Week 1: Full Time Reflection

I was pleasantly surprised with how well the first week of full time teaching went. I found that with careful and thorough planning the days go by smoothly, except for the unexpected bumps that are sure to happen in any classroom ... which only strengthens the need for teachers to always be flexible.

 

You can read the lessons written for this week here.  

Looking back at this week, the goal was for students to investigate the changing of the seasons and specifically the changes that come with Fall. My hopes were through scientific investigation and research (looking at trees outside, having a leaf collection, and reading nonfiction literature) the students would recognize that leaves in particular, go through many changes in the Fall. As a class, we kept a KWL chart that we added to throughout the week. During the week, I overheard students saying "Look Miss Emily, this is a red leaf" or "This leaf is green and red!" I was impressed with the students ability to become scientists at my workstation and use the binoculars and magnifying glasses outside to look at leaves and then provide observations to be recorded.

I was suprised that by the end of the week, our "learned" portion was lacking on our KWL chart. Even after prompting and modeling, the students will still not providing me with anything they had learned. On a whim, I decided students could act out the cycle of leaves - I mainly decided for them to do this to get moving, as they were struggling to sit still. I found that having them "pretend you are a leaf on a summer, warm day" was effective for hearing what they had learned this week. With each prompt "pretend you are a leaf a summer, warm day, I provided a follow up question, What color would you be?"  ... I almost fell over when I heard students say GREEN, because we are eating! I quickly followed up with it's almost winter, temperatures are getting colder, pretend you are a leaf on a really windy day .. What color are you? What are you doing" and students replied with red and brown, and we are about to die and be blown off the tree!

Having the students act out the leaves, not only got them active, but proved to me that they had in fact learned the main objectives this week. Even if they weren't able to tell me in a group setting, they were able to show me and explain the knowledge! It was truly one of the most rewarding experiences of my career thus far.

For this week, I tested out new circle time seating arranagements to separate some boys that had been getting too distracted. I found the new seating arrangment is working much better, but will continue to monitor and make adjustments as needed.

To encourage positive behavior, I introduced a mail box at the writing station, in which a "secret sender" wrote letters to the entire class, and in which I wrote "thank you letters" to specific students that were caught being good throughout the day. The mail box was introduced to the students and they were encouraged to write letters to be "mailed" as well. I was shocked at the amount of letters that had to be "mailed" on Monday afternoon. The students really responded well to the mailbox and I found that it encouraged students to visit the writing station, even students who had never once visited it before! In fact, on Tuesday, we had an overwhelming amount of students write on their play plans that they wanted to write letters!
I found the students also enjoyed the leaf song that was done on Monday. I had other planned for the other days, but since they responded so positively to the one done on Monday, we did it everyday of the week instead of learning new ones!

Adjustments were made for individuals throughout the week as detailed on the lesson plans. During the week my teacher and I also made two more major adjustments to meet student needs. The first being for some boys that liked to get to rough and rowdy in the classroom. We directed their behavior instead to the dramatic play area, in which we helped them plan out a play, select a role, and act out for the audience. The second major adjustment that helped with the boys' behavior and the general atmosphere of the classroom was rearranging the furniture in the room to make the block area larger and not as crowded.

Having a "stock pile" of leaves really helped the lessons go smoothly, as I found that on two of the days we went outside to be "scientisits" someone had raked up all the leaves that morning! It it also helpful to have individualization already planned into the lesson, so when it comes time for that activity, you have an action plan developed to help those struggling students along and to challenge the students who need it. For example, the leaf letter hunt was very successful, but it was found that it was easier for the struggling students to have a "smaller" piles of leaves to sort through.

I recieved positive feedback from both parents and my teachers. During an observation by my coordinator, she pointed out the ability I had to take an "aha moment" of one student and apply to the rest. For example, while being a scientist, one student said her leaf didn't have a stem. I took that exclamation and was able to focus on a vocabulary teachable moment! Parents have mentioned that their students are coming home and talking about letter writing, and writing the letter to the principal and how she came to lunch and how they received their thank you notes, etc. The parents also appreciated knowing what was coming up for the following week - hard work and planning does pay off!

My teachers and observations were very positive, stating that all activities were developementally appropriate and engaging. The students responded well to each activity! Some of my personal weaknesses this week included handling "troublesome" students during circle time. I was unsure how to take care of behavioral issues while attending to the entire group and moving on?

Looking ahead into next week, I want to continue to work on my circle time flexibility - being able to adjust as to students' needs and handling behavioral issues. I want to work on making picture word cards to be added to the writing center that students can reference when writing letters, hoping it will help independency and encourage more students. I also want to research more play ideas to provide students with play scripts that would be able to act out and lead independently.