April 26, 2013
I have been having a great time getting to know the kids in my new classroom! The atmosphere and community is great in the class and I am having fun teaching them various lessons that I jump in to help teach. This week all the 1st grade classes took a field trip to Gold Beach to visit the courthouse. It was a lot of fun and the kids asked some great questions to the judge.
April 12, 2013
This was my first week with the students in Room 20! 1st grade is definitely different from 4th and 7th, but I am really enjoying getting to know the students. Mrs. Dietrich was out of town on Thursday and Friday, so I was able to substitute, which gave me a great opportunity to get to know the children better. I even designed a math lesson for them to do on Friday and it went very well. I think I am going to love my time in 1st grade!
March 29, 2013
Spring Break is coming to a close. I will be heading to my first grade placement with Mrs. Dietrich's class full time until the end of the school year. I am very excited to get to know a new group of students!
March 22, 2013
This was also a very busy week. It was my final's week at SOU and my last week with the students in Room 4. I was very touched to arrive to school on Friday and have a card signed by all the students with an Amazon gift card. It was such a nice thing to receive and I am very sad to be leaving them.
In addition, on Thursday I spent the day with Mrs. Cavaness' Life Science class over at Azalea. I designed a lesson on dog reproduction and genetics and took my current litter of puppies and Kobe with me to help. It was so much fun! The students were very engaged and it was a great socialization experience for the puppies. Kobe showed us that he is meant to be a classroom therapy dog with his amazingly great behavior off leash all day!
In addition, on Thursday I spent the day with Mrs. Cavaness' Life Science class over at Azalea. I designed a lesson on dog reproduction and genetics and took my current litter of puppies and Kobe with me to help. It was so much fun! The students were very engaged and it was a great socialization experience for the puppies. Kobe showed us that he is meant to be a classroom therapy dog with his amazingly great behavior off leash all day!
March 8, 2013
This was a crazy busy week and I took lots of pictures! We finished reading The Lightning Thief and my unit lessons last week, so this week we had their final performance task presentations. The artwork that students created and the narrative stories that they came up with were phenomenal!! Some of the kids made board games, so we had some fun new games to play with too!
On Wednesday the students started an art project and they finished them on Thursday after some drying time.
On Thursday we also had our Rocket Car Races! I loved seeing the students get so into science.
On Friday we celebrated the end of my work sample with a Lightning Thief party! We had a pajama party and watched the movie in the morning and enjoyed an amazing variety of blue foods that the children brought and in the afternoon we had a great time participating in all the fun games in our very own classroom Olympics!
It was the most amazing ending to a wonderful experience with the students in Room 4.
I am going to miss them.
On Wednesday the students started an art project and they finished them on Thursday after some drying time.
On Thursday we also had our Rocket Car Races! I loved seeing the students get so into science.
On Friday we celebrated the end of my work sample with a Lightning Thief party! We had a pajama party and watched the movie in the morning and enjoyed an amazing variety of blue foods that the children brought and in the afternoon we had a great time participating in all the fun games in our very own classroom Olympics!
It was the most amazing ending to a wonderful experience with the students in Room 4.
I am going to miss them.
March 1, 2013
This week we finished up my work sample unit lessons. I also taught a science inquiry lab on Newton's 3rd Law of Motion and the students built balloon rocket cars! We are going to have Rocket Car Races next week :-) We also got to go on an amazing field trip to Salmon Run Golf Course with Cathy and Statia who have been teaching us about watersheds for the past few weeks!
February 15, 2013
Happy Valentine's! We spent this week learning about conventions, specifically quotation usage within narrative writing. The students are doing very well on this new concept. We had a Valentine's party and the students all made very cute bags and it was a fun afternoon.
February 8, 2013
This week we continued our reading and the students gave their Greek mythology character presentations and we used their character posters to create our Greek mythology family tree!
