One more week!

Well folks we only have one more week of practicum experience left before entering a school full time. I hope everyone has had as much fun as I have had working with the students. Sometimes the faculty we work with or for are worse than the students with behavior intervention plans but that's part of the gig as well. I wish all of you a very successful career in education. It has truly been a pleasure working with each of you and I am sure that your classroom will be the envy of your school. Rock on NKU Class of 2007!

Almost finished!

I had a unique experience for the first time while in a practicum location. I was observing how my CT was talking firmly to one of the boys in our class. The boy was just standing beside her with his head done and not making any eye contact. After she had been talking to him for a long time my CT finally looked up at me and asked if I could walk him down to the office. I said sure and took the form from her. Well the boy raced across the room and I thought this wouldn't take much of my time, well was I wrong! As soon as we reached the hallway, he froze on me. My teacher said I would probably have to take him by the arm and convince him to go well had to do just that to get him only half way down the hallway. Long story short I had to go down to the office to get the Principal to come and get him. The Principal had no idea who I even was (and I sat in on an IEP meeting with him before) so I had to tell him who I was. After that he was joking around with me, "welcome to education", "I will get his head you can get his feet" (he was just kidding with this as well). I must say I never had experienced anything like this before, not even when I use to sub. I just fell bad for the boy because this was totally not like him at all!

scientific revolution

I really enjoyed the class on scientific revolution. I am a better learner when i can do things hands-on. I think students would enjoy doing a lesson using anyone of these experiments. It takes time, group effort, and hands-on to complete each of the experiments. This is a great way to get students envolved and working in a group to complete something.

social studies unit complete :)

Erica and I finished up teaching our social studies unit today and it went pretty well. Our topic was kentucky history. The first day, we had the students work in groups of 4-5 for the assessment part. They had a large piece of white paper and they had to draw the state of kentucky. Labeling its capitol, two other cities, state bird, fish and wild animal. The kids seemed to have a good time with this, but they did not seem to work well in groups. There was a lot of arguing and dispute- and this took up thier time quickly. We gave them about 30 min to complete this. The time it took them to actually complete it, and the time we allowed, were way off. They needed almost an hour- just for the group work. Good thing is, our teacher is awesome and she let us have some extra time after recess to let them finish up. This made me wonder if they were not used to doing projects like this in the classroom with our cooperating teacher. Not sure~ They looked great completed, but Erica and I decided that with the group chaos, our next assessment was going to be individual. So, today, we had the kids make up thier own state, making similarities and differences to kentucky. They could call it whatever they wanted, draw it however they wanted, and so on. We gave them a rubric with the blank piece of paper for thier state and this seemed to help. The kids got really creative with this one. Overall, I think they got a lot out of it and they had a great time. SUCCESS!!! :)

Its finally over!!!! :)

So I taught my Social Studies lessons this week and they went really well. My first lesson was on interdependence and we discussed the milk process and how it was related to interdependence. While reading my book that went along with my lesson the words nipple and teet came up. Of course the students found these words to be extremely funny and laughed out loud when I read them. One student asked what a teet was and I had to explain to him so as not to cause a disrupption with the other students. Several time through out the story the word came up and thankfully I could ommit it and no one knew the difference. It was definitely interesting to say the least and if I were able to have read the story before hand I might have been better prepared for the students reactions. Todays lesson went really well and I was very pleased with how the students did and how well they paid attention and participated in my activities. Overall everything went really well but I am relieved that is is all over :)

Scientific Revolution

The most important component of the Scientific revolution lesson was the integration of science and social studies. With the lack of time in the day too many schools cut out on one or the other, I see this in my practicum classroom. It is very rare that the teacher has enough time for both subjects but she does try to integrate as in this lesson as much as possible. The hands on experiements provided an engaging learning opportunity to truly learn rather than listening to the teacher's discussion or blindly reading from a text. And i will say it, some of the experiements were "FUN". Hands on materials are a motivator for students to actively participate and when students are active they are learning. I also like working in groups, working in groups is a social learning experience and this strategy should be used in the classroom whether the students are in first grade or 11th. In addition to working in groups, i like how the groups were randomly selected by the colored erasers, by using this method throughout the school year students will get acquainted with all of their classmates instead of the select few they are friends with, this also eliminates the teacher from placing the weaker students with the stronger which is benefecial but not good to do all of the time.

Scientific Revolution

I really enjoyed the scientific revolution activity day in class. The lesson was set up in a great way to show us how we can incorporate science and social studies together. The activities were very engaging and hands-on, which students will love. One way that I could incorporate this science lesson with social studies is to have the students research the history behind each of the experiments we did in class. They could find out who tried those experiments first and how they recorded their findings. I think it would be a great way to teach students that many of the ideas we have today about the way things are stem from ideas people in history had. It is also a great way to show why recording data is important. If you want other people to hear your ideas and improve it is some way, it needs to be written down for them to see. I also think that you can study the origins of certain scientific ideas and have students study the cultures of those scientists. Overall, I see how easily science and social studies concepts can be interwoven in lessons.

