Oh how time flies....

           I cannot believe how fast student teaching is going.  I feel like I just started, and now it is already winding down.  I haven’t realized how close I have grown to all my students and my host teacher until my teacher had mentioned when we were having my “last day celebration”.  I instantly had tears streaming down my face.

            My host teacher has gone far and beyond this semester in making me feel at home.  She has worked hard each and everyday to ensure that I am successful as a teacher.  She and I have bonded into more than just colleagues.  We have developed a trusting friendship that will last forever.  From day one, Mrs. Young has open up her classroom and allowed me to be a big part of room 7. 

            Over the course of my student teaching, I have developed relationships with all of my students.  My students look up to me and have been a positive support system throughout this entire process.  They trust me and look up to me when they need advice.  They come to me when they are upset or when they have an exciting story to share.  I haven’t had one day when a student hasn’t come up to me and say, “Miss Mule’, Miss Mule’, Miss Mule’……I have to tell you something!”  My first graders want to share everything about their lives and some students come to me because no one else will listen.  My students mean so much to me and I am really sad that I will be leaving in ten days. 

            Even though it is heartbreaking to leave room 7, I have to look on the bright side and think about how much closer I am to having my own classroom.  This experience had prepared me for the next journal in my life.  I am anxious to have my own classroom and build these lasting relationships with my colleagues and future students.

My thoughts....

"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best." – Bob Talbert

As I have been completing my journey through student teaching, I have come to realize that the most valuable skills that I can teach my students are to be a good and respectable person inside and out.  Students need to learn how to make good decisions on their own.  Having this experience in first grade has shown me that students need guidance to learn how to act and make good choices.

This may seem silly to outsiders, but if students aren’t taught these skills at home, how are they expected to make those good decisions?  It has been evident in my classroom that students need to have expectations that they are expected to follow, and consequences if they do not follow those expectations.  It has been a goal of mine to always talk with the students when they make a bad decision, as I want it to be a learning experience for that student.

From observing my students on a daily basis, I have noticed that majority of the time students will learn from their mistakes/bad choices.  When students repeat those bad decisions, I step in and discuss with them what they can do to fix the situation.  I think this step is extremely important, as students may want to change their actions, but do not know how to do so.  Helping young students, especially primary students, become a good samaritan will help them throughout their entire lives.  I see these skills as life-long skills that students need to learn in order to help guide them in their future.

I did it!!!

          As you already know, I have been full-time teaching for about a month or so!  This week has been the real test, as Mrs. Young has allowed me to see what it will be like during my first year of teaching (without her assistance).  She has been stepping outside of the classroom this week for five full days to let me have full control of the classroom (she is right next door in the teachers lounge if I need her for an emergency). 

         This experience has been incredible.  Throughout the week I have been in situations where I had to be flexible and switch up the lessons.  There have been times where I had to make the “teacher” decisions, and there have been times where I felt like I was going to fall over with all the demands.  This week has pushed me to be more confident with myself and take full control of the classroom.  The experience has also been a change for my students, as it has pushed them to fully trust me.

         I have come home every single night feeling absolutely exhausted, but what I have realized is that my students look up to me and work with me as a team throughout the day.  This week has shown me how demanding a classroom of 21 students is!  Having the extra hands of Mrs. Young in the past weeks has been extremely helpful.  Since I realized this before, I contacted a parent to come in throughout the week to help me in areas where I needed it!  She has come in every day to help me with my math stations.  Having this extra support and ongoing communication with parents is something that I want to implement in my future classroom.  It not only helps me as the teacher, but it helps parents feel like they are more apart of the learning circle!

My thoughts on homework....

The definition of homework is different in each and every classroom.....here are my feelings about homework!

        Growing up, I never enjoyed doing homework.  I can remember being in grade school and feeling the sense of freedom when I ran off the bus and immediately started running around the neighborhood with my friends.  After being locked up in school all day, this was the one opportunity I had to be active and socialize with my friends.  Always being studious, after 10-15 minutes of playing, I felt an overwhelming feeling of guilt because I knew I needed to complete my homework. 

