Semester 6 Reflection

This semester has been a crazy one with all of the snow days in the start of the semester, with rushing to get assignments done on time, and trying to remember who is in what group for which class. Hopefully, this will be my most crazy semester because I had six classes and the next two semesters will be a little easier.

Things I wish they would change:

• Schedules- They need to arrange the classes in a more orderly manner. For example, don't have the commuter cohort have a three hour break between classes. Also realize that we are people who still need to pay bills and have to have a job in order to do that and that's impossible with a crazy schedule. 
• Communication- I felt there was communication problems of students with professors and professors with professors. The professors wouldn't explain how they exactly wanted the assignment done, so points would be taken off for something we didn't know about. The Service Learning was with two classes and the professors didn't communicate well either.
• Grades- I felt like some of the teachers didn't give grades back and only gave them back once everything was turned in towards the end of the semester. I want to know how I'm doing throughout the semester, so if there is changes I need to make then I could have made them before the semester was over. 

I have gotten my grades back and I made the Dean's List, so I'm very proud of myself. I'm a little disappointed because in one of my classes I only got a 'A-'. Which is still good, but I really wanted an 'A'. I will have to work harder next semester, though I kind of blame the professor because she wasn't very organized.

There was one professor that I really enjoyed being in her class and feel that she really taught me how to be a better teacher. I am pleased to say that I will have her again next semester for two of my classes. She is the best grader I have met. She will go through each section on your report or lesson plan and not just give you comments, but suggestions to receive the full points.


Goals for Semester 7:
For my cohort class we had to write a paper about our goals for next semester during our student teaching placement. Two of important goals I said was......

1. Differentiation - I want to do more lessons with differentiation because I didn't do that this semester and want to work more on being able to do that. 
2. Technology - Again, I didn't use any technology in my lessons and I know it's mostly because there was not much technology available in the classroom. 

Exams Are Over

Exams are over! WHOOO!!!!

I took my last final yesterday at 5 pm. I got there early because I knew the traffic was going to be bad and it was. I also has something else I wanted to do, but the professor wasn't there. About 15 minutes before the exam, there was only four of us waiting outside when the professor shows up and says "Once you finish the exam you are good to go."

I got started right away on the final, which was not difficult like I was expecting. And I was out the door by 5:05. I have two grades in already for my classes. Both are A's. I'm hoping that I will get on the dean's list again.

Everything is checked off on my to do list for this semester!

Again I had another relaxing day besides having to go to work for a little bit. I started to clean out some of the papers and stuff from this semester that I don't need anymore. I still kept my assignments because I don't want to throw them away and find out that a grade was posted wrong. I got rid of random papers that professors handed out and odds items that I found in the drawers.

I'm thinking about selling some of my textbooks, though I want to be sure that I won't need them again next semester. I have the same professor for two of my classes and will be doing something similar that we did this semester, so I might need that textbook.

My Relaxing Day and Other Things

Today was a free day for me because I didn't have a final today nor did I have to go into work,  though I do have to work on my portfolio and reflective paper for my conference with my cohort professor on Monday. I probably will work on them this weekend. Oh and my arts adventure paper.

Also yesterday, one of the girls in my cohort had her conference and my cohort professor told her that I wasn't going to be going back to my placement school. That makes me really sad because I did want to go back, but if not then I hope that next spring during my full time student teaching semester that I am there then.

I wonder why my cohort professor is doing that because Anne and I both talked to the principal and he said he would love to see us next year. He emphasized that he has a lot of great teachers in the other grades that would be great mentors for us.

I didn't really do much today besides relax and watch TV. I am happy that I got time to do that. Today was mostly rainy and cloudy. Tomorrow it says its going to be more sunny and I hope so. I need to get some sun on my skin. I'm looking too pale.

Oh. By the way. I'm not sure how I feel about the Prius that I bought. I'm unsure about the gas mileage that I'm getting at the moment. I'm getting about 44 miles to the gallon. For a 2007 it's suppose to get about 51 to 60. I was reading about tips to about driving the Prius and I think I need to drive it differently than I was driving before and then I should get 50 miles to the gallon. I really hope so.

