Melissa+Berkhouse

We are talking about familes this week and I have decided to allow the children to make a book about family. We will be doing this Wednesday so I will dicusss how i and the children dug deeper when we finish this book on Friday.
 * Chapter 6 Dig Deeper november 26-30**

This week we also talked about authors and illustrators. My plan was to show the children the book I made and talk about how I was the author and the illustrator. Then I told the children that they were going to be the author and the illustrator of their very own Pre-K book. They were so excited and when we begin the book, the children were very eager to give their ideas. I allowed children to take turns and they did a great job. When we began the book, I tried to make the story make sense but the children all had their own ideas. It turned out great but their really is no point to the story but the children got to share their thoughts and were excited to see their words on the paper that they chose to do. This goes along with chapter 6 in our book. Digging Deeper; I went a step further and allowed the children to make their very own pictures to go along with the story. The children were allowed to chose their own sentence and draw a picture along with that sentence. The children wanted to write the words by themselves and they did a good job trying but we ended up having to trace letters because most had trouble writing the sentence on their paper. I even had children working in pairs to come up with more sentences in our story because there was not enough sentences for everyone to make a picture. Therefore, we used teamwork to discuss what sentences and how we wanted to add them to the story. We also used teamwork to help each other draw pictures about what their sentence said. Learning from each other is a great way to dig deeper. The children learn best by doing and watching but not always by watching the teacher. They are able to converse to each other and talk about things in ways that teachers sometimes do not understand therefore teachers need to be considerate and learn that students help each other and learn best from each other. November 19-21 This week we talked about Thanksgiving. The children were very hyper, but they still listened very well. We made turkeys and read Thanksgiving books. Outside I tried teaching some of the children how to play freeze tag. Some caught on to the concept but others did not like the fact they had to wait for a friend to tag them to unfreeze them. So instead of playing freeze tag we just played tag and if you got tagged then you had to chas the other children.

November 12-16 This week everything is back to normal. The children have all been here everyday and they have been really good. We began the letter p thi week. It was my first week doing circle time. Now Ihave taken over the moring greeting, circle time, and small group time. I think it is so much easier to plan for this age group compared to first grade planning. In first grade i did a lot of planning with books and with the teacher, it was more geared to the teachers way of teaching. In Pre-K I can really look outside the box and do my planning. The teacher has books to look from but I can really build on the ideas in the book. For instance I chose to paint with toothbrushes because the kids have really never done that and the fact that the children do not use toothbrushes everyday to paint with. My goal was fo r the children to paint something that started with the lette p. Most of the children who joined my small group understood the directions, but I had a few children that painted somehting completely different. An example was a child painted and I asked him to tell me about his picture and he told me it was a tornado, which clearly does not start witht the letter p. I asked the child if it started with the letter p and he told me no it started with the letter t. I smiled and said great job. I realized that instead of telling the child it was wrong I encouraged him to write the letter on his paper even though it was not a p. I realized as a pre-k teacher I need to let things go and not always tell the children they did something wrong. Even if it is wrong the child is still learning. As a teacher I am realizing that not everything has to been done the same way nor does it always have to b correct. Children learn from their mistakes just like adults learn from their mistakes. I need to be more encouraging and not look at the wrong.

