Caitlin+Tomer

‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍Welcome Caitlin! ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

I will be student teaching in Keystone Oaks school district this fall in a 1st grade classroom! I can't wait!!
Good Luck!! Caitlin :)

===The first day in my first grade classroom (September 4, 2012) was busy, busy, busy! The day started out with the calendar and the morning message. Next, the students were working on high frequency words and the consonant "f". The majority of their morning was spent working on high frequency words and then working on a journal entry they had to do. The children have already started using webs for a brainstorming aid in their writing. The children all are on different levels and so the journal writing does take a very long time to construct a single sentence for each individual student. In the afternoon the students worked on Math. They were working on reverse equations, 2+3=5 is the same thing as 3+2=5. It amazes me how such a simple concept to us now is such a hard concept for teachers to teach and for students to grasp. === ===My classroom is air conditioned and it feels like an icebox half the time but i'd rather be cold than warm! ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍Also, my cooperating teaching was extremely welcoming the first day, and let me dive right in and start helping students. She immediately was introducing me to other teachers and the other student teachers in the building so I would have friends and people to go to if I needed help with anything. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ ===

===‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍I learned a lot of songs in class the first day to help the students with every thing they do including [|this one]! ===

===At the end of the day we had bus duty where we escort the kids to their proper buses once the bus arrives. While we were all lined up in the hallway we were playing with puppets and learning other songs. We sang the days of the week song, as well as [|five little monkeys]. ===

The week of September the 10th was a crazy week in our classroom. From September 10th- September 12th we had a substitute teacher in our classroom. He was an amazing experience to have in the classroom. I was able to see what struggles that substitutes go through when following lesson plans and while trying to get the students to behave and follow instructions. Also, I was able to absorb a lot of information from the substitute and advice about not just subbing in one district (as he does) and the importance of being able to relocate when it comes to job opportunities. Both Monday and Tuesday he and I worked hand in hand in the classroom. He wanted to get me ready for my lesson on Thursday so he kept giving me lessons to teach from Mrs. Dawson's lesson plans. This was a wonderful experience because it gave me a slight insight on subbing and what happens when you are just put on the spot. Beginning Monday I was able to start a behavior chart with one of the students in the classroom. I have been given the responsibility of tracking his behaviors throughout the day and recording whether or not he has met the three goals he is to reach every period. Being able to have a first hand experience of this behavior chart is a great experience, because it is making me aware of new techniques that are used in classrooms to help students stay on track especially when they are having a lot of behavior issues in the classroom. This particular child had been eating his pencils, crayons, and basically anything he could get his hands on so I have been able to witness the steps to helping to prevent things in the classroom from being eaten and to help this child change his habits. Within the next few weeks this child is being brought up to the behavior support board, and my cooperating teacher is giving me the opportunity (if it is alright with the child's parents) for me to be present during this meeting so I can understand and have yet another first hand experience. This experience will give me the opportunity to see what exactly occurs during the meeting and what helps determine if the child is in need of behavior support. On Wednesday my cooperating teacher was back but we still had the substitute in the room because the first graders were doing their DIBLES testing. Once again I got another GREAT experience being able to test a few students myself. At first my teacher gave me the opportunity to watch her give the DIBLES test to a child that she knew would excel in the test. I then asked if I could watch a test for one of the ESL students in the room just so I could see the differences in scores and testing techniques. After I was able to watch both students I was given a couple students of my own that I was able to test the following day. I was given the DIBLES book and a few practice booklets so that I could go home and practice with my family so I would be prepared for the following day. Thursday September 13, 2012 was the first lesson that I taught by myself in the classroom. My lesson was based on apples. For my lesson I went to the market district (and got a ton of stares like I was a crazy person) and bought 9 different types of apples. At the beginning of the lesson I had the children create their own paper apple and put together the parts of the apple in order to learn all the different parts of an apple.  I then had an apple tasting in our classroom. I broke the children down into groups and had children at every station. At the station the children would taste the apple and they would then glue their name to a giant apple on either the right or left side of the apple depending on whether they liked or disliked the apple.  After the tasting we talked about the different flavors of the apples and the colors. I had the children tell me what their favorite apple was after the tasting. The children all really enjoyed the lesson which was extremely satisfying to me for it being my first lesson planned and designed only by me. That night was also curriculum night so I was able to meet some of the children's parents which was exciting. They were all very welcoming and were glad that I was in their classroom. Several of the parents mentioned that their children had come home talking about how they had gotten to eat apples during class and that there were multiple different types of apples and that they all had different tastes. Being able to observe curriculum night was a great thing. I was able to see what types of things are said by the teacher and I also got to see a bit how parents act during curriculum night versus and open house setting where the children are also welcome. One thing I noticed was how few parents actually showed up to curriculum night and the parents that did show up all wanted one on one time with my cooperating teacher to discuss their child and how they are doing thus far in the classroom. This is something I did not expect. I expected Mrs. Dawson to go over the curriculum and then any questions about that to be asked. Instead most of the parents had questions on how their children are doing, and what they can do at home to make their children excel faster. This is something I was not prepared for and now will keep in the back of my mind for the future.  ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ ===<span style="color: #ff8a00; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Thus far this week (the week of September 17th) we have had a pretty good week. I implemented a new behavior modification plan in the classroom. The class is broken down into four rows. Each row has a fishbowl associated with their row and on the fishbowl it says "Caught you being good." The class is responding amazingly well to this behavior modification device. The row with the most cubes in their bowl by the end of the week gets a certain prize. My cooperating teacher and I have discussed prizes and she has suggested me taking the winning row out into the hallway and playing a board game with them, or going to the computer lab and playing on the computers for 20-30 minutes. I was thinking about having a treasure chest with fun pencils, erasers, stencils, etc. that the winning row would get to pick from as their end of the week prize. I am still tossing this around in my mind though but I will have a concrete idea by Thursday. Today I also had a lesson that I did on the Weekly Reader on apples. We discussed the phases that apples go through to get from the farm to the store. We then discussed other fruits that you can pick and on what types of plants that the fruits grow from. ===