Scientific Revolution

I really liked the class on scientific revolution. I really liked how Dr. Besnoy showed us how to do and how engaging and meaningful it is to use cross curriculum. In that one class period there was so many ways that you could incorporate science into social studies. In any of those experiments you could do the history of who and how they can to those concepts. You could even talk about where that person was from and their government at that time period and maybe how their government has evolved. You could even do their culture. I really liked the lesson. I thought that it was great and that I could possibly use in my own classroom.

Scientific Revolution

The class on scientific revolution was really cool. I learn best from hands on experiences. Really cool lesson for teaching social studies. The only down fall for me was that I have learned about all of the modes of learning and I know I am a kinestic learner. So I would like to see new methods that will work for students who are not kinestic learners. It may be a little too late for this semester but I was expecting to learn a bunch of new methods during my methods block.

Fossils

I taught a lesson on fossils and paleontologist last Wednesday. The lesson went really well. I was very pleased because I had teachers asking me for my lesson plan. The other really cool thing that happened was the other kindergarten teacher not only asked me for a lesson plan she asked me if she could borrow my materials. She wanted to teach her class the lesson that day. That says a lot for a pre-service teacher. I am very proud of the work that I put into the lesson. What a cool experience for me.

Scientific Revolution

I really thought this class was interesting how we can relate social studies and science for a class as a whole. I thought each activity was interesting and would really keep students interested in the task at hand. The beginning of the lesson caught everyones attention because it was eye catching and kind of "off the wall". Many students would find the whole finger thing funny and it would get them interested in why we are discussing the particular topic.

Disappointed :(

My partner taught her lessons this week and I am disppointed to say that I was not able to be there either day to see her lessons. I was expected to be at a math fair while my partner taught her lessons. I was a little upset about this because this would have been the first time we would have seen social studies being taught. I think I could have gotten more out of my experience this week if I would have seen Abby teach then if I were at the math fair. These lessons are possibly lessons I could teach and it would have been nice to be there to see if I woul change anything or adapt anything for me. I know you should adapt every lesson to your particular class but I was looking forward to these lessons because we both worked very hard on this unit.

Scientific Revolution

I enjoyed this class because it allowed movement as the class progressed. I love hands on experiences, and if I can do this in social studies even better. Many lessons could be planned around each of these stations that relate to social studies and would give students the opportunity to look at the subject in a different manner.

Done with teaching

Well I survived teaching for P2. All my lessons went great. Just yesterday I finished my unit on economics through the use of stations. Back when I had planned this day of my unit I had planned on the help of all the adults that were in the room. Well when it came to teach that day, my partner was able to be there that day due to the math fair that was going on. Because I was missing this person my stations at times were a little chaotic due to the lack of help. It still went well, and the students loved the lesson! They loved the fact that I gave each of them a blank checks, and that I brought in Japanese money for them to look at. Everything went great, I'm now looking forward to student teaching!

Scientific Revolution Class

Hey- the class with all of the groups was so much fun. Awesome way to follow up a power point! I love being able to get out of my seat during a college course. The balloon experiment was my favorite. It was cool to get all of those experiment ideas so we could use them in our future classrooms. The picutre on the power point of the finger was awesome too. That was a great way to get the class' attention- show something gross, but very interesting. BESNOY- can you send me an e-mail of where I could find that picture? thanx- (olsona@nku.edu)

soc. studies

John and I have never seen her teach social studies. I do not think that she even teaches it. Her students are missing out on a lot. She told us how she took her class last year to Build-A-Bear for an economics lesson, but she has done nothing with them this year like that. The only time her students have had social studies, from what John and I can see, was when WE taught them about maps. Why is it that when I was in grade school, we had time for every subject, EVERY DAY!!! Now, teachers complain that there is not enough time in the day. How is that? Maybe it is just an excuse to not teach them certain subjects? I do not know, I just know that her students are missing out on a lot of interesting and fun things.

crazy teacher

Okay so I really need to vent about my CT. She is crazy. John and I cannot believe how stinkin lazy she is. She does not ever try with her students. If they do not get something, she just says "oh well, they arent getting it." An example is with their math tables. My class does not understand their addition tables. So she has decided to have them to a timed tables test about 3 to 4 times a week. She said that this will get them to know them better. I COMPLETELY DISAGREE. Working with them more on this will get them to learn them. She also never feels like teaching math, or any subject at that. I do not know if she is just burned out, or does not want to do anything, BUT SHE IS REALLY LAZY. I feel the only reason she wants John and I in there is because she is lazy and does not want to teach for 3 hours of her day. And she never knows what she is going to do for the day. She is never prepared. I do not understand how she has taught for 20 years. She is a great person, but she is really lazy. I do not know what to do about this. I know we only have 2 more weeks after this week, but its just driving me crazy.