Another thing is that in my old car I was able to go a little over a week before I needed to feel up for gas. I got this car Saturday and I only have a quarter of a tank left already,  though I have driven over 300 miles or close to it. Not sure what I got in my old car.

Exams in Progress

AHHH!! Exams are here already. My first exam was today and it was open notes and textbook. It was a little more work to do then I was expecting. She gave us five different scenarios to pick from and we only had to write about two of them. They were about explaining why a checklist was better then a rubric or a rating scale and then you would have to create a checklist. One of them that I picked I had to create a rubric with four different traits with four points.

Tomorrow I have my exam for my Friday class in the morning, so after that is completed I can get started on my weekend. By the way, we got an email from our Friday professor she explained what is going to happen tomorrow. We still have a quiz that we were suppose to do last week and it's only one question now. We also have an exam, but she said it nothing we can study for and we will all be working together.

On Monday, I have my Tuesday afternoon class exam, which I don't think we are really doing anything. Also before that exam, I will meet with my cohort professor for a conference to discuss my portfolio and the standards. On Tuesday, I will still have to meet with my Tuesday night class and there is an exam in there, but I don't think it will be much.

And that's it. I will be done with my first semester of internship!

My First Car

I had so much I needed to do this weekend for classes this week and I didn't even get to it all. Most of it we didn't find out about until the middle of the week. Annoying. I had to put together my student teaching binder, work on my portfolio, and write my instructional plan and report.

For the binder I only needed to print things out and put them in the binder. The weekend before I worked on my portfolio and I just had to write reflective narratives for some of the artifacts. The instructional plan and report required more work and time, though I have time since it's not due until Wednesday.

This weekend I also bought a car. I have been looking online for awhile and knew that I wanted to get a Prius because Toyota is what my family have always had and rarely have had any problems with them. I wish I had gotten a car earlier in the semester, so that I didn't spend all that money on gas during it.

I was nervous about buying my first car and trying not to spend too much money. Lucky for me I have that grant for school and have been saving my money for years, so I spend more then I wanted too. In the end I did really good because the car was a 2007 with only 23k miles on it. It had rear view camera along with navigation and smart key. Pretty well kept up.

It's taking some time to get used to how it drives. I have been driving the same car when I first learned how to drive which was 6-7 years ago. Also learning how to change gears in a different spot and pushing the button to park it. It's all very different then what I have gotten used to.

I drove it for the first time to school and everything went fine. I was an overprotective mother with the car. I felt like all of the cars on the road were getting to close to my car. Then also, I almost have two cars run into mine because 1. They don't know how to use a turn signal and 2. Don't want to wait in the line of traffic and just want to pull in front of others.

Student Teaching: Day 11 (Semester 6)

I was quite angry this morning after I drove all the way to school to find I had an email from my professor saying that class was canceled because of an family emergency. I don't mind not having class, but it's the fact that I drove all the way there, was walking to class and then I find out class was canceled. The email was sent at 9:30, 30 minutes before class begins and most of us are commuters and we get there around 9:30.

Whatever. It is what it is. This was our last class before the final exam, so hopefully she will email us before then to tell us what is going to happen on exam day and what it will be on if there is one.

The last day! I can't believe that my last student teaching day for this semester is already over. Oh. by the way, I forgot to take the pictures of the gifts. It was nothing super fancy anyways.

I got to the school at 6:50 and my mentor teacher was already there. Me and Anne wanted to go early to get all of the gifts ready before our mentor got there. She explain to meet that one of the parents wanted to have a meeting with her about the student getting yellows on their weekly behavior chart. The parent was suppose to be there at 7:10 and didn't arrive until 7:25; five minutes before school began. 

We gave everybody their gifts in the morning expect for the kindergarten teachers because two of them weren't there and we didn't see the other until planning. The one teacher we gave the gift said that none of her parents gave her any gifts for teacher appreciation week and my mentor said the same thing.

The day was a normal day like all of the other times that i had been there, though I did have trouble with one of the printers and thought I might have broke it. Then one of the secretaries was able to fix it and I went on to finish printing.