November 5-9 ‍‍‍‍‍‍This week I got to do more with the children. They really are a great group of children they are excited to learn and are excited when they get to share their ideas with the teachers and other children. I began doing morning greeting with the children and I had a great time doing it. This is when the children get to share something they have done or what to share news with other children. We do the morning calendar, weather, attendance, and the children really have the control over it. ‍‍‍‍‍‍They know which comes first and when I do it out of order the children tell me about it. I think it is great that they know their schedule and I laugh when they correct me. I also tell the children that I was just making sure they were listening and they laught and pay even more attention to what I am doing. I will be changing it a little this week by adding a few songs to the morning meeting that way I can get them to move around a little more because children at this age can not sit still very long and sometimes I think they sit to long. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍This week a child ‍‍‍‍‍‍had head lice ‍‍‍‍‍‍over the weekend. This child was allowed to come back to school on Monday, but I found it a little odd that none of the dress up clothes or stuffed animals were removed from the room until Wednesday afternoon. I was very worried because I have been in settings before that had head lice and the clothing and amimals and dolls were out of the room as soon as possible. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍There were no other cases until Thursday morning when I spotted a child which her head was infested with them. It was easy for me to spot them because the child had really dark hair. I then told the teacher which she agreed was head lice and she called the father right away. The child got picked up but none of her bedding was sent home with her. When I asked why the items were not taken home she told me they werer not required to take them home. I just found this really odd because if it was my classroom I would have packed every child's belongings up and sent them home. I also would have been following all the precautionary steps so no one else could get them, which I do not believe the necessary steps where taken. However, this being said I did not go in on Friday because I got them. I was very upset and I am very nervous about going in on Tuesday. It takes a lot of work to get rid of them and I hope the classroom and the students do not have them. I am going in on Tuesday with a postive out look and I will let you all know how it goes. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍During my teaching at West Allegheny I noticed that most of the first grade rooms all looked alike they had all the same reading strategies on the wall. The teachers would all do similar art projects with the children. The teachers have a lot of manipulatives in the classroom but I did not see them using them while they taught. It was mainly just paper and pencil that I seen the teachers use. I believe this did not beneifit the children becasue not every child learns the same way. I only seen the teacher bring out work mats and counters for math lesson, which yes it helps children with learning hands on but in the manipulatives I seen counting bears and games that would help children learn subtraction and addition.‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ I believe that the teachers depend on the basal book and the teachers edition books for math and social studies, science. I do not think teachers think outside of the box when they write lessons because they focus more on what they have to teach for the state and not what the children actually learn. I did a lesson on addition and after we did the lesson I decided to play a bingo addition game. I would write an addition sentence on the board and then have the children figure the problem out using bear counters and then they would have to find the answere on the bingo board the children were really excited to play a game because it was out of the norm and the children really grasped the concept. I believe that teachers really need to think outside of the box and they need to come up with new ways to teach things. They should still look at the lesson but twick it to meet the students needs and not the states. Everything does not need to be taught work for word from the book but use the book as a reference and think of new ways to teach. I really learned this idea and when I do get my own classroom I want to use different ideas and not striaght from the book. It allows children to think outside the box also if the teacher thinks outside the box too.
 * Assignment 1**
 * How are the environment and materials impacting what's unfolding and what changes could be made?**

October 29-November 2

I started at Beechwood Elementary in the Pre-K classroom this week. It is a lot of fun and a huge transitions from first grade. Mrs. Jeanie is the head teacher and Ms. Hudack is her assistant. Both teachers seem to really enjoy the children and they are great with them. We have 20 students in the classroom and most of the children walk to the school because they live near by. The day begins at 7:30 but the children do not come in until 8:00. Most of the children get dropped off by their parents or one parent. The day ends at 2:00 and we leave at 2:30. The students are a variety of ethnicities, which working in the last school district it was not. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍We have children that are Arabian, Greek, Spanish, and African Americans. MOst of the children speak English but some only speak Spanish or do not talk at all. Their is a language barriers but the teaCHER inforces sign language to help most children express what they want. However, speaking a different language as a teacher is a great need, which i do not have but I will learn to try to communicate with these children‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍. On Monday we celebrated EID which is part of the Arabian community and it is the celebration of sacrificing a sheep. So in celebration of this holiday we made sheep puppets and the father was very excited that we talked about this holiday. Wednesday we celebrated Halloween and the children came dressed in thier costumes and we walked around in the big school and visited all the classrooms. The children were so great and so excited to share thier costums with all the other grades. We have not started any lessons yet because of the EID celebration, Hurricane Sandy, and Halloween, but Thursday we started the lesson. THe lesson was on the letter M. During circle time is when they do their lesson. The students were introduced to the letter M and then they were shown cards that started with the letter. The children then wrote the word on the board with the teachers help then we reviewed all the words and pictures. Throughout the day the children would see a picture or say a word that started with the letter M and let one of know that they found the letter M. On Friday the science center came in and did a math lesson with the children using big legos. They would have to had to classify then by color and then they would have to count the blocks to see which color had the most blocks. THen they played a game and would have to spin a wheel with numbers on it and pick the card that had the matching numbers on it and do what the card said. For example if the card said find two rectangle blocks and then find two blue square blocks and build a tower with them. THe children were excited and listened to the cards very closely becasue they wanted to get the problem right. The children are really a great group of children. There are no children that act out and they follow directions very well. During the week I was just suppose to observe but I pitched in when I could and I interacted with the children during center time a lot. We played doctor and I was the sick patient and the children got a kick out of the fact that I pretended to be sick and they had to fix me. I love working with this age group especially becasue the children are so willing to learn. I‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ begin taking over parts of the classroom next week and I am very excited.‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

