Back in the classroom

Hi everyone,

  After a long hiatus I'm back! I'm currently teaching private kindergarten in upstate new york! Gotta jet, I will keep you posted

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Sticking To Great Behavior

Last week Lauren and I finally presented our lesson to class. We were one of the last groups to go. After, seeing everyone present and the terrible behaviors they had to deal with. Luckily, my nervousness was unfounded. Although, there were a couple minor behavior problems that ranged from "lizard noises, to constant bathroom use" the behavior was relatively easy to deal with. This was partly due to our use of a behavior chart. The chart recognized student’s good behavior by putting a sticker by their name. Lauren and I chose not to harp on student’s bad behavior. Before the lesson we discussed that that if we made a chart that emphasized their bad behavior they would become more encouraged to act out.
Our unit was based on Valentine's Day. The objective of our lesson was “students will be able to write a beginning, middle, and end to a story given a picture prompt.” At the beginning of the lesson, we showed students a picture of the book Countdown to Valentines Day by Jodi Juelin. Students were then asked to write the beginning of what they story would be like. The students then exchanged papers, and wrote middles to other student’s stories. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to complete the lesson. If we could of the students would have wrote the ending to the story, and shared their stories with each other. To conclude the lesson as a class we would have listened to the podcast of Countdown to Valentines Day. I think the class would have really enjoyed the podcast. For the future, if I do this lesson again, I would let the students listen to the podcast after each section of writing. As teachers, Lauren and I would have assessed the stories by participation. This would have been a form of summative evaluation.
The most important thing that I tried to teach my students was the importance of being authors. To open up the lesson, the students wrote on the smart board their favorite authors, only one person wrote themselves. I wanted to show the students that they can possess the same traits as their favorite authors, by writing. I learned that one of the most important things is for the students to enjoy their work, and not to sweat the small stuff. I was very stressed at the end of the lesson, due to the behavior. However, looking back I realize that they enjoyed the activity, and were authors. That is what is important; all the stuff in the middle didn’t really matter. Overall, I think we had a successful lesson. I think we should have allowed the students to read what the person before them wrote so they could grasp the concept that the story needs to flow together. Not have different themes.
I definitely feel that going last had its benefits. Lauren and I got to see what worked and didn’t work for the other teachers. The main thing I took from my fellow classmates lessons were how they dealt with behavior. I can’t remember who used this technique, but in one class, the teacher had already made spelling lists for children to use while they were in timeout. I thought this was great and really deterred me from acting up in that class. I also learned that too much of anything can loose its effectiveness. For example, one teacher constantly used clapping to get the students attention, and eventually it stopped working.
Regarding everyone’s content I thought it was great. Everyone had an interesting and unique topic. I was intrigued during every lesson. I loved how some people did integrated lessons. One lesson that stuck in my head was the lesson, where Katie and Kathryn brought in a live animal. Another lesson was the lesson, where the teachers incorporated music, and had everyone dance and run around the class, to get rid of extra energy. Taken as a whole, the teaching experience I got from taking this class, was awesome, and I feel more prepared for the future.

FINALLY FINISHED!

WHEWWW! I'm finally finished. Today's class was full of work. It took me a long time to come up the questions. Although, Lauren was not here, thanks to technology we texted and called eachother and got the job done!

Effective Questioning!

These are some effective questions that go along with our story. Some will be asked during the reading, before the reading, and after the reading. Let me know what you think!

1. What special day is this book about? What do you do to celebrate on this special day?

2. What do you think this holiday represents?

3. What sayings do you think were on the 10 valentines? What would you put on yours, and why?

4. What Valentine day charms would you put on your charm bracelet, why?

5. Choose your favorite holiday and create your own countdown using ten different items.

6. Pretend you could create your own holiday similar to Valentine's day, Christmas, or Halloween. What would you call it? Who would celebrate it? What would you do on that holiday?

ITS BORIN' ITS BORIN'.. WHERE OH WHERE IS LAUREN?

HEY BLOGGERS! I'm so sad today because Laurens not in class. I spoke to her though everythings okay. Today is going to be a busy day because I have to think of some questions for to go with our book. I'm going to post them when we're finished. We got out final presentation date today. Lauren and I will go April 27th. On that day we will teach a lesson to the whole class about our book. I also got back my first lesson plan today. It was great. It was about candy hearts and valentines day!

0H sN0w!

Hey Bloggers! I just checked my email saw that Dr. Luongo cancelled class tomorrow because of the snow. She didn't let us know the old fashion way though. She podcasted it! How original. Each day I learn a new way to use podcasting. It's so beneficial. Luckily, I wouldn't of been in class tomorrow anyway though because I am in Buffalo with the school basketball team. I'm happy that I won't be missing any class. It hasn't snowed to bad here but it's suppose to be bad tommorow. I attached a picture I took from my hotel room of outside. My team was suppose to leave today at 9 pm for Buffalo but the flights got cancelled and delayed Wednesday night so we got an earlier flight this morning at 9 am. The flight wasn't bad. Well bloggers! Just wanted to post and say hi. Hows the weather where you are? The snows so great! There are so many lessons you could use with the snow. Love it!

TAKE 2 TAKE 3 TAKE 4 TAKE 5 TAKE 6 .......

WOW! I am completely exhausted. It took Lauren and I the whole class period to record our story. We thought we could get it in one try but no way. We kept laughing and messing up the words, and then Christine and Geraldine were so loud you could hear them over us. It was funny. Hopefully the last one is good enough. Next class, I won't be here because I have a basketball game in Buffalo, but I know that Lauren can hold us down. Over the next couple days we will be comming up with some questions to ask the students after reading our book. Any suggestions?