nice to be able to observe this without the pressure of turning in a lesson this week. It gives me a good indicator as to the development of some of the students to I can plan my first small group lesson accordingly.

Week of 10/29-11/2
===My placement was changed at the last minute and I ended up at Chartiers Early Learning Center in the McKees Rocks area. I was pretty nervous going there. This was my first time in the Pittsburgh Public School district. My first day was Wednesday. When I arrived the doors to the school were open so I just walked in. I couldn't find anyone in the office so I walked through the hallways looking for my classroom. This gave me a chance to peak into every classroom and see different set-ups they had. I found my classroom on the second floor. Miss Amy and Miss Kathy were pleased to meet me and were very kind. They were surprised to see me, they didn't think I was starting that day but were very welcoming. They gave me a tour of their room and told me to make myself comfortable. Miss Amy explained that there are 19 students in the room. The school day is from 8:15-2:15. Some students are Chartiers are bussed in but all the students in Miss Amy's room are dropped off and picked up by a parent or guardian. The students eat breakfast and lunch at school, provided by the school. There is a nap time in the afternoon. Several of the students are in foster care or are being raised by a family member other than a parent.===

===We agreed that the first day I would only observe and take notes to get a feel for their classroom. The next day I interacted more with the children but still observed. One little girl's grandma was late to pick her up so she was the last student in the room. I offered to read a story with her and she loved the idea. She picked out a book and sat next to me on the carpet while we read. I enjoyed the interaction and feeling like I was making a connection with that little girl. After I left school last night my eye was bothering me so I went to MedExpress. ‍‍Turns out, I caught pink eye so I didn't go to school today (thus I caught up on all my blogging).‍‍===

===I was able to get a feel for the routines of the classroom and the various centers available to the students. I began talking to Miss Amy about my center project and she told me to choose any center I'd like. ‍I started to photograph the centers and keep notes during the next week to determine what area I can benefit the most.‍=== ==

Week of 10/22-10/26 This was a very rewarding and sad week for me. I continued to teach everything up until I left. It was a strange feeling not to have a lesson plan to write for the upcoming week. Usually, all week long, I'm brainstorming ideas and thinking about lessons that are working/not working to incorporate into my lesson plans for the following week.

I've created a really positive relationship with the students and I feel very accomplished for how far I've come in the classroom. The student knew it was my last week and were very sweet. They made me feel appreciated it. Aside from it being my last week, it was an eventful week. For two weeks, the students had been bringing in change for "pasta for pennies". It's a fundraiser for cancer where students bring in spare change and the classroom who raises the most money gets a pasta party from olive garden for lunch. After week one, the classroom that had the most money so far was allowed to "pie" their teacher. The classroom that won happened to be my team teacher, Bob DeMario. It was awesome to hear his class' name on the announcements because his students are also my students and I was very proud of them. On Friday we had a big assembly where Mr. D's students threw pies in his face while the entire school watched. He was such a good sport about it. It made me proud to be from the district and to be student teaching in the district. There was a real sense of community at the moment.

This week, Mrs. Augustin introduced me to Mary Kelsey who works in the administrative office which is on the bottom floor of the elementary school. She is the person I need to speak with about being on the sub list in the district. That made me feel good to know exactly what I need to do to be on the sub list and get started in the district.

On Thursday, the students came back from music class and were doing the "cup dance" in class. I'd seen the cup dance before in the movie //Pitch Perfect// but didn't tell the kids that. They were doing it repeatedly while I was trying to teach. Instead of telling them to stop (which probably wouldn't work), I gave them a challenge. I said, if you will keep your hands quiet while we get through this lesson, I will let you teach me the cup dance tomorrow and I'll perform it for the entire class. They thought this was FANTASTIC. I explained that if they wanted to have enough time the next day to work on the cup dance then they needed to give me their best work and not talk to their neighbors so we could get everything done with time left over. If they started talking or not behaving during any lessons that day all I had to do was point to the cup on my desk and they were quiet and paying attention. So that night I went home and youtubed the cup video. OMG it was hard to learn! I spent two hours figuring it out then learning how to time the lyrics with the cup rhythm. So the next day I had a little celebration with Mr. DeMario's class in the morning. I gave them a treat bag I'd prepared for them and I was so surprised to find that the entire class made a card for me. They gave me lots of really sweet things that meant a lot to me.



