Last Day

Today was our last day and of course none of the kids wanted us to leave, neither did we. We had a celebration party and the kids and teachers gave us presents as we handed out our gifts. For the kids we wrote them all letters for their post office in the school, our CT was excited and couldn't believe how much the kids would love getting a letter from us in the mail. The students also do not want us to go to Australia to teach, instead they want us to teach them. Well last day of practicum and shortly it will be the last day of this semester!!!

Final blog

I hope everyone has had a great semester and good practicum experiences!

I can't believe we are going to be student teaching in the fall...I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!

I just want to wish everyone good luck this fall semester during their student teaching and hope that everyone has a memorable experience they never forget. Have a great summer!

Scientific Revolution

Whenever a lesson is taught in any subject, it is benefical to integrate it with other subjects in the curriculum. Allowing yourself to make connections across various content areas will benefit your teaching strategies and your students ability to learn the material being taught. The activities we did regarding the Scientific Revolution were a great example on how to integrate science with social studies. A great example of combining these two content areas would be studying the sun, stars and solar system and how some cultures used these elements of science to create clocks and a full year calendar. The possibilites are endless, this is just a small example of how to integrate science with studying various cultures. After having students do the sink and float lesson, you could possible connect that with some famous voyages across the oceans and how these voyages led to changes that forever affected how we live.

Finally Finished

I have finally finished all of my units, my last one was social studies. I thought it went really well, our unit was economics. I had the students create their own candy. I set the activity up as if it were a contest for a new candy for Peretti-Van Mel. For encouragement I was able to get a box of Airheads, so next Wed at the end of the competition when the CT and I decide on a winner we will hand-out the Airheads to the students. My partner is concluding the activity this coming week. We are very excited about the contest between the students and so are they. They have really enjoyed the unit so far.

No more units!

I have taught all of my units! I finished teaching dinosaurs this past Tuesday and the kindergartners loved our activities we did. With teaching dinosaurs we also discussed the history of dinosaurs and everything along the line of dinos you typically would learn in kindergarten. Even though I have no more units to teach I still am teaching lessons in the classroom from my CT. Now it is time to focus on finalizing all the stuff we need to have by the end of the semester. The end is near!!!

Sci. rev.

There are lots of ways to connect social studies to science. Our in class activity was a great! We were introduced to the activity as if it were going to learn a history lesson about the great scientist of the Scientific Revolution. However, we actually got in there after learning sabot the times and conducted some investigations. (I'm kinda bummed I missed out in the balloon thing!) For example, if you wanted to teach your students about medieval architecture, you could have them experiment with similar building materials and have them create their own fortress. I think history is much more interesting and engaging if you can make it come alive, much like we did in class.
Overall- I was mucho impressed with this tactic!

Scientific Revolution

It was fun to have a class of hands-on activities, the kids love being a part of activities and getting a chance to experience different activities. Relating social studies to science was also neat especially discussing the finger and learning about why the finger was preserved (history). I also think though that you, the teacher, needs to look at all activities and not just "think social studies," but to think about how you can relate one activity across the curriculum and across the levels.

Social Studies Connections from science day

We have learned many different ways to cross-reference the curriculum for a particular lesson plan or unit during our Professional 1 & 2 semesters here at Northern Kentucky University. As we learn the real life facts that we will have a very limited amount of time in our classrooms to teach a vast amount of content for multiple subjects, we see just how crucial it is to combine as many subjects in one lesson as we can that will make a difference for our students. I was really surprised that we had a science day in social studies class. Growing up, I was always taught to think of the two subjects as separate. I saw many social studies connections to the science experiments that we did, as well as connections to other subjects, such as math and reading. All of the experiments can easily be connected to math by graphing the results, finding averages, measurements, etc… One way to connect social studies to the science experiments would be to include an economics connection about marketing. Students could think about the materials used for each experiment and how much they cost, how prices are set for each and the profit made from each material, etc… A second social studies connection would be the history of the materials, students could do a small research project on the different types of materials and how they have been used throughout history in different ways. They could also research how that specific material has been improved over time. Student could study what technologies are used to create or improve the materials. It would be really easy to connect all of this to literature, since there are so many great books about the science, social studies, and any topic in the world. I am glad we took the time to think about this since it will be so vital when we are student teaching and teaching in our own classroom some day.