9/4/12 My first week at Donaldson Elementary with the 1st graders was awesome. My teacher is Mrs. Mackey and she is a great teacher. She really let me jump right in and start helping her. First, I was overwhelmed and did not think I could teach a classroom. However, by the end of the week I am doing small group work with the children. We are working on our kindergarten words, color words, and our shapes. Mrs. Mackey wants to make sure they know their kindergarten words before they move on to the 1st grade words. I have started doing calendar time and observing how she teaches her other lessons. I am very excited to teach the children, ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍but I am worried I will not be good at it. I do not want to mess things up and have the children not understand the lesson. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍The children seem to really enjoy the fact that I am in there classroom and helping Mrs. Mackey ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍. I stayed for the parent orientation that Mrs. Mackey had and met most of the parents. It was really nice to see parents be part of their children's learning. This meeting was to inform the parents about the curriculum and how Mrs. Mackey teaches. It was also to help the parents understand what the children were bringing home in their folders and how to do homework. Looking forward to next week.

Week of September 10-14 This week was great! I really enjoyed being in the classroom and learning from my coop teacher. I took over morning calendar and the phonics lessons. The phonics lessons are mainly worksheets which I help the children do, Mrs. Mackey said they do other things later in the year with phonics but now it is just review. I was trying to come up with some ideas about what I can throw to make the children really interested. I noticed that parent and teacher communication is an all day process. When there is down time in the classroom the teacher will check her email to make sure the parents did not email her. If they did she will respond back to them really quick. I understand that there has to be communication between the parents and the teacher but I do not think it should be ongoing throughtout the day. Especially, while the teacher is waiting for the children to finish up work. I'm getting along great with the children they are really interacting with me and they listen to me so far. We all know this changes at different times. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍The teacher has mostly used worksheets and papers in most of all her lessons. Is this how most classrooms run in the beginning of the year. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

September 24-28 Sorry last week was so crazy and i did not get a chance to comment.. During last week we did testing for Dibels and I got to sit in druing the testing. I thought it was a great experience because I was able to see first hand how they score the children in reading levels. The children that I thought had trouble reading in the classroom also scored very low on the tests. Most of the parents are on board if the teacher contacted them and asked if they could get extra support in reading, however, there is one child's parents who believe that there is nothing wrong with their child. So the teacher has decided to show the parents in baby steps how this child is doing in each subject. For example, during spelling tests this child can not spell any of the spelling words. He will try but he can't so the teacher will ask him to tell her each word and she will write the word next to his and she will then send it home. On Friday I had to sit with him one on one and have him try and read his reading test to me. He was unable to read it and I eventually had to read it to him. Mom does not want to except the fact that her son needs lots of help especially in spelling and reading. All the teacher can do is keep on trying to get the parent on board with all the extra support. She will keep sending home papers that he is really having a hard time with andshe will keep a copy for herself for his portofolio. I have really started taking over the teaching. I really enjoy it the children have started to really listen to me and they have a routine set up. This week was open house for our elementary and it went great. I got to meet all the parents and it was great to get to know them. They were excited to meet me because their children have talked about me. I was not expecting parents to be so welcome with a student teacher in the classroom, until they told me how much their children like it when I help them in the classroom. My overall experience has been a learning one so far. I have made mistakes and I will continue to make mistakes but I learn from them and move on and make myself better. I like it when the cooperative teacher will chime in when she thinks I need help teaching a lesson.

