This week was a good week. The more I teach and interact with the students the more confident I feel and more I want to just keep teaching. I wish everyday could be Tuesday Thursday so I could just be there every day. I love this so much more then my other classes. I have a slower reaction to my real name as well since I hear “Miss Elliott” all the time now. A huge thought that has been with me each day is that I know I could not have any kind of impact or progress with the students if it wasn’t for the spirit. I know that if I didn’t start each day with prayer and ask for the guidance and have the spirit there teaching with me. This week has been full of good thoughts and feels and growing confidence.
This week:
· Did the reading lesson. I read to the class The Mural. Really all it consists of is reading through the story and in the teacher book there are questions and other things to ask and do with the students during the story. At the start as a class using choral reading we read the preface. We went over the vocabulary words they would come across in the story and in their work book pages. After each page I would ask them the comprehension questions that went along with the pages. I started calling on students whose hands weren’t up since I had the same three girls who would raise their hands even before I had asked the question. I didn’t want to call on the same students over and over. A lot of the questions were what they thought would happen. When there are multiple answers they wouldn’t be wrong. I liked seeing some of them smile after sharing a thought and finding out it was a good point. There were also a few parts in the book that told me to write a word on the board and talk to the class about how a new ending to a word changes how the word is broken up into syllables.
· I had a mini lesson on writing words and what you had to do to the word to add the ending on it. The students spelling words for the week end in -ed or –ing and they had to identify what to do to the base word to make the new word. (dropping the e). I wrote the first one on the board and asked them what I should do to it. After I did one I started writing just base words on the board and had the student come up and show me how they should write it and tell me and the class what they did to the word to make it that way. I also threw in some other questions like why are you putting -ed at the end if the ending sound is /t/? The class is so smart they know that –ed makes three different sounds and they knew that the end of the word had to be –ed.
· Comparing Adjectives (adding –er or –est). The students needed to identify when to use –er or –est when comparing adjectives. The students were able to answer when I just asked them about how many items when I use –er but when I did switched the answer with the question they became confused. They did a worksheet later and were able to identify the ending on that. They started actually using them in the class talking about who was shorter and who was shortest. One of them in a conversation almost got me to use the wrong comparing word. It was a close call, if they hadn’t been learning about them I probably would not have caught myself.
· We did some comparing and contrasting in class this week. The students were able to answer when I just asked them about how many items when I use –er but when I did switched the answer with the question they became confused. They did a worksheet later and were able to identify the ending on that. Student were able to pick apart a paragraph and say what only belonged to two different things and say what those two things also had in common. I was surprised how fast they picked up on it. It really only took a reminder from me to point out in the paragraph they were reading from to look for where is says “both stories” and where is said just said the name of one of the two kids.
· One math lesson this week was on translations. I went into the lesson thinking it was going to be a hard lesson to teach but the students picked up in very fast. I took to school with me my stuffed animal to use to show slide, turn, and flip. The class just LOVED it. I told them and showed them what each thing was. The Saxon lesson wanted me to show them a bunch of examples but I deiced to let the students come down and show me the examples. I also changed the game up a bit. They came down and moved the dog and showed me on the board what they did so I knew they knew what they were doing. While that happened the classes eyes were closed. When they opened them a student would come down and tell me what they other student did and then they would have to undo it so the dog would be back in its starting position. The class did their first worksheet and came back to the kiva and had so much to say about what they learned. They had a lot of fun with this lesson. They did their last worksheet so well that they even earned getting to pet and hold my dog stuffed animal while they lined up to leave for the day.
· My 2nd math lesson of the week was reading and labeling a coordinate graph. The most important thing I did with this lesson is I stressed going right then up. I really do have a smart class because they caught on very fast. They even realized that when the 2nd number is the same they will be living on the same street (I related it to addresses and houses). I had the student come up and tell me the addresses to ones drawn on the board and then I would give them address and they would place them on the graph for me. When we went back to their seats we normally go through the first worksheet together but as I was walking around the room they are all finishing it up on their own. We went back to the kiva to talk about what we learned and they were all excited to tell me the different things they learned about for the lesson. The final worksheet went very well.
My stop and think point this week was during my math lesson on Thursday. I was being observed by Sister Gordon and one boy was acting up the whole time. I did what I normally do when the class acts up but he didn’t stop. He was the only one who was misbehaving that didn’t stop after one time. I lost all my points for classroom management. I had been feeling so good about everything and one boy in the class got me totally marked down and I felt horrible and lost every bit of confidence after talking to Sister Gordon. I guess I felt even worse because she started off saying amazing things and building me up so high then it all came crashing down. She had also told me that I need to be more positive when student do things right rather than just focusing on those kids doing things wrong. I was sitting there after she left and the class was doing something else just thinking and going through my binder. I do focus on what the students are doing wrong over when they are doing good things. I need to watch for those good things. I thought I was but maybe I need to do a little more and reinforce the good behavior.
My main plan is to work on my classroom management. I thought I had a good system down and the class had never gotten out of control and when it did I fixed it right away. But after getting observed I have no management from what I was told. So finding a way to make sure the class is on task and not doing over and over again what that one boy was doing all during my lesson on Thursday. I have those few students I am still trying to work with to help them and find the best way to be able to get through to them. I made a brake through with one on Tuesday and I hope to keep making progress with him.
<3 Erin Christina
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