Scientific Revolution

The science experiments were very interesting. I thought using the power point was good, and displaying the dead man's finger is a great way to get the class's attention. Being in collaborative groups and working together was great and very meaningful.

Bloggin

My last unit is next week!!! Then Summer time

Making lessons about Social Studies

There are many ways to cross over the span of several different subjects at one time. In class, we explored and investigated the materials at four science centers. Crossing the pendulum science center into social studies could be done through the discovery of medieval times and the weapons that they used to fight. The catapolts are a very well-known weapon of that time and the way that a catapolt is filled and let go, makes the upwards swinging motion of a catapolt. In the ball center, one could easily talk about the history of different cultures and how they play sports. You could show the students the various types of balls used in the experiment and make connections to the sports that they know and relate it to how various cultures may use something of the same kind for a very different kind of sport and use. For the float and sink center, a teacher could introduce the vikings, romans and greeks and the development of the boats that they used. Then expanding into how naval history has adapted to make things float and how they went from wooden boats to steel boats would really tie in the experiments. Determining how much water it displaces to determine if it will float was something that really took a lot of time for people to figure out! And lastly, in the ballon and straw investigation center, one could introduce the idea of rockets and the space program and how there are different forces needed to get a rocket off the ground. You could also tie in missles used in war and even the ideas of aviation - what kind of force it takes to keep a plane flying. Or the zeplins used by the Germans - blimps - who developed the blimp or hot air ballons could easily be explored in a classroom. As I said before, there are many different ways to use these investigation centers to cross over into Social Studies and "kill two birds with one stone!"

last unit plan

Today was the first day of my last unit I have to do for this semester. The unit is about dinosaurs and all of that fun stuff for kindergartners to learn. Even though this is a science unit if you think Social Studies you can relate the two together. Today we mainly discussed the history of dinosaurs and where the dinosaurs lived and what time period. Kind of interesting and amazing how much little ones know about dinosaurs.

Integrating Lessons

Well the introduction that we began was history. One activity that we did was which ball bounced the most. You could integrate this activity into an economics lesson talking about goods and services. You could also talk about the different types of resources used to make the balls. For the pendulum activity it could be tied into history and where the pendulum came from and how it was used. Then the balloon activity could be integrated with a geography lesson on how people get around in different places and on different types of transportation that is used and which one is the quickest. You could also integrate the balloon activity w/ math also, by having the students calculate the distance from one point to the other and then how long it would take them to get there using different types of transportation.

Bloggin

Does anyone have any ideas what i can put in my port folio for standard 5 and how many things do we need to add this semester?

Wrapping up the Semester

I have finished teaching my math lesson and am getting my social studies lesson ready to teach. Our unit is economics and I have a really fun activity planned for the students. My partner and I are going to have them making their own good and they have to tell what services they will need and to come up with ad for their good. I am very excited about the lesson and to see what the students come up with. As the semester is coming to an end, we are now feeling very comfortable in the our class and with the students as are they. I was worried about this semester at the beginning and until about two weeks ago, but it has turned out to be a pretty good semester in our practicum.

Second Unit - Science

I just finished teaching my science unit on food chains/webs and the energy pyramid. This was definitely my favorite unit to teach. I found this wonderful activity where students make their own food chains and then as a class we linked the food chains together to create a food web. A great visual for the students and they loved creating their own unique food chain. My next unit is Math...YUCK! I personally struggle with Math alot and have a hard time explaining Math to other people. My biggest challenge for myself is to learn new startegies to help me better explain Math concepts to my students (which isn't really happening in Fiske's class). We aren't sure if we will be teaching our 2nd graders or 3rd graders for Math since we are in a split class. I have heard mixed reviews about teaching using "Everday Math". Do any of you think it is a good program?

I can't wait to see everyone's Math Centers, Lindsey and I are doing 3-D geometry, I think we have a really fun and engaging center for 5th graders. Does anyone know what school we are doing the Math Centers at? Just curious.

We have a student who is moving to Europe in two weeks, she is going to live in Slovakia. I can't imagine making such a huge move (across the Atlantic Ocean) at age 8. I would of been nervous and scared, but she is excited about it. She had Lindsey and I sign a shirt last week, she had everyone in her class sign it to remember them by. She is a bright young girl, she will do really well over there. We also just had a student who spent her sping break skiing in Vale, Colorado and winning medals. She is in 2nd grade also. Another student was just diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes. To say the least it has been an interesting past week or two. I hope everyone else has exciting students like we do.