October 1-5 ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍This week was a very busy week for me. I began doing more lesson plans for each subject and trying to think of new ways to teach subjects without using paper and pencil</range id="375829666_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍. In math this week I used the children to demonstrate how to add. The children were really excited to be part of the process and to interact instead of just reading the math paper and trying to figure out what I mean by looking at the paper. I noticed that the children understood the math much better and they paid attention. They even interacted with each other and tried making up their own math problems. I believe I did a good job on math this week and stayed away from using the pencil and paper form. Mrs. Mackey loved the fact that I used the children in math problems. We also used math work mats and counters and I noticed the children again got very excited and were actively working on trying to get the right answer.

October 8-12

<range type="comment" id="375988352_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍The children wThis week was kind of crazy. Monday and Tuesday I taught both days all day and I loved it. They were really respectful towards me and they listened. In</range id="375988352_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ a few of my lessons after looking back on the day I thought I could have done some things differently. Some of the lessons that I could have done differently would have been handwriting. Instead of doing just the book pages I could have done the song to writing the numbers first to get the children interested in the numbers. During phonics I thought of doing a game to help them understand the ck sound but chose not to because I did not feel like there would have been enough time. Looking back now I should have just done it and not worry about the time because we could have just rearranged our schedule. I realized I should stick with what I want to do so that I will keep the children's attention. I realized that doing something the children are interested in will keep their attention longer and they will learn better and also have fun doing it.

October15-19 <range type="comment" id="375990056_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍This week Mrs. Mackey and I had a parent teacher conference. </range id="375990056_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍This child has a lot of emotional problems because of the home life. THis child is new to the school district and she recently moved in with her grandparents. The grandparents and the mother just wanted to talk about how the child is doing and to find out how the behavior is in school. This child is a very bright child and follows directions, but demands a lot of attention from both the teacher and the other students. Mrs. Mackey and I told the grandparents and the mother that this child is beginning to follow directions better and making a lot more friends. It made me really happy when the grandparents told me that this child talks about me at home and that I am teaching this child a lot. It made me think that I am teaching and that it is getting through to the children. I like to allow the children to be in charge of daily routines and give them new and more responsibilties everyday. Such as allowing them to change the helpers on the board or changing the book nook spaces for the children. I also like to have the children be responsibly and see if they are able to answer each others questions before coming to the teachers and asking them. I like to make the children feel responsible and have some control of their day. As children get older children should be in charge of things other then making sure they do their homework. <range type="comment" id="375992064_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍It's important to make the children feel like they are part of something and it gives the children a sense of belonging in the classroom and make sure you listen to the children and not ignore what they ask you even if it does not pertain to the lesson.</range id="375992064_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

October 22-26 My last week in first grade was bittersweet. I was sad to leave the teacher and the children. They were a great group of children. This last week I ran everything while Mrs. Mackey did her own thing. She still helped me when she noticed some of the children were still having a hard time grasping the subject I was teaching. I did not mind becasue I wanted the children to grasp the concept. She gave me different ways to teach different leveled children. One example was doing subtraction sentences and instead of using the math counters I brought children to the front, we counted them as a whole then I would as a few children to go on a hayride and they would walk back to their seats pretending they were on a hayride. Then the rest of the children would count how many left and how many there was left. The children were very excited to be part of the action and liked pretending they were going somewhere when they were ascked to sit back down. We did a lot of examples like this because the low children really seemed to understand this concept. They needed the visual and not just the counters or pencil and paper. Looking back on how I first began teaching math I might have stuck with the counters, and tried to see if I could get the low children to grasp the concept. I realized that most children like to learn with hands on activities or some how be part of the lesson. Paper and pencil is just a boring and it is repetition which most children begin to daydream if repition is also there. Overall, my teaching experience in elementary school was extrodinary and I really learned a lot. I am dissapointed I had to learve, but I'm sure I will enjoy my next placement at Beechwood Elementary with the Pre-K children.