Each placement I am in I try to soak in as much as I can. I want to get a feel for why each teacher does the things she does and sometimes I don't always get to talk with the teacher as often as I want to. I feel like I have a million questions floating around in my head each day. But, I've also learned alot just by observing and not necessarily getting a concrete answer from the teacher. One thing I really enjoyed was how my teacher used a variety of techniques to help her students with comprehension. The students' lowest scores on the pre-CRCT for language-arts was comprehension. One way that I really enjoyed was through read-a-louds. She found an on-grade level and interesting book to read. She read a chapter each day. As she was reading, she would stop every so often and say, question number 1. The students had their paper, pencils, and clipboards ready. She was ask a question about the setting, or a character, or about the plot. The students knew they had to pay attention while she was reading or they wouldn't be able to answer the question. The students were active participants and they would start sighing when she said we'll continue reading tomorrow. I love seeing 4th graders who are still so excited and involved in reading. My teacher used other methods such as reading comprehension cards. The card would have a short story on it with four questions. The students completed these as morning work and she could easily grade them using the answer card. The students who missed more than one question would have a short mini-lesson during the reading portion of the day to go over what they missed and how to make sure they get the correct answer next time.
Post 2:
This week in my placement I wanted to do something fun since it's my last day. I've tried to do something food related at each of my placements as a good-bye activity. My favorite was in first grade when we made ice cream sundaes. The students had to write about their favorite type of ice cream and then make a delicious bowl of ice cream! This time I had to create a lesson around re-phrasing/understanding the flow of paragraphs. I did a powerpoint overview of the differnt parts of a paragraph and an example one as a class. I then had my students determine the correct order of a paragraph while working in teams. The paragraph had to do with fruit and the benefits of eating fruit. After they put the paragraph in the correct order they got to make their own "fruit - kabob".
Each placement I am in I try to soak in as much as I can. I want to get a feel for why each teacher does the things she does and sometimes I don't always get to talk with the teacher as often as I want to. I feel like I have a million questions floating around in my head each day. But, I've also learned alot just by observing and not necessarily getting a concrete answer from the teacher. One thing I really enjoyed was how my teacher used a variety of techniques to help her students with comprehension. The students' lowest scores on the pre-CRCT for language-arts was comprehension. One way that I really enjoyed was through read-a-louds. She found an on-grade level and interesting book to read. She read a chapter each day. As she was reading, she would stop every so often and say, question number 1. The students had their paper, pencils, and clipboards ready. She was ask a question about the setting, or a character, or about the plot. The students knew they had to pay attention while she was reading or they wouldn't be able to answer the question. The students were active participants and they would start sighing when she said we'll continue reading tomorrow. I love seeing 4th graders who are still so excited and involved in reading. My teacher used other methods such as reading comprehension cards. The card would have a short story on it with four questions. The students completed these as morning work and she could easily grade them using the answer card. The students who missed more than one question would have a short mini-lesson during the reading portion of the day to go over what they missed and how to make sure they get the correct answer next time.
Post 2:
This week in my placement I wanted to do something fun since it's my last day. I've tried to do something food related at each of my placements as a good-bye activity. My favorite was in first grade when we made ice cream sundaes. The students had to write about their favorite type of ice cream and then make a delicious bowl of ice cream! This time I had to create a lesson around re-phrasing/understanding the flow of paragraphs. I did a powerpoint overview of the differnt parts of a paragraph and an example one as a class. I then had my students determine the correct order of a paragraph while working in teams. The paragraph had to do with fruit and the benefits of eating fruit. After they put the paragraph in the correct order they got to make their own "fruit - kabob".