         My feelings about homework haven’t changed from when I was a student in grade school.  I still feel that students should get a chance to be a kid, and not have to worry about doing hours upon hours of homework. With the being said, I do think it is fair to give students homework that reviews concepts that are being covered in class.  Since the objective of assigning homework is to provide review and practice of concepts that have already been taught, the assignments should not take an excessive amount of time to complete.  If students are having a difficult time with the material, I would be fine with parents writing in a note that stated that it was too difficult for their child to complete at home.  This would give me an understanding of what I needed to practice more with that child in my classroom.  When parents push their children to spend an excessive amount of time on homework, this tends to discourage the student and then it makes the situation worse.  Homework should not be a punishment for students; instead it should be assigned for extra practice.

         Mrs. Young, my mentor teacher, mentioned to me that it is important to take into consideration the diverse needs in the classroom.  If students have disabilities or need extra accommodations (or modifications) teachers and parents also need to take that into consideration when assigning or helping with homework.  She also stated in our discussion that she believes that homework should not be graded; instead it is more beneficial for the students to have homework graded on completeness for each individual child.  This way each student is assessed by his or her own individual needs/goals, and the teacher can use the homework as a way to strengthen the students’ abilities in class.  Not only does this system help with assessing individual student understanding, but it also helps to encourage students to work hard and not worry about getting the right/wrong answers.

Dental Unit/ Travel Celebration

For the past two weeks, during health instruction, we have been learning about dental health.  We have learned about oral health, how to properly care for our teeth, and have also learned about the anatomy of a tooth.  Taking into consideration that all students may not have gone to the dentist, I have incorporated other useful information into this unit, such as what a dentist visit would entail.  We also have examined the differences in human teeth versus a variety of animal teeth.  This topic has fostered a great deal of conversation, as students are excited to share their experiences about loosing their teeth and visiting the dentist.  This Friday, we have a dentist coming into the classroom to share with the students about his job.  Not only does this relate to our dental health curriculum, but it also ties in to our Social Studies unit (jobs/services) that we did last week!

This Friday we are also celebrating our travel unit by having a luau!  The entire first grade has come together and has planned a ‘food tasting’ luau to give students the experience of tasting foods from around the world.  Many students have never had the opportunity to taste other ethnic foods, and I am eager to find out what they think!  The travel unit has opened up the eyes of my first graders, as they have learned so much about other countries and cultures.  Throughout this unit, students have collected their work (from the countries we visited) and have catalogued everything in a hand-made suitcase.  Since we kept each student’s work organized in their suitcase, they will be able to take this home on Friday and share it with their families.  This will be a great way for students to share with their friends and family what they have learned in the travel unit!  Room 7 has lots to look forward to and Miss Mule’ is just as excited as her students!

Entry 4

We just finished an economics unit in my first grade class.  One may think this topic is difficult to incorporate into such a young grade, but my students had a blast learning about needs, wants, jobs, services, volunteers, and money.  I planned and collaborated with the other first grade teachers and organized for our students to work over a two-week period to earn two dollars (by doing chores at home).  This assignment was communicated to the parents/guardians so they were aware of what they needed to do for this specific assignment.  To include all students in this project, we had communicated with the administration to ensure that we could cover the funds for students who could not afford to bring in the money. 

            With the two dollars that each student earned, it bought him or her a McDonald's happy meal (hamburger, cheeseburger, or chicken nuggets that included a drink and fries).  Each student had the choice to pick what meal they wanted.  Students experienced how good it felt to work for their money, and then were excited when they saw what their hard work earned them.  This hands-on activity also demonstrated how essential it is to save money in order to buy things in the real world.

            To incorporate the jobs part of the economics unit, we had parents come in and speak with our students about their careers.  The students also responded positively to this activity, as they were eager to learn about the many options they will have when they grow up.  To help students remember the vast amount of jobs that were discussed, I put together and made each student a book that had pictures and information about each job.  It was powerful to see how engaged my students were throughout this entire unit.

Zoo

Entry 3

I wanted to reflect/share about a goal that I made for myself......