For our __#|last__ event, I told them I'd like to learn the cup dance now and I needed their help learning. I brought in enough solo cups for everyone so I gave each student a cup and had them play the rhythm a few times for me (they didn't know there were lyrics). Then I asked them if they thought I was ready to try. They said yes, don't worry, it's hard it takes a while to practice just do your best. So I picked up my cup and blew them away by doing the rhythm realllly fast without messing it up. They couldn't believe it. It was as if this were the very best thing they had ever seen in their nine long years. I said hey, want to know a secret boys and girls? and they were //dying// to hear. Then I told them that I spent hours at my house the night before learning the cup dance to show them and told them it was really difficult and how impressed I was that they learned that whole thing in only one music class. Finally, I asked if any of them knew the words to the cup dance and none did. So I told them I'd do a special performance of it. Below is the video of the song, not me obviously but this is how I learned it. (I omitted the first verse because it talked about alcohol)

media type="youtube" key="XKcChGsDqnU" height="283" width="378" align="left"

That was during my morning session with Mr. DeMario's kids. I repeated the cup dance portion in the afternoon with my kids. This time I took them outside to the playground area to do the cup dance because it had been really loud this morning. While the they were at recess, the students decided to make up a dance for me. They created a "goodbye show" for me



The girls did a choreographed dance and the boys performed several numbers that were very sweet. Then my class surprised me, with the help of Mrs. Augustin, in throwing a party for me.



One student brought in a giant cupcake(big enough for the whole class). Another student brought in cookies. Mrs. Augustin brought in 2 dozen cupcakes. A little girl brought me a bouquet of flowers. A little boy brought me a pair of earrings. I received home-made cards from kids throughout the day, it was so touching. Then the class presented me with a beautiful card with a gift card to TGI Fridays inside. I was blown away. I actually started to cry. It made me fee like I had really impacted these students. At the end of the day when I walked the students to the end of the hallway for bs duty, all the kids from Mr. D's and my class gave me a giant hug all together and it made me feel so good. I'm really going to miss those kids.

__Assignment 3__
===My project approach focused on the Olympic Games. When I first consulted with Mrs. Augustin about doing the project, her only request was that it be aligned with the curriculum. I decided to chose a story from their basal reader that I knew we'd be getting to in a few weeks. The story we were going to read was called __The Olympic Games__ and it gave a short overview of the Olympics. This was also the first time this year the students had read a nonfiction story in their basal reader. Mrs. Augustin advised me that nonfiction can be very tricky for third graders and sometimes this section can be difficult to teach. I thought this would be the perfect time to bring in my project approach.===

===I started the unit by telling students a personal anecdote about how much I enjoyed the Olympics and why they were important to me. This immediately got the children excited and full of energy. They were dying to tell me everything they knew about the Olympics. So I created "Olympic journals" out of construction paper for each student. On the first page the children drew their own KWL chart. I wrestled with the idea of creating a chart for them and passing it out versus having them make their own. I liked the idea of ownership in their personal journals so I had them construct the KWL. I filled out my KWL chart on the SmartBoard using the wireless keyboard so I could sit at an empty desk in the middle of the students and be part of the collaborative group.===

===Over the next two week we did various types of research. We looked for information in the computer lab on the London Olympics website. We researched sports of the winter and summer games, including sports that are no longer included in the Olympics. During center time, students chose an athlete to research. Some used the computer and some used authentic text. (The librarian was awesome with collaborating/pulling books). After researching athletes, students created their own autobiography. Students documented all the things they were learning in their Olympic journals. We incorporated Ipads in to the project and created an art project using PiCollage. Our culminatingevent was our closing ceremony. During centers, small groups of students created animoto videos so we shared these and played an Olympics game.===

===I was so impressed by how well the students responded to the project. I noticed that me sharing personal stories or putting my own touch on lessons really engaged the students. That was something I continued to do for the rest of the placement. I also came to the conclusion that repetition was important for these students. It was evident when I taught them about the ancient Olympics. In their basal readers, the story they read gave information about the first Olympics, so when I began my lesson on the SmartBoard about ancient Olympics I assumed the children had background knowledge. I even consulted with Mrs. Augustin about this. She told me sometimes as teachers we forget that children are learning concepts that seem simple to us. I had forgotten to realize that, I suppose. I adjusted my strategy to be sure I hit on specific topics multiple times in various ways. I created sentences about the ancient Olympics to use during our spelling test and brought in pictures from Olympia, Greece. I think that tying the ancient Olympics together in different disciplines and being sure to continuously talk about the subject allowed the stude===