Its about that time

So my partner and I are about to start our unit on economics in the next couple of weeks and for some reason the both of us are more nervous to teach this topic then we have been on any other topic. We have still not seen social studies taught and we have been there for weeks. As much as this school talks about CATS and how they need to improve their scores you would think that they would be doing a little more with social studies. I think we have a lot riding on our lessons because this is all the students will get before they take the test. I am kind of shocked that more information has not been given to the students regarding social studies because they are taking CATS very soon. This is one of the reasons I do not want to teach in Kentucky. I have never heard so much about a state test then I have in all of my practicum settings. While attending school myself we hardly ever talked about the state tests. We were reminded it was coming up a week before and then we took the test and we never really heard about it again. I can not imagine how much pressure students and teachers are under regarding this tests.

First time teaching

I finally taught this week! My first unit was Science and I taught animals. Day 1 I taught an introduction on all the animals, the food chain and producers and consumers. Day one went well only classroom management was a little crazy because they were excited that I was teaching. Day 2 went well and they did great. I taught mammals. I brought in lots of pictures of mammals from magazines and they loved it! All in all it went great, so now all that I have left is teaching economics.

First Day Back

Today I taught a math lesson and I owned it. I felt really good about the lesson. Several teachers came into the classroom and told my teacher that my lesson was really good. My teacher threw me for a loop and asked me cover something with the students that I was not prepared to discuss. She said I did an awesome job. I was really proud of myself.

Crunch Time!!!

I can't believe how fast this semester is going by. I feel like I have so much to do still and very little time to do it. I don't know if anyone else feels this way but I sure do! I am really excited about teaching my math lesson next week. The students keep asking me and Amy when we are going to present a lesson again so that makes us feel good. I really enjoy working with the students in our classroom and I feel like I am learning a lot from helping them discover new things. The students are working on the continent of Africa and they have packets made up with different activities dealing with Africa. One of the things they are doing in their packet is labeling the continent of Africa and coloring it in. I like this activity but I think that the teacher should have maps that match the blank maps they are trying to fill out because some of the students are having a hard time matching the countries in the atlas with the area on their blank map. I'm not sure if it is just because they are so young and new at using their map skills or if they should have better maps to look at.

This is hard

So I am trying to plan my social studies lessons. I have come to the conclusion that it is hard. It is really hard for me to plan a lesson on a subject that i have never seen my teacher teach before. I have no clue how the students are use to getting taught. I guess it doesn't matter as long as the students learn something (hopefully). My teacher doesn't even care what I talk about when I teach them about the community. So I guess it is up to me, to do whatever I want.

Crazy Week!

What a week it was at Campbell Ridge Elementary! Thursday it was crazy enough to last me a couple of weeks. I started out by pulling in the parking lot and there were cars everywhere, not to mention I had a car coming at me in the wrong direction. Long story short it was Grandparents Day. I had grandparents coming up to me thinking I was their grandchild's teacher, it was great. Because it was the day before heading off for spring break, I didn't see any instruction what so ever! To top it off, the last hour was a spring party! So for the remaining time, I watched my students load up on sugar. They were in rare form this week, and I know they need a break.
Update on my lessons, I have not taught yet! Due to all the snow days I'm not teaching math. So the week they come back after spring break I'm finally going to teach. My lesson will be on animals, which I think it should be fun for 2nd grade.

Have a great weekend!

A busy week at school

I am very excited because Maggie and I had a very busy week at school this week. We were shown many new roles that teachers play. On Monday our CT asked us to do playground duty. This sounds like common sense however, when you have bunches of children running around and you are responsible for what each of them is doing it becomes very stressful. I had fun though. Today our CT was being observed by the principal so she was really stressed out. I don't know why though because she is an awesome teacher and she has been teaching for 30 plus years. She had us running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We were trying to get the lesson ready and learn what our role in the lesson would be and moving things around in the classroom so that everything would fit neatly. One of the neatest things we learned today was how to prepare report cards for kindergartners. She let us help her prepare the report cards and asked us to proofread them. She included our observations about the children on the report cards. That was really cool. Then we had a fire drill today; that was fun. The fire drill was used to get the school outside for a dedication ceremony for the new pavilion. They invited the landscaper to the ceremony and the entire school gave him a very large thank you card that everyone signed. Then they dedicated the rest of the day to Fred and Wilma the custodians. Each of them was read a poem and received a very large picture frame with a cardinal in the middle and everyone in the school signed around it. We were asked to sign it too. I think it was really special that we were included.

