My Monday was very exciting. Our readings from Making Sense of Phonics by Beck &Beck helped me to create my very first mini lesson for my individual learner. After speaking with my Emergent Literacy instructor, I was able to compile information about his assessments and translate the results into information that I could use for instruction. It was very exciting for me to be able to go home and custom make a lesson especially for this student.
On Tuesday, my CT allowed me to use independent reading time to conduct my mini lesson with my individual learner. He was so excited that I had planned a lesson for him. He really enjoyed the one on one time and I think that even though he had to do work, that extra attention was very special for him because it made him feel like I cared about how well he reads. And I do care! He gets so frustrated when he reads, and I think that my lesson was mostly effective in helping him improve some phonics basics, which should over time help improve his overall reading and writing skills.
On Wednesday I got what I like to call a classroom management wake up call, which translates into a FIRE DRILL. Students are really good at following procedures on lining up on any regular occasion, but when you through in a fire drill it's like they forget everything they know and run amok. When we had our fire drill on Wednesday, I really got a good opportunity to observe my CT and take notes on how she reacted to the students complete disregard for the rules and procedures. Although watching it from afar it may have looked like a comlete disater, I saw it as an amazing opportunity to observe and learn.
Thursday brought on an influx of information. As a class, we were responsible for creating a study guide for our upcoming test. We got to break up into groups and go through each module and choose what we thought was important and should be included in the test. I actually recorded this in my journal, on my list of strategies, as something I might like to do in my own classroom one day. This was an opportunity for students to have input on what material they think is important and test worthy, and it also creates an opportunity for the student to review the material. And as we've learned in our child development course, you must review information approixmately 5 times in order to commit it to memory. This approach was very helpful for me in studying for the test, and also gave me good ideas for how to conduct a test review with my own students. In addition to what happened for my course, I would like to mention that I spent most of the day standing between two students in the 3rd grade who couldn't complete any classwork because they were too busy picking at each other and taddling on each other. I asked my CT her advise on how to handle the situation. She said that the easiest thing to do would be to move their seats, but she wanted to make sure that they understood that what they were doing to each other was wrong. She suggested that we talk to them each individually about their behavior, and them bring them together for a conference. Then I asked about how she handled all the taddle telling, and she said that she didn't really have a strategy. This is when I suggested a taddle monster. One of my fellow residents gave us a great project idea this week and I wanted to share it with our class. It's called a taddle monster, When the kids have something that they want to taddle about, they write it on an index card and feed it to the taddle monster. The taddle monster is a decorated tissue box for kids to put their taddles so that they don't disrupt class all day long with them, then the teacher can read them all at the end of the day to determine the severity of the offense. My CT said that I could make one and bring it in next week:)
And then there is Friday!!!!! My students were on a field trip this Friday, and since level 1 interns were not permitted to go, I sort of had the morning off. I say sort of, because I actually was at school, just not with my 3rd grade class. Something that I've observed since starting this program is that, as a teacher, there is never enough TIME. So, to prepare myself for future years of strict time management, I took the opportunity to study and move ahead in some coursework. This time was very productive and beneficial for me and I feel the need to pat myself on the back for making this a productive use of time, instead of sleeping till noon! But don't worry, Friday wasn't all about homework, I also got to attend one of my most looked forward to courses, ESOL. This class gives us such opportunity for discussion and debate, and this is exactly the kind of classroom environment I want to create one day. I want my students to be able to discuss and debate, and feel like my class is a safe place to agree or disagree. Friday was the icing on the cake for the week. And back to the grind on Monday.....................