__Assignment 2__
====From chapter two, I'm choosing to address arranging my classroom space and routines to promote community. From the very first day of school, Mrs. Augustin created a culture of respect in the classroom. Each student has a special magnetic name tag on his/her desk and every single item in the desk is labeled with the students' name. The children learned to take pride in the things that were theirs and to also take care of all their items, including keeping their desk organized. That promoted an environment where children also respected other student's belongings. The students are seated in groups of four or five students. When they are working on certain activities or checking their work, they work in their groups together. I think this promotes community in the classroom. Students work in small groups for centers (2-3 times per week) and are grouped differently than with the people whom they sit with. When they work in these small groups, they're doing reading instruction and taking turns talking and sharing. I think this also helps to build a sense of community in the classroom. There are also six weekly helpers. The responsibilities of the helpers include: stamping agendas, straightening books on shelf, turning on/off computers, being teacher's helper, paper passer, and line leader. The person responsible for the job rotates weekly. I think this routine is a great way to shape the learning community. When students are accountable for completing jobs, they feel a sense of responsibility and pride.====

===The teachable moment that struck me from my first placement was generated by a student who was asking a sincere question. Most of the students in third grade used Miss and Mrs. when addressing me. One little boy looked at me and called me Mrs. Ruben. Another student came up to us and corrected the boy and said her name is MISS Ruben because she isn't married. Then the first little boy asked me if I wasn't a "Mrs." because nobody wanted to marry me. It really made me laugh. I also realized that most students couldn't differentiate between Miss/Ms./Mrs. so it sparked an impromptu lesson where I explained the differences and gave them examples of teachers/principals in the building and their appropriate titles. I explained that this was important because it shows respect when you call a person by the correct name. I then demonstrated by calling some of them by the wrong name and asking them how it made them feel. They caught on, realizing that it was about respecting a person.===

10/22/12 Week of October 15-19 came and went very quickly. This week I put a lot of work in to our centers. The students are divided into three groups for centers and use a rotation plan. Because I only teach language arts, I decided to do mini lessons in centers tailored to each groups individual needs. We used the leveled readers that accompany their basal reader. We read together and I modeled reading with expression for all groups. After reading short stories together, I did one mini lesson and completing an author's pupose chart. Knowing and explaining how you know the author's purpose is something third grade works on all year. Up to this point we've talked about author's purpose and identified the author's purpose in each story but have not given detail to support our answers. I created a chart where students find a specific phrase or sentence from the story and write that in their chart. They write how that detail suggests the author's purpose. For example, our story was nonfiction and the author's purpose was to inform, so the students wrote a fact in their chart, pg. 122, and explained that the quote gave information and the author's pupose must be to inform. I really liked the chart. At first it was challenging for students and with my morning group, ‍‍‍I seemed to help them complete most of the chart. I reflected on this experience at lunch time and revised it a little bit before teaching it to my afternoon class. In the morning, I introduced this chart in the mini lesson then had students complete the chart independently‍‍‍. I decided for the afternoon that I would introduce this chart on the smart board and fill in the first fewdetails together as a class. Then I used the magic hat to partner students randomly and had them work in pairs to complete the chart. I found that the children were more capable of completing the chart when I modeled it for them and they were able to work with another prson.

===‍‍‍‍‍‍Week of October 8-12 was my second week teaching everything all day. We finished our project this week. We incorporated Ipads in to our project and the students made collages using PiCollage. Our final event was our "closing ceremony". Small groups of students created videos about the Olympics on Animoto so we had a viewing party. Part of their closing ceremony included standing in front of the class and sharing their "finale". (see below)</range id="372743024_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍===

Here's an example of one of the Olympic videos we made.
media type="custom" key="21116826"

