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. 

Day 9

Yesterday was exhausting and I got home around five and just fell asleep till dinner time and completely forgot about my Blog. I was so tiered because we went on a field trip yesterday with he entire third grade. The trip was to go along with the classes current unit on colonial farming. The kids split their day between a farm called Gaining Grounds in Concord and the head masters house near the upper campus. The kids were split into two groups and all congregated for lunch at the Wilkins. I spend all day at the Wilkins where one of the bigger groups was split into three smaller groups, and moved around to do different stations. I was a group leader and lead one of the smaller groups from station to station. The stations all had to do with colonial times. The first was bread baking where each group got to bake little loafs of bread, we ended up with something like 40 miniature loafs of bread. The next station was weaving where each of the kids got to weave place mats from strips of paper. Finally the kids went on a nature walk on the Lincoln conservation land to look for stone walls, witch is how colonial farmers marked their land. Also on the nature walk the kids made butter by shaking a Tupperware full of cream while they walked. We stopped in a big open field to show the kids how big an acer is by having them walk out 66 yards in different directions and then making a square. After the nature walk we headed back to the Wilkins for lunch, after the kids ate the ran around for a bit to burn off some steam we headed into the afternoon happenings. It was also one of the kids birthdays so he brought in little cupcakes for every one. After lunch the groups reversed and those who were at the farm in the morning stayed at the Wilkins and vise versa. The afternoon went pretty much the same as the morning just with a different group and in a different order. 

Day 8

Today started off as always with language where Mrs. Fitzpatrick read the boys a story about Dawn and then the they water colored pictures of dawn and sun rise. Next was RAVE-O where we started off finishing Sam the Minuteman and then split into the same groups as yesterday and worked on Ran Charts and timed reads of the Minute story about the Cape Cod Fishing Date, witch I pretty much have memorized at this point. Their was no tutoring today because the tutors are busy doing evaluations of students so the boys all stayed in the classroom today and they finished there paintings of dawn and then came and sat down and listened while I read Strega Nona, a story book about a magic pasta pot. Then we did a group brain storm about the pictures and then the boys did their own brain storms based specifically on their painting. Then it was time for math, we started off playing a game of mastermind and then did a lesson on fractions using fraction pieces that I spent a very long time cutting out yesterday. Lunch was pretty normal and then they went out to recess. After lunch was Art where they continued to work on their newspaper creatures. Most kids have their structures done and are now working on cover them with colored pulp that they made(with help) from ripped up construction paper and water in the blender. Then we had history where the boys drew pictures of different parts of the farm. They had to judge what they were suppose to draw based off of a short paragraph they had to read and some did very well with it where others struggled. The boys ended the day with bounders. 

Day 7

Today started with lots of rain and a very rainy drive to Waltham, but by some miracle the rain cleared in time for morning recess! It was still a little overcast but not actually raining. For Language this morning we did three different stations, I was at a station where the boys had to sort sentience strips based on which part of speech an underlined word was. At times some of the boys had trouble concentration but others really embraced it and we made a game out of it to see how fast they could read all the sentences. After that we had RAVE-O, we started off by reading some more of Sam the Minuteman, the british are quickly approaching and our young hero is starting to get scared. After reading we went over the word use and then went on to look at Fatrats words witch are words made up of two real words then we split into groups and did ran charts to practice fluency and word recognition and the other group reviewed the minute story we are currently working on about the Cape Cod Fishing Date! After RAVE-O we had snack with brought the usually group of boys into the room, I am slowly learning all of their names. Tutoring was the same as usually. During math none of the boys left to go to separate math classes so i worked with them on worksheets for the first 1/2 of the class and for the second 1/2 they played cross trainer on the computers. In the afternoon the boys will go to Movement, Community Building and then Science. 

Day 6

Today is the first day of my second week, and Monday are exactly the same as I remember them sleepy and lacking motivation. Regardless the day must go on! The day started off with every one sharing about their weekend, and then Mrs. Young came and the boys played a game of whats my rule but with just one circle and objects witch made the game a little more challenging that when they play with just shapes. In RAVE-O the boys started a new book called Sam the Minuteman about a young boy living in Lexington during the revolutionary war. Even though it was a little wet out the boys still went out to recess and burned off some energy before Tutoring. After tutoring was Math, where the boys had an introduction to fractions. We started by examining a hole and cutting it in two to make two part that we could put together to re make the hole. Today we only got as far as 1/2 but I am existed to see the boys progress and learn more about fractions. After math was lunch and then bounders. First in bounders the boys played some cops and robbers and then did a challenge with Ms. Z where they had to learn a pattern as a group to get across a grid through trial and error. Then was science where we watched a video about frogs and toads and compared them to the Fire-Bellied Toads that are the classroom pet, and then we went through the life cycle of a frog. After Science was History witch was a bit of a challenge because it was the end of the day, regardless the boys begrudgingly got through a Time for Kids about farming and answered some questions about a map of the US on the back. 