Towards the end of the day the students went to practice their songs and Anne and I stayed in the classroom trying to get photos from her camera from the field trip. We also placed the student's gifts on their desks. When the students came back we said our thank you to them and goodbye. One of the students walked over with a book for me and Anne. They all signed the book and I thought that was absolutely sweet of our mentor to do that for us.

I'm really going to miss that school and I hope that I am placed there again next semester or at least during my full time internship. I do want to experience other schools, though I worry that they want be good or compare to this one. 

The Gifts

Tomorrow is my last day at my placement school this semester already. It still feels like yesterday when I first walked into the school and met my mentor teacher and she showed us around the school. It's crazy.

Anne and I worked together to come up with the gifts. We weren't exactly sure who we were going to give gifts besides our mentor and the principal. I know most student teachers would give the secretaries something,  but we never really saw them, though we decided that we would give them a doughnut.

Here sit he break down of the gifts:

Mentor Teacher- s'mores mix, chalkboard, and doughnut
Principal- confetti popcorn, and doughnut
Kindergarten Teachers (3)- confetti popcorn
Secretaries (2)- doughnuts

Now that I have typed it down it doesn't seem like much. I was talking to one of the other girls in the cohort yesterday and she said she bought a hundred dollar gift card for her mentor. We were going to do gift cards and only were going to spend $15 on it. $50 to me is a bit much for a mentor teacher that we only spent once a week with. We are still going to have more mentor teachers that we will spend more time with.

By the way, that s'mores snack mix is so so addicting. I got the big bags and I could have ate that whole bag in one sitting by myself.

Note: I will post pictures of the gifts Thursday night.

Beach Prop Box

This post is just going to be a bunch of pictures because I just don't have time to go over everything and this was suppose to go up awhile ago, but I had forgot to take the pictures. In my offense, I was doing a lot that night if you look back to the post called Busy Night.

I wish I worked and thought about this project more then leaving it to the last week. I'm now thinking of more cooler and hands on activities, but I didn't have enough time to make them since I'm took this my placement school the next day.

Anyways.....Here is my Beach Themed Prop Box.

Outside

Outside

Inside

 The Books:

 

Art:

Language Arts:

 

Math:

 

Science:

Social Studies:

Dramatic Play:

Student Teaching: Day 10 (Semester 6)

Today we had a Substitute Teacher in the classroom. Last week my mentor told us she would be out and also said what she wanted us to do. She emailed us the night before with the final things she wanted us to do. I did the opening with the students and for some reason I was nervous and kind of forgot the pledge until the Sub had them do it. The second thing I had to do was teach a health lesson that I already new about and had discussed with my mentor. It was small lesson about respect and I just read from the book what I had to talk about with the students.

I got to the school at my normal time, 7 o'clock, and Anne was already there, but not the sub. She printed out what she sent us in the email at our spot in the room. Anne was already working on one of the items and I began working on something else that we needed to do.

Anne and I both finished those two items a few minutes after the school began. This is when the Sub came into the classroom. She said that she was happy to see us but wasn't sure if we were going to be there. She asked us if our mentor has every left us in the classroom alone with the students. Our mentor has left us with a few students, but never with the whole class. The sub needed to go and get her daughter who was in a different classroom in the school.

The students were not as good as they usually are, but for the past two days it had been raining non stop, so I'm sure that affected their behavior. They didn't do anything bad. They were just more chatty during the lessons. We also got to do our prop boxes with some of the students. They ended up breaking some things in my box which was disappointing considering how much time I worked on it.

This was our second to last day there and so me and Anne got some notes that we will give to the students and teachers next time. I will explain in the post next Wednesday with pictures what we gave to everyone. We were able to get everything done that we needed to do during the day and so when all of the students left we got to leave.

Where are the Grades?

This semester makes me nervous and not just because of the amount of work that I had to complete, but the fact that I don't really know how I'm doing in my classes. I didn't get my first grade back for an assignment until one week after Spring Break. Spring Break is the mark of half the semester, so it took until half way through the semester until I got a grade back.

I'm not worried that I'm going to fail my classes or a class, but I really wanted to get straight A's this semester and I don't think that will happen. It seems like everything is due towards the end of the semester especially the big the assignments. That makes me extremely worried because then there is nothing I can do to change it since it's the end of the semester.