Good Luck to anyone teaching this week!

Teaching 2nd unit

This week I started teaching my second unit, which is Math. It went pretty well today. I am not sure how anyone else feels about Everyday Math, but I am not a fan of it. I think the students can do more so instead of following the lesson in the Everyday Math book I taught the same concept just in a different way. My CT enjoyed how I changed it to fit the students and how they were still able to learn the information, just in a different way.

Start of Unit 2

I started my science unit on monday and it went very well compared to my first unit, the students listened and i didnt have trouble with transitioning which i would give credit to my CT. My CT cracked down on the class a couple of weeks ago because they were really getting out of control. It almost seems like these kids like to be disciplined or test the waters of breaking rules.

Stephens Practicum

Well, I'm glad that the semester is finally starting to get close to the end. I think we are ready to be done as well as our cooperating teachers! The Montessori style of classroom has never been a wonderful experience, but I have learned a lot from it. We taught our first lesson for Math this past Monday and it went fairly well. It was an exploration lesson that we co-taught, so it was a little crazy and loud - but I think they learned from it. We talked about weight, money and patterns. As far as Social Studies is concerned, the Africa unit is still continuing and they are still researching Africa and answering questions about it. It has not been very exciting or engaging thus far, but hopefully we have either missed those activities or they just haven't got to that part yet. The South America celebration was also cancelled for the end of the last unit that we were part of teaching. The two montessori teachers just didn't have it planned in time - the students were very excited about it too! Hopefully, they will get to do one at the end of Africa though. We'll see!

Bad kids are turned good with a bootcamp

For most of this semester this class was pretty bad and a lot of students have home problems with one or both parents in jail. One girl got suspended last week and on monday when i saw her again and the rest of the students it is a changed classroom because our CT layed down the law and cracked down on them, very good class now and i think the transitions are going to be easier with my next unit on monday.

Test

test to see if it works again

Practicum

This past week in my Practicum class, we have been catching up on our Math assignments. However, the students are starting a new unit - moving from South America to Africa. They seem to be really enjoying the materials and activities that they are doing. They have a large foam floor map that is put together for them to use when they are doing their worksheets. Right now, they are really learning about the geography and location of different places in Africa. They are using a lot of the materials and things that I taught them in the unit I taught. They have to find things North, South, East and West of various places and landforms of Africa. We are having a lot of fun and really learning about the Montessori style more and more every day!

teacher stuff

This week in practicum I got to do some teacher stuff...not so much what we look forward to doing. Wednesday was our last day before the kids spring break and it was packed full. Before everything started the kids went outside for recess and we got to stay in and work on report cards. I was able to fill in the area about attendance and all that fun stuff. While we were there in the morning our teacher got observed by the principal, a fire drill, a ribbon cutting ceremon, and a celebration of the custodians. Even though our teacher has been teaching over 30 years she still was nervous about getting observed by the principal. Both our teacher and principal are great and get along really well. Our fire drill was the typical fire drill, but instead of coming back inside we stayed outside for the ribbon cutting ceremony. There was a new pavilion built and the school celebrated their new pavilion and the main person of the job who created it. This consisted of the older grades (4th and 5th) reading poems and creating poems similar to the poem Where the Sidewalk Ends and a couple other poems about the area. After the ribbon cutting ceremony we had a celebration of the custodians. The custodians are really involved with this school...they create their own bulletin boards and they create decorations in the hall for everyone. One of the custodians actually is the coach of the robotics team at the school. Anyways, the older grades created poems and letters to the custodians and the entire school signed thank you cards made out of butcher paper and framed them for the custodians. It was a secret of the school and of course all the kids loved the idea of a secret. Needless to say the custodians were surprised! That is just in the little bit of time we are there, but it was fun.

Japan

MaCall and I are doing our unit on Japan. Does anyone have any good culture books or books about Japan or featuring a Japanese child?
MUCHOS GRACIAS!

