Wednesday, Day Forty-one

Today we did not get a lot accomplished. We did not have school Monday because of professional development and then the election was Tuesday. This is a short week that is really messed up.
In language arts we did a few pages in the workbook. We will begin a new theme, but I am gonna ease into that because of the short week. This will throw everything off.

We did not have our 4th grade math today, because of visitors and others. We just couldn't keep up, so it was better that we just cancel this class and move on with our day. The students are ahead of the regular classroom so it will not hurt them. We will get things done tomorrow.

Time also did not allow me to work with my little guy. We will continue tomorrow.

Thursday, Day Thirty-eight

In 3rd grade we did more language arts pages in the students workbook to go along with the theme wrap up. I have created their phonics quiz that they will complete tomorrow. I don't think they'll have too much trouble with it. I did not add a bonus section on this one since it is 25 questions. I am hoping we can finish this and still have time to do the contraction game. I think this would be a great benefit to them.

In 4th grade math we did a lot. We had our lesson on multiplying 3 factors and choosing the right operation. Then students had to go to the computer and complete two assignments from their email. During the multiplication of 3 factors I also touched on PEMDAS because they have that coming. After that we did our post test. I gave them the same test we had as a pretest. This time they liked the test. Then we did our unit quiz. We did all of this because tomorrow is Halloween and they will not have time to much of anything. The school has activites planned and it is going to be hard to get anything done.

I worked with my little guy today. We used just the flashcards. He has become very dependent upon the dots on the numbers. It's ok if he counts the dots when they are not there, but when he can't tell my the number without seeing the dots I'm not sure we are making progress. But I know that we have made progress from were we began. Even though my time is up according to my collaboration plan, I will continue to work with him because I want him to be successful. My ST has noticed that lately he wants to be successful. He works real hard on his hand writing and tries to make sure that he gets everything we ask done. Maybe this is his turn around year.

Wednesday, Day Thirty-seven

I just realized how long this unit is in 4th grade math. Today the students worked with the facts of 11 and 12. Their assignment consisted of them getting an email from me and completing an assignment. They had to finish a multiplication table (11 and 12 products were missing) but as I told them at this point they have done the whole table already. The 11's offered some strategies to introduce. One is when you multiply by a single digit number you just write that number twice. The other is the drop in strategy when using 2 digit numbers. It is really a great tool. All you do is separate the number you are multiplying like 11 x 45, would look like 4 5. Then add the numbers together and drop that sum in the middle 495 and that is your product. It works with any 2 digit number. You may have to carry with certain numbers such as 59. It would be 5 9. Then the sum is 14, so you drop in the 4 and carry the 1. So the product is 649. And it works with some division such as 253/11. You can see that the sum of the first and the last digit equal the middle digit so the quotient is 23. The students caught on to this real well. They had to use the multiplication table they had completed to solve multiplication and division equation with a factor of 12, then the drop-in strategy for equations with a factor of 11.

In 3rd grade we finished up some workbook pages that will help them in their upcoming exam. We will be having a final phonics exam in this class that will include about 25 of the 48 words they have learned. I am only looking to see that they have understood the pattern, so I am only pulling a few words from the list. I still intend to make a contraction game like we did the long i sound. They need a lot of practice with contractions and this would be very helpful to them.

Again time did not allow to work with my little guy. I have made flashcards with numbers on them to see what he can identify just by seeing them. Hopefully tomorrow we can do that. He has come a long way. I do expect that he will be retained but it would be the best for him, to get that extra time to learn.

Tuesday, Day Thirty-six

Today I discovered that we are actually ahead of the regular classrooms in both of my classes. So we spent the 4th grade math period catching up their workbook. Since this is the unit that goes in my portfolio, we have not done much in their workbooks so this was good. This also tested their skills of what they have already been presented with. All of these strategies will be helpful at some point in their future education. We have only two lessons left then we will do a post test, then a unit quiz. They are doing so well with the strategies, I think they'll do well with the test also.

3rd grade language arts was the same story, we are ahead of the class. So we spent today basically studying for the theme wrap up. In this the students will be tested over all the words and phonic patterns they have learned. I am still concerned with their knowledge of contractions. I wonder if I could make a game of them. If I based in on the same principle they used in the long i game it might work. I may do that. That might be the little extra they need.

I did not have time to work with my little guy today. He is doing very well. We need to concentrate on the sounds of letter more now. He can tell me words that start with the letters. He will see 'a' on the flashcard and say 'a...apple'. But I don't think he really remembers the sounds. Even though our time is up we will continue to push forward.

Monday, Day Thirty-Five

Today in 3rd grade language arts we completed our chapter quiz. The students did pretty well with this. We go over everything so that they all have the opportunity to score 100. But if they do not pay attention then it shows in their scores. Today they were only partially paying attention. Although the scores were high, there was only one 100. After this we will have a theme wrap up. This will close out their lessons on traditions.

In 4th grade math we had yet another strategy, using an array. I told the students that I can tell the way they are so into technology I see some of them working in the computer field. I have a degree in computers and we use a lot of arrays. Although the array used in the computer field are not like the ones we used today, the basic understanding of arrays will help them with that. We used blocks to form the concept. This gave them a visual to go along with the written form. After our lesson they had to go to the computer to complete an assignment about arrays. They all did well on that assignment. They are getting very good at running the computer. I am glad of that, because I don't want them behind other students in this field either.

My little guy surprised me today. I gave him a sheet that had just the numbers on it (no points). He could tell me what all the numbers were every time. I am wondering if it is because they were in order. I am going to make flash cards with the number on one side and the number with points on the other side. My two weeks have passed for this collaboration. Although he is doing better, he did not do as well as I hoped. We will continue with the lessons because I feel that he improves with each time we do it.

Friday, Day Thirty-four

Today was a good day. In 3rd grade language arts we had our phonics quiz. The students did very well with that. I always give them a bonus section and seems to be helping a lot. This section forces them to think about the phonic patterns we have studied. I also had the students go to an interactive web site to work on some contractions. They are not doing well in retaining the concept of the contraction. This web site gave them a contraction and they had to choose the correct words that formed the contraction. Scores were not very high on this lesson, I expected much better but the students all seemed distracted today. On a better note, one of the students in this class that struggles with social interaction and hated my card game, asked if we could play. Unfortunately we did not have time and I truly regret that since he wanted to play so badly.

