1st lesson

March 16- Today's lesson was the first of five lessons for our unit on Kingergarten Economics. We began with an interactive read aloud and my partner K led this first half of our lesson. She read a story called "Caps for Sale," a perfect story to fit with our follow-up activity on coins. She did a great job reading the story, engaging the students and really helping them understand the meaning of the story. I was very pleased and proud of my partner. Following the interactive read-aloud we went into instruction time. We discussed coins, particularly we covered penny, nickel, dime and quarter. I was very happy to see that most of the students had covered this in their classroom prior to this lesson. Well they had focused on one at least, the nickel. I originally planned to simply discuss these coins by showing them a picture and having one of the kids come up and paste the corresponding name and its value next to it using the easel board. However I realized that with this particular group you really have to be very careful with how you plan instruction time. Instruction for these kids is often a frustrating experience. My classroom has several, I would imagine actually the majority of the classroom has kids with behavioral problems, some with severe and pronounced ones. So when it comes to teaching a lesson it's often a bit stressful on both ends. So I knew that I really had to push this lesson, really help them see beyond. so i changed my lesson a bit. for the discussion in order to help them remember the value of the penny, i used my fingers and hands to show them. For the penny i said, "boys and girls, how much is a penny worth?" and some knew it was one cent while others shouted 10 cents, so i told them, "everyone lets raise one finger and wiggle it around, one penny is one finger, keep that in your head." then i moved on to a nickel and again i used my fingers, I said, "A nickel is 5 cents so thats one hand or how many fingers in one hand boys and girls?" and they shouted "fingers," and so forth. i could really see from their expressions that this helped them actually understand how much these coins were worth, or at least i saw this for the time being. so after working with coins and their values i demonstrated what they were to do at their tables. for this activity, the kids would play the role of buyer. each child had 4 coin picture cards (picture cards of a penny, nickel, dime and quarter with the corresponding value next to it to help them remember) then in the middle of the table they had 10 pictures (2 sets of 5 pictures: a doll worth 10 cents, a pencil worth 1 cent, a beach ball worth 10 cents, a book 5 cents and a soccer ball worth 25 cents). so the object was for each child to go around twice and use their coin cards to exchange or purchase an object from the middle of the table. so for example, the child would use one of their coin cards, the 10 cent and exchange that card for the doll, saying "i want to buy..."
The lesson overall went well there were still students who were confused especially when they had to record what they bought in the worksheet. some wanted more than two turns while others were as usual distracted by other things. i think this classroom has been challenging for me because i always have to think outside the box and by this i mean that a lot of times i have had to as in the past improvise. i think though this is a great experience for me because i can see something like this happening in the future and fortunately i have completed my lessons successfully even though i did had to improvise some parts of the lesson. i think the climate of this classroom has also helped me think about what i will do if i do have students with severe behavioral problems, how will i accomodate with their needs and how will i still continue teaching the classroom. i think that i am very pleased that i am working with mrs. m because she has been of great support and she always gives us a heads up for how the classroom is behaving or how their behavior has changed, if any. i am looking forward to my next lesson on tuesday.

3rd Observation: Pre-Assessment

March 2- Today we admistered our pre-assessment for our unit. Because our unit has three different focus areas--community jobs, wants and needs, and money--we wanted to an interactive assessment. So we divided the class into three stations that they were to work at. The first station was the money or identification of coins like a penny, nickel, dime, quarter; the second station was individual work--they had to draw a job they knew about or were familiar with; the third station was group work again and they worked with sorting picture cards that showed either a want or a need. From the results of this pre-assessment I noticed that the students' familiarity with the unit was somewhat satisfactory. That is, at the first station studetns were familiar with coins however they still need to work on how much each coin is worth. In terms of jobs, most of the students knew what jobs were but there were two students who thought a job was a task, like "cleaning my room," a student wrote on her paper. So we definetely need to work from there, introduce them that that particular task is indeed a job that has to be completed but also let them know that a job entails more than a task..etc etc. At the third station, the students knew the difference of a want and need, but there were still a couple of students who were confused with these terms. For example, T placed the barbie under the need category and when I asked her why she made that choice she said, "I love barbies so I need them" I think we definetely will have a great unit, hopefully a successful one and one of course that will be memorable to the students. I am looking forward to our first lesson next week.

Second Observation

February 27- Today's observation was held at a different time. usually my partner and I always go in the morning but today we decided to observe in the afternoon. Mrs. M was not there, so her assistant teacher was in charge of the students. I was very surprised and in a way shocked that the students engaged in play time for that last hour before school ended. I thought that Mrs. M would have the assistant teach a lesson or continue with a lesson, however when we came in the kids were allowed to have "free play time." I was upset because I strongly believe that time is so critical and specially time that should be otherwise devoted to instruction. nevertheless, from what I could observe I noticed that students were very happy and more collaborative, more cooperative with one another than when they usually are in a regular day. In other words, the kids were very nice to each other. For example, usually K is disruptive and sometimes even not nice to his classmates, but today he was whole new person to me. He was so nice and caring when he played with dolls with his other peers including C and S. He was so gentle and endearing, I was very happy to be there to witness this behavior. Another thing I observed was something that is very common from this age group. Play time for these students is revolved around make-believe or pretend play. They pretended they were on a train and they even accomodated the room and the chairs to look like one. It was very very cute. Finally, the assistant teacher gave out a few cards, she gave a red card to J. The response that J gave however was not one that should otherwise be expected. I would imagine that after receiving a red card, the student would be aware that he/she has done something wrong and that sitting out from playtime would make him realize that he/she needs to change that behavior. However J was enjoying himself, he was smiling and laughing and playing by himself. Overall, I saw in today's observation perhaps a new side to these students. Play time really allows them to be their true selves and while it was great to see them laugh and play, I would have wanted them to learn instead.

Reflection on First Observation

February 22- Today was my first observation at my designated school. I have worked with the teacher previously last semester so I think I can say that I am beginning to build a special relationship with the students. The students themselves from this classroom are students with discipline and behavioral problems. There are perhaps only two that don't necessarily step out of this box but maintain rather a calmer behavior compared to the rest that is. The atmosphere of the classroom today was a bit hectic. We came in and Mrs. M gave out a red card to D. He had been disrupting the class for a while so the teacher felt it was necessary to change his yellow card to a red one. In terms of classroom management, the system that Mrs. M works with is a behavior chart with cards labeled and colored as green, yellow, red. A green card shows that the student is showing acceptable behavior, the students aim for maintaining their green cards throughout the day. A yellow card means a warning, it shows that the student has disrupted the classroom and should be more careful of his behavior. A red card shows the student has exceeded disruptions and that a note to his/her parents will be sent. Each student has a composition notebook in which Mrs. M notes particular comments on his/her behavior for that day. She might write positive feedback praising a student or if the student received a red card she might write about this. Personally, I think this system works to a certain extent. While it does remind students of their behavior and allows to self-monitor, at the same time it allows students to have chances to make these disruptions. The students in the past have received plenty of red cards and these same students haven't really made an effort to change their behavior, so in terms of how effective it is, I would say that it is not so effective. This made me aware of problems that I myself might face as a teacher. How would I deal with students who constantly disrupt instruction time? Will writing notes to parents alter their behavior or would that just make it worse? I haven't found answers to these questions yet but I have, from observing my classroom, considered them and thought about possible solutions. I think in my classroom I want to set high expectations and I will set them from the very beginning of the school year, I will remind them constantly and I will want to have effective consequences for expectations not met. At the same time, I do want to create a strong bond with my children, perhaps this bond will help me understand them and help them respect me as a teacher.