Pictures of S. S. Unit day 2 and 3

The first picture is Abe Lincoln and his hat. It is hard to tell, but each student received a black strip of construction paper and the kids wrote one thing they learned about Abe Lincoln in white crayon (It's hard to see, but I couldn't zoom in close enough to still get the whole deal). Once they were all finished we taped each piece to the back of the door to create Abe Lincoln's hat! The cherry tree is about George Washington. The "cherries" are actually cut-outs of George Washington's head from the Ellis Machine at the school. As with Abe Lincoln each student received one "cherry" and had to write one thing they learned about George Washington. We discussed the myth about George Washington cutting down the cherry tree etc with this project. Everyone loved it, we received many compliments from other teachers in the school!

S.S in the school

The school, as a whole gets into the the curriculum as much as possible. If fifth grade is doing one project that the kindergartners can help they do so. When I walked in on Monday there were state flags hanging from the ceilings in the hallway. It was neat to see all of the different flags and on the bottom of the flags there was a note that had when it was made and what state it represented. When walking the kids down to the gym for their "Robotics Dance" the guys were asking me "what flag is that?" every flag we walked past and asked me to tell them what it said on the flags. It was exciting how engaged kindergartners were from just walking in the halls. Another project the school is doing is making their own mail satchels out of brown paper bags from Kroger. We had to cut the bags and prepare them for the students and after awhile it got old and there were over 300 bags that needed to be made, but luckily we didn't have to do them all. Everyone was involved even the parents of the students. It's kind of interesting how excited and how much the parents are involved in this school.
A side note the "Robotics Dance" is an activity the school is doing where every class gets their own decade and dance. Our class is robotics, 1990 and all the kids were laughing and giggling about the dance moves and everything. Can't wait to see the rest of the school's dance.

Teaching Social Studies Unit

Well, I have taught both of my Unit One lessons and things went really well. I was very concerned in how the students would react to my teaching them since that is not what they are used to, but they did well. Amanda and I did our first Unit in Social Studies. We were given the topic of South America and other than that, it was left fairly wide open. I focused on the ideas of map skills on the first day and then applied the first lesson to the second and we look at various things about South America (i.e. landforms, directions, distances, etc.). We are teaching Science next and are still digging through ideas of the direction to go for that, but luckily Spring Break is coming and we can really dive in and get some things done during that time! So far, things are going well and I hope the same is true for others!

Lesson on Wednesday

Wednesday I taught my second science lesson on the water cycle. It was great I was able to do the water cycle game that we did with Rheeda Hart in science. It turned out very nice I thought. The students actually did very good for the activity and greatly enjoyed the lesson. They told me that it was more fun than sitting in class, which who really enjoys that. I also did the dance with the students, most of them liked it, but there were about four boys who didn't enjoy it. After we were finished with the whole lesson, the students were a little rambuctious which is expected after playing a game. But overall I thought that the lesson went smoothly and the students really enjoyed it.

1st of many learning experiences

I was so excited and nervous to teach my first lesson this semester. I taught social studies and the concept of supply and demand. I wasn't able to teach till 2:00 p.m. and by this time the kids were already ready to go home and not paying a bit of attention to their teacher. Which didn't make me the happiest person in the world, becuase I knew it would be extremely difficult to get them to focus on the lesson. Like I have said in the past, there is no classroom management in place in our practicum classroom. So, I took it upon myself to use the "Give me 5" technique since I knew most of the students had expereienced it in other classrooms. I literally had to use it every 5 mins. to keep them focused on the lesson. It did make a small dent in all the chaos. Plus, I had a student who didn't take their medicine and was literally acting like a monkey (climbing things in the classroom). It really challenged me to use the classroom management techniques I had learned in cottingham's class and from previous CT's and apply them effectively. I felt I did a good job and was reassured by my partner Lindsey. I will now be better prepared for when I teach my 2nd lesson this upcoming Wednesday. Even my partner, said she learned alot by watching how the students reacted to the "give me 5" technique and plans to use it when teaching her own lessons. If anyone else has some effective techniques for dealing with a large group of rambucious students, please let me know. Thanks!

I hope everyone else who is teaching first had a great experience and good luck to those teaching 2nd!

S.S.