In 4th grade math we solved multiplication and division equations using a number line. This was a fun lesson. It gave the students yet another strategy to solve these equations. That is why I like this unit, it is full of strategies to help the students. Technical difficulties got me again in this lesson. I had typed up the pages needed in the lesson including the worksheet for assessment in a Word 2007 format. The problem is that it is not compatible with 2003, so nothing could read it. So we simply took out a piece of paper and did it by hand. The students did very well with it. Since I couldn't print what I wanted I tried to find something online for the students to work with but that didn't happen. Division was more difficult for them on the number line, but they understood it enough to complete the worksheet. They wanted to just solve the equation which was only worth 1/3 of the points, the major part of the points came from showing the work on the number line. I am proud of them, they did well.

I had never thought about the styles of teaching affecting a student so much. In our reading we studied the helicopter, drill sergeant, and consultant teacher. I knew that the drill sergeant teacher was a tough teacher and students learned but it was almost like forced learning and I often wondered how much was retained. I had never heard of the helicopter, but I have seen it. Teachers that feel that students cannot complete a task themselves, will hover and do the thinking, processing and answering for them. The student only has to copy the answers from a note or write exactly what the teacher says. I want to be the teacher that causes the student to think on their own, come up with their own answers and if they are not correct we can discuss why. The consultant teacher fits me better. My 3rd grade class has a student like "Ben" in our reading. He expects us to do everything for him. He is such a bright boy but hates to write. Orally he can tell me the most perfect answers in language arts or math, but writing it down causes turmoil. We give him every strategy we can think of, but he just truly hates writing. I have been thinking that maybe he could learn to type his answers into a document, but he hates the process of finding the right keys also. We will continue to work with him, but I plan to pull back on the things that I know he could do on his own. It will not benefit him in future classes if I do everything that he is capable of doing.

Thursday, Day Thirty-three

Today was my second observation and Murphy's law was in full swing. Today students were given a strategy of using a multiplication table to solve multiplication and division equations. I had saved a multiplication table on the computer so that we could use the Smart Board to trace the path. Well my picture showed up just fine but I could not get the tools to work at all. So we just went to pencil and paper. It all worked out. The multiplication was not at all a problem. As I have said they have been studying the times table all year, so they knew most of the answers; I just had to get them to trace the path. But then they saw they could also solve division with the table and that was surprising to them. They are really seeing that multiplication and division are inverse operations. Students had to go to the computer to complete an assignment I had made for them and sent in their email. They had to use the highlight function to solve equations using the multiplication table. Some of them got a hold of the table and changed the table dimensions, which created some problem. But they did well with it. One student did not get finished and had to save the document to finish it later. This was a good exercise for them. Anything I can get them doing on the computer I think might give them some type advantage in future classes.

Language arts went well today. Students asked to play our long i game. A couple of them were not too enthusised about it but they still participated. I still thing this is a good thing for all of them. They are learning more about the long i sound and socialization skills. They are doing very well with this spelling pattern. I have enjoyed their enthusiam about the game also.

My little guy is doing very well also. I am thinking I should really remove the points on the numbers. He is becoming very dependent on them. I have a sheet were he writes each number everytime he is assessed. He must tell me what the number is first. He will create the dots on the number first on the ones he is not sure of. His alphabet is doing well also. He still has trouble with the g, h, and q. He tells me that his parents are using the flashcards and numbers I sent home. I believe that they are helping because he is doing very well.

During my observations we had several interruptions other than the Smart Board mishap. One student had just arrived at school because of a doctor's appointment, so we had a parent in the classroom talking with the ST. We had 3 of the 3rd graders that needed assistance, we had various teachers in and out to talk to the ST. Just a lot of distractions. I was very proud of my kids, they stayed focused and understood what was taught and completed the lesson. This is a really good group of kids.

Wednesday, Day Thirty-two

Today we finally got to start our new unit in 4th grade math. I gave the students a pre-test. They were concerned in the beginning because it was a test. I reassured them that this is not a graded test, this is for me to see what kind of background knowledge you have and I can use this to direct my instruction. They were still very concerned. Terminology is still something we are working on. I found out in the last unit if I repeat everything at the beginning of each lesson they will get it. A quick review doesn't disrupt the lesson and it is very helpful. We are studying multiplication and division facts. This lesson will not be difficult since they have learned most of the multiplication tables all ready. This unit gives student a variety of strategies to complete multiplication or division equations. Strategies such as the one used today, inverse operation. Students are used to checking their addition with subtraction and vice versa, so today they understood how division undoes multiplication and serves as a checking device also. I have a fact family bingo game if we have time tomorrow we are going to try it. This game will reinforce their knowledge of what a fact family is and inverse operations. We will see how it goes.

I am really enjoying the 3rd grade Language Arts class. We are studying a story about Indian traditions this week. Students have been working with contractions in the past two lessons, but are still having some difficulty. I remember a website that has an exercise in contractions, I may have the students work on that tomorrow. Today after we finished our lesson we played a card game with the long i sound. I have about 30 long i words, using the spelling pattern we are studying on index cards. It's kind of like go fish. I made each student a list of all the words that are on the cards and they have to ask another student for a matching word with the same spelling pattern as they have. If they find a match they lay down the pair, if not they draw another card. The first student who is out of cards wins. They seem to like it somewhat. Some of my students have social issues and are not very fond of this but they are participating. I think this will reinforce the spelling patterns we have been studying.

My little guy is doing very well with the TOUCH math. He will now count the points if he doesn't know the number without any thing being said. He recognizes 5 numbers without having to count the points. His alphabet recognition is doing better also. He can recongize 20 of the 26 letters and 18 sounds. He consistently missing the letters: g, h, and q. I need to find a way to get past this. He looks forward to our little execise. I am not sure if it is just to get it over or if he really like it. We do talk about different things during our exercise, but I have to be careful that we don't get too far off course. He is doing very well . My ST tells me he can see the difference our work is making.

Tuesday, Day Thirty-one

I was not feeling well this morning, so I did not go to school Today.

Monday, Day Thrity

Today was a catchup day. Some things were left unfinished before we went on fall break, so today was the day to catch them up and move tomorrow. I have one student in my 4th grade class that has yet to complete the chapter quiz and the unit test. We did that today.

In language arts the 3rd grade is going to read about another tradition. This one is about Indians and their tradition. We completed a graphic organizer were the students were looking for main ideas of a page and details to suppport the main idea.

My little guy has too much work to catch up on to pull him aside. That is another project that will have to wait.

Friday, Day Twenty-Nine

Today was a catch all day. We tried to ensure that all students are caught up on all assignments before they leave. This proved to be very complicated. Our local fire department was putting on a demonstration for the students. It only took about 30 minutes but that means that students brought work from their classroom to get assistance. The 4th grade came in with social studies test and math. Two students that are not in my math class are in my ST language arts class and they needed assistance with the same chapter test that we had just completed. They also had a recess period right in the middle of this. So needless to say we did not get much done. I did not have time to test my one student that was absent either. So when we go back we will have to catch the three of them up. That is not a problem though. Next lesson is my unit for my portfolio, Just the facts: multiplication and division. I think the students will do well with this lesson.

