Language Arts Day Five

REFLECTION & REVISION (This part is to be included in your daily reflections after teaching the lesson. How did I feel about my lesson today? If I feel successful, what did I see the students saying and doing that made me feel that way? What changes to tomorrow’s lesson need to be made as a result of today’s class):

     This class went really well today, but I could definitely tell that students were anxious for the weekend. Plus, the students were very tired. The first part of the lesson I asked the students why we were learning about morals. A lot of them said because they are part of folktales. Since this was not the answer I was looking for, I asked them what a moral is. They all got that one. I then asked the question again and the students got the response I was looking for. That we carry morals on with us in real life. Then I showed them the book, Squids Will be Squids, and they all though the book looked funny which got them interested. I told them that I needed them to be moral detectives, and that I needed their help finding out the moral of the story. We went through the directions which took the longest time. This is because many students tend to space out when I give directions. It was more about management during this time. I try to make sure that everyone is paying attention because the ones that do not pay attention are the students who constantly state that they do not understand what we are learning. It seems to be a vicious cycle. The students then got their stories and were on their own to read them and fill out their guided reading sheets. The students all thought that their stories were funny as well as the pictures. This is where I could see individual reading levels. For some students it took them way longer to read a one page story than it did others. If students were paying attention to directions, they had no problem filling out the sheet afterwards. The students who did not pay attention the sheet was harder to fill out. When they asked me questions, I wanted to say, "I said it in the directions, figure it out!" Students then got to share their responses and that was the end of the lesson. I only got a few students in each group to share their responses because we ran out of time. I told them that we would continue the lesson on Monday, and my major request was that I read the book to them. I was not planning on it, but I am going to add it in my lesson plan Monday. 

     There are only I few things that I would change if I were to do this lesson again. One thing I would change is my classroom management. Instead of answering every question that pertains to directions, I am going to have the students try to figure it out on their own. Another thing that I would change is that I would have something for the students who finished early to do. I had the students who finished early just switch stories and that seemed to work. This lesson went smoothly, and I think that I would use it again. Totally felt like a successful teacher today. 

Last day of class and the students didn't want me to go, I call that a success!
Today was another great day! I did not like my lesson that much so I rewrote it the night before. I ended up making a PowerPoint to do a review for the week of all of the types of figurative language. And this turned out to be a great idea. The teacher loved the PowerPoint and the game tha to made out of it. The students had marker boards and they worked as a team to get the right answer. I gave them 10 seconds and then they held the boards up. It was great! After this the students did the assessment where I had stations set up and they went around to them and then answered reflective questions on the back of the sheet. This also went over well and the students got to move and think. They did great with this! Wen I walked into class today I found out I only had about a half hour when I originally planned for an hour. I was going to expose them to poetry slams and have them present one poem. I did not have time for this but I got through the portion that was needed.
Management was another thing to work on today. They were very excited with all of the activities so it was a little loud but I got them to bring it down without the bells today. I wouldn't change anything today. I liked all of the activities and I wish I would have had more time.
Overall this lesson was great and they'd teacher was very pleased with the work I did and she made sure to find slide shark for her iPad and she wanted the PowerPoint I made.

Final Day of Language Arts

·          Today’s lesson was nothing close to what my lesson plan 5 had planned for. This week continually reinforced the importance of being flexible. The students were finishing typing their narratives today and then we were sharing them. Since some students were done, we had independent quiet reading time for the first half of class while others typed. Then, for the second half of class there was optional sharing. I was surprised by the number of students who chose to share. Before sharing, I instructed the students on how to listen and give positive comments. I also directed them to do “2 claps on 3” at the end of each reading. They did a great job listening and following my expectations. There were a few occasions when students read about silly things and some of their classmates laughed, but overall I think most students were excited to read their stories and others were excited to listen. It was great to see how proud they were of their work.

·          I didn’t get a chance to teach my reading lesson for either class today. At the end of sharing, we spent the remaining time in the library so students could get new books to read for next week. It was pretty difficult to convince some students to choose books that they haven’t read yet or that were chapter books instead of picture books. I can tell many of them are not actually reading during the independent reading times. I wonder how a teacher can encourage so many students to read when they simply don’t want too. They enjoy listening to the stories and looking at pictures, but many of them never even stay with the same book long enough to make it through a full chapter.

