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.