Observation Blog#4

I did an observation in Kindergarten last week. My 4^th grade class was unavailable – so I went to my son's kindergarten class, it was fun to be in there with him. I know the teacher pretty well, and she shared with me that this class has been a challenge. There are lots of high energy little boys in this class. Some are still working on “being good friends”. So I was curious to be in there. I spent three hours with them from 9-12, phew... there was a lot of energy in the room!

A few things are very different from 4^th grade to KG. Those KG teachers have to be going every minute. They do not have any down time. It is one 10 minute activity to the next all day long. Whereas the 4^th grade teachers can give the class assignments to do on their own. She doesn't always need to be in the front entertaining the class. One of the pro's for KG is that they get to do FUN things. Art projects, centers, lots of in class reading together. It is a tough exchange. Luckily there is good in all grades.

The connections for this blog posting are in regards to assessment and clerical/preparation responsibilities.

While I was in Kindergarten they did centers. She had each table designated a color, and that color had multiple bins that matched their color. They would do the task in the bin for 10 minutes and then when they heard the bell, put it away and go get the next bin. They had 3 rotations for a 30 minute center time. I helped with the preparation AFTER the centers were done – planning for the next center rotations. Just making sure the bins were put back together, pieces in the correct bags, etc. The teacher was very good at expecting the students to clean up, take care and organize the pieces... but they are still just 5 year olds.

I have actually substitute taught in the past in classrooms for teachers who were doing assessments during their class day. Mostly in the Kindergarten class. I remember talking to the teacher about going through all 28-30 of her kids in her 3 hour block trying to get the testing all done. It made for a long day for her, but she liked to just get it done vs. stretching it over a longer period of time. I know the kids were really good and actually thought it was fun to have some one on one time with their teacher. This teacher always presented it to her class as “playing some games” together. They always were anxious for their turn!

Observation #3 September 19th & 26th

I have been going to Ms. Seeds 4th grade class every Friday morning. So I will go ahead and post this for the last two Fridays that I have gone.

Topic connections: ESL learners and/or exceptional learners adaptations.  IDEA law adaptions. 

Not many ESL students in the classrooms I observed, but a few exceptional learners so I will add some highlights about them. 

In Ms. Seed's class, one little friend (I will call him A) is an exceptional need student. She allows him to be in an area where he can move and wiggle and it doesn't distract the rest of the class. She has also given him a chance to interact with good classmates who are patient and kind with him. This week during the spelling test, "A" got upset at his neighbor. He is emotionally a little behind the rest of the class - he is very smart, but his social and emotional skills are a low. I was impressed by Ms. Seed and she reminded the class they didn't need to watch and while she addressed this classmate, quickly with kindness. I think it kept him from loosing his control. She mentioned this is one of his challenges.

 I also noticed a few friends with IEP's and they leave the classroom during certain times to be with the other teacher (resource teacher - I am not sure her exact title).

And now some of my observation notes:

On the 19th: We finished up some training for the STAR tutoring program the class is getting ready for. I hope they will be able to do this on Friday mornings when I am there, I look forward to watching them work with the first graders. We did some more practice and question and answers with Ms. Anderson.

They had a reward today for having some high reading minutes for the week and were able to "move their desks anywhere for the day". WOW... what a brave reward on Ms. Seed's part! The kids loved it.

On the 26th: Ms. Seed had a substitute and was not in her class today, so I took the opportunity to visit a few different teachers at the school. I spent an hour with Ms. Tarr (she is my 5th grader's teacher - my daughter has been begging me to come to her class...so I did today!) I was there for journal time and sharing. The prompt was one the kids got very excited about, "What was your favorite toy from your childhood." She expects them to write 15 sentences for their prompts. They were very excited at the idea of sharing. A couple of things she did well during the share time:

• She reminded them to use confident speaking voices
• She pointed out good points in their writing, "Did you see how she had a closing sentence at the end, good job." 

Ms. Tarr's class also participates in a song of the day. She plays a song while the class follows along with the lyrics on the overhead. Then they discuss as a class the meaning of the song. Today it was REM's song Everybody Cries. The kids take notes about the song of the day in their journals. 

I then went to Ms. Dean's classroom (4th grade), (Ms. Tarr's class went to specialty, so I didn't go with them). They were in the process of setting up their login accounts on a school set of chrome books. It was a challenge because of some internal IT issues. Only part of the class was set up and Ms. Dean and I spent the whole time we had the chrome books making our way sround the room to try and login her class. It was a good reminder that technology is awesome when it works... but when it doesn't it can sure be frustrating! I gave the class their spelling test, while Ms. Dean took the computers back into the school.  It was fun to be with her class.