===<span style="color: #1eff00; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">‍ <span style="color: #ffcc00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">During the week of September 24th, I completely took over Calendar and completely took over Social Studies. The first lesson that I did during the week was a scarecrow glyph. I never realized how hard it would be to do a glyph with a first grade class. I went step by step on what the children should do with their scarecrow depending on how they answered each question. There were still a lot of children that didn't understand nor did they complete the activity properly, but they enjoyed it. This mattered to me more than the fact that their glyphs were perfect. On Tuesday I taught a math lesson, which was taking apart 9 & 10. Throughout this lesson I taught the class how to subtract from both 9 and ten to get an answer. This lesson surprised me with what ease I was able to explain this to the children. The day before we had taught the students how to take apart seven and eight which makes me feel as though this is why it was easier for me to teach the lesson the next day. On Wednesday I taught the class vertical subtraction. I have really gotten a feel for the classroom at this point in time and I am starting to understand what little things help the students complete activities with ease and what I need to do in certain cases to get the students to work. On Thursday I did a lesson on leaves, and why leaves change colors. I talked about what happens during the fall and when leaves change. Then I gave every child in the class a leaf to color whatever colors of fall leaves that they like. Then on the inside of the leaf the children wrote what their favorite part of fall was. Finally on Friday we practiced graphing and were graphing how much we liked certain foods/apples according to our like and dislike charts that we had made. This week has really taught me a lot about the class and what really makes the students understand the material that we have to present. ===

<span style="color: #1c4f4f; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;">The Week of October 1st was a long week at school. This was the week that began my nuclear melt down. I have been working extremely hard at perfecting my lesson plans and activities for class. This week I planned a lot of fun social studies activities because I do not always want to be teaching straight from a book nor from a workbook. My social studies lessons for this week consisted of Plant a Pumpkin, Fall Scavenger Hunt and a Fall Sensory Lesson. I also had two science lessons that were Crayfish Balancing and Journaling about our Experience. This week I also taught the short letter a sound through developing the sound, word building, and using the phonics readers, Chapter 5 in math (Count on 1 & 2, Counting on Using a Number Line, Doubling), and short letter a review using the word families. On top of working on all this I began stressing about my performance and the amount of people that are constantly coming in and out of the classroom. Another frustration is that half the class is never in the classroom for language arts. ‍‍On Fridays, all four periods of Language Arts is missing students, they leave for ESL, Title 1, Speech, and ESL.‍‍ This is very nerve wracking because not everyone is getting the material and even worse the ones that really need these reviews aren't being able to hear the reviews because they are never in the classroom when they need to be. This makes me feel as though I need to strive extra hard to reach out to these children when they are in the room. My nerves are on high alert because I feel as though everyone is judging every little thing I do and say. I have realized that the children truly absorb every word that comes out of my mouth, which makes me even more nervous because what if I say something wrong or do something wrong and then they believe that is actually how something is said or spelled. How do you right that wrong? Also the principal is constantly sticking his head in the classroom, and as soon as he does the boys and girls in the class are immediately drawn to talking to him and it looks as though I just cannot contain control of the classroom. This makes me stressed out because then I feel as though he is judging my ability to be able to control the class. ‍‍‍I just started to feel extremely overwhelmed this week not only with lesson plans but realizing that I truly have the future of students lives in my hands.‍‍‍