My little guy is doing very well with the flashcards. We did not have time to begin the writing portion we will have to that when we come back. He is recognizing more numbers and letters. He is learning when he doesn't know the number to count the dots. He is making some errors in his counting such as he leaves out three and looks to me for approval when he only makes the beginning sound of a number. He is doing well though. I think I will look at my assessment sheet and the numbers that he continually recognizes I will take away the dots, I know that is 1, 2, and 8. He always seems to know those. He is doing about the same with the alphabet. Although today when he told me the letter he added a symbol. He said 'a - apple' even though there is no apple he remembers being taught that. It seemed to help him a lot so we will continue to do that. The sounds were harder. And it is harder for me to assess him in this area. I am trying to concentrate on the basic sounds, I have found that people say there are anywhere from 44-50 sounds in our language. I am only looking for 29 sounds right now. Some assessments group the 'k' sound with c and k. I understand that but what about c sound that is 's' as in cease or center. I need to make a rubric for the sounds I am looking for this is the only way I will keep up. I am very bad about making an activity and not creating a rubric. That is one of my growth areas in self-assessment worksheet.

In the third grade the ones that were finished with their five times each were given some extra time to work on their symbol project. So some were adding to their symbol and some were completing their assignment. Students presented their symbols to the class and told why this is a representation of them. It went really well. The students that needed to complete their assignment got those down in time to make presentations also. We had a play station, angels, sisters, race tracks, and many others. The students had a great time with this. And I think they really grasped the idea of symbolism. I guess with all the distractions it was a productive day.

Thursday, Day Twenty-eight

Today was a whirlwind. Under the advice of my ST, we are trying to get everything completed today because tomorrow it will be very difficult to get everything done. In Language Arts, students had a phonics quiz and their theme test. I went through both test with them and we had some very good scores. Not all scored a 100, I think the lowest score was an 85 on the theme test. I created the phonics quiz and the students did pretty well with it. There were sentences where they had to insert the word from their spelling list and then I gave them a bonus section. All of their words were listed and they had to circle the 3-letter cluster and underline the unexpected consonant. Most of them used this list to complete their sentences then marked out the word, so to complete the bonus they had to erase that to see the word. The theme test introduced even more words with those consonant patterns and they handled that very well. Tomorrow the students that have completed their 5x each will present their symbol telling how it represents them. That should be fun.

In math, I had one student absent. We went through the retest for chapter seven and they did well. The average of the two test will give them much better test scores. We also had our unit test. This was difficult for some because they had a lot of material to remember. I had given them a bonus section also, the calendar months, where they had to list the month name, number, and how many days it has. Only one student completed the bonus section, I told them that was their loss because it was an extra 10 points on their quiz. The one student who completed it scored 106. I will share these test with the students today just so they can see what they could have made.

My little guy's classroom teacher sent me a note today. She has begun working with him with the TOUCH math also. She had assessed him and sent me the result. Also she wanted me to put the dots in the correct spots so he could recognize them on slips of paper that she is using with him. This is great, at least I am getting help from someone other than myself and my ST. The only problem is that some of the numbers were two-digit numbers. That could work but using the TOUCH math it would look like 2-2 instead of 22. He does not recognize place value as of yet. In my assessment he scored about the same in the recognition of the numbers and one less on the alphabet. He is trying so hard. Tomorrow I may try the written assessment of the numbers, he follows examples pretty well. He will have to tell me what number he is writing and these have no dots on them. This should be a good assessment for him.

Wednesday, Day Twenty-seven

Today, was a typical day. In language arts, I had the third grade catching up in their workbooks. I have one student who is very bright but when I call on her to read aloud, I never know what to expect. There are times she does very well reading and then there are times that she struggles with simple words such as 'words'. I am watching her because I am not sure what is going on there. This class is very early and most of the students are very unresponsive. We struggled through and finished all that we needed. The students had already had a lesson in contractions with my ST, yet they still struggled through the workbook page. Two of them were really on top of it. But most when I asked how do we make a contraction of the two words has and not, would respond with the spelling of has'not. We still have some work to do.

In our reading about motivation I do see some of my students. I have one third grader who is always announcing were she is in her work and asking another student were they are. I believe that is a performance motivation although we are not a class that focuses on "normative grading practices (which imply that only a percentage of students are likely to succeed)" (McKeahie, 2006) and we do provide opportunities for revision and improving written work. She is very competitive amongst her classmates. That is not necessarily a bad thing, it seems to be her motivator. I would like to see all my students perform because of mastery goals. Since all my students have some type of goal in their IEP, motivation to obtain a mastery of the material would benefit them greatly.

Math in the fourth grade was interesting. I gave a quick review so we good test over the chapter about time and it went well. The test was a different story. This makes me feel that I did not teach it very well. My ST has given me many options to develop their understanding. I think I will retest and average those test scores. The students had asked for free time and I told them it depended on when we were finished. That was a mistake. I think they rushed through the test and did not do well. I think next time the answer will be "don't ask when we are in the middle of a lesson".

My little guy was too busy catching up on the work he missed when he left early to work with today. I did however send the set of alphabet flashcards and a letter home with him. He is doing better, in his daily work I will occasionaly ask him about a letter or number and very often he responds with the correct answer. We will get there.

Tuesday, Day Twenty-Six

Today was a lot of fun for the third grade. But before the fun started, the students were assigned the spelling words to be written 5 times each. For each student I created a table with six columns. The first column was just a word list. Part of doing them 5 times each is they must be in alphabetical order. We went through the alphabet and organized the words in the second column as they should be. Some of them were confused at first when the class had determined the first and second word, I circled the room while they wrote. A few of them had simply wrote word exactly were it was in the table. I can see how that can be confusing, I will work on a way to make that more clear for next week. Also, there was one worksheet we completed in their workbook. The students had to read a clue and see a word that rhymed with one of their spelling words. An example would be that "something worn on the wrist match______" and the spelling word is watch. After two of these the students caught on very well. The next exercise wanted them to choose the word from the larger word that contained their spelling word. An example of this would be 'knowing' where the spelling word is 'know'. After these we had a project. Keeping in the theme of their story, I gave each student a colored folder. They were to open it up and with colored glitter glue, create a symbol that represents them. I told them I wanted something that I could look at and know that was _______. They did very well with that. I think Thursday I will have the students present their symbol and tell how it represents them. The students had a lot of fun with this.

