Week 7

Today is a new day! I came in feeling better than last week. At the beginning of the day, the students were given more time to work on the wax museum biographies. Again, I walked around and helped students fill out their worksheets with exciting facts. The students each have one book about that person as well as online resources to use to research. Some students were done with their worksheets and were tasked to pick two interesting facts from their worksheets, whereas others were still trying to research facts about their person’s adulthood. I walked around and helped students as they raised their hands. I also had a few of them practice what they would say at this wax museum. Their facts and information are better than what I saw a couple of weeks ago, which makes me happy. I’m glad I went up to my MT and said something beforehand because what they have now is miles apart from what they thought were exciting facts a few weeks ago.

After this short work time, we moved on to math. I stepped in and taught the first half of the math lesson. I worked with the teacher in the second half, and we both co-taught. This lesson was interesting. They were learning about plotting fractions on a number line, so this was fun to teach. I did not know that I would teach this; I was asked a second before and said, of course! I did not have much time to review the manual, but the lesson was self-explanatory. After the lecture, I divided the students into partners to complete the assigned page in their workbooks. Here, I walked around and assisted when needed or checked to ensure the students were on track.

Next, I co-taught the WIN lesson. We read two short informational texts and completed a diagram comparing and contrasting the two texts. I asked my MT if we should read the articles as a group and then break them up into groups to comp[lete that chart, but she said these students could handle reading it all on their own in their groups. Time was almost up, and some of the students were not done with the reading, and it was here that my MT said that we should have read it as a group first and then broken it up. I laughed and said something about how reflecting on your teaching is essential! She saw where she went wrong and will make changes now and in the future.

Lastly, I taught the S.S. lesson as well! Today was a jammed packed day! The students are learning about the seven continents as well as the hemispheres. In class, I touched on maps and the continents, and we read and did a worksheet on the hemispheres. I read and lectured to the entire class, and then my M.T. and I split the group into two and worked with our smaller groups. This was a great idea, and it switched things up a bit. The students did well in these groups as well. The students in my group behaved well and listened well. I was surprised, and so was my M.T. teacher!


Overall, I’m taking on a more prominent role in the classroom and here for it! This has been a great experience thus far, and I’m excited to see where it goes and how many more lessons I can lead!

Week 6

Today is the day. My first official teaching day! I was nervous about this, but not nervous at the same time. I’ve taught before; I’m currently a sub and taking over a 4th-grade class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays – so I’m not nervous about being in front of the kids, but nervous about my teacher watching me! I got through it, thankfully. It went well – a major crisis was averted as well. There was a sub in the classroom the entire week before I taught, and a few students could have handled the change better, so this frustrated one student. A few things happened in this class, and the next day when my MT returned, she filled me in on what had happened just the day before. Hearing the details of this also made me nervous, so I was a bundle of nerves. Anyways, I was told I did a good job, but I’m not going to lie… I am not very happy with the grade I received. I’ll leave it at that.

Week 5

In the last article, I talked a little about the S.S project – the projects were finished today and the students presented them to the class. The students were learning about grids and map grids. They learned what a map grid was and how map grids work. They also discovered a very elementary version of a map key, coordinates, and column/row. Once they learned how to use a map grid and locate things and read off where things are, the students, as a culminating project, were tasked with creating their map with a group.

They all named their maps different things and could make them about anything. They only had to include an array of different features such as a body of water, trees, forest, etc. They needed to add a map key with each of these features. It was fun to see how the different groups mapped their map grids. One group named theirs ‘Food Paradise’ and named all the streets on their maps after different types of food. For example, they had a Pasta Place and Candy Court. Once all the map grids were completed, the students could share their creations if they wanted – and EVERY group wanted to! I loved seeing their creativity flourish!

After this, I asked them to come to the carpet at the front of the class, and I did another read-aloud. The students have a reading program where they read required ‘Monarch books and get points for it. My MT has me read one of the monarch books so that some students can get some much-needed points. While I do this read-aloud, I stop every page and ask a question about the text or see if they understand what a word means, etc. I try to make it interact, even if I’m asking something about the book’s illustrations.

Week 4

Man, oh man, is this getting fun! Every Thursday, the students are growing academically, and I can see it with my eyes. From my first day, the students were a little timid with me (I do not blame them) and did not want any assistance, but today things took a turn for the better! The students ran up to me in the morning, saying hi and giving me big hugs. Seeing them getting more comfortable with me in the classroom is nice.

Let’s start here with the beginning of the day. For the first 30-40 minutes of the day, the students work on their biography projects. The students are putting on a wax museum event at the end of March. They all picked one person to research, and they would dress up as that person and recite a few facts about that person. I love the idea; it will turn out adorable. As I said, the students spent a reasonable amount of time researching their people and filling out a basic worksheet. I wonder if these students learned how to research or if they were shown how to do it. The students were tasked with writing down some interesting facts about their person from their early life, adult life, and so on.

While assisting the students, I read a few of the points they had written down. Some of these ‘fun facts’ were not interesting at all. One student wrote down that their person lived on Greenfield Street. I decided to help this student; I asked how this was an important fact and wanted to see their explanation. Who knows, maybe they live on that street too, and they thought it was interesting, but no, the student just said, ‘I don’t know.’ From here, I decided to become more involved and help them with research. I tried to go from one student to the other, read a few of their facts, and help them research.

In addition to this, I went to my MT and decided to talk to her about this. I wanted to see if she had modeled how to research for facts about people before. I was hoping that she picked a person and showed the students good websites to use and how to choose interesting facts, but she said that she just briefly brushed on all of that. They are given about 30-40 minutes daily to research and complete this project so I plan on helping them throughout the time I’m here.

I had taken on a little more today than I had in the past. I assisted and co-taught a math lesson with my MT as well as helped with other subjects – they have a S.S project that they have also been working on so I tried to be very hands-on and assist where I’m needed.