Langauge Arts Day Four

REFLECTION & REVISION (This part is to be included in your daily reflections after teaching the lesson. How did I feel about my lesson today? If I feel successful, what did I see the students saying and doing that made me feel that way? What changes to tomorrow’s lesson need to be made as a result of today’s class):

     Today went well today for language arts. The activity that I did with each group was that they all had to take turns reading a page out of the book and reading that page with expression. I first asked them when they thought they would read with expression. Most of them said when there is a question mark and when there is an exclamation point. This was great because they already have some prior knowledge about reading with expression. I then said we were going to take turns each reading a page from the book and they would try to read with expression. I had a variety of readers. I had one group that read without expression at all, I had one group where about of quarter of the students read with expression, then I had a group where all the students read with expression. What was not successful was that most of the time I had to work with classroom management issues. Second graders have a tendency to move around, be impatient, and blurt things out. It was a constant battle on whether I ignore the behavior or if I address the behavior. Pretty soon I could not ignore it any longer and had to address the misbehavior. Afterwards, I reviewed why we read with expression and why we read with the right expression and the students were able to remember why. This is why explained to them it is not only important to know to read with expression, but we need to know how to apply reading with expressing and that is why we do this activity. The groups definitely understood reading with expression, but needs more practice. 

     If I were to do this lesson again there are a few things that I would do differently. One, I would have more time. Having about ten to fifteen minutes for a group really makes me rush through things and then I end up having about a few minutes of more time that I fill with review. Another thing is that I run out of time and students do not have a chance to get all the content. Another thing I would change is to have the students read the book before they were to read it aloud. Some students had trouble with the words and totally forgot about reading with expression. I would want them to be more comfortable with the book first. The last thing I would change is my classroom management. I would go over my expectations in order for them to behave better which would help me stop wasting time addressing their behavior. Even though these lessons are ten minutes, I have learned a lot from them. 

Day 4

Today’s lesson did not go as planned. I do think it was still successful. The reason it didn’t go as planned was because the students took much more time to finish writing their drafts than I had expected. The students did not even know how to right justify their names or the date. They also needed help double spacing their writing. I did not anticipate that this much instruction would be necessary. Also, it seems as if they have had no keyboarding practice since most students were typing with two fingers. The teacher generally expects the students to turn in typed copies of their final drafts. Because of this, I changed around my lesson and made sure to make time for this. It ended up taking the entire 90min period. Some students finished early and read independently but I didn’t get to do a reading lesson at all today.

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I feel as though the day was sort of a lazy day on my end because I didn’t know where the computer lab was, the rules of the lab or the expectations that the classroom teacher had for printing final drafts. Because of this, he did a lot of the directions before we moved to the lab. I did model  the way the students should be formatting their papers and we both circulated the room throughout the lesson to help students make corrections and add details. Many students are very proud of their works. I can’t wait till they share them tomorrow in class. This day also gave me extra time to re-think my lesson for tomorrow and I am excited to teach using the new ideas that I have come up with.

Language Arts Day 4 was all on classroom management!

Everything went well today, but had a few challenges.  Today was the first day that I worked with the girl at Children’s Hospital so we skyped her into class.  It was also the same day for iPads in the classroom and I was observed by Dr. S.  management was a little difficult today because of all of these elements that I had to include, but the teacher said I handled it well for being thrown into all of it so that was encouraging.

The lesson today on personification went well.  I started off with a video clip of the giving tree which introduced the personification aspect.  That was good and then I went into examples which they could all pick out so that was great!  Then the iPad portion came and the students had to create a pic collage of the personification in the poem I gave to them.  This is where the management was difficult.  I had students working on them which was great but then when they were presenting they were still playing with them and I announced many times to turn them off and close the case.  After they presented they had to show the girl on skype so there was a lot of things going on at once.  In the future it would be nice to know when I was skyping with my student so I could prepare better.

Overall this lesson went well and the students understood what they were learning about and they had their chance to write their own poem.  As far as I could see they were doing a great job and I will collect them tomorrow.