February 1, 2013
This week, in addition to researching our Greek mythology characters and learning about narrative writing, we had a very special guest speaker. One of our students' older sister spent winter break in China and she prepared a talk with a slideshow about her trip. She told the class all about Chinese cultures and shared many items she had brought back with her from China. The class was totally engaged with her talk and they loved learning about a new culture!
January 19, 2013
I started my Work Sample this week! The majority of the students seemed pretty interested in the Greek mythology topic and excited to read The Lightning Thief. This week I gave my pre-assessments and did my first lesson, an introduction to Greek mythology. They got their research assignments and I am really excited to see how well the students do with their research, presentations, and character posters.
January 12, 2013
Happy New Year! Our first week back to school was great. The kids enjoyed their vacation, as did I! My SOU classes have also resumed and I am now driving to Ashland on Mondays and Wednesdays. I like this better because at the end of the week I get two days in a row with the class. In addition, this term is when my actual student teaching starts and my first Work Sample is completed. I have been working on it for weeks and am very excited and will be starting it next week. I am also starting my Action Research project soon.
December 22, 2012
Although my classes at Southern Oregon University are over, I continued to visit the class during the past two weeks. It was fun being in there and not having all the thoughts of my own assignments and due dates lurking in the back of my mind! We had visitors to our class from our Indian Education program and they brought a drum in, talked to us about how the drums were made and why they were used, and showed us how to drum. Everyone got a chance to try it and we had a group dance . We also got to have a Christmas party before going on break. It was tons of fun and big thanks go out to the parents that helped make this such a fun day!
December 8, 2012
This week was my finals week at school, so very stressful. I really enjoyed getting to spend time in the classroom to break up my final projects at home.
December 1, 2012
After such a long break last week for Thanksgiving, it was nice coming back to school and seeing all the kids! I also had the chance to teach the kids a combined review math and science lesson. The students all took a survey on their physical traits and talked about the different kinds of traits and I compiled all the data for the class. I gave them these totals and they used the data to create a bar graph for each trait. They did great!
November 24, 2012
This week was very short...only one day! We went to school on Monday and had a good day. The kids are learning more in-depth skills in Power Point and are practicing making some pretty impressive presentations. They are learning about exponents and variables in math. I am very impressed at the level these kids are at in their Math studies. They also worked on their book report rough drafts because the final draft is due next Friday. We got to do an art project today and used the oil pastels to create Snowman portraits! I strayed a bit and made mine a Snow-woman. Monday night a horrible storm hit Brookings and a lot of areas flooded, including the road behind Kalmiopsis, which resulted in a massive sinkhole and road closure, and the back parking lot at the school and Shelter 3, which unfortunately included minimal flooding inside classrooms. Needless to say, school was canceled on Tuesday so we got an extra long Thanksgiving vacation, which was very nice (except for all the homework I had to do!).
This week was very short...only one day! We went to school on Monday and had a good day. The kids are learning more in-depth skills in Power Point and are practicing making some pretty impressive presentations. They are learning about exponents and variables in math. I am very impressed at the level these kids are at in their Math studies. They also worked on their book report rough drafts because the final draft is due next Friday. We got to do an art project today and used the oil pastels to create Snowman portraits! I strayed a bit and made mine a Snow-woman. Monday night a horrible storm hit Brookings and a lot of areas flooded, including the road behind Kalmiopsis, which resulted in a massive sinkhole and road closure, and the back parking lot at the school and Shelter 3, which unfortunately included minimal flooding inside classrooms. Needless to say, school was canceled on Tuesday so we got an extra long Thanksgiving vacation, which was very nice (except for all the homework I had to do!).
November 16, 2012
I have been having a very good time getting to know the students in Room 4. I continue to spend time Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with the class and have been observing a lot. The last hour of those days are spent in the computer lab and the kids are learning how to make Power Point presentations. They created an About Me presentations with three slides that describe them, including pictures and reasoning. Last week they presented their slideshows to the class and it was really nice learning more about them. This week we also had our class election. The kids who were interested in running for office gave speeches and we passed out ballots and the students elected their officials for the year. Congratulations to our new President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer! I know all four of you will do an amazing job!