Today we actually were able to go to our school and teach! We taught our lessons on George Washington and Abe Lincoln and our CT loved what we did. She told us that she would have never of thought of the activities we did and the way we did it. We created a cherry tree to go along with the myth of George Washington and the kids had to write one thing they learned about him and we drew and cut-out a tree to be displayed in the hallway and the "cherries" were actually the cut-out of George Washington's face. We also had a cut out of Abe Lincoln and the kids received one black strip each and they had to write one thing they learned about Abe Lincoln and then the strips were used to create Abe's hat. The students and CT loved them both. She feels bad keeping them, but we don't mind. Pictures will be available if anyone wants a visual. Hope everyone is able to catch up on their lessons as we have today.

Practicum

Well, of course this week, we had a snow day (which I was very grateful for!!!). We didn't really get a chance to see any social studies on Monday though. As I said before, we are going to start going to our class in the morning to be able to see more work (possibly). I am getting ready to begin teaching on Monday morning (our Social Studies Unit). I am looking foward to it, yet somewhat nervous about the way that the students will accept us and react to us being in front of them teaching. They are not used to this method at all!!! It will be interesting though.

Integrating science/math lesson in social studies.

If you are about to teach your Math or Science unit, I was just curious about how you could integrate your science or math lesson into a social studies topic. My science lesson is concerning weather and climate. This can be integrated into a many different social studies topics. We could study different cultures who live in climates that we are not familiar with. We could discuss the weather in that climate and how it affects that particular cultures way of life. What they wear, eat, what kinds of houses do they live in, etc... You could also talk about what a particlular culture imports and exports depending on what climate they live in. The geography of a certain climate region and the landforms associated with it and how these landforms affect the weather.(Rainforest, Tropical grassland, Arctic, etc) Economics can also be addressed when talking about weather and climate, we could use farming as a good example for that. The list could go on and on but unfortunately I can not at this moment.
In my math class they are currently studying coordinate planes and plotting points on a plane. The teacher would ask for another name for the x and y axis and the students refered to them as latitude and longitude. Learning coordinate planes can easily be integrated into a map skill unit.
Post back and tell me how your lesson can be integrated into social studies? If you are teaching social studies first, then how can your lesson be integrated into science or math?

Am i behind?

everyone is already teaching it seems like, Brock and i havent got our unit together yet!!! I guess this means we better get it together.

Snow Day

Hope that everyone is enjoying their snow day, I'm spending it getting caught up on school work. Samantha taught her first lesson Monday and it went very good. I teach next week and am going to teach the water cycle. I am very excited, I am going to do the water cycle activity and song with them that Rheeda Hart did with us in science class. She is making available the game for us to borrow if necessary to Rowley, so I don't have to do anything but put together the lesson plan. Hope everyone else's lessons are going just as good as ours are.

What is your class currently studying in Social Studies?

I was just curious about what topics are being covered in your social studies class. Right now my class is finishing up the Revolutionary War. On my first day of observation they were comparing and contrasting loyalists and patriots. The students did this by creating a T chart and listing important details about both sides. Just recently the students presented their own Revolutionalry War game. The class had to create some type of game(game show or board game) about the revolutionary war. The students were given the choice to work alone or in small groups of two or three. They had the freedom to choose whatever game they wanted as long as it contained 40 questions regarding the revolutionary war. Some of the games I observed were Jeopardy, boardgames using monopoly pieces, and the game of life with a revoultionary war twist. This was a very fun and exciting project. It was obvious that the students had a great time creating and playing these games. I have a copy of the rubric and directions available and will try to post these in the future.Reply back and let me know what grade you are observing and what is going on in your classroom regarding social studies? What topics are your students currently studying? What instrucional activities are being used to teach these topics? How are the students being assessed?

Science Unit

Well, here goes nothin'. I'm a little nervous about teaching my unit. Its on polar bears. I had so much to cover until Eric suggested I slim it down to one, big overall concept, like camouflage. So I did. However, I still feel a little underprepared. Reading was not problem, but science isn't my cup of tea, I'm assuming that why I'm a little timid.
Anyone else feeling a little anxious about their units?