Langauge Arts Day Three

REFLECTION & REVISION (This part is to be included in your daily reflections after teaching the lesson. How did I feel about my lesson today? If I feel successful, what did I see the students saying and doing that made me feel that way? What changes to tomorrow’s lesson need to be made as a result of today’s class):

     Today's class was a success. The thing we did in our reading groups is that we talked about reading with expression. This was through a lot of discussion and the students wrote down answers that were suitable on the T-chart. The first thing I asked if they listened to music. I then asked sang that song in a monotone voice. I asked them if they would listen to that song and they all said "No." Then I asked the students if they would listen me to read the story with expression and on the T-chart they had to write how my reading sounded, how it made them feel, and if they liked it. While I read students were able to write down their answers. The students got the idea because they said things like, "It was fun, I liked it, and I was interested." Then I asked them to do the same thing while I read the story without any expression. The students also understood this concept because they said things like, "It was horrible, it was boring, and I was uninterested." From this, I was able to ask the students why they want to read with expression, especially when it comes to folktales and fables. The answer I was aiming for is that, "you want to keep the reader interested in order for them to learn the moral." The students got halfway there. They understood that you want to read with expression in order to keep a person interested. I then asked them if they would want to learn about a moral if the reading was boring and they all said no, so it worked better when I chopped the idea in half. 

     Our last activity that we did is that I asked them for feeling words. All of them were excited to share the different feeling words. I then prompted them to think about while I read the story in the wrong feeling expression. For example, if the character was excited, I read it in a sad voice. Once the giggles had somewhat settled, I asked them how it sounded. A lot of the students said that it sounded silly and that they were not able to pay attention to the story. I then asked them why they thought it was important to read with the right expression. The answer I was aiming for, "Is that you want it to sound right in order to convey the right feelings of the characters." The students came close and said that they wanted it to sound right. Unfortunately, they did not get to get to the other part because we ran out of time in each group. The changes that I would make in each group is time management, because I always run over by about three or four minutes and that adds up. I would also try to incorporate folktales and fables more. This lesson went great and many students understood the concept of reading with expression.

Day 3 reflection

My lesson today was a little bit more difficult than the other lessons. I think this might have been mostly caused because students are getting tired of working on their narratives. They don’t necessarily have the motivation or desire to perfect their work and make changes. I was careful to share the specific goal of the lesson in hopes of keeping the students focused. I first instructed the students in writing by sharing with them my own personal narrative. I model the pattern of setting the scene, adding details and explanation, and ending with a take a way lesson. I also instructed them on editing before they were given work time. This meant that all students had something to work on. Some were writing and others were editing. It was difficult to get them interested in making their papers better. Since there were at least 25 students in each class I had to keep moving around the room.

The reading section of the class was a little different today. We finished with questioning and instead practiced a chain of events. I modeled the chain of events using my own personal narrative. The students then made a chain of events while I read “Stellaluna” to them. In the first section we were rushed for time and in the second section I over compensated. We were left with a few extra minutes.  Overall I think the lesson went well. Some students commented on the paper chains being something they did in art class or in second grade. I tried to take a positive spin by sharing that it would be great that they had the experience and they would definitely succeed in the lesson today. Other students were super excited to share their chain at the end of class. Some threw them out and others kept them. The main goal was to keep them thinking about the events in the story and each student tracked me as I read and completed and accurate chain of events. I was very pleased with the outcome.

Language Arts Day 3 was awesome!

Today was another great day!  The students and the classroom teacher loved the book Animilia which was used for the alliteration lesson I did today.  The students learned about alliteration using words that I gave them in an envelope and they had a lot a fun make up sentences using the words.  They did a great job with this and were helping each other to find meaning with the words.

Tongue twisters were a little challenging to teach because they understood that they needed to use a letter and alliteration, but they were not able to understand the rhythm part of the tongue twister.  This is something that I would like to work with them more on.  They can do the making sentences and alliteration portion but I would like to work on the rhythm part of it.  I took them through step by step of making the lists of the nouns, Proper nouns, descriptive words, and verbs.  This really helped for them to understand what they needed to do.  Some students were frustrated but I worked with them and they understood better.

