Week 7 CES

This week was my first week of full-time teaching, and I feel like it was a very successful week for me.  I am constantly learning better ways to teach subject matter.  While talking to another teacher, I learned that it is a good idea to give students a few minutes of exploration time when using manipulatives in a lesson.  During this time, they are able to do whatever they like with the manipulatives before the teacher starts the lesson.  Exploration time helps teachers with behavior management if he or she states her expectations after the time is up.  Also, I have learned how important it is to constantly walk around while the students are doing a task. The students are more likely to stay engaged if they know their teacher will walk by and make sure they are doing what they are suppose to be doing.  After praising students for doing well, I have found calling out names and stating my expected behavior very helpful.

Week 6 CES

This week I have been preparing for my full-time teaching.  I think that having more time by myself in the classroom has helped me make spur of the moment decisions on how to do things.  I have learned that things can come up and might alter the lesson I have planned.  Also, I have thought of better ways to do activities that I did not think about while I was planning.  These decisions have shown me the importance of being flexible in the classroom.  On a couple of days, I felt like schedule changes threw me for a loop.  Now, I feel like I am getting better with going with the flow and making last minute decisions if needed.  I have also noticed the importance of reflection.  I think I need to sit down after each day and write the things that worked and did not work from my lessons.  I want to think about how I could do activities differently where I will be better prepared the next time.  This week I noticed that the dry erase markers worked better than the base ten blocks for the place value mats.  When we used blocks, I had at least one person start building with them each day.  I did not have any problems with the markers.  They all liked writing the numbers in the boxes to solve.

Week 5 CES

This week I saw how my students' behavior can change when their schedule is altered.  They have to take benchmark tests, so their whole morning routine was messed up.  The students kept asking many questions because they did not know when they could take AR test or other things they do through the day. Behavior management was even more a challenge for me this week because the students act like they forgot their expectations when started back on our normal routine Thursday. I many more interruptions than I do on normal weeks.  Monday, I plan on going back and making sure that I stay firm where we can go through our daily routines smoothly.  Mrs. Britt had a great suggestion for reading groups. I will walk around to see if any students have questions when my reading groups are changing. This will limit distractions, and I will not be bombarded with questions at the end of my last group.

During math, I need to remember to add my conclusion of the lesson. Also, I think I need to move more quickly through the sideshow where the students can have more time for independent practice. I want to spend a majority of my time on introducing the new material and allowing time for practice.  I want to start using a timer for activities.

Week 4 CES

This week, we learned about contractions.  I really did not know how to explain them to the students when I was studying over the material.  I liked the explanation that Mrs. Britt gave me for contractions.  I used it when I taught the lessons.  She explained that contractions are words that collide together like a car wreck.  Sometimes cars lose parts in a wrecks.  Words can lose letters when they collide together.  I also explained that an apostrophe replaces the letters are missing.  I liked this explanation because it was something that they could relate to.  Last week, I noticed that the students were trying to get ahead of me when we were counting in math slideshow.  I liked how Mrs. Britt stopped the pointer to see if everyone was paying attention.  The students started paying more attention to where my pointer was when I taught on Tuesday.  Next week, I am going to talk to the whole group about how they sit during math slideshow.  After lunch, they are trying to spread out too far, and they are not paying attention as well.  Over the weekend and next week, I need to focus on finding double-digit subtraction games.  Also I need to finish my lesson for the unit. By the second week of my unit, I want to start looking for games for the next weeks material.  I  want to help plan more where I will not feel like I am not doing enough.