===I made a documentation panel on our bulletin board in the hallway showcasing the work we did. I'll have pictures of their collages and my documentation panel on Monday. Looking back on this week, I can see that my excitement for learning got the students excited. I was really into using the Ipads and was very energetic about bringing in my own pictures and sharing my travel stories, and I saw that the kids really, really got into that. It made me realize the importance of building a relationship with my students. It was like they caught a glimpse of me as a real person and loved it. Aside from our Olympics project, I had my very first third grade field trip (which also happened to be my first time on school bus in about 7 years-yikes). We went to Raccoon Creek State Park and hiked through the Wildflower reserve then had a picnic. This trip was AWESOME! I really got a chance to bond with the kids and observe how some of the students I see struggling in the classroom did REALLY well when they were able to use their naturalistic intelligence. <range type="comment" id="374837122_1">‍‍‍‍‍I also noticed that for the students who have trouble staying seated or not talking in the classroom, this constant moving through the woods and learning as we were walking was very beneficial to them. Here are some photos of Mr. DeMario-the teacher I team-teach with, showing the kids a type of seed and stem in the woods as well as our guide with our entire class.</range id="374837122_1">‍‍‍‍‍=== ===Finally, I ran our first "classroom meeting" this week. Donaldson elementary takes bullying prevention pretty seriously and they use the Olweus anti-bullying approach. I'd never heard of this but from what I hear it's quite popular. This week it was up to me to hold our weekly class meeting about bullying which is an open forum for students to discuss any problems they're having. I decided to do a role-play game. Part of the Olweus idea is promoting a community so we were all asked to wear orange on this day.=== =

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====The week of October 1-5 was my first week taking over all lessons. I was really proud of myself. It was a lot of work trying to get all my lesson plans done for an entire week but I did it. I want to share some pictures of probably my favorite lesson I've ever done. We started our project Monday. I decided to do it on the Olympics because I could branch off of their reading story one week which was about the Olympics. I had my students create a KWL chart in Olympic journals that we made. They recorded data daily in these journals. From the KWL chart, we chose athletes and countries we wanted to research so I reserved time in the computer lab for the students to research. I also worked with the librarian to pull out books on the Olympics so the students could use authentic text to help with their research. We used their findings to generate a paragraph using the "Big I" which is what West A uses as a template for creating a topic sentence and supporting details. Below are the books we used.====

[[image:carlowstudentteaching/SAM_1261.jpg width="452" height="253" caption="Our set up"]]
====I also tied in a lesson on elements of nonfiction when we were reading the Olympics books so the students would understand captions, headings, subheadings, etc. in the books. We did this lesson in small groups which you can see below.====

[[image:carlowstudentteaching/pictures from home.jpg width="453" height="254" caption="Olympic pictures"]]
====They absolutely loved it and asked so many questions. I felt like I was on top of the world, I had every single student engaged in that lesson. We compared and contrasted ancient and modern Olympics using a Venn diagram. We worked on the Venn diagram in centers so I had a chance to hear the students' thoughts about the similarities and differences. We used manipulatives that could be glued into columns (see set-up below).====

[[image:carlowstudentteaching/set up.jpg width="453" height="254" caption="how I prepared for small group instruction"]]
====After finishing the Venn Diagrams I thought back on the process and thought about doing more instruction on what a Venn diagram is and how it works. So for my afternoon students, I did a short lesson as a whole group comparing and contrasting on the Smart Board then we broke into centers. I found that to be more effective because the students were able to bring more background knowledge to the group discussion.==== =

= ===I wanted to go back to the week of September 24-28 and reflect on that time. I started taking over English lessons in the morning and had my first experience with centers. Mrs. Augustin ran the centers this time because she wanted to make sure that when I took over centers, the children were following the same routine so they could continue to work in centers throughout the year. She utilizes paired reading a lot and it seems to be fairly effective. The students sit shoulder to shoulder when reading and then ask one another a comprehension question after finishing each page. I have noticed that for a few children, it can be hard to stay on task during this time.===

[[image:carlowstudentteaching/paired reading.jpg width="337" height="509" caption="Students paired reading"]]
===Once the students have read the stories from their basal readers, students break into centers for small group reading instruction using leveled readers. The students groups are homogeneous so there is a leveled-reader for each group. The district encourages teachers not to use homogeneous groups for reading instruction, but the district is also very PSSA focused. Mrs. Augustin has received great PSSA scores the past few years while using homogeneous groups so she says she's sticking with them. Aside from that, I like the idea of small group instruction. When working in centers, I have the ability to talk to six or seven students and have a personal conversation with them. What I really believe is beneficial, is that the children are part of a community of learners and learn through interaction with peers and myself, perfect I taught spelling lesson/graded spelling tests for the past few weeks, but this was the week that before I took over all lessons for everything. I've done a lot of my spelling instruction on the smartboard using an awesome resources called spellingcity.com which allows the students to manipulate the words, alphabetize them, and play various review games. (see below).===

This is how I had my board in the front of the room set up for the first day I took over.