By the way I got my literacy bag back and on the evaluation and the parent wrote that I messed up on one of the activities and now I worry how badly that is going to affect my grade. (Future teachers remember to triple check everything that you do especially the items that will be sent home to the parents!) Needless to say I'm embarrassed. 

Service Learning Day

We have to do a service learning day and for my cohort we did it differently then the other cohorts. We had to work with our science professor and cohort professor for this day. We did this at one of the other schools on a Thursday day after my placement school already let out. We had to be there at 3 and our cohort professor provide us with pizza and water which was very nice of her.

Before this day we were split into three groups of five. The service learning night was about senses, so in the groups you had to pick one sense and create a center. We also had to create take home bags for the students with an activity inside about senses. Thinking about this now, I don't now how we will be graded because my cohort professor never saw the activity of the bags we made. By the way, this was for Spanish families and students, so the directions in the take home had to be in English and Spanish.

I wasn't very nervous for this night because everyone in my cohort was there. First the parents and students came in and my cohort professor talked to them and then we left to the classroom where we had setup out centers. There was a total of twelve kids, which was more then I thought was going to be there. One of the girls from the cohort read a book to them in Spanish. Then we split them into groups and they each went to a center. We also had them rotate through the centers, which was unknown to us, but worked out fine anyways.

Take Home Bag

It ended earlier then we thought, so we got to leave at 6 instead of 6:30. The kids were good and all spoke English, so there was no trouble understanding them. This day was a very long day since I had gotten up at 5:40 that morning.

Student Teaching: Day 9 (Semester 6)

I have never been so tired waking up in the morning then I was on this day. I woke up about 25 minutes early then I had been because I wanted to ensure that I had everything that I needed to take with me plus I still had to get myself ready. Also I had to get construction paper from the art closet since my daycare center didn't have any.

My mentor teacher warned me that one of the students was coming back today from having surgery and that he might be in wheelchair. Everything started to go down hill from there. School had began and other students talked about seeing the student in the office in a wheelchair. My mentor already told me that she couldn't push him around because she still as a cast on her arm and doesn't want to mess it up. A lady came in with the boy along with his mom and the lady wanted my mentor to make all of these changes to her classroom right now. My mentor was busy teaching the class and had two interns to deal with too. Then in walks my cohort professor.

I already knew my cohort professor was coming, but she came at 8:15 and we were planning for her to come at 9:00. This made it even more hectic for my mentor. My mentor ended up not watching my lesson since she came early and just watched how I presented my prop box, so now I have my observations done from her.

During lunch, my mentor and me and Anne hid from the lady in another teacher's classroom with the door shut and the lights off. The day was little crazy trying to make sure the little boy could get everywhere.

We found out that next week my mentor won't be there. We have already met the sub before and it will be an interesting day with her. My mentor is giving us stuff to do and teach to the kids to help out the sub. I will be doing the morning routine with the students. Anne will read a book

Busy Night

This post is not going to be very good because it's really late and I'm tired. Since I have gotten home from work I have been busy working on my prop box, lesson plan, and my service learning stuff. I had to make some changes to my lesson plan on that my mentor suggested. I had to print at the worksheets too. I also was worried because my cohort professor didn't email me back about going to my placement school tomorrow. Which she needs to because after tomorrow I don't have anything left to do for her to observe.

F.Y.I., after tomorrow there will only be two more days that I will be at placement. I can't believe the time went by so fast.

Also tonight I had to finish getting things finished and ready with my prop box. Mostly I had to decorate the box and then I had to change my plan for the art activity. Thanks to my parents who helped me come up with another idea, but I could still use the items I had planned.

For the service learning, I had people from my group texting and emailing me about stuff. Which was really annoying because it took away from time that I needed to do. Whatever. I think everything is good now. We will find out tomorrow.

I will explain more about everything on Friday's post.

Lesson Plan: 5 (Semester 6)

Emergent Writing Lesson Plan

Objective:

1. The students will be able to tell a story, real or imagined, using writing and drawings about a time they wanted something. 

Materials:

• The Pigeon Wants a Puppy by Mo Willems
• Markers or crayons
• Pencils
• Writing worksheet

Introduction:

• Ask the students to give you examples of what a 'want' is.