1st Unit out of the Way! Have fun on Spring Break, but be careful!

whatz up? My partner and I just got done teaching our math unit (sweet, its out of the way!) I think that we are going to teach ecosystems for our science unit, so throw me any ideas you got. HOPE EVERYONE HAS A GREAT TIME ON SPRING BREAK, AND TRY TO GET OUT OF HERE FOR A WHILE! :) I just recieved my student teaching placement at Indian Hill Primary and I am SUPER excited 'bout that! Good Luck to everyone else. I hope you all get the schools you wanted as well! Have a good one!!!!!!!!! LIVE EVERY DAY :)

Allocation meeting

Maggie and I were invited to attend an allocation meeting for the teachers at Grants Lick Elementary. The meeting was held by the principal who has been attending all of the board meetings. She was relaying the message to her teachers. I thought it was very interesting because our principal does not sugar coat things. She told the teachers how it was thus far, what to expect, and when. The assistant principal will be the only one without a job at Grants Lick. She has been offered a position at one of the other schools. We also found out the approximate number of new students that will be attending Grants Lick due to the re-districting of the Campbell County school system. So far our school has been very lucky because we get to keep all of our teachers and will possibly be adding one more. The other schools have not been so lucky. Again nothing is finalized at this point and the information posted today may be wrong by tomorrow.

Social Studies Lessons

I finally got to teach my social studies lessons and I think it went pretty well! The first lesson I taught was on the Amazon Rain forest and I read a book that is perfect for teaching about the rain forest. It is called "The Great Kapok Tree" by Lynne Cherry. I recommend this book for anyone talking about the interdependence of animals and other people in the rain forest. I was a little nervous about how the students would react to being taught since they are used to the Montessori way of learning on their own. I made sure to engage the students through questions, activities, and worthwhile assignments. I had them each write a letter to someone telling them why it is important to save the rain forest and some of the letters they wrote were really great! I was really impressed with how much thought they put into their letters. It was also neat to see who they wrote their letters to because I told them they could write to who ever they wanted to. Several of them chose to write to the governor and one student even wrote her letter to the president. Overall, this first unit went really well and I can see what I did good and what I need to improve on. I am looking forward to teaching my next lesson.

Disappointed

So we have been this far into the semester and even though we have had a lot of snow days we have been at our practicum sites quite a few times and we have yet to see social studies being taught. The school seems to allow for a 30 minute time span to teach what they call a special. Every time we are there she either teaches science or goes over her time with math. Not that a subject should have a specific amount of time allotted for it but we don't see any social studies. I have been quite disappointed when it comes to watching her teach a "special" because even the science lessons that are being observed are not that engaging and would if I am bored I know the students have to be bored. There has not been really any group work or experiments going on and that is sad because everything else we have seen her teach has been actively engaging the students and really keeping the interested in the topic. I am starting to wonder if they will only be getting social studies instruction when my partner and I teach :(

Over the past few weeks Maggie and I have been teaching our class about George Washington and Abe Lincoln. Today my teacher asked me to go through the homework folders and see if parents left any notes from the weekend. On Friday their homework was to go home and tell their parents what they learned so far about the presidents. The mother of one of our students wrote a note that read something like this...I am very proud of XXX and was very pleased at the amount of information she has learned about the presidents. She talked all day about them. When I read this I was very excited. Maggie and I did very well.

Venn Diagrams

Last Wednesday I taught a lesson to my kindergarten class using a Venn Diagram. I introduced the class to the Venn Diagram and asked them to look around the room to see if they could find others. One student shouted out that he found one. It was a poster of word families and each family was seperated using Venn Diagrams. The lesson went really well and my teacher said she learned something from me. For my Venn Diagram I wrote George Washington on one side using a red marker and inside I wrote the word different using the same color. On the other side I wrote Abe Lincoln using a green marker and in his side I wrote the word different in green. In the middle where the two connected using both markers I alternated colors and wrote the word "same". The class had to tell me something they learned about one of the presidents and tell me if it went in the different circle or the same circle. My teacher said that after 30 years of teaching she has never thought to use different colors. Needless to say I was very proud.

Teach Time!

So John and I also got to finally teach our lesson on Wed. It went great, but I thought it could have gone a little better. I found out she did the exact same lesson with them the day before, so she could refresh their memory. We did maps and we talked about symbols and legends. I had them draw a map of their bedroom using a legend with symbols. I found out that the teacher had them do the same lesson, only draw their classroom the day before. She said she did it to get them ready for my lesson. I thought that was a little strange. Does she do things to get them ready for her lessons all the time? I was just a little confused. But it went okay. I just had kids saying that they did this lesson yesterday....but oh well. At least I got to teach finally. I was excited. John and I team taught a little bit. He helped me with the whole lesson and worked one on one with some of the kids as well. It worked out perfect.