Practicum

So far, our practicum has gone fairly well. The students are great and Stephens Elementary is a wonderful school. We are just somewhat discouraged because we don't feel very useful while we are there, or that we are really gaining much experience that we can use later. The Montessori style of classroom is a very neat concept, but the students spend long periods of time sitting on their individual rugs (because there are no desks) and work on whatever they choose to work on. A lot of times, they work on thier own and therefore there are long periods of time that we cannot do anything other than make copies or sit and observe them. The teacher does not teach in front of the classroom, the students are supposed to teach themselves and learn on their own. We asked our CT on Wednesday if we can start coming in the mornings so that we might be able to see more things happening. We'll see! On Wednesday, we were able to see a couple of the students work a very large world map puzzle. It was very nice to see them working together and being able to have a finished product from team work.

I thought the Library was for reading...

however, I didn't witness this happening during the library special for my first graders. The first graders retunred their books at the cirrculation desk, The students were then directed to a caret where I was expecting them to be read to. This had always been my experience in gradeschool.

I was shocked to see the librarian put on a Big Comfy Couch episode. I thought this was terrible. The librairan, who should be the biggest advocate of reading, totally resorted to a video instead of a book.

The majority of their time, about thirty-five minutes, they watched the video. Then they had to scurry to select books to check out.

I was NOT impressed.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

Hola Fellow Groupies,

Of course there is a snow day today for Campbell County...and of course we have to be at NKU all day today. Figures! I understand now why teachers don't mind snow days every now and then...

Heather and I are getting a little restless in our 5th grade class. This grade is much more independent than the younger ones we've worked with, so we end up sitting. A lot. We told our CT yesterday that we'd really like to interact with the kids more, so we sat with different groups during math. However, the majority of the day was spent doing secretarial duties...copying, cutting, and grading. "These are the duties teachers have to do!" our CT sung to us as if she was revealing some great secret. WE KNOW. But that doesn't mean that WE want to be doing it during our time there! We're supposed to be learning to teach, right? When I have practicum students some day, I vow to not make them spend their time being my secretary. I'll be the queen bee and they can be worker bees...NOT grading bees. :)

We did get to observe a social studies lesson. Or rather, a social studies activity. The students watched a video from United Streaming about the Boston Tea Party and answered questions on a worksheet as they watched it. Not my idea of a great lesson, but at least we finally observed one.

I hope I'm not sounding too bitter. I'm just ready to have my own classroom. This observing thing isn't cutting it anymore. Senioritis has kicked in and I'm ready to be, officially, Mrs. Mullins the teacher. Not Mrs. Mullins the practicum student.

Ta ta for now. Here's wishing for at least one more snow day. Preferably on a Monday or Wednesday ;)

SS in class

I do not see a lot of S. S. in the classroom officially; however our CT did discuss what presidents were on money and had the kids examine and discuss. Our CT also asks questions regarding the students family history and geography, for example one of the pairs of twins in our class their parents are out of town and our teachers asks where so theres a little geography or asks kids which family memeber owns certain companies around KY. Other than that we don't really see official lessons on it or have it thrown right in our face we have to do some thinking and relate it to history.

Gaining Momentum

Yesterday, was only our 2nd day at Reiley and already our CT is letting Lindsey & I have a hand in teaching our second/third grade students. She let us take over the reading aloud of a chapter book called the "The Journey". She told us that she plans to let us take over the class more often, as much as we feel comfortable with. We are both really excited about this, since we both want as much experience as we can get under our belts before student teaching this fall. Has anyone else's teachers let them start to teach?

I do have to say that as fun and nice as our CT is, I have to be honest in the fact that she doesn't really inspire me much with her teaching style. You can tell she teaches from the old way of thinking: using textbooks and lecture to teach the content. She tends to rush through material and jump around alot. Our class is composed of many below-grade level students and I don't think she recognizes the fact that she is going way to fast for them to comprehend the material. She is getting close to retiring and I feel she is just going through the motions alot and not putting the extra effort into her lessons as she might have done in the past. I feel that that the students in our class need for her to really slow down and try to appeal to other learning types. She really seems to favor lecture and reading from the textbook. Does anyone else's teachers inspire them or not?

Is anyone else teaching Social Studies first? I teach my first lesson on February 12th...I am so anxious and nervous at the same time.

P.S. Abby I typed mine from the couch, I know it's not as luxurious as the toliet, I guess we all can't bethat lucky! :)

Practicum

Yesterday was a great day at our practicum. We actually were able to help the students instead of just sitting back and watching her teach. The students are great and really enjoy having us their and the teacher is excited too. I think that it is going to be a great semester.