10/2/12 I took over all lessons/teaching this week so I've been super busy. I'll do a longer, in-depth post over the weekend. Just wanted to report that all is well and I'm really enjoying this week.

**9/24/12**

 * I didn't get a chance to reflect on last week. The week was busy. On Monday Mrs. Augustin was at a conference so I taught all day. It's nice because since we only teach language arts I get a chance to teach my lesson with the morning class then it's like I can perfect it when I teach it again with my afternoon class. I<range type="comment" id="935352">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ was able to sit in on two aprent meetings this week which were both very insightful. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ The child I previously talked about, Josh, with the parent emails, was my first conference. His mother came in very distraught, cried off and on. She met with myself, Mrs. Augustin, the school psychologist, and a psychology intern. She informed us that Josh had seen his pediatrician on Monday and was diagnosed with ADHD. She wanted our opinion on whether or not the child should begin taking medication for it. I didn't feel like it was my place to advise. The school psychologist suggested we try a few other measures first. She wants to introduce que cards and a timer for him. We'll see how that goes.**

9/11/12
I wanted to talk about teacher-parent relationships and how much communication is too much/too little. Mrs. Augustin sent out a welcome email before school started and does most communication via email. Most parents responded with a simple hello, asked any questions they had, then moved on. There is one parent that **constantly** email Mrs. Augustin about the pettiest things. She sends four-five emails a day. She is concerned about every single detail of his day. Her child is having //a lot// of trouble in class. He won't complete his work and can't stay on task. He won't make eye contact and he does not pick up on social cues. He is capable of doing the work because on several occasions he's completed assignments quickly and correctly, just in his own time. He has been evaluated in the past and is not on the spectrum. Mrs. Augustin has suggested to his mother via phone and email that he needs to be evaluated again and that his mother should push for the school to provide the help he needs. The parent won't respond to Mrs<range type="comment" id="883049">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍. Augustin's suggestions, she only wants to know the details of his day and then seems to stress endlessly about his inability to perform well in class. The parent wants to repeatedly remind Mrs. Augustin that the child is doing his best and he's not doing this on purpose. Both myself and Mrs. Augustin understand he isn't doing it on purpose but he needs more help than we can provide him. Simply emailing the parent every detail of every day is not going to help this child do well. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

<range type="comment" id="327789">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍Basically this situation is frustrating on all ends. Mrs. Augustin is frustrated because she wants to help this child but needs intervention from other team members in the school. The mother seems to be in denial. I'm mainly just surprised at how much time is spent emailing with this mother. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

===9/6/12 This is my third week at Donaldson (second week with students). The classroom I am in is team taught, meaning I only teach language arts while the other teacher does math, science, and social studies. Both classrooms do spelling on their own. All last week I observed, became familiar with my co-op teacher (Mrs. Augustin's) lesson plans, class format, and teaching style. I helped students with individual lessons and was involved when appropriate. I also volunteered to help with bus duty before and after school. I introduced myself to the principal, Mrs. Nolan, and have have met several teachers and administrators.===

===This week, I became more involved in teaching lessons. Yesterday (9/5/12), Mrs. Augustin had a substitute all day and she was doing running records with students individually in the hallway. She performed one set of evaluations in the morning and I did the other running records in the afternoon. I was familiar with that type of evaluation because we've done similar things in Dr. Abram's ED312 course. <range type="comment" id="925732">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍While Mrs. Augustin was out of the class, I taught all morning and the substitute observed. I did two lessons using the Smart Board, both involving nouns. I also used the vocabulary words from our basal reader to do a separate lesson. At the end of the day I used a template I created on the Smart Board to teaching cursive handwriting ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍. I was proud of myself and extremely tired at the end of the day. I noticed different things I could have done while teaching to make the lesson better, and my co-op teacher also talked with me about things she noticed. I'm looking forward to taking over more lessons.===

My first placement is at Donaldson Elementary in the West Allegheny school district.<range type="comment" id="630987">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Third grade :) ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