Placement+1+Week+7+Experience

Week of March 1st, 2010

3/1/10

I can hardly believe I am beginning the seventh week of working together with Mrs. Herring and her students! At the start of this, my full week of time with the class, I am amazed at the wonderful camaraderie I have developed with Kristy, her paraprofessionals, and the other teachers I have met. I also noticed this morning how much I enjoy checking with each of the students every morning, calling on them by name and asking how they are doing today. I like hearing about their exciting weekend adventures and getting them started on new learning discoveries each day. It's a nice feeling because I feel like I have a "place" in the whole educational universe, as cheesy as that might sound!

Today, like always, was full of unexpected excitement. I shared some fun learning websites with the students - [|www.NationalGeographicKids.com], [|www.LearningPlanet.com], and another called "Windows to the Universe" at [|www.windows.ucar.edu]. Mrs. Herring really appreciated that because sites like these offer good, content-based learning fun that the kids enjoy.

There was also a fire drill this afternoon - cause for even more excitement! Boy did all the students have questions about what was going on. They wanted to know if the fire was real or imaginary, if the fire department would really come, how long they needed to remain lined up and standing outside, if they could help hold the fire hose with the fire men, and could they have snack or more time on the computers when we returned to class? One student wasn't particularly happy that he wasn't warned about the loud alarm sound. He also thought it might be better if I could have called his bus driver to come pick him up to go home right then, because he was finished with school for the day, he said! :o) What a day!



3/2/10

Exceptional education is really about being resourceful and working with what you've got. Today during reading time, my student was to listen to the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as it was read aloud to him, then discuss that it is a nursery rhyme. While he enjoyed doing this, he also mentioned that he thought someone should rewrite the poem to be about him. Seizing the "teachable moment," I told him that we could most certainly do just that!

So, we ended up with a thoroughly imaginative, new, and improved version of the classic nursery rhyme which I've published below for you to read with my student's permission.

**Colin had a little chicken Its feathers were yellow as pee It followed him to school one day It was a herd of chickens and the baby chicks This was against the rules So Colin told the chicken and its baby chicks to attack!**

After my little author completed his masterpiece, he decided to illustrate his poetic work of art by creating a chick and hen on yellow construction paper and covering each with tiny bits of crumpled yellow tissue paper. It was just clucky, if I may say so!

I was very happy to see that the students each made good choices almost all day long. We are still working on not letting things bother us unless they are very important, but each day we improve a little more!


 * Before sharing my student's poem, I changed his name to protect his privacy.

3/3/10

Today was a wonderful day full of lots of learning fun! We continued learning about Nursery Rhymes during reading time by working again with Mary Had a Little Lamb. Our activity today was to reconstruct the rhyme after it had been cut into tiny strips. In order to be able to share his hard work, my student decided that he wanted to glue the finished poem to construction paper and attach his lamb that he created yesterday. Great job reading and getting all those words in order, buddy!

Another fun activity we took part in today happened during Science time. Since we are still learning about seeds, we conducted an experiment to see if things we think are seeds will grow. To do this, we wet a small piece of sponge, placed it in a pie pan we had labeled with our names with a little more water (to keep it moist), and sprinkled things that might be seeds on the wet sponge. We hypothesized that if our objects are really seeds we will be able to tell in a few days because they will probably grow. If they do not grow, then they are not seeds.

During this activity we also spent time describing the objects we think are seeds as we examined them with magnifying glasses. We described what we saw. Then, we discussed ways to determine if there really was a baby plant inside each seed. The class decided that we could try to break each "seed" open to look inside for the sprout, but then they would not have the chance to grow. So, the best way is to just try growing the possible seed, and if it does grow, then we can all be sure that what we've got is really a seed! How scientific!!

3/4/10

If I've learned anything this week, it's to capitalize on those little teachable moments! After completing his journal writing activity this morning, my student asked me if we could create a board game to help practice his addition and subtraction skills instead of just working on his workbook for math. I proposed a compromise - we did the workbook pages, but also made time for creating and playing his super amazing board game, too.

Together, we designed, illustrated, constructed, and played his idea of the "best math game ever before invented". He even enticed a few classmates into joining him for a game or two of adding and subtracting excitement. I was really proud to help my student stretch his learning in such a hands-on and creative way, plus it was a ton of fun!



3/5/10

A teacher told me today that "every job has stress and frustration, the difference with teaching is that we call it the learning process...and we keep coming back for more." I am proud to day that I lasted a whole week in the role of a real teacher, and I'm still just as excited as ever to come back on Monday! I'm sad that next week will be my final week working with Kristy, her students, paraprofessionals, and the rest of the NCES faculty and staff. I've had so much fun, gained so much confidence in my ability to help the kids learn, and I've loved connecting with them every chance I've had.

Let the nervous anticipation begin though, because week after next, I'll begin my internship experience at Narcoossee Middle School as a middle school teacher of 7th and 8th grade students with exceptionalities! Super exciting!!