1st Day/Social Studies Unit

Lindsey and I are at Reiley Elementary in Mrs. Ihrig's 2/3 grade class. Our first day went better than expected and we absolutely love our CT. She is so fun and goofy (but in a good way) and runs a really relaxed classroom. This obivously has an effect on her classroom management skills or lack there of. The students seem to have free reign of the classroom; they come and go as they please. I think we will have a challenging semester ahead for us, we are working with a low group of students who really need a lot of support. A funny little side note: while we were leaving on our 1st day Mrs. Ihrig was telling us about how tired she was and ready to retire and then told us she hoped that this didn't give us a negative view of being in her class this semester.

Another great thing about Mrs. Ihrig, is that she has given Lindsey and I free reign on picking the topic of our social studies unit. We choose Economics - Supply & Demand. We had our meeting with Mr. Besnoy this morning, and really came up with some great ideas of how to engage our students in our 4 lesson plans. We are going to show a video about the effect of the frost on the orange crop in California. We also have 2 greats songs on supply & demand. I hope everyone else's topics are coming together as easily as ours.

I hope everyone enjoyed their day off on Wednesday...I didn't get to sleep in, but I did get to catch up on some future assignments I have due. I also hope everyone has a great weekend :)

Social Skills

Brock and I are in a fun 4th grade class, the CT Mr. Jackson is a pretty cool guy layed back and has us jump right in there helping the students. The principal said to Brock and i before dropping us off to the classroom that we are in a very challenging 4th grade class. When i got in there i could see what she was talking about, because the potential for some major chaos is there, however Mr. Jackson has very good control of the class, he approaches the class with a lot of kindness in a stern kind of way. Yesterday he did have to suspend a kid for pushing. The kid likes to push a lot and randomly chooses the students he decides to push. Some social skills are needed for some of the students.

Practicum

I had a great second day at my practicum. There was one funny epsisode yesterday. The students were all sitting on the carpet sharing their papers. Well one of the boys slapped theirself when the teacher was waiting on them to be quiet. The teacher asked what that solved slapping their self in the face. The student said I don't know, but the student in front of them said so his mom doesn't have to do it, with a straight face. It was hiliarious, the teacher, Sam, and I had to turn around so that the students didn't see us laughing. I thought the teacher did a very good job at turning away and not letting the children know.

S.S. Unit

Yesterday Dawn and I found out what we are going to be teaching our kindergartners for our first unit. We are going to be teaching about Presidents for our S. S. Unit. We have already came up with neat ideas and lessons, but if anyone has any suggestions or ideas let me know I'd appreciate it. The more resources/info. a teacher can have the better. Thanks.

Social Studies in the Classroom

On my and Sarah's first day in our practicum last week, we noticed social studies in progress... The classroom has a system set up as a community. They are called citizens and they have rules to be good citizens. They also earn money as they do good things and they are punished by giving up money. Afte 2 weeks, a store is opened so that the students can purchase items with the money that they earned. The students are also in groups as names of streets. This system is good for the students. They are learning what it's like to be a citizen and they don't even realize that they are part of a real community themselves.

Practicum at Stephens

I had a great first day at my practicum. The teacher was very inviting and even had a chance to sit down and talk with us. The staff was also very friendly and welcoming. The students in our class are great, they really enjoy having practicum students, they had two last semester also. I think that it is going to be a great semester in our practicum for me and my partner (Sam).

First Day at Stephens

Well, the first day is over and it was a really different experience from any other that I've had while doing practicums. The school is a great environment and everyone was very inviting and welcoming. As we were walking through the halls for our tour, teachers introduced themselves and told us to "never hesitate to ask" if we ever needed anything. Our classroom is set up in the Montessori style setting, which is very different for me. There are no desks in the classroom and everything is done on individual floor rugs with the students. They work in a very individual setting on their rugs with periodic "presentations" by the classroom teacher. During the work time, we were able to walk around and engage ourselves in the tasks with them. Some of the students were working on a map of South America that they were learning about this week. They had various things that they were to locate and label on their own map to turn in. Right now it seems like it will be a little difficult adjusting to the setting of our classroom, but it will be a great learning experience and I'm sure we will definitely learn a lot from it!

Cottingham would have a field day with this one...