How did yesterday go Caitlin? - RHirsh

<span style="color: #0090ff; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The week of October 8th, couldn't have been better. I felt a lot better about everything, and not so overwhelmed. My lesson that we worked on went well! I loved how engaged the class was and how much more control I had over the classroom.<range type="comment" id="375814918_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍ One thing I really realized I needed to end sooner </range id="375814918_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍was the giant simon says board game. The class was beginning to get fed up with it, and I had really thought that more students would want to be simon, but in all actuality they really didn't want to be simon they just wanted to be involved. This is not something I ever thought about, its not necessarily being the head of the class, but it is more so being involved and being able to show other students that they understand and are thriving. Another thing was being able to construct this <span style="color: #0090ff; font-family: arial black,gadget,sans-serif;">lesson made me able to construct more lessons like this that began the lesson active that allowed the class to get some of the extra energy out and want to do more of the actual work in the classroom. The students were talking about how much fun they had for the rest of the day, which is something I had not had happen with a subject such as math, but is something I always want the class to feel. I want the class, students, and myself to be excited for every lesson that we start.

<span style="color: #ab0d73; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The week of October 15th. Phew what a week! I taught all but one class a day! It is so enjoyable being able to watch the class grow as individuals and as a whole, and being able to take on the entire class, and work off of your lessons for each subject. I was able to teach a lot of classes this week that I had yet to touch. I was able to do journaling with the class which I found extremely important, and also got to work on grammar concepts, which was something I had not done much of yet in the classroom. I taught a lesson on setting one day and then was able to tie it in with my LA center the next day because of references that both myself and the children made to Finding Nemo. The best part was that their skill they were working on is the short i sound, and so the entire chapter was about fish. Therefore we talked about fish movies for setting, and my center was fishing for short i sounds. It was also a very interesting week, because two days during the week there were substitutes in the room, (both Monday and Friday), which I found was very difficult on the students. The first and last days of the week are really important to the students and to holding their week together, and I felt that me being able to consistently be there really helped them. This made me realize how much the children rely on their teachers to be their everyday for them. It is really hard for them to constantly be changing their daily routine. <range type="comment" id="374941968_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍Also, there were several times during the week that the principal just stopped in to observe the classroom, and not only was I so involved in the activity but so were the students that it caused no distractions in the class, nor did it make my nerves start soaring. We were all enjoying what we were doing and having fun with it so we were able to continue on like nothing had changed. </range id="374941968_1">‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Chapter 2 writing assignment: Give children ownership of routines and schedules. This is a phrase that really makes a person think about how they want to let their day flow. I have begun to let the class have ownership of the routines and schedules. They have developed a bigger sense of not only responsibility, but of time as well. They understand more that if they get the necessities done, they will have more time for the fun things that they want to be included in their days. I am able to complete my lessons but since it is more child centered and directed I am able to have more one on one time while the class works on their own or in small groups. This is making the students extremely independent and makes them realize that they can get what they want in the classroom. Classroom culture is being nourished by helping the students thrive. They are able to work together, and understand the importance of unity and working as a whole. When I hear a students encouraging another student I make sure to go out of my way to reward that student and encourage that positive and encouraging behavior. That is what is wanted and needed in the classroom. Focus on relationships, not rules. Sometimes not every student is going to be able to abide by the rules, and not every rule is going to apply to every student. I have noticed in the classroom that I am in that it is necessary to work with each student individually to create rules and experiences that are individualized to the students themselves. A lot of the students are really just looking for a constant person in their lives that they can rely on everyday. The classroom has a lot of broken families and very messy home life situations, so I have found that we have become our own family in the classroom. Everyone is able to help one another out in the classroom, and knows when the others are struggling. The children have begun to be able to reach out to one another when they see each other struggling. I have worked very hard to develop individual relationships with every student to know what I can do to help them understand a lesson better or make a lesson more on their level whether that is making the lesson easier or harder. I feel as though the cooperation and team work in the classroom has increased making the classroom a more positive location to be and everyone wants to be part of one anothers lives in that classroom.