I have been having a very good time getting to know the students in Room 4. I continue to spend time Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with the class and have been observing a lot. The last hour of those days are spent in the computer lab and the kids are learning how to make Power Point presentations. They created an About Me presentations with three slides that describe them, including pictures and reasoning. Last week they presented their slideshows to the class and it was really nice learning more about them. This week we also had our class election. The kids who were interested in running for office gave speeches and we passed out ballots and the students elected their officials for the year. Congratulations to our new President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer! I know all four of you will do an amazing job!
November 10, 2012
I had an amazing week in Room 4 this past week! The week before I had to design a lesson for my Science Methods course so I chose to design a lesson for a 4th grade science curriculum and when I showed it to Mrs. Snow she offered to let me do the lesson with the class. I hadn't really expected to actually do it, so I was very nervous. I put a lot of work into getting everything ready for it and last week I taught the class about Science Inquiry with a lab that looked at the amounts of water in different parts of a plant. There were definitely things that could have been better, but as my first run designing and implementing a lesson I was satisfied with the results and the kids really seemed to enjoy it and most really seemed to "get it", which made me very happy :-)
I had an amazing week in Room 4 this past week! The week before I had to design a lesson for my Science Methods course so I chose to design a lesson for a 4th grade science curriculum and when I showed it to Mrs. Snow she offered to let me do the lesson with the class. I hadn't really expected to actually do it, so I was very nervous. I put a lot of work into getting everything ready for it and last week I taught the class about Science Inquiry with a lab that looked at the amounts of water in different parts of a plant. There were definitely things that could have been better, but as my first run designing and implementing a lesson I was satisfied with the results and the kids really seemed to enjoy it and most really seemed to "get it", which made me very happy :-)
November 3, 2012
We had a fun week this week with Halloween. We had a class party on Wednesday and the kids all dressed up.
October 19, 2012
Two weeks ago I began spending time with my new class, Mrs. Snow's students in Room 4!
I am only there part time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays so it is not as easy to get to know the students as it was when I was in Room 2 full time for a month. The children in Room 4 are very different from those in Room 2, but I am enjoying my time with them tremendously and am looking forward to getting to know them all better throughout the year. This week they started learning about Fairy Tales. My capstone project for my Bachelor's degree was on fairy tale adaptations, so I am really enjoying this unit and hearing the great tales the children dream up. Mrs. Snow has an amazing collection of Cinderella adaptations and I got to read the class "Cinderella Skeleton" to help get us in the Halloween spirit!
Two weeks ago I began spending time with my new class, Mrs. Snow's students in Room 4!
I am only there part time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays so it is not as easy to get to know the students as it was when I was in Room 2 full time for a month. The children in Room 4 are very different from those in Room 2, but I am enjoying my time with them tremendously and am looking forward to getting to know them all better throughout the year. This week they started learning about Fairy Tales. My capstone project for my Bachelor's degree was on fairy tale adaptations, so I am really enjoying this unit and hearing the great tales the children dream up. Mrs. Snow has an amazing collection of Cinderella adaptations and I got to read the class "Cinderella Skeleton" to help get us in the Halloween spirit!
Welcome to Room 2!
A lot of time went in to setting up the classroom in the two weeks before school started.
I am amazed at how great it turned out when we started from scratch!
It is so welcoming and a great learning environment.
A lot of time went in to setting up the classroom in the two weeks before school started.
I am amazed at how great it turned out when we started from scratch!
It is so welcoming and a great learning environment.
October 1, 2012
Sadly, this is my last week with Mrs. Lee's class. Mr. Lee, the Dean of Students, was offered a job as Principal of an elementary school in Hillsboro, Oregon and the family will be following him up at the end of December. Unfortunately, since my Work Sample portion of student teaching is not until January, I will not be able to continue student teaching with Mrs. Lee and need to switch rooms. I will be moving two doors down to Mrs. Snow's class in Room 4. I am excited to learn from another amazing teacher and get the chance to get to know a whole other group of wonderful kids. I will be keeping tabs of my original kids though!