My little guy ended up not feeling well and left school early so we did not get to have our 2:00 meeting. I will try again tomorrow. These students always come into the classroom around 7:30 and they practice their cursive writing until it is class time. My guy could tell me what letter he was writing when I asked. I thought that was good.

My fourth grade did not do as well as I thought they would with the calendar. They could read the calendar and knew it was 3 weeks and 2 days between events. They knew there are 7 days in week, 365 days in a year, and 12 months in a year. Only one of them could say the months of the year. None could tell me how many days were in a given month. So I showed them the knuckle way telling how many days were in each month. My ST really enjoyed that and the students could tell me right off how many days. This also helped them remember the names of the months. We then took a quiz over the month names, the number of days in each, and the number of the month. Using the strategy I showed, they did very well. We did cover leap year and all of that also. Today was a very good day, even though they did not complete their personal schedules. This did upset me. I told them this is twice. They did not complete their own surveys (so we made up data) and now this. I also told them that I did not necessarily take a grade on this, because this was an assignment to strengthen what we have been discussing. I also informed them the next one will be for a grade and they will not be permitted to forget it at home or leave their instructions in the classroom; they will get a 0 if that is the case. I don't think I was too hard on them but these are things that will build on the lessons we are doing. We are coming up on relating multiplication and division, so I will have to create something for them to do. I have known teachers that when a student does not complete their assignments throughout the week, they would assign homework over the weekend. I don't want to take their weekend but I do expect it to be done.

Monday, Day Twenty-Five

Today was my first day teaching the third grade language arts class. It went really well. The students are reading a story titled "The Talking Cloth". Part of their lesson is three-letter cluster and unexpected consonants. So before the story we discussed both of those in depth and the students completed a workbook page. I then told them while following along they should listen for words that follow that pattern. Unfortunately there were not many. The consonant patterns are in the student spelling words, so they will have lots of practice with that. After the story we did a cluster map were the students had to give 4 things associated with a character from the story. We used the Aunt who had the cloth and the cloth itself. They did very well on this exercise. I could tell from this exercise that they had grasped the story pretty well. We also did a reading comprehension test in their AR program. They do not get AR points but they do get a reading grade from this test. Scores ranged from 80 - 100. I was pleased.

My little guy spent time in the evening class with me going over his numbers and letters. We used the TOUCH number system and he identified 4 of the 9 without counting the dots. After some leading he could count the dots and tell the number, but he needs to know the number without a leading counter. We will work more tomorrow with that. We also did flashcards with the alphabet. He could identify 20 of the 26 letters. He got 'm' and 'n' mixed up and when I told him the 'm' was 'm' not 'n' he could not figure out what the 'n' was. He also missed 'g, h, and i'; three in a row, does that mean something. I have a set of flashcards that I plan to send home with him and try to get his parents to help. I am not sure that they are helping with the numbers but I must try to get them to help. We did not attempt the sounds, I want him to know what the letters are first. This was only his first assessment, it just gave me and idea of where he is at this moment. I hope to change that within two-weeks.

My long lost student has returned. One of the child's parents is one of our military and leaving for Iraq soon. So he was spending ever minute he could in their presence. I can understand and respect that. He worked very hard today to try to catch up. He even participated in our classroom assignment. We finished up our schedule from the challenge workbook. We created a large schedule on a dry erase board, where students were required to enter the activity, the digital and the analog time. This went very well. Afterward the students had to follow a link in their email to a website that had 10 questions about elapsed time. Most done very well, scores ranged from 70 - 90. One student figured out how he could correct the ones he missed to show a score of 100. Of course I did not accept the second score on praised him for correcting what he missed. Tomorrow we will begin calendars and time, this should be a pretty easy lesson for them.

Friday, Day Twenty-four

Today was very strange. We (my ST and I) have had to adjust our schedule so many times, because others were still working out theirs. It is sometimes hard to keep up. We had only a short time for math today but the students did very well. We began to create a schedule from the challenge workbook. I have a very large dry erase schedule board that we are using. The students must enter an activity, the digital time (displaying a.m. or p.m.) and also the analog time. The story simply gives a rundown of a typical students day. My students must choose the activity and enter the information when it is appropriate. Part of the exercise is getting everything in the correct order. I had an online activity for them but we will finish that on Monday.

I did not get a chance to work with my student on the TOUCH math. He is still trying to catch up from where he missed so many days. My other missing student is supposed to be returning Monday. It will take him a long while to catch up. But he is a very quick study so he will probably be alright.

My 2nd formal evaluation was completed today by my ST. He is an ever encouraging teacher to all of his students including me. I am blessed with encouragement from my family and friends. My ST and I talked about my hesitance in taking over the third grade language arts Monday. I am very excited but like I told him, he has built a routine with the students and it is evident that they are learning. I don't want to throw them off that track. I have some ideas that I am going to try. This is the class that has the very intelligent boy who hates to write. This is how intelligent this child is. They were given a test over the multiplication facts of 7. They were permitted to ask for help one time. When they ask me I always tell them the same thing. This boy had not asked me before I don't think. Today he did. I told him "if you know that 7 *1 = 7, then 7 * 2 is 7 more". He tried that and liked it. So he put 7 tally marks on his paper and every time he came to the next one he would count his tally marks. I was so impressed that he came up with that strategy by himself, when he finally got his name and date on his paper I asked the ST if he could tell the class what he did. The student was so proud, and so was I. By the way he made 100%.

Thursday, Day Twenty-three

Today was quite eventful. The morning time is usually the best time for most of our students, it's after lunch and recess when it becomes difficult for them. But today we started off bad in the third grade. After about an hour of dealing with that everything kind of smoothed out. Everyone settled in to do their work. My hat is off to my ST, he handles it so well. Then it was lunch time.

A new student arrived today. It is always difficult for a new student especially if they join when school has already started. This little guy was having a hard time. I eat lunch in the lunchroom with the students. Many students have begun to sit with me. Not just my students, students I don't even know. But I don't mind, I learn a lot about these students. They tell about home and what they want and what they are planning to do. I enjoy that. The new student was continually stabbing his apple with his knife (he had joined my table also). Then he began to throw the apple pieces at the other students. I went to talk to him. I told him you can't be throwing that at the kids, someone could get hurt. He ran to another table. The lunchroom monitor went to talk with him and he ran outside. By this time someone had gotten the principal involved so he took off outside to find the child. They walked around the school for about 20 minutes. The principal has always seemed to be a very kind man to me, but today he shined. They walked and talked until the child's anger had settled. I went back to my classroom and very shortly into our math lesson, the principal brought the child into the room. Everyone at the school knows that no one can handle a child like my ST. He is truly great with these kids. He stayed with us for a short period then his mother came. One issue that the child is dealing with is bi-polar. That would be hard enough for an adult, but he is only 7. When he came into the classroom he was a different child. The principal did a wonderful thing in letting him walk out his frustrations. It makes me proud to be part of this school, even if I am just a student teacher.