Procedures:

• Read the The Pigeon Wants a Puppy story. 
• Have students find partner to tell about a time they wanted something. 
• Model to the students a story about a time you wanted something. 

Closure:

• Have students write and draw about a time they wanted something on the writing worksheet using markers or crayons. 

Student Teaching Break

This week is the student's Spring Break, so I didn't have to go to placement today nor did I have to go to the College either. I sent most of my day working on a lesson plan that I need to teach next week and my prop box that I'm doing next week too.

I got a lot done on both of them, but I still have quite a bit that I still need to do. I will discuss more about each in separate posts on Monday and Wednesday along with pictures.

In the last post I was talking about group projects and what do you know......I get group project drama. I'm the type of person of not wanting to leave group project stuff done last minute especially when it's a group assignment. That is what happened Thursday night and the lesson plan we were writing was due the next morning in class and almost nothing was done.I really though that I had good people in my group too. Then right before I'm about to go to bed this girl decides she wants to do a different activity that she found. It was a good activity, but the lesson plan was already finished. She should have said something earlier instead of the night before.

Anyways class was ok. I think the one girl was a little frustrated because we decided to do both of the take home activities and we left her in charge of getting the activity she picked ready.

In other news this week went by really fast and I have neither my prop box or lesson plan started and they are both due this upcoming Thursday.

Group Projects

I have never had a semester before where I had so many group projects. Luckily, we all have the same classes, so that makes it easier to meet up. Since we can meet before or after class to work.

The main problem is that there are some many different groups that you forgot who's in which group and some people are in two or more of your groups. Also for one of the projects, it's for two of my classes which also makes things confusing too some how.

I'm going to mark down all of my current group projects that I have going on and who's in the groups for which class.

ECED 343/341:
-Centers Presentation- Me, K.B., B.W., and A.S.

ECED 461:
-Shadows Puppets- Me, A.S., C.R., and A.D.

ECED 417:
-Differentiated Lesson Plan- Me, A.S., and A.D.

SCIE 371/ ECED 343/341:
-Service Learning- Me, D.W., K.B., B.W., and K.H.

I got pretty lucky with the partners in my groups, in which they all do part of their work for the assignments that they need to do. I believe after the end of next week that the group projects should be over.

I was talking to someone in my cohort the other day and she said that all the assignments next semester are with groups. AH! I so very hope that is not true.

Lesson Plan: 4 (Semester 6)

I didn't implement this lesson plan in class because I didn't have time to and I have another lesson for the same class that I will implement.

Shared Reading; Read Alouds

Objectives:

1. Students will be able to retell the story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see? by placing the pictures of the events in the correct order on the worksheet. 

Common Core Standards:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.2 - With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3 - With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

Materials:
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see? Big Book by Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr.
- Brown Bear Sequencing Worksheet
- Crayons/Markers
- Pencils
- Big Post it Notes
- White board
- Character Cards

Introduction:

• Ask the students to look at the cover and ask what characters will be in the story based on the cover. Then write down the answers on Post it Notes and place on the front of the book.

Procedures:

• Read the title of the book and model a prediction for the students from the title, then have the make predictions. Write predictions down on post it notes and place on front of book.
• Read the book and then afterwards go over the predictions and see if they were right or not.
• Next have the students retell the story by having each child be one of the characters from the story and give them a character card (picture of the animal and the word). 

Assessment:

• Student's complete the brown bear sequencing worksheet at their desks. 

Student Teaching: Day 8 (Semester 6)

Thursday was sort of a confusing day in the morning for me because I bumped into my cohort yesterday and she told me that she emailed my mentor teacher asking to move my lesson to earlier, so that she could observe me and Anne. That wasn't possible since Anne was teaching a small group and I was teaching the whole class. Then I found that was not what she emailed my mentor. Whatever. My mentor had me working with the students when my cohort professor was there, so she got to observe me a little anyways.

This upcoming week the students have Spring Break, so I won't be going there on Thursday. Though I planned with my mentor teacher about teaching a lesson on the 24. This will be the last lesson that I will have to teach. I ended up not having to teach another class for a class that I originally thought I had too.