Sadly, this is my last week with Mrs. Lee's class. Mr. Lee, the Dean of Students, was offered a job as Principal of an elementary school in Hillsboro, Oregon and the family will be following him up at the end of December. Unfortunately, since my Work Sample portion of student teaching is not until January, I will not be able to continue student teaching with Mrs. Lee and need to switch rooms. I will be moving two doors down to Mrs. Snow's class in Room 4. I am excited to learn from another amazing teacher and get the chance to get to know a whole other group of wonderful kids. I will be keeping tabs of my original kids though!
September 28, 2012
We had a great week! Mrs. Lee was out of town for two days so I got to teach the class again. We started learning about classifying animals in science class and are combining science and language arts by writing an informative paragraph using our classification vocabulary words about an animal of our choice. We also started researching more details about our animals and will be working on a 5-6 paragraph research paper in the next week or two. This week we started reading/listening to our first novel, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz".
We had a great week! Mrs. Lee was out of town for two days so I got to teach the class again. We started learning about classifying animals in science class and are combining science and language arts by writing an informative paragraph using our classification vocabulary words about an animal of our choice. We also started researching more details about our animals and will be working on a 5-6 paragraph research paper in the next week or two. This week we started reading/listening to our first novel, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz".
September 21, 2012
We did a lot of fun things in class this week! Mrs. Lee was out of town and I had a great time being the classroom teacher while she was away. During the week, we celebrated Garret's birthday, learned more about plants, had our first visit to the Mac Lab, and did a fun art project where we learned how to use oil pastels to draw Toucans. On Friday, we also had our first Fuzzy Friday where the kids who turned in all their work, earned 2 Accelerated Reader points per week of school, and had no disciplinary write-ups got 30 minutes of free time out on the playground. We had 9 kids earn Fuzzy Friday time-Way to go guys!!
We did a lot of fun things in class this week! Mrs. Lee was out of town and I had a great time being the classroom teacher while she was away. During the week, we celebrated Garret's birthday, learned more about plants, had our first visit to the Mac Lab, and did a fun art project where we learned how to use oil pastels to draw Toucans. On Friday, we also had our first Fuzzy Friday where the kids who turned in all their work, earned 2 Accelerated Reader points per week of school, and had no disciplinary write-ups got 30 minutes of free time out on the playground. We had 9 kids earn Fuzzy Friday time-Way to go guys!!
September 14, 2012
The second week of school went very well. We really started getting into good lessons and had our first science lab! We dissected flowers and labeled all the different parts. We also had our first trip to the library and it was great seeing how much the kids in the class love books and reading. Open House was Thursday night and we displayed the collages they created representing themselves and on Friday they shared the collages with the class and explained what all the parts of the collage meant.
The second week of school went very well. We really started getting into good lessons and had our first science lab! We dissected flowers and labeled all the different parts. We also had our first trip to the library and it was great seeing how much the kids in the class love books and reading. Open House was Thursday night and we displayed the collages they created representing themselves and on Friday they shared the collages with the class and explained what all the parts of the collage meant.
September 7, 2012
The first week of school was wonderful. We have such a great class and are already learning a lot!
This week we learned all about the classroom and school rules and expectations. We started working on placement tests in reading, spelling, and math. During math we learned about place value by playing a dice game and had a lesson on missing addends. In science we are learning about plants and how they survive. During reading we have been learning how to pick "just right" books, how to read individually and build stamina, how to read with someone, how to think while you read and use "think marks", and what schemas are.
The first week of school was wonderful. We have such a great class and are already learning a lot!
This week we learned all about the classroom and school rules and expectations. We started working on placement tests in reading, spelling, and math. During math we learned about place value by playing a dice game and had a lesson on missing addends. In science we are learning about plants and how they survive. During reading we have been learning how to pick "just right" books, how to read individually and build stamina, how to read with someone, how to think while you read and use "think marks", and what schemas are.