The only thing I would change would be the noise level of the students.  They are all having so much fun making their poems but it is hard to give directions sometimes.  I used her bell system today so I will continue to use that to keep structure in the classroom.

Overall today was great! And the students were very involved hand were shooting up like crazy to test out their tongue twister skills and say their alliteration sentences.  The biggest complement I felt was the teacher asking if she could use this lesson!  That was awesome!

Day 2 of Language Arts was a success!

Today I felt like a teacher!  This was a great lesson and the students seemed to be learning a lot about evacuees during World War II.  They were all very excited about being able to become an evacuee and making up an identity for themselves!  The beginning of the lesson went well with the emotion aspect.  They were all understanding and had some great emotions that they thought the children would have.  They also connected to the fact that moving to a place they were not used to with random people would be very hard on them as well.  I had they reflecting in class about what they would think it would be like.

The hardest part for them was really thinking hard about how an emotion felt, smelt, sounded like or looked like.  They knew what a simile was but describing how a baby cries was hard and they really had to think outside of the box.  I wish they would work with each other to help out with words, but they mostly wanted me to help or the classroom teacher was walking around a little.  They did a lot of great thinking and I can’t wait to read what they wrote for their poems when I collect them tomorrow.

Something that I would change would be to add an acting component or a video clip of evacuees so they could physically see and hear people not just a photo.

Overall this lesson was great!  The students loved becoming the part and relating it to history.  They wanted to keep their identities for all of their other classes and that is exciting when they want to continue with something that I did.

Language Arts Day Two

REFLECTION & REVISION (This part is to be included in your daily reflections after teaching the lesson. How did I feel about my lesson today? If I feel successful, what did I see the students saying and doing that made me feel that way? What changes to tomorrow’s lesson need to be made as a result of today’s class):

     Today went really well, I could actually feel the learning. In all three groups we discussed what morals are. We went through the definition and then we talked about the moral of each story they are reading. The first activity I did was to copy down the definition. This I learned takes students a long time. I think, if I were to do this again, I would have the definition already written down for them. The reasoning for this is because this is not really a higher order thinking, it is more of a recalling aspect. Plus, the students were able to give plenty of examples of morals, but they could never get the exact definition. This is where drill and kill comes into play, and I can see why teachers use it. As a teacher, you want the students to learn the content, but you want them to get the right answer because it is important to their lives, like morals. The second part we went through the moral of the story. This went well because I did a lot of guiding and questioning in order to get the students to the answers. Morals are tricky to teach because a book can teach people many different lessons. The students could not think of other morals the story taught them when I said that one moral a student said could be the answers. Next time, I will have the students write down what they think it is first and then discuss the story. The last part was where the students had to come up with their own morals that they follow. A lot of the answers were "Be kind or nice" or "Don't lie" I know there are many more, but these are ones that are common. When we do this activity again, I am going to have the students try to come up with different morals other than this. Overall, this was a successful lesson, and the teacher even carried on with it during RTI time. 

Language arts reflection: day 2

Today's lesson was definitly altered from my lesson plan. I am learning a lot about adjusting and tailoring my lessons to my students through this experience. I am lucky to have two back to back sections of the class. I get to see how my ideas work and make immediate adjustments in the next lesson. Today, the students began their first drafts of their personal narratives. The ability level of the students is more different than I expected. I needed to find a way to spend the time of students who had finished their drafts early and encourage students who had only started the first paragraph. Also, I found that having something for the students to do when they enter class after the break is crucial. Their focus during the second half of the block was so much better. I am proud of them for the work they did today on their narratives and I am excited to see the final drafts of each. Tomorrow is supposed to be an editing day but I am not sure if we will finish it.
I think I might talk about editing with a small group of students who are already done and then hope every one else finished their draft tomorrow.
As far as reading goes, it was a bit of a struggle since not all students have their books. When they don't have their books they need they are able to go to the library. Students entering and exiting the classroom makes it difficult for all students to focus. Tomorrow we are working on a chain of events. I think I will change my lesson plan again and have them make the chain with an example book that I read and then the rest of the time will be free reading time. That way they can get into their books and not worry about writing while they read.