At placement I didn't do anything special. I always have work to do to help my mentor with. I began my day having to make copies of somethings. Then during groups for one of the centers the students worked with me using the ten sticks and cubes to make numbers.

I discussed with my mentor about my lesson at the end of the day and then I got to leave earlier again today. We were going to help step up for the grandparents event that was happening today, but our mentor told me that there was already plenty of people helping. I left shortly after 3.

I'm heading for the beach today after class for the weekend. This is the perfect time to do it because I don't have anything that is do this upcoming week and I don't have to prepare for anything for placement. I'm glad to get away and not to worry about anything.

Lesson Plan: 3 (Semester 6)

First off let me say that I have finally gotten my first feedback on a lesson. We are over half way through the semester and this is the only feedback back I have gotten for a lesson so far. It was good. I only got one point off for...I'm not sure, but this makes me hopeful that my other lessons are going to be good too. Well maybe. It depends on the professor I turned the lesson plan in to.

Also I got an email from my cohort professor and I may have one less lesson that I have to implement at placement. That would mean that I only have this lesson and one other lesson to teach and I would be finished. I still have one other project I need to do at placement, but that should be simple.

Science Lesson; Living Things

Objectives:

1. Students will be able to learn about living things by making a collage of living things by cutting pictures out of a magazine. 

Common Core Standards:

• K.MD.A.2 - Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which has "more of" / "less of" the attribute and describe the difference. 

Next Generation Science Standards:

• K-LS1-1 - Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive. 

Materials:

- What's Alive by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfled

- Magazines

- Scissors

- Glue Sticks

- Pencils

- Living Things Construction Paper

- Pictures of Living Things 

- Pictures of Non-living Things

- Living and Non-living Things Header

Introduction:

• Ask the students, "What does it mean to be alive?"

Procedures:

• Read What's Alive to the students and after reading ask the students again, "What does it mean to be alive?"
• Then sort the pictures of living and non living things together as a class on the board.

Assessment:

• Students will use magazines to find pictures of living things to create a collage. 

Literacy Bag

Front 

For this project I picked one student in the classroom that is going to receive this bag. The student will take the bag home for one week and read the books and complete the games in the bag with their family. The bag needs to be themed based and the file folder games need to relate to the books.

I'm giving this to my student this upcoming Thursday and he will get to keep it over his Spring Break. I'm asking for it back on Monday, April 22 to make sure that I get it back in time because that following Tuesday it's due.

Back     

Materials Needed:

• Bag that is decorated with the theme
• 3 or more Books that are fiction and non-fiction
• 3 or more Literacy File Folder games
• Additional list of 3 more books
• Additional list of 2 more activities
• Organized literacy bag with directions
• Family Evaluation Form
• Introduction Letter
• Checklist of Materials

Activity 1: Real Words vs. Nonsense Words

I created this activity and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. I'm glad I used shark teeth to place the words on to make it look more nicer. and shark related.

Activity 2: Label the Shark

This took some time trying to find a good shark labeling image to use that wasn't already labeled or too many parts to label. I just had them label the parts that went along with Book 2.

Activity 3: A-B-C Shark Order

I got the different sharks from Three Dinosaurs. It's free to download. I just made a cover for the folder and the answer key.

Activity 4: Story Sequencing
I added this activity last second because I felt that my other ones weren't really literacy activities. This goes along with book 4. 

Book 1: Shocking Sharks by Charlotte Guillain

This book is great for beginner readers. It uses large font with only a few sentences on each page. 

Book 2: Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies

I liked this one because it showed different types of sharks and the different parts of the shark which I needed for activity 2.

Book 3: I'm a Shark by Bob Shea

Book 4: The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist

Side Notes:
This project has been more time consuming and difficult then I thought it would be. I wish I had worked on it more during Spring Break. The big problem for me was trying to find appropriate/good books. I don't have time to just sit at a library and looks at books, besides it way to many to go through, so I would put books on hold to pick up. I didn't want to purchase books unless I looked at them first and I can't do that with ordering them online.

I also had to laminate the file folder games and decorate the bag. I wanted to make sure everything looked nice and neat. One thing I would have changed was not to use the Velcro because it made the pieces bigger and it made it difficult to put everything into the bag.