<span style="color: #de9135; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;">Week of October 22, 2012: The last week at Mrytle came way too fast! As soon as I was finally getting the hang of teaching the full day of first grade it felt like it was over. I couldn't believe the reactions that so many of the students had. There were several students crying and were very unhappy to see me leave. I am really going to miss my students and my co-op, as we had really built a great relationship especially in the last couple of weeks. I really learned a lot about planning lessons for the whole day and working on transitions between the lessons and that it is very helpful to develop lessons that are interlinking for the day. This being said it was easier when you were using the same topic from LA for Math and then again to either SS or Science. I felt that when the children were able to relate all the subjects together it made a lot more sense to them and they were able to understand what I was asking of them easier. One thing that really touched me from this experience was that I had the students write a journal entry about what they learned about fall because that had been my project. Instead of following this prompt i had one little boy that wrote, This fall Miss Tomer taught me how to read, and I like reading with her." This made me sob, because I knew how hard he had been working to learn how to read and in those last two weeks I could really see a difference, and after reading that all I could think is that every morning when I read him a book or two that is why he was interested because he wanted to learn what all the words were and what they looked like so he would be able to read them himself. <range type="comment" id="381017868_1">‍‍‍‍‍That feeling I felt is the reason I want to teach. I realized how important our jobs are and how many lives you may touch without even knowing you are doing it.

</range id="381017868_1">‍‍‍‍‍ Chapter 3 Writing Assignment For next time read Chapter 3 - Enhancing Curriculum with Materials - Blog assignment: reflect on the project/play experience students created - how does this chapter relate to their project? The project I did was that I focused on the season of fall and teaching the students all about fall and the different aspects of fall. I started by talking to the students about the foods of fall. The first food we focused on was apples. For one of my very first lessons I did an apple tasting. I had 9 different types of apples throughout the room and allowed the students to walk around the room tasting the apples and picking whether they liked or disliked the apple. They did this for all nine apples. Later we used these like dislike charts to practice graphing informations. Next we spent a day talking about the life cycle of a pumpkin. We read a book and made a little book about pumpkins life and how they come about. Then we had another lesson about pumpkins and read the book again and this time we planted our own pumpkins (mine has three sprouts!). I then did a fall scavenger hunt with the students they went outside and used their sense to tell me what they saw, smelled, heard and felt. We went inside and then charted all this information. The students then wrote one thing down for each sense on their own sheet and then wrote their favorite part of fall in the last box. The next lesson we did was on leaves because we had spent so much time talking about all the different sense the children had used that were related to leaves and they wanted to know why leaves change colors. So the next day we talked about why leaves change colors. We then all colored leaves and wrote our favorite part about fall leaves on the inside of the leaf. We learned about Christopher Columbus, and why he is famous. We learned about bats because they are a creature of Halloween and the children were really curious about bats so we read Stellaluna and wrote about the characters, plot, setting, climax and resolution. We then labeled all the parts of a bat and talked about all the characteristics of bats and how they are similar/different from birds. On the third day the children created their own bats for the bulletin board. I did a sensory box with the class in which they were able to touch different things that are related to the fall and use their senses minus their sense of sight to tell me what was in the box based on everything they had learned about fall. The last fall related project I did was i bought the students all mini pumpkins and we did a pumpkin painting for my last day. I was consistently doing KWL charts with the students reevaluating what the students had been learning about fall and what they still wanted to learn about fall. I feel that we learned a lot about fall throughout my 8 weeks at Mrytle. The students learned that there were more than one type of apple, that their are many fall holidays, how a pumpkin goes from a seed to a pumpkin, etc. I feel as though the project went really well with this class because they were curious and extremely excited for the fall lessons because they were things that they wanted to learn about. I never felt when I was doing my fall lessons that I was forcing any student to participate, because all of the stuff we were learning were things that the students had been asking questions about. I know that the students learned a lot not only from the KWL charts but because I had the children journal about what they learned during the fall lessons.