WOW~
The first day in my classroom was a little exhausting and all I did was sit at a table in a 7inch high chair. When MaCall and I entered we were both floored at the lack of apparent classroom management and messiness.
The students were "playing" a math game in pairs. The teacher stood by her desk with a giant worksheet. The students didn't have their own sheets to work from. When the students weren't getting what they were supposed to do, she gathered them to the carpet where she did a few mock game plays on a child size whiteboard. On this board, things weren't erased thoroughly. It was very hard for me to follow what she was doing, let alone 23 first graders.
When the children were getting to loud, she shh'd them, and shh'd them, and shh'd them some more.
Later, she said he classroom works as a community. The students get paid for their class jobs, get good behavior citation and bad behavior fines. This idea sounds great- a year long whole class social studies lesson- but I didn't see it implemented. If this community is on the verge of anarchy.
I'm anticipating my next visit. Hopefully, things will be more in order.

First Day

Hi everyone, hopefully everyone's first day went as well as mine. Everyone in the school is actively involved with the kids. The custodians at this school take on more responsibility than the typical roles of a custodian, for example they make their own bulletin boards without being asked and they are in charge of the robotics team at the school. Another neat aspect to the school is each classroom has a city and state along with a mailbox. The "post office" is ran by fourth and fifth graders and anyone who has the address can send mail to anyone as long as they have the correct address. I also discovered a couple of field trip opportunities that can be related to Social Studies that are in walking distance of the school.

Hi Everybody!! First day reminder!!

Since everyone has already talked about being nervous or excited their first day i will just give you a first day reminder. Remember a firm handshake and a smile to light up the room!!!!

Day Number One...

Hello Dear Group Members!

I think that blogging is kind of fun - pretty much like keeping a public journal - which kind of freaks me out, but is interesting and entertaining too...

Anyway, I'm super excited about our first day with our CTs and have been highly anticipating a great experience since I left my CT last semester. (I feel like such a nerd saying "CT" after referring to them as "practicum teachers" for the past year, by the way.) I emailed my CT today, Ms. Gross, and asked if there was anything Heather and I could do to prepare for tomorrow. She replied quickly and said: "Bring chocolates and/or sweets!" I like her already.

I am actually teaching Social Studies during the first unit, so I should have a lot to relate relatively quickly. Hopefully I'll have lots of helpful insights to share.

Looking forward to blogging with y'all!

PS. This is funny - the best place to pick up internet in my apartment is my bathroom. So, yes, I am sitting on the toilet seat (closed, of course) stealing internet access from my neighbors :)

1st Day with Students!

I hope everyone has a wonderful first day at their schools. I know everyone will have wonderful students and teachers to work with this semester. Can't wait to hear about everyone's first couple days of practicum.

This is a Test

Hello class

Nervous about Wednesday?

As I think about starting our practicums on Wednesday, I have no nervousness about the situation. With everyday that passes, I just continue to tell myself that I am one day closer to graduation. I plan on taking this semester as a learning experience as I have done with each semester before this one. This semester we will each continue to grow as we learn how to become the wonderful teachers that we all one day want to become.

This semester I will be working with 1st grade students. I observed in a 1st grade classroom so I have an understanding on what to expect. From my previous experience, 1st graders are very loving. I am a little cautious about teaching them. It's harder to keep their attention since they are so small. It will be a challenge that I am ready for.

I am very excited about this experience! I love being with children and this age is a very fun age! I think the students will welcome Sarah and I with welcoming arms and open minds. The age of the children is a great age, they are still "sweet and innocent" but yet starting to grow. This is an age that they will learn and grow as students and as young children.

I am very excited about this learning experience! It is going to be a fun and challenging time, and I am looking forward to every moment of it!

Anticipation

Wednesday is the first day at your placement - I'm sure some are nervous. What do you anticipate the classroom to look like? How do you think the students will react to you being in the classroom? Take a moment to create a new post - make these predictions. On Wednesday, take a moment and share with us your 1st impressions.

Trying it out

Just trying it out to see if I'm doing it right - Amy Greer

Welcome to this Blogging Group

Welcome to this blogging group. The purpose of this blog is for you to reflect and share the social studies eduction experiences that you have in your elementary practicum placement. I look forward to reading all your reflections.