Interesting week

This week only being at school one day turned out to be very interesting. Our teacher gave use notice that she wasn't going to be there on Wednesday. Once we got there, the sub came up to us and told us that we could just teach math because she hadn't gotten around to looking at the lesson for that day. So Heather were on our own to teach a lesson we had a couple of minutes to prepare for. It went well, just wish I would have had more time to prepare so I could have helped the students out more. We managed to get through it though. However, we received an email from our teacher just today and she told us due to all the snow days she was going to have to move our plans around with teaching both science and social studies units. So now its up in up in the air as far as what we will be teaching.

Time Change

Hey Ladies... Okay so my teaching partner and I switched our time in the classroom to 9-12 and I absolutely love the change. Our teacher does the majority of her "teaching" in the morning b/c so many of her students leave for various activities in the afternoon. We are now able to see her teach nearly every subject. LOVE IT!!

We are almost finished with our first units... Can you believe it? 2 more to Go!! I have one more day in this Dental Health unit... I'm going in on Friday morning to finish up the unit & I'm interested to see student behavior at the end of the week.....

I hope everyone's lessons are going smoothly as well :)

Another Week of Snow

Well, once again we did not get to go to our practicum twice this week because of snow. It is really hard when you are teaching a unit and there is so many days in between each lesson! Amy got to teach her lesson for the first time on Monday and it was great. She was focusing on map skills with the second graders and I was really impressed with how much they already knew about map skills. I was also excited to see that the students were well behaved and payed attention when Amy was teaching. I wasn't sure how well they would do since they don't usually have to sit and listen to the teacher teach for long periods of time. Amy taught for about an hour and a half and the students did great! Unfortunately, since Amy didn't get to teach her second lesson on Wed. she is going to teach her lesson this Wed. during the first half of practicum and I will teach the second half. I think this might be a little too much for the students, but we will see how it goes! I am really excited to start teaching and I hope everything works out!!

Same old thing

There hasn't been much change in my placement. I still haven't seen any teaching. I did see them getting ready for their valentines day store though. That was very interesting. The students thought it was fun at first. they were making bags, planting flowers, and making cards. after 30 minutes of doing it they all wanted to stop, but the teacher kept pushing them to get it done. One of the stuudents needed more pink hearts so she told the student to ask Mrs. Billig(Heather) to make more. The student left the room walked somewhere else in the school and got Mrs. Billie. The teacher never noticed she was gone. And when the student came back with Mrs. Billie she was like why would you do that? Didnt you think before you left? I think the question is why did the teacher notice when she walked out and was gone for like 10 minutes. Some of the students were making cards. And i guess that some of the students didnt do their "best work" and she threw them away and asked the sutdents why they would do that. And when other teachers can in the room she would loudly tell them what happened. I dont think that was right at all! So what they made a mistake, but if I was the students I wouldnt want to do it anymore. its not very encouraging for the students. with the money they are raising from there store they are doing something to help their community. The teacher doesnt let the students pick. she just said we are buying flags for some people. My question is if the students are selling the items and making them, why cant they pick where the money goes. even if it is just from a list the teacher made. errr...

Another Snow Week?

Yesterday, Heather and I went our class in the morning rather than in the afternoon like we normally do. We were afraid that the snow might start earlier than they had thought and we didn’t want to school to be dismissed early and not have another day of not going to our school. I was glad that we were able to experience their morning routine with them. We were able to experience their reading time, as well as vocabulary practice and their spelling pre-test (which I really liked how she did this process). They take a test on 10 words, what they get correct they don’t need to take a test over the ones they got correct just the ones they had missed. For the number they got correct they had to pick that many from a new list of words. I feel this is an awesome way to test the students with spelling, why make them keep writing the same words if they already got correct? Allow them to expand their spelling vocabulary, don’t hold them back.
We are thankful that our teacher is being so flexible with us due to the weather situations that we are facing, but when you’re a teacher its part of the job description I guess to be flexible. We were just glad to get back yesterday to see the kids once again before they forgot who we were and that we were able to touch base with our teacher again about what are game plan will be.

We finally got to teach

Today Maggie and I taught our first lessons. It was really neat because we team taught. We were asked to team teach because of all of the snow days. What we really did was take turns teaching a lesson. I taught the first lesson while Maggie helped out and then we switched. Our teacher has asked us to laminate our final project for her to keep because she liked it so well. She told us how well we did and gave us some pointers. Our lesson was on the presidents and we did a word web to collect information, both at the beginning of the lesson and at the end of it. The class gave us a lot of new information that they learned but when we asked them to write it down they all selected the same thing. Our CT said it was just because they are kindergarteners and not to worry about it. So if you ask ourclass what they learned about George Washington they will tell you "he died" and about Abe Lincoln, he was the "16th". Our class is so cute.