Language Arts Reflection One

REFLECTION & REVISION (This part is to be included in your daily reflections after teaching the lesson. How did I feel about my lesson today? If I feel successful, what did I see the students saying and doing that made me feel that way? What changes to tomorrow’s lesson need to be made as a result of today’s class):

    This was my first time really teaching language arts. I think that it went pretty well. My teacher and I had a miscommunication, and I ended up teaching three mini-lessons. This worked out well because all I had to do were to cut my lessons in half. This meant that I had to cut out most of my anticipatory set. I tried to play my theatre game, but it took too much time. Plus, the students were not getting the directions. I have now come to the conclusion that when it comes to younger students, specific directions are key. The students really liked watching the Tangled clip and seemed to really get into the lesson. I could also see that the students were listening because, while I was reading aloud, they were drawing pictures about what they heard. I got all pictures that were related to the book. When going through the folktale chart, the students were able to follow along and find the different aspects in the story. The changes that I would make is better time management. I can see why teachers need to be go-go-go, this is because they are trying to cram in so much good material in a tiny amount of time. I feel that schools should just get rid of schedules all together, but it also makes me look at the positive of a flipped classroom. We want students to have these authentic learning experiences, but that is not possible in a regular schedule. There is not enough for students to explore learning once the teacher is done teaching content. If I were to do this again, I would definitely try the flipped classroom method. 

First language arts lesson I have taught and it went pretty well.  It would be nice to do a middle school setting to see how I can improve it from class to class.

There was a lot to get through and I actually thought that I would have time left over.  I didn’t realize how much time the students needed to research for the countries.  I even had some websites for them to start off with and they still were taking a while.  The teacher and I both found out that the students need work on how to write key words when researching topics.  There were not specific enough in their searches and that was the problem.  I wish there would be time to do a lesson on how to research and write key words when working with the internet.

A lot of the students did great today and were very excited to pick the country out of a bag.  They were also excited to use the net books.  Computer time does not happen too much for them so this was a great opportunity.  When working with computers the teacher and I circulated the room to make sure they were on appropriate sites.  About half the class got the whole graphic organizer filled out and started writing their poems so they did not have too much to do tonight for homework.  Overall I wanted this to be a work in progress with a different figurative language each day and the end project would be put together throughout the week but now it turned into a final project due each day.  Tomorrow I will see how that turns out.  My directions were simple and I repeated a lot, but some students still are having a hard time understanding what they actually needed to do.

Next time I would take out the finding another example from the internet or a book or something because there is too much for them to do. I want them to focus on the poem and the concept.  In my classroom I would also have more time and would like a lab day to put it all together.

Management was not an issue, the students were all attentive and working on the assignment.

Overall this lesson went well and the students did a great job with understanding what an acrostic poem was and how to write it.  They did great with research once they knew what to type in to find information better.  They listened well and weren’t afraid to ask questions of me.   

Today was my first language arts lesson. I was very nervous to teach since I was going to be doing two 90min blocks. I did not know what to expect as far as time management and pacing for the group. Also, 90min is a long time in one classroom.

For my first block, the students were quiet workers but a little slow on the pace. We finished everything that I had planned for the day but the amount of detail was not as I had expected. There will definitly be a need for extra reinforcing of ideas throughout the next few days. I felt comfortable in front of the class and I think they enjoyed the stories I read. There were no classroom management issues.

The second block has a completely different personality. There are students who are very vocal and have a strong desire to voice their opinions. So far, it has not been an issue but I feel it could cause problems later in the week if I don't find a way to monitor their talking better. I feel like it is difficult to find logical consciences for that behavior. Any suggestions? The class also has students in lots of different levels. This means that some students finished the work almost ten minutes before the rest. The teacher suggests reading quietly but I'm wondering if there are better options.

I had a lot of fun today and I am excited to see them develop their writing as the week goes on. Hope everyone is doing well! Keep it up!!! :)

Let's BLOCKOTATE!

J.K. Rowling actually has no middle name. She made up the letter "K" (after her grandmother, Kathleen) when her publisher asked to print Harry Potter under her initials.