Weekly Reflection

This week has been a little crazy! I have learned that being a classroom teacher is much more difficult than I would have thought; there is a lot to juggle, and you need to have eyes on the back of your head. I have also learned that eight and nine year old boys have a lot of energy, and it never really runs out. I heave really enjoyed everything that I have done this week and am looking forward to next week. One of my favorite parts of the week was math class. I liked math because it was the most hands on, and I got lots of opportunities to help the kids one-on-one. For the same reason, I also like writing in Language class. I went into this experience not exactly sure what I would be expected to do, so the first few days were full of surprises, but as the week went on and I acclimated to the rhythm of elementary school, things became more expected, and there were fewer surprises. I think that I benefited from every activity I did this week. It is such an amazing experience for me to be back at Carroll watching and helping with the kind of education I received when I was little and ultimately how I got to where I am today. Watching tutoring was the most beneficial for me. It was amazing how many of the tutoring strategies that I saw being taught I still, subconsciously, use everyday when I read and write. I wish that all Carroll School alumni got an opportunity like this to see just how Carroll helped them. 

Day 5

Friday May 13, 2011

Today started off normally with the boys dropping off their stuff and then heading out to the play ground, right after recess they came in lined up and headed off to Bounders, today I did not go with them but stayed and did some reading about the early signs of dyslexia and early detection. It is really nice to read about everything that went into my diagnoses when I was little. They boys came back from bounders and then we had language witch today was mystery reader. The boys get a clue each day and try to guess who is coming. This week it was a boys Grandfather who is visiting from Florida. After Language the boys had Tutoring, today the boy that stays in the classroom did some phonic cards and some reading and then went on to do some reading. After that he had to put picture cards in the right sequence to make a story. Then he wrote about it using his sequence words like first, next, after that, last and finally.  Next was math where we played logic games, the boys grouped off by twos and moved around to different stations. I was at the Set station a game that worked on sequencing. After math the boys headed home because it is a half day, like every friday. Today is different because there are parent teacher conferences so I am sticking around till 4 in the library to help watch kids while their parents are in conferences. 

Day 4

Thursday May 12, 2011

The day started off normally with language where we worked on wrighting about night using the brainstorms they made yesterday. They were trying to wright two sentences about each part of their pictures: the moon, stars, sky, and mountains. After language we went into RAVO and they learned two new rhyme pattern -ube, and used it to make cube and tube. Then the boys took turns dividing words by syllables on the white bored and we started a new minute story. After tutoring was math witch started in the symphony lab and then we moved back to the classroom and did a dividing worksheet and played a few rounds of guess my rule. In the game you use two plastic circles to make a ven-diagram and each circle has a rule that the students have to guess by trying to put shapes of different colors, size and thickness into the circles. During lunch their were lots of boys in the room, as usual. After lunch we had Art and the boys continued to work on their news paper animals. From art we went down stairs for movement, and then back up to pack up and went to the library to listen to a story before they headed home.

Day 3

Wednesday May 11, 2011

We started off the day with indoor recess because the play ground was all wet, the boys had the option to go to any of the classroom in the third grade. Most stayed and we played a variety of games like Connect 4, I played Guess Who with one of the boys. Then we had morning meeting and went on to classes. In language class today we started off with reading a book about night and looked at all of the different similes and personification that the author used to describe the different things that happen as night comes to a neighborhood. After the story the boys worked on wrighting their own similes about their paintings of night, first as a group and then on their own papers. For RAVE-O today we finished Blueberries for Sal and then introduced a new rhyme pattern -one, and made the words cone and bone with it. We also discussed the different interesting meaning for the word cone, their are 4 of them: ice cream cone, traffic cone, pine cone and the cone in your eye. Then came snack witch was the usual chaos of lots of boys from other classes that congregate in Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s classroom each day. After snack was tutoring witch is a lot of repetition from day to day to get the one boy that stays in the classroon to remember his spelling rules. Next was math, witch all the boys had to stay for due to MCAST testing. For the first part of math we played logic games in different stations. After that the boys that usually leave the class for Math went to the computer lab to work on things there and the rest of the class worked on division word problems, witch can be a struggle some times. After lunch we went to Art down at the other end of the building. The boys worked on making newspaper and masking take animals that they will paint. I can remember doing this project when I was in 4th grade at Carroll and still have it sitting on my shelf at home! From Art we went back to the classroom for History. We did an introduction to colonial farming and talked about our up coming field trip where we will spend 1/2 the day at a local farm and the other 1/2 of the day at the Wilkins house doing different farming activities. After History we went to Bounders, my all time favorite class when I was a Carroll student! I got to see Mrs. Z one of my Bounder instructors and we cooked hot dogs over a camp stove, from Bounders the boys headed home and now I am waiting in Valerie s Classroom while she is in a meeting. Today is the first day that I have internet while at Carroll I just got set up with a visitors account to get onto the wireless!