My little guy returned today and was telling us all about his issues with his ears. He still complains that he cannot hear well on one side, but he was ready to work. We did not have anytime to work on his numbers or the sight words that my ST gave him. On top of the missed assignments he had, the other students had taken a T-Pro test. I have not found out exactly what that is but I will do that. He did not do very well, because they are not allowed any assistance on this type of test. I have to find out more about this.

My fourth grade math went very well. We studied a.m. and p.m. The students understood with no problems. I had taken a page from the challenge workbook that I found and gave it to them. I wasn't sure how they would react. I did not tell them that it was a challenge worksheet, just an assignment I felt confident they could complete. They did it with flying colors. Then they had to go online and complete a series of problems dealing with elapsed time, save the page, attach it to an email, and send it to me. They also did this very well. Because we are doing so much with it my ST is also giving them a technology grade. Most people would probably say that I should not have given them the worksheet. It is a challenge sheet which means it is more difficult, but I knew they could do it.

Wednesday, Day Twenty-two

Today seemed to be a very long day. We started our lesson on time in the fourth grade and the students did pretty well. My ST had small clock they each could use, so when I stated the time the students could set their clocks to display that time. I used the line graph that we had just completed for the temperatures in September to demonstrate the many ways that time could be expressed. The students were fascinated by the fact that there is 30 days, 720 hours, 43,200 minutes and 2,592,000 seconds in the month of September. They caught on very well as to how to determine the minutes and seconds for a time period. When it came to them doing the workbook page that was not a real problem; but the internet exercise was a different story. I think that was my fault in the way I set it up. The website gave them a score but it was based on 100 problems and I only required 10 (because of time allowed). So I need to find something better. I will find something else to throw into my review that gives me the idea that they understood time and the ways of displaying it. Tomorrow we will do a lesson over am/pm. I don't think they will have too much trouble with that.

My little guy was absent again. It seems that he has had an earache. So it is best that he stays home until this clears up. I hope that he will be feeling better and back soon. My missing fourth grader is still in limbo. This is apparently some family issues. Hopefully, they can get it all straightened out and he can return soon also.

Monday I will be taking over the third grade language arts. I am both excited and hesitant. My ST has them in a routine that I do not really want to disrupt because I can see that they are learning. By the same token I want to give them more hands on activities, such as crafts. The way these students love to print and color pictures they are just begging for crafts. I must find something to incorporate into the lessons to help them maintain that level of learning. There is a lot out there and they have wonderful teacher's manuals with their books; so I am confident that I can find something. These students are also big on technology so that is a plus.

Tuesday, Day Twenty-One

Today was kind of slow in the fourth grade. I had only two students today. One I knew was going to be absent and one has missed three days in a row and I am not sure what is going on there. With the two that were there we did a review and they studied the chapter study guide, then we took the quiz. I have only one girl in my class and she is classified as MMD. She is a bright student just is very withdrawn and unsure of herself. She is starting to come out of the shell though. She actually scored a 90% on the quiz and the other student scored 65%. The one who scored 65 has multiple disabilities, one of which is ADHD. He did not find the patience to listen to the instructions or the desire to change anything on his quiz sheet. We have noticed lately that he does not even want to take the time to look at all of his options on his AR tests.

My little guy I have been working with was absent today. This boy really needs our help, but he has to be present and a desire to learn. We can only go so far to instill that desire, he has to have some in his own life. I want to work with him everytime I see him but he has so many other subjects in which to complete assignments. I fear that he does not understand any of the assingments he is completing. Hopefully, tomorrow he will be there and we can try to pick up again.

My fourth graders are starting time in their math lesson. This will be somewhat of an easy lesson for them. I am concerned with them keeping hours, minutes, and seconds seperated. They have understood that the line graph we have been using to track our local temperature is a graph to show change in time. This could be a help for them in their time lesson. Hopefully all four students will be there tomorrow. One of them will have some makeup work to do, but we can get him caught up if it is not too much longer. We will see what happens tomorrow.

Monday, Day Twenty

Wow, this is the twentieth day of doing this. That is pretty amazing to me. Today I only had two of my four students present. Luckily one of them was the one that was absent when we did the line graph lesson. So I sat with him for a little while and discussed line graphs and then he completed his assignment. The other one that was present is my star pupil. He looked over the study guide that I made for them and decided he was ready to take the test. It worked out well because he will not be there on Tuesday when I plan to give the quiz. It does not work out well for the two that were absent, I am not sure if they can look at the study guide and score an 85% as he did. We need to get through all of this because we are coming up on a lesson in time. The students are pretty good at schedules and such, so I don't think this will be a difficult lesson for them.

My little guy that fell is apparently fine. He was not taken to the doctor at all. He was seen jumping on a trampoline that afternoon he left early. Lately, we have been working with him on sight words. As I stated before the child does not even recognize most letters or numbers. My ST has a PowerPoint that he has created were he can flash a word on the screen and let the children try to pronounce. I thought it was a nice tool. He printed out a portion of the words for my little guy to take home and practice. We will see if he really does practice them. It does not seem that he is getting much practice with the numbers. The parents did return my letter agreeing to help, but you know how that goes.

I spoke with the principal about my idea for my leadership component. I told him I could do student web pages, extracurricular activities pages, or help the teachers get their web pages up and running. I have told him that I could do this on Tuesdays. He said the person in charge of the Century 21 project (their after school program) is gone until next week to a training. So I need to make a note of what I would like to do and he will speak to her about the funding and such to see if it is possible. He thought it was a good idea. The web page for the extracurricular activities would not need to be part of the after school program and I am not sure he understood that but we will see what happens. I am excited about this.

Soon I will taking on the third grade Language Arts lessons. I have been looking over the teachers manual and watching what my ST does with each lesson. This will exciting. I enjoy reading and this will give me the opportunity to teach the students to take more aware from what they read than just the words and phonics they learn. Most of the students don't like to read and only do it because they have to. It is a requirement in my ST's class that student read three books per week for AR. One easy, one middle range, and one hard. This could be fun. I want to develop crafts for them to hold their interest. They enjoy printing pictures to color and cutout. I can build on this I think.

Friday, Day nineteen

Today was a very mixed up day. It started out just fine. We worked with the third grade on their place value and operation recognition in math. They are beginning to understand. My ST and I discussed me taking on their language arts lessons. I am excited about that. I have to redo my unit so if I find something in that I may do it on language arts instead of the fourth grade math.