No School Again

I don't have much to say because I wasn't in my school all last week due to snow and it seems like this week is too going to prove difficult for me.

Practicum Experience

So this week was cut short due to the snow! I didn't get to see anything new related to social studies in my practicum. For the most part all Amy and I do is help the students with their independent work, since that is all they do most of the day. I have only seen my practicum teacher teach one thing and that was a writing lesson. While I love the kids in my class and really enjoy being in the practicum, I feel like I am missing out on seeing quality teaching going on since I pretty much see no teaching at all! I am a little worried about this being that next semester is student teaching and I am going to be expected to know how a good teacher teaches social studies, science, and math. Hopefully I learn a lot from our methods classes and I get to see some good teaching from that because I wont get to see much from my practicum. While I think this practicum situation is great for getting us to work one on one with the students on their work, I feel like we are getting the short end of the stick with regards to seeing good quality teaching going on. I am sure things will work out and I will just take things as they come!!

This semester is crazy!

Well, since we have not been in the classroom for over a week, I miss seeing my class. For the little time I have spent with them so far, they are still growing on me. I obviously still have not seen a soc. stud. lesson, since we were not there, but I know it will come soon. John and I were supposed to start teaching on Mon., but I have not heard back from our CT yet about if our lessons are okay to teach. So we are starting on Wed. now, which is going to stink. We do not have class the following Mon., so our lesson will get really broken up. We are rolling with the punches on this one. What can you do. I am sure we will get more snow days, its just that time of year! I hope everyones lessons go great next week.

What a Semester

So our school did not have school on Monday and Wednesday was a snow day, surprise surprise :) So we have not seen our kids in over a week. We are trying to get our lessons finished and it is completely hectic. I was suppose to start teaching on Monday but that won't be happening because everything got pushed back a day and now the lesson I was suppose to teach won't be taught until Tuesday so Abby and I are trying to figure out our schedules and talk to our CT about what is going on. This whole semester has kind of been chaotic, but welcome to the life of teaching. The one thing I have learned is it is extremely important to be flexible and just roll with the it before we all go crazy. Hope everyone had a great week and hopefully next week will be less crazy :)

Continent Song

My partner and I have yet to see our CT teach a Social Studies lesson. So that of course worries me how they are going to "take" our SS plans. But more and more everytime I am there I pick up bits of conversations that show the students are getting SS at some point during the day.

Today I was soooooo excited when the a few of the students were "playing" with the globe during recess. I started asking the girls to show me different things and tell me things about the globe ect. I asked Savanah to show me where she lived on the globe. She pointed it out correctly so I went on to ask her to tell me which continent that was. She told me Kentucky. I asked again thinking she didnt understand what I was asking and again she said the "I live on the Kentucky continent. " Understandably I was disappointed....but then Ashley jumped in and not only corrected but began singing "the continent" song that she told me her older sister taught her. It was just nice to see that the students are getting SS content. Ultimatley it doesnt matter where as long as they are getting it somewhere right?

Social Studies in the classroom

In the two weeks that I have been at my practicum school I have noticed the wide variety of social studies games and activities that are available to the second graders. Since this is a Montessori classroom, the students are not traditionally taught much social studies. However, they do independent work containing worksheets about other continents. For example, right now the students are learning about South America, so they read articles on South America and then answer questions about the stuff they just read. While this does not seem very exciting to me, my cooperating teacher does have many other enticing social studies related materials around her room. Some of the things the students love doing are puzzles of the United States, trivia games, and other hands on games. I think it is really neat to see the students voluntarily put together the puzzles of the United States during recess. They seem to enjoy the puzzles and they are discovering geography in a fun way. This has given me ideas about the types of games and resources that I will want to include in my own classroom one day.

Are You Kidding Me?