Over the past two weeks I have made an individual goal, as a pre-service teacher, to make an effort to send positive feedback to parents.  I have observed multiple classroom teachers discuss their behavior management techniques and have found myself realizing that more often than not, teachers are communicating with parents when they need to discuss a negative behavior.  As I do understand that this goal takes extra time, I feel that it is extremely important and creates a positive relationship between school and home.  Ever since I sent the first positive comment home, I have received countless comments back from parents saying how much they appreciate the encouraging feedback.  I have enabled students to feel proud of themselves and have seen an increase in student self-esteem when they ask me to read to them what I wrote on their daily log sheet.

 To many people, this little gesture may not seem as important as I do, but I cannot emphasize enough how critical this is to increase parent involvement.  It is evident that all parents want their children to succeed in life, and it makes me feel good inside when I know that my students’ parents take pride in what comments I have to say.  This individual goal that I set for myself in my student teaching classroom will remain one in my future classroom, as I want all my students to feel proud and successful in what they can do, instead of only being told with what they can’t do.

 As Haim Ginott quotes, “Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on them makes an impression.”

Thanks for reading about my journey through student teaching.  I am currently teaching every subject to my first graders!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Entry 2

Guten Tag, family! 

Over the past few weeks, the entire first grade has been traveling around the world.  This traveling unit was put together to help students learn and become more familiar with different cultures and traditions practiced in other countries.  So far we have visited China, Germany, and Mexico.  Our next destination is Japan!  Each student has made their own suitcase and they travel in and out of the United States with their passports.  The passports have each student’s picture on the front, and inside of the passports are stamps that the students have been collecting from each country.  While at the destination, students participate in activities that allow them to see what kinds of food, clothing, and even leisure activities are popular in that particular country.  Students observe the differences and similarities in each countries flag, and showcase their suitcases with the collection of flags.  My favorite part of this experience so far is observing how excited students get when they are traveling.  Many students have never been on an airplane and enjoy opening their imagination to a world that they wish to see one day. 

This past week when we were visiting China, I was in charge of the painting station where students painted the Mandarin Chinese numbers from 1-10.  Many students were beside themselves when they saw how different the Chinese numbers were compared to our numbers.  Participating in this travel unit has opened up my eyes to many avenues as a pre-service teacher.  As I observe how beneficial this experience has been for my first graders, I could definitely see myself using this unit again in my future classroom.

Hope everyone is doing well!! Miss and love you all!

First entry

My goal is to try and write a weekly journal about student teaching to help remember the special moments.  I thought I would share them with you.  This is my first entry......

Last week I experienced an “A-ha” moment with a student.  We were working on number sense in math and were using a 100’s chart to fill in missing numbers.  I noticed that one particular student was struggling with this assignment and was getting upset that she couldn’t complete her math graphic organizer.  I pulled the student aside and began working individually with her.  As I was providing this student with extra support, my brain was churning away, thinking about what tools/strategies I could use to help her understand this mathematical concept.  I tried pointing to the specific numbers and even tried circling the numbers, but nothing seemed to click for the student.  While observing the student struggle, I realized that she was getting frustrated because she couldn’t focus in on one number, or even a few numbers because there were 100 numbers that were confusing her.  As a result of this, I asked Mrs. Young (my mentor teacher) if she had a 100’s chart that we could write on.  She grabbed a 100’s chart that was laminated and said we could use dry erase markers.  Now that I had a clearer visual for the student, I still had to think of a way to isolate the numbers that she needed to focus her attention on.  After playing around with multiple strategies, I found a way that worked for the student.  For example, if the question asked which number comes first, 21 or 46, we would circle both numbers and then she would take the dry erase marker and “follow the trail” (as I named it) starting from 0 until she hit the first number.  Then she would continue on the trail until she hit the next number.  This strategy especially helped the student when she had to list numbers from least to greatest.  The integration of the hands-on and visual component really helped the student and instilled her with confidence that she could do it.  I was so proud of not only the student, but I was proud of myself.  At that moment, I felt like I was flying in the air.  This was the first time in my teacher career that I experienced a student’s light bulb switch from on to off.

Thanks for reading! :)  I am in my third week already and everyday I feel like I am following my dream.  I have a wonderful class and my mentor teacher is incredible. Stay tuned!