My ST and I also discussed what I could do for my leadership plan. The school has a wonderful after school program that most of the time I cannot participate. But there is one night I am guaranteed not to be scheduled to work. That is the night we have our chat session. This could work for me because the program only runs until 5 or 5:30 and our chat is not until 8. I had some ideas but I have to run them across the principal for approval and input. I enjoy using technology so I was debating about helping students create their own web pages, or getting the teachers web pages up and running, or the extracurricular activities the school provides have no web site either. There are lots of options there, I just need to speak to the principal and see what he thinks is best.

We did not get to anything with the fourth grade. The classroom teacher was called out of the school for something and we had to sit with the class for the rest of the day. It was too difficult to try to do what we wanted so we just followed her plans for the rest of the day. The students are reading "Tanya's Reunion" so we put it on tape and student's followed along. It was not so bad. I stayed in the back of the room helping the third graders with a social studies test. And that was all we got accomplished today.

Thursday, Day eighteen

Today was a big day. I had my first observation. Everything went very well despite how nervous I was. I had a really great lesson plan on paper. But when i got to teaching, I forgot a few things. One that I know I forgot was to make my lesson connection with real world events. We had a lesson on line graphs and I had intended to discuss line graphs that could be done to show some of our football players actions. I don't think I mentioned this at all. But nervousness will do that to you. My professor was a delight. I had never met her and she made every attempt to make me feel at ease. I can't believe I forgot that; I had went over it in my head so many times. But I'll get it next time. I am very happy with my review, I hope the others go this well.

The students were wonderful today. In our lesson they were assigned an online exercise. Many of them do not do much with email except read it. Today's lesson was a lot more than just reading and they did so well. I am very proud of them. We did our normal review of each graph and I feel they have really grasped this lesson. I hope to test them probably Monday. We did not have time for a proper review and I won't test them until I can do that. My ST is such a delight to be in the classroom with. He helps and encourages me all the way.

Normally at the 2pm class is when I can work with my little guy using the TOUCH math. Today he had some science work to catch up and we were to work after that. But he was very sick today and did not have the energy to hold his head up. We contacted the nurse and he went to see her. Just a couple of minutes after that my ST was called to the office. After a while he finally told us that he had fell off the slide at recess and just wasn't feeling well. He was complaining that it was hard to stand up or even hold his head up. They were trying to contact his parents to pick him up because we were all very concerned. The ST ending up taking him home. I hope they will take him to the hospital and have everything checked out. I am very worried about him. Even if everything checks out from the fall, I am sure he probably won't be there tomorrow. He was very sick. He is my buddy though, he likes to look at Cabela's magazines with me. He has big dreams and high hopes.

During third grade math the ST and I noticed something. These kids were confusing the operations of addition and subtraction. And they were not sure of what to do with the extra digit in a problem such as 73 + 65. Since there was only ones and tens, that's all they were writing down. So there answer would be 38 instead of 138. This is something we will be tackling tomorrow morning. A problem such as 75 - 63 was also answered as 38. We have our work cut out, but that is why we are here. I am loving this. There is a teachable moment everywhere you look.

Wednesday, Day seventeen

I have fallen behind in my posting here. I will not try to catch all of it up; I will instead try to recap things here and then move on. Student J seems to be trying but his diagnosis will still peak out and my ST is very good at pulling him back. There are times that you just can't . It seems the later in the day we ask him to write the worst it gets. He truly hates to write and is struggling. He wants to do well, just seems that at times he cannot win over his issues.

My students are doing so well with the data and graphing. They were supposed to perform a survey for in class use but they did not. We supplemented data and have move on. They have put their data into frequency tables, line plots, stem-and-leaf plots, and bar graphs. Students were having a lot of trouble keeping the different types of graphs straight. Now before each lesson I have created a copy of each type of graph that we have completed and I have a series of questions for each one. The first question for each of the graphs is "what type of graph is this". They are doing much better with the terminology now. We have also completed double bar graphs. Using different data of course, I had the students to actually complete the example that I use to test their knowledge before the new lesson.

I have given them the test over the data section and they did very well. Memorization is an issue with all the diagnosis competing in the classroom, but they are getting there. One of my students has real test anxiety. She tries so hard, just confuses things because of the anxiety. We are working with her to bring her out of that shell. Her test score was not as good as I would like it to be but she is trying to understand and when it clicks you can see it.

Tomorrow is my first observation. I am of course very nervous but it will be fine I think. We are ready for line graphs. I am concerned that the students will be confused because of line plots and line graph. I think I have a way to keep these separated in their knowledge. We will be doing an ongoing line graph to track our local high temperatures. I plan to have the students plot the temperature each day. I think this will help to keep everything straight. Also the students will go to the computer and in their email they will find a link to complete a graph online that they can email to me. This will be a lot of fun for them I think; they love anything to do with the computer. After this lesson we will be ready for a unit exam. I feel they will do much better than the last time. The review of each type of graph seems to be working very well.

Tuesday, Day Eleven

Today we started our new lesson in math. We will be covering data and graphing. This will also be my unit in my portfolio. The students are required to complete a survey of their friends and family. I had intended on them using 'favorite color' but they instead wanted to do 'favorite sport'. Perhaps their decision is because I used their football team in the survey we completed in class. I expect good results from this excercise and it is something we will use throughout this unit. The students will eventually transfer their survey results to a frequency table.

Monday, Day Ten

Today was an interesting day. We retaught the fourth grade math then retested. This time they did well. Finally we could move on. We are now discussing frequency tables. I have the students performing their own surveys so that we can learn different things about the data. I bought them all notebooks for writing math terms. I type the term and definition out for them but I still require them to write them in their notebooks. It always helps me to remember things if I write them down so we will try that for a while. I am just debating if they should also write concepts in the notebook. I have told them before a test they could take the notebooks home with them to study.

We had a real discipline problem today in the third grade class. Student J did not want to do any writing in his workbook. My ST asked him to "please keep working there is a lot of material they needed to cover". J just did not want to do anything. He is EBD, but he is scary to the other students. Once he gets into a mood he gets what the students call "freaky looking". Some of the students are actually frightened by him, they will move away when they see his face turn "freaky looking". My ST was trying to ignore him during teaching but it eventually became impossible. J was warned that a call would be placed to his parents he mellowed for just a moment, then he tried to rip his workbook in half. My ST finally told him that was it just get out of the classroom. J thought he could open his book and all would be well, but the ST told him it was too late now. At this point I thought of our reading in Love & Logic (Fay & Funk, 1995). We were just reading about disicpline issues and one recourse was to move the student to another classroom. That is what I thought was going on here. It was not that. J waited outside until my ST finished the thought he was working on. Then the ST went outside the door to speak to him. I don't know exactly what was said but I was told a few things after the rest of the class left. My ST told him that he does not like to write misconduct slips because it makes it harder on the student (at home and at school), but he would if necessary. J agreed to linger in the hall until he could collect himself and be a productive part of the class. After standing in the hall for about 5-7 minutes he quietly knocked on the door. The ST teacher motioned him in and he was fine. The rest of the day went just fine for him.