Day 2

Tuesday May 10, 2011

6.5  Hours

Being back at Carroll is a lot of fun! It is a really great experience to remember what I was learning when I was little. Looking back everything that I was resistant to learn and gave my teachers a hard time about really was helping me and not just there to make me miserable! As I sat in on a tutoring secession I realized just how many of the OG strategies I still use today. Such as, how I sound out words and look at prefixes and suffixes to find the base word.

Today started with morning meeting where we talked about the date (in full sentences) and how many days were left in the school year before moving on to Language class. In Language the boys learned about Personification and took turns reading sentences about it and identifying the subject noun and action verb. After looking at lots of examples of personification the boy wrote sentences about their night pictures, that they painted last week, where they personified the moon.  They then took turns talking about their paintings and reading their sentences to the class. After Language was RAVE-O where we read some more of Blueberries For Sal and introduced a new word with interesting meanings.  Next up was Tutoring, where just one student stayed in the classroom and worked one on one, on his letter sounds and spelling. All the boys came back for math and we headed down to the computer lab. In the computer lab they each worked on something different, most worked with a computer program called Symphony Math, witch is fact based. It helps the boys to remember their addition and subtraction tables. One boy worked with a program called Cross Trainer witch is based on logic problems and another did worksheet with addition and subtraction problems. After the time in the computer lab was done we headed back to the class room to do some work on the Evo Bored witch is like a SmartBored but all of the technology is in the pen instead of the bored. On the Evo Bored we worked on linking together multiplication and division, and identifying how they are similar and how they are different.  Lunch time came after Math and it was a little crazy but we made it through with just one spilled Lunchable! After Lunch was movement where we did some yoga and then went on to walk around pretending to be in different environments, such as, being a frog chased by a snake or walking on the moon. After movement was community building where the class meet with another class and the counselors an we talked about any concerns kids had about school(todays hot topic was the banning of tag on the playground) and then made friendship bracelets to sell at next weeks bake sale. The money from the bake sale will go to an organization called Cradle to Crayons that the students will be visiting that supplies families in need with basic necessities. Next, we went to science where we talked about the different types of organisms: consumer, producer and decomposers. At the end of my second day I am feeling good about the next three weeks! Today I have accomplished learning everyones name and am looking forward to getting to know each of the boys. 

Day 1

Monday, May 9, 2011

6.5 Hours

My first day at Carroll was to say the least hectic! Seven third grade boys sure are a lot of work, the next three weeks will be very busy. To start the day I got up nice and early to catch a ride to Carroll with our family friend Valerie a first year fourth grade teacher. Once we got to school Valerie showed me around and then I went and met my project sponsor Laurel Fitzpatrick, who is very nice! The boys came in from morning recess at 8:20 and I got to meet them all, they are a very sweet bunch but can be a bit distracted at times. After we had our little morning meeting the speech pathologist came in and played a version of go fish with the boys where they had to describe wild and wacky pictures on the cards. The purpose of this game is to work on conversation skills and making complete sentences. After that it was time for RAVE-O a reading program that helped the boys with fluency and word recognition, the third graders all get shuffled for RAVE-O so there was just one boy from the original group and two others from different classes.  Then was snack time and a short recess,  then we had Tutoring. All the boys headed their separate ways and just one stayed in class to work with Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Watching tutoring brought me back to my days at Carroll, with word lists and OG cards it was just like being back in fourth grade and my first year at Carroll. Then it was time for math, today we worked on dividing different objects first on the SmartBorde and then with real objects such as blocks and books. After math the boys ate lunch and headed out for another recess. As lunch came to an end the boys regrouped and we went down to Gym, the boys are joined by Mr. Shepard (another Carroll/Proctor alumni) in the afternoon to help keep specials calm and fight free. In gym we played Mat Ball, a personal favorite from my Carroll days. It was interesting to see the boys in a nonacademic setting. It was, at times, a struggle to keep the game fair and every one happy. Now the boys are off at science and then they will come back for History class where we will work on reading some articles from Time for Kids and then they head to cabs and I head home for the day!