Weekly Reflection 3

My final week on Senior Project has been amazing! I have loved every minute of it. This week I tried my best to cherish every opportunity I had to work with the boys because I knew that my project would soon be over. It was very bittersweet leaving Carroll on Friday afternoon. I am excited for the school year to be coming to a close and to be getting close to graduation but it was sad to walk away. Carroll was such a monumental part of my life and going back was such a great experience for me that I will always look back on fondly. It was nice to see old teachers and get to talk to them now that I am older. I wish that everyone that was helped by Carroll the way I was could have this kind of opportunity to see exactly how it was done. The hardest part of leaving on Friday was saying goodbye to the boys. They have become such a big part of my life over the past three weeks and I am so interested to see who they will become when they get older. It was also sad to say good bye to the teachers I have been working with. Some of them I knew from when I was student and some were completely new but they were all very nice and helpful throughout my project. I am really glad I did my senior project at Carroll and am sad that it is over!

Day 15

Today was my final day on senior project with was very bitter sweet. I am so excited to spend a few days with my mom before getting up to school to graduate, but it was also sad to say good bye to Carroll. The day started with the boys heading off with tutors to do some end of year testing and when they came back we had a mystery reader. It was one of the boys dad and it was funny to see how closely the boy resembles his father. After mystery reader we had language where the boys finished writhing about day and finally finished their painting the sky project. My final class with the boys was math where we had a free day to play games, I played RACK-O and guess who with different boys. My final day was a lot of fun! I made cupcakes for the boys for the last day witch were a huge hit! 

Day 14

Today has been a lot of fun. I finally got the ok to take pictures during class so I spent the day taking pictures of the boys. We started out with language where we finished the paining of day that the boys started yesterday and then moved on to do a group brain storm and then they did there individual brain storms. In RAVE-O we did some more of George the Drummer Boy and then some RAN charts to practice fluency. At the end of RAVE-O we retired the words from the current unit and then read all the words from the rest of the year. No tutoring again today so the boys finished there brain storms and started to wright about day. In math we started with some Symphony and then did an introduction of measuring. Lunch was normal and then after the boys had Art. At this point most of them are done with there paper sculptures and spent time free drawing. The boys went off to movement and I headed back to the classroom to work on getting things together for my last day tomorrow. They came back to the classroom for our last block of History and worked on adding animals and a barn to the farms they made yesterday. As they packed up I tryed to get a group picture witch did not go so well. 

Day 13

We started today by finishing the wrighting about dawn that we worked on yesterday and as each boy finished he moved on to work on Lexia a compute program to work on phonics. In RAVE-O we read some more of George the Drummer Boy, one of the boys made the connection that George the Drummer Boy and Sam the Minuteman were the same story from different points of view. It was very exciting to see him get the concept on his own instead of being told. There was no tutoring today because the tutors are busy doing testing for other grades so we had a second language block where we started to paint day, the book that was used to introduce day was Roxaboxen, a story of a made up town made of rocks and wooden boxes.  After language we had math, different kids were getting pulled out for testing so we played RACK-O a card game that works on sequencing. During lunch three of the boys had shifts at a bake sale to raise money for charity, after lunch was art where the boys worked on covering their newspaper animals in paper pulp to make them colorful. Next was history where we did the farming activity I spent so long getting ready for yesterday afternoon. Now the boys are at gym. 

Day 12

Today started like normal and in Language we wrote about the paintings of Dawn the boys did last week, many of them had to finish up their brain storms before they started wrighting but almost all them finished the whole activity today witch is good.  I like helping the boys wright because I get to see them come up their own ideas and watch their ideas grow. In RAVE-O we started a new book called George the Drummer Boy, it follows the same events as Sam the Minuteman but from the point of view of a young British Drummer Boy. Then we did some time word strips and read a new minute story. Math started with some time in the Symphony lab and then we headed back to the classroom to the classroom to an Eno Bored lesson about fractions. Lunch was the same as usual and in the afternoon the boys had movement, community building and then science. In the afternoon I did some things to get ready for tomorrows History lesson. I got to use a paper cutter to cut out squares of paper for a farming project and it made me feel like a real teacher!!!

Day 11

Today has been a lot of fun! We started off the day with Mrs. Young and the boys did some sequencing with her, they drew out the story of how to make bread on the white board and then played some whats my rule with all sorts of things witch the boys are getting much better at! For RAVE-O witch we had two extra boys for because one of the teachers is out today so instead of continuing with normal RAVE-O things we read a silly story about how the lion got his tail and then played some RAVE-O Jeopardy. Tutoring was the same old same old and in Math we did some more work on Fractions using the Eno Bored and then did stations. I was at the pancake game station, where the boys rolled the dice to see what fraction piece of a paper pancake they would get. It was fun to see them getting better at know witch one was witch and that they could make a pancake out of 2 1/4th and 1 1/2 pieces. Lunch was a little crazy but it was fine and then in the afternoon the boys had Bounders and Science and then came back for some History where I read a book about Tornados to them and then we broke into groups and read a Time For Kids about Tornados. 

Weekly Reflection 2

My weekly reflection is so late because my weekend was very full and slightly overwhelming. Most of my weekend was consumed by walking and our new puppy! Nine years ago my mum and three of her friends started a Breast Cancer walk called Just ‘Cause (http://www.healinggarden.net/?topic=justcause), the money raised gets split between the Virginia Thurston Healing Garden in Harvard, MA(http://www.healinggarden.net/) and the Gillet Center for Breast Cancer at Mass General. This is the first year that I have had the opportunity to take part in the walk. I only walked one of the days but 20 miles in one day is still a lot.  My weekend of walk activities started off right after school on Friday, my mum came and got me and we went and meet up with the walkers for lunch, after lunch I spent some time with my mum before she drooped me off and then I got ready for my day of walking. Saturday was long but totally worth it. When I got home on saturday my dad was waiting with our new puppy, Tukkaa! His is 8 weeks old and lots of fun! 

Last week at Carroll I continued to learn lots about Teaching, I was given my first opportunity to work one on one with a student for a hole block while he pained a picture of dawn because he had missed the class when the rest of the class did the painting. This was such a wonderful opportunity, it was fun to see how differently a student behaves when they are on their own and separated from class mates. I also learned that taking students on a field trip is a lot of work and can be very tiering. I loved all of the activities I did the week, I got to experience all sorts of things witch was really fun. This week I got to help with more of the out side of the classroom things, I have been wrighting up the schedule each morning and helping with things like cutting out fraction pieces. Through this I have learned just how much extra work goes into being a teacher past being in the classroom. The thing that I have enjoyed the most this week is know the boys, last week I was just figuring them out but this past week I have been able to see each of their personalities. Everything this week happened as expected but that is one of the nice things about helping in a classroom, everything is scheduled and you can look to a peice of paper to see what you are going to do next. The field trip was the same way but it came with a few surprises, the big one was that the lunches did not get delivered on time so kids that order lunches that day did not eat until 45 min after the rest of the kids. I am benefiting from everything I have been doing, all of this is such a wonderful learning experience for me.