Much to mine and my partners surprise our class has no social studies text book. I completely understand that you do not need a text book to teach the students about social studies but come on no book at all is a little extreme. I have never been to a school that they did not have a social studies book. I really do like my placement but I feel like we have absolutely nothing to go from or that the teacher has very many resources for us to use. I don't think that our topic (economics) is very difficult to teach but I kind of feel like we have just been thrown into this topic without much help. She has not taught social studies since we have been there and so we are not real sure what the students are use to because they switch between science and social studies on a monthly basis. I believe both my partner and I are extremely creative and will be fine but having not much to go from is a little frustrating :/

Planning

This week we began talking to our teacher about what she would like for us to teach for our social studies unit. She quickly responded that she has a great easy and fun unit to teach....economics. Write away I had a hard time thinking of ideas that I could teach to a group of second graders. The following day when we were at the school we asked our teacher if they had a textbook to follow because to this point we had never seen one for social studies. She responded that they didn't. Heather and I then asked what we could use to plan for our lesson and she added that she had several books that we could look through to get ideas. None of the books that she had were any benefit to us, they were on other various subject not economics. Our teacher then told us that we would have to use the Internet to get ideas for coming up with a unit. To this point we did find a few good websites that might inspire a lesson later on. So if any of you have any good ideas for second grade please let us know, we could use a good idea or two.

I Hope this Placement Isn't a Waste

My practicum experience could be a lot better. Being in my teacher's classroom is very uncomfortable. When the children are doing something that they aren't suppose to be doing or they need help with a problem she yells, "Are you being a thinker?!" and "Be a thinker! You can figure it out." She jumps to conclusions too quickly and yells for no reason. On the first day she didn't even introduce us to the students. When I asked my teacher when she teaches math, science, and social studies she told me that she teaches math in the morning. But science and social is hard to teach because the students don't know how to read. I was so shocked when she said that to me. I also haven't seen ANY instruction. My teacher has no classroom management skills. The students do whatever they want. If I was the teacher of her class I would move students around so that they wouldn't keep talking to each other, and I wouldn't have to keep yelling at them for the same reason. She loudly tells students what they are doing that she doesn't like. Which I think is very inappropriate. There is no need to do that to first graders. If I was a student in her class I would be scared to be in her class, and I would probably fake sick everyday so that I could stay home. If I was a parent and I saw her treating my child like that I wouldn't want them in her class. The three hours that I am there, I have not seen her ONCE stand up and teach anything. I haven't seen math, science, or social studies. So it has been really hard to decide what I am going to teach. Its hard to know because I have nothing to go off how she teaches.

It's a small world

I was talking to my teacher yesterday, while we were cutting out hearts for a lesson, and found out that her mom was my 4th grade reading teacher. She also told me that she dated my physical education teacher and my principal from high school, and her Aunt and Uncle lived accross the street from me for years. They used to have the biggest Christmas parties so it is highly probable that I have met her before at one of their parties. Did I mention that her Aunt and Uncle were the librarians at my elementary and high school. What a small world.

John and I have a great teacher!

Well so far I have not seen a social studies lesson yet. I did a math assessment today, and that was a little crazy. I was surprised my kids were getting assessed on some of the things they were. None of the kids I had in my group knew a lot of the answers. It was almost as if they have never seen that stuff before. I could see it on their faces that they had no idea what they were doing, and the ones who thought they had an idea, were wrong. I kind of felt bad for them. I just wanted to help them out and knew I couldnt. We then did a science lesson today about the differences between salt and sugar and how you could find these differences. They got to taste the salt and sugar, and their faces were priceless when they licked the salt. I died laughing. Then they ate the sugar like wild animals. It was so cute. I have a great class and a wonderful teacher. She is so laid back and easy to talk to. I am glad John and I got her as our CT. I hope we get to see some social studies lessons next Wed. I have a feeling she does soc. stud. on the days we are not there. I need to talk to her about that.

Learn Something from everyone! :)

My first week in my classroom was really fun. I was glad to be in an Elementary again. The class gets so excited when Erica and I walk in, and yeah, you guys being teachers, you know that feeling. ~its cool :) Oh, tips for good attention grabbers- put into your teacher tool-bok (use a wind-chime to get the classes attention)- maybe not every time, but in intervals throughout the day. I thought that this was a really good idea, so i'm sure that someone else will. I am also teaching Fractions (4th graders) with Erica starting next week so if n/e one has n/e ideas~ let me know. Our teacher is being pretty lenient on the lessons we choose so that helps out!

Changed Appearance

You are at the right place - I just wanted a different look for this blog. I hope you enjoy.

Thank Goodness!!

Well the first two days of practicum have come and gone and thank goodness my partner and I have the teacher we do. She is so great with the students and really understands where we are coming from because she had to do similar projects when she went to Northern. She does not teach Social Studies everyday, they have what is called theme and they switch between science and soical studies. We do have our topic (economics) if anyone has any good ideas let us know :) The other great thing about our placement is our teacher has a special ed. backround and as a special education major this should be a great learning experience for the both of us. I am really looking forward to teaching our units because she is very open and seems to believe in the same classroom management strategies as we do and really values group work and student input.