This chapter related to the project because the lessons were enhanced every time by the materials that the students had available to them. <range type="comment" id="381392990_1">I felt as though the students were able to learn more and absorb more when they had the materials in front of them and were able to manipulate the materials the same way I was either doing myself or even the same way that I was describing. When the children had the materials they are able to have a hands-on experience which allows them to physically see why things happen the way they happen, and observe the changes actually happening.</range id="381392990_1">

<span style="color: #008080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;">Week of October 29, 2012: My first week at the JCC in preschool! I LOVE IT! I love my co-op and all the students. This setting is an incredible place for these students. They are really fortunate to have so many opportunities available to them as students in this preschool. <range type="comment" id="381388064_1">‍‍‍‍The differences between this preschool and the first grade classroom I was in are enormous. Everything is different and every thing is handled in a different manner. The preschoolers are so loving and just invite everyone into their room with open arms. None of the students seem to be wary of having a new person in their classroom, they just want you to be involved in everything they do, and for you to pay attention to them.</range id="381388064_1">‍‍‍‍ I love walking in everyday and hearing Ms Caitlin will you read to me? Ms Caitlin will you play with me? Ms Caitlin I love you! I hate leaving in the afternoon, and cannot wait to go back the next day. I am super excited that we are starting construction next week and that I will be teaching small center groups all next week to introduce construction and city/country. I know how much this class loves to build already so I am planning on building a city with the class out of boxes, egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, etc. Also, the children line up on numbers that are on the floor, I plan on changing them from flowers to a more current theme. For these next few weeks I plan on having either city buildings or construction equipment. Then for Thanksgiving I want to change them to turkeys, and then for the first week of December I'm thinking either snowflakes or snowmen. I also have already been thinking about which center I can help adding to and how I can add to it. A lot of the centers have a lot of nice materials, but I have noticed that really only two centers are ever played with in the classroom and that is the blocks and the dramatic play center.<range type="comment" id="381389562_1">‍‍‍ I am thinking on working on science/math or even the sand table because they really are not used. </range id="381389562_1">‍‍‍My co-op said to me today she doesn't like using the sand table because the sand isn't nice and because she really doesn't have materials for the sand table so that is one thing I could work on. Also I was thinking about a way to get the children more involved in the science/math center. I love math and science so I have a ton of ideas to redo that center and help get the children more involved into the center and so that they want to go to that center to play. This first week has been AMAZING thus far!<range type="comment" id="381390910_1">‍‍ I cannot wait for tomorrow to learn about Shabbat. I really know nothing about Jewish holidays nor traditions so this is so exciting because I am also learning so many Hebrew words and Jewish traditions while being at this placement!</range id="381390910_1">‍‍

<span style="color: #008080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;">Week of November 4, 2012:





<span style="color: #ea0ba2; font-family: Georgia,serif;">This week we were working on the letter C and on Construction. We built a city in our classroom complete with buildings, trees, signs, and vehicles. The students made construction signs on Monday and we hung them around the room so that everyone knew our classroom was officially "under construction." We spent all week working on our city, a day on the buildings, a day on the signs, a day on the vehicles, and a day on the roads. Then on Friday the class was able to play with their city and use other materials in the classroom to incorporate with their city. <range type="comment" id="381391718_1">‍We also on Friday worked on hammering by giving the students pumpkins. They then used a rubber hammer to pound golf tees into the pumpkin. This not only worked on their hand-eye coordination but they were also able to practice a skill that we had talked about during the week that construction workers use on a day-to-day basis. Another thing that we did Friday was we gave the students blocks and sandpaper. They were able to sand the blocks down with the sand paper and then decorate the blocks however they wanted creating their own addition to the block center. After they had completed this they were then able to sign their name on the block and add it to the center</range id="381391718_1">‍. The letter c and construction let us build a large vocabulary including but not limited to: construction, construction worker, cement mixer, and crane. I was able to do a small group activity every day this week which was nice already being able to plan a whole week worth of lessons. :) I am excited already for next weeks lessons!!