My third grader that we are working with TOUCH math on finished all his work and was given computer time. We have found a game online where the students can practice their multiplication tables while washing cars and they eventually end up in a race. When I approached him he was just clicking answers until he got the right one. I pulled out the numbers and made him count to tell me what the multiplication problem was. We made some progress but he was getting frustrated because he could not recognize the numbers and know the answers right off. He is doing better, we will keep working with it and see how it goes. Today, I plan to send a letter home to the parents along with the TOUCH materials to ask for assistance. The parents can be a great help if they will do it with him regularly.

Friday, Day Nine

Today was frustrating. We retested the students yet again. My ST told me that some of the students are just trying me to see what they can get away with. He said that because some of them did not even number their papers, they only wrote the answers down. I understand that it is normal for a student to test a new teacher but I have other thoughts. I am wondering if we shouldn't reteach instead of retest. It seems that only one of the four have really grasped the concept and I hate to keep retesting if they just don't get it. I am going to speak to my ST about this idea.

One of these fourth graders is a real cut-up. There are times that he is disrupting the class he is cutting up so much. In our reading we discussed "Dealing with kids who feed off each other"(Fay & Funk, 1995). This is my token feeder. Once he gets on a roll, the other boys will follow. The option of moving to another class is probably not possible in this case. Divide and conquer is however an option worth looking into. Even though the room is small and their are only four students I think I can still make this work. Each student has their favorite place to sit or lay in the floor. That's how I could divide and conquer; by letting them not sit in their favorite places where he can disrupt the other students. But all students love the computer. That is good, but if they are not grasping what they need to pass this test, then perhaps I should shut down their computer time so they are not distracted (this is not the only class they have computer time in). Given that all of these students are EBD, I must tread lightly. I will speak to my ST and get his opinions on the separation of the jokester.

I assisted several students with AR testing today. One that really stuck in my mind was a fifth grader that was taking a practice quiz. He failed the quiz five times. At that point my ST told him to hold on and he would help him. It was my opinion that he should reread the book, but we will see what happened after school.

My third grader that is working with TOUCH math is doing better at recognizing his numbers. Something I have noticed when he writes he does it letter by letter. If the ST writes a word on the board and tells the students to write it down, this student has no concept of what he is writing. It is just letters to him. If you give him a hint and he has heard the word, he can tell you what it is. I really want to help this little guy and intend to find a way to do it.

Day Eight

Today I gave the students their chapter quiz. Yesterday was a refresher for them and today it did not appear to help them very much. It was kind of frustrating because I know that these kids know this material. Focusing is a big issue in our class. We are always reminding them of the task at hand, which I expected. But today the students wanted me to work every problem on the quiz as an example and I refused. The ones we did do as examples some did not even answer on their quiz. My ST and I had a long discussion about whether to retest or let it go. I told him I felt strongly that they could do better. We decided to go ahead with the full unit exam. He and I are confident they can do well if we only keep the distractions to a minimum. I was hoping for good quiz scores and we could have had a day they could play math games on the computers (they love to do that) but that is the way it is.

My work with the third grader and TOUCH math is going very well. We have a thirty minute block where these students come in to work on random assignments they need help with. After he finished his necessary assignments he wanted to play the math game on the computer. During this game he could tell me some of the numbers and when he stumbled we counted them with the TOUCH math. We used a multiplication game but I had him using multiples of 0. I did not want him too concerned with the multiplication so he could concentrate on the numbers themselves. This would also build his confidence, I am finding that he does not get much of that if he is not at school. He is doing better in just the short time we have been doing it. I did not have a chance to talk to my ST about sending a letter home requesting assistance in using the TOUCH math at home today. The school just got their grading system online usable and he was very busy with that.

Between student teaching and working full time at the Inn, I have not kept up with my reading. I do have some time this weekend to hopefully get caught up. I must get my lesson plans done also, but I think I can get it done. Tomorrow could be interesting when I tell the students we will be having the unit test. I expect they will be upset but I know they can do better and I have greater expectations than the 65's I saw today. We will see how they respond.

Also, the fourth grade students took a quiz over "The sinking of the Titanic" they had as an ebook through capstone libraries. This library is a great tool for these students they can associate movement in the pictures to the words that are being said. It is an Accelerated Reader book so it worked out very well for them. They all did very well on the AR test, I think the lowest score was an 80. My ST and I were very pleased and the students really enjoy the books in this format. Teachers at my school can access around 116 books and there are more ebooks in the library to view. I think this is really helpful for the students. We did a short reading like this for the third grade but they had great difficulty keeping up with the words. We discussed backing the reading level down a little until they are used to keeping up.

It was a good day, even though we do have to retest. The students were attentive and enthusiatic but distractions did prove to be too much during the testing period. But we will get it.

Day Seven

Today was a chapter review for my 4th graders. The students will have a unit test tomorrow and I wanted to make sure they were ready. It did not turn out as I expected. The students almost felt like they were looking at new material when they saw the quiz. I gave them a few minutes to work alone filling in what they know.

Most of the students did very well on the terms that were introduced. Catch words triggered the definition of the term for them. I did not want them to be concerned about the spelling of the words so I gave them a list of the words they just had to fill in the blanks. Each sentence began with a term they chose and they searched the sentence for the words that caught their memory and made that relationship.

When it came to the rest of the test the students were almost lost. They wanted to put random numbers in the table instead of following the rule. Students were instructed to find the rule in some tables and given the rule in others. The given rule seemed to be more difficult for them. The money problems again were not an issue for them. Finding what the variable was after reading word did not seem to be a problem for them either. Knowing the relationship of <, >, and = was not a problem.

I started working with my 3rd grader today using TOUCH math. Today we only got through the numbers once. We have not progressed to adding by using this strategy yet. Tomorrow I plan to send a letter to the parents to inform them of what I am doing and how it is done. I am hoping they will consider helping me by using and encouraging this at home. I believe this will be a great benefit to him because he tries so hard to guess the right number. If I can help him to recognize the numbers I believe his math grade will improve.


TOUCH math: http://www.touchmath.com

Day Six

Tuesday seemed to be an easy day for the students. We had a lesson on money and equations. The majority of our lesson focused on money. I had went to the point of requiring the students to make a money chart for reference during our lesson. To my surprise they really didn't need this but it did reinforce their concept of money values.