2nd is the best

I’m at Campbell Ridge Elementary School in a 2nd grade placement. Our first couple days together have been great. I’m with a great teacher, and I think I’ll learn a great deal from her and the teaching style that she uses. In the class we observed the students studying math and science but I have yet to see them actually study social studies. Out teacher moved some things around so we could have the best lesson to teach for S.S. which is economics (she says that’s the best unit to teach anyway).

Unit Plan for Social Studies

I am really excited because I have my topic for my unit already. I am working with Maggie this semester and we are at Grants Lick Elementary in a kindergarten class. Our topic is Presidents of the United States and have already found some great websites and books to help us out. If anyone has wonderful ideas please let us know. One can never have enough information.

A New Experience

Well, my first two days in the classroom have been great so far! I am at Stephens Elementary in a second grade classroom. When I first walked into the classroom I was a little surprised because there are no student desks. Instead, there is a big rug in the middle of the room that the students can sit on. My practicum teacher explained that her second grade class and one other second grade class are being taught Montessori style as opposed to the other second grade classrooms. Basically what this means is that the students are encouraged to learn new things by doing individual, hands-on activities for the majority of the day instead of being taught by the teacher all day long. For example, the first day I was in the classroom the teacher gave a "presentation" to the class for about ten minutes introducing one math concept, and then for the next hour and a half the students were on their own doing individual work. Each student has a weekly work plan that they carry with them. The work plan contains several subjects and different activities for the students to complete each day. The students are allowed to work on which ever activities they wish to at a given time, but they are required to finish all the work on their work plan by the end of the day. When I first saw this implemented I was a little worried about how I would be able to create a whole unit for math, science, and social studies, but I am sure it will be okay once I adjust to the new situation.
One thing that I really loved was the way each of the students were responsible for doing a certain job at the end of the day, and how well they all did at their jobs. Some of the jobs include: disinfecting the tables and chairs, folding the individual rugs available for students and putting them away, and straightening up the different centers around the room. Since the classroom contains many materials and manipulative's that promote individual learning, the students really have to take great care of their classroom, and this was evident at the end of the day when they were cleaning up. Plus, being responsible for certain jobs and knowing how to clean up after yourself are great skills that will help them later in life!!

Think it Through... For a Better You!

Last week my CT told my partner and I that Social Studies was not really apart of her curriculum & she wasnt sure what we should teach for our unit. So of course we were worried and disappointed. I hoped that maybe she was teaching SS & just wasnt realizing it!

Today we went to the library with our 1st graders and I was sooooo happy when the Librarian began to review what they had learned the previous week. They were learning the 6 Pillars of Character: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Fairness, & Citizenship. (I've included the link if any of you want to read more about each pillar) So whether my CT realized it or not my 1st graders were being taught Social Studies. The students were engaged in the video that gave examples of: the pillars, do & don'ts, What Should I Do?, & a fun song that the students loved!!!!
The video not only stressed the Pillars but repeated important phrases like Make Good Choices & Think it Through for a Better You!! So needless to say today eased my concerns that Social Studies & the skills taught during that time weren't getting to my 1st graders.

http://www.charactercounts.org/defsix.htm

This stinks!

So I went to my school, Riley Elementary, last Wednesday, for my first day and the tour. Everything went great. I am with Mrs. Rice and I have 1/2 split. I am with John and we love our class and grade. Our teacher kind of reminds us of Ms. Lippie from Billy Madison. hahah! But anyways! Then I was supposed to attend today, Monday, for my first official day. I could not go because I went to the doctor yesterday and found out I have pink eye. What a wonderful thing to have for my first day. So needless to say, I have not had my official "1st day" yet. I will post later on this week when I get to know my students a little better. See you all in class tomorrow!

First Day

I drove 35-40 minutes to Grant's Lick Elementary. I was 30 minutes early because I didn't check my email. When I got there I found out that my teacher was out that day for a meeting. So then I had to wait 30 more minutes for my tour. I did however get to see my teachers classroom. She has a very interesting classroom, it is all done in a lighthouse theme. I didnt get to meet the children though. I am excited to get to meet my teacher and the students.

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hey~ just figured this thing out, (i think). How did everyones placement go. I have heard more bad than good...... ~ if this is you, try to make the best of it and learn what not to do. Have a good weekend everyone! :)

Dr. Besnoy's 1st day

My class appears to be great. They are all excited to learn about social studies.

Just wanted to say hello to everyone to see if it works

Anticipation

Wednesday is the first day at your placement - I'm sure some are nervous. What do you anticipate the classroom to look like? How do you think the students will react to you being in the classroom? Take a moment to create a new post - make these predictions. On Wednesday, take a moment and share with us your 1st impressions.

Welcome to this Blogging Group

Welcome to this blogging group. The purpose of this blog is for you to reflect and share the social studies eduction experiences that you have in your elementary practicum placement. I look forward to reading all your reflections.