I brought play money coins (with some real in it because the package came with no nickels at all and very few pennies) for the students to work with. The student's knew the values right off the bat. They could also tell me how many ways we could make 75 cents. They could count the value of the coins and tell me when it was equal and when it was not. They could also tell me why it was not equal.

We then moved to equations that did not deal with money. At first when the students saw that 4 + 1 = 5 and 2 + 3 = 5, there were no problems. When they saw 4 + 1 = 2 + 3, it took a minute but it clicked, they were equal. They understood that to keep them equal they had to add the same value to each side of the equal sign. This became an easy lesson for them.

Day Five

Monday was truly an exciting day for both me and the students. We had a lesson on input/output tables where the students had to find the rule. These students have worked on patterns before and it was not hard for most of them to pick out the pattern by the numbers given. I had made flash cards for the students so we could build a table. One side had Input and a number and the other was Output and a number. The students took turns writing the numbers in the correct column when they revealed what and where it was supposed to be. This was not difficult for them. We did two tables on the board and then the students completed assignments in their workbooks.

At times the students seemed confused by the workbook exercises. I had to remind them this is what we had just done. We worked our way through a few of them and I assigned the rest for them to complete on their own. Staying on task is an issue, but once they are focused and have searched through what we did on the board I think they'll be fine.

I spoke to my ST about the TOUCH math for my one 3rd grader. He thinks it would be very beneficial to him. Most of the numbers he thinks he knows but is very hesitant to respond. More often than not he is not correct about the number but he tries very hard.

We are making some schedule changes because right now we have a class right at the going home time when there is bus calls and messages over the intercom. This is distracting to the students and frustrating for the ST. He has advised me that we will be changing some things to make his time with the students more beneficial.

Saturday

Even though we did not have school today, I want to recap this week. It was a real whirlwind and it was a short week (Labor Day). The students could feel the toll of the week by Friday, but I love to watch them.

They try so hard to do everything right. If more students were concerned that everything was right on target as to the end result that would be so great. These students don't always get everything right, but you can watch them while they work and they are constantly thinking. They seem to be always trying to remember things, because they recognize a key word or something that makes them know it's familiar. It is a true joy to watch. I am loving this.

Day Four

This is a late post. My computer actually crashed on Thursday while I was at school. We tried to fix it by purchasing a new power supply but the next morning we again had nothing on the computer. Unfortunately, I had no time to mess with it so on Friday we purchased a new computer so I could easily continue my schooling, then I had to go to work at the Inn. So I am late in getting this blog entered.

We have one student in the third grade that is still struggling with his numbers. He is expected to perform mathematical function, but he struggles alot. I am going to speak to my ST about using TOUCH math with him. I think it would be a great help for him. Then we might be able to catch him up with the class.

I taught my lesson today to the fourth grade. We covered using variables. It took them a little while to understand that the variable could be any number and that any letter could be used to represent the variable. Once we got over those humps they knew what it was all about. I designed a Tic-Tac-Toe equation game for them that went over very well. We will see on Monday how much they retained when we review before our next lesson. My ST liked the way I incorporated the students birth dates into our lesson.

I had great fun doing this lesson with the kids. I also had many opportunies today to co-teach with my ST and I enjoyed that also. The kids are really warming up to me and are not afraid to ask for help at all now. That is a nice feeling, because that is what I am here for. Even though the day started out pretty bad, it wound up being a good day.

Day Three

Today was another catch up day. As students are nearing the end of their units we are in need of grades to post. We did a lot of testing today in math, social studies, science and AR. I could tell it was nearing the end of the week today. The students were getting more tired than normal and did not want to complete assignments in a timely manner. We did work through the majority of the assignments and have only a few left for tomorrow.

I spent a great deal of time completing my lesson plan. After I rested everything seemed to click. I am excited and concerned about my teaching tomorrow since I know going in the students are demonstrating the fatigue of a long week; even though this is a short week for them. I think the lesson will be fine either way. I am looking forward to it.

I had one student that got upset with me today. He wanted to play on the computer while the teacher was giving instruction for upcoming assignment. He got upset because I would not assist him in signing in so he could play brain pop. He stubbed up for a short period and did not want to participate in class when I called his name. I just let it go and before long he was participating without being called upon.

I do have to brag on my ST. He is teaching his 4th grade homonyms. A trick he told them to keep peek and peak straight in their mind was, if you take a peek at something you see it. The 'ee' clicked in their brains and I could see in their eyes they understood. I thought that was very clever.

Day Two

Today was my second day of student teaching. I am still observing to get to know the students, but I did a lot with them today. We had many Accelerated Reading test to complete. The students knew the answers by sight words they could pick out of the answers. Even the ones where there were two answers with the one sight word, they recognized another word in the correct answer. We had social studies quizzes that the students needed help with and language arts quizzes. The students would read the language arts short story with my assistance and answer the questions I asked about the story.

I am attempting to write my first real lesson plan to teach Friday. I am struggling, I am not sure if it is my nerves or just being tired. This is not that complicated but I have a habit of making things more complicated than they really are. That may be what I am doing here. I am sure I will get it, I just need to remind myself to breathe.

I attended a teacher's meeting today with my ST. It was very interesting to listen to all the teachers interact. Issues were presented and some were solved and some needed further investigation. The principal lead the meeting and the teachers interacted with him very respectfully. I enjoyed this meeting. I am planning to go to their upcoming Professional Development Meetings also. I really enjoyed this meeting and am looking forward to more.

First Day

Today was the first day of my journey in student teaching. It was a fairly easy day. I mostly observed what the teacher does and how the students react. My Supervising Teacher (ST) assisted his students with their math and language arts assignments. The third grade was working on math. They are attempting to learn the multiplication facts of three. We discussed how you can add three to the previous answer. Then we discussed how the terms are interchangeable. The students did not understand when the ST simply stated to swap the numbers or when he wrote 3*2=2*3, so I wrote on the board 3*2=6 and directly under that 2*3=6, they saw the number interchanged and went with that and flew. We also made time for some work on their writing portfolios. The students then got to use the computer to play math games to assist in their learning of basic skills. Some of the students actually came to me for help because my ST was busy with another; that was fantastic. These students are like sponges just begging to be drenched. Some of them we must be careful not to overwhelm. But it is so great seeing the students wanting to do well and trying so hard. These students touch your heart so that you just to have to help them in any way you can. I hope to have a lesson plan completed and taught by the weekend. I love to help the students with their math so I think that is what I will focus on. I have had a wonderful day and can't wait for tomorrow.

Introduction

This is the first blog I have done. I am student teaching in September which means I will be finished with my masters in December. I am very excited to almost being a teacher.