Reflection #12

The week I was in Ms. C's classroom week was not very average. The first day I was in the classroom was hectic to say the least. The students had to take the FAIR test. First off the students didn't really want to take the test. We had to go to the tech lab to take the test, when we got there the door was locked so we had to wait for someone to come and unlock the door. I could tell my Ms. C was getting frustrated I was as well. The frustration was because we only had a short amount of time to be in the lab and finish the testing. When we finally got in the classroom and started up the test, only five out of the 20 total students in the class could actually test. The problem was that most of the headphone required for the test weren't working. Ms. C just had the students who were able to test go ahead and finish as much as they could and the other students just read. I would have done the same thing.

The next day almost as soon as the students entered the classroom they went to an Awards Ceremony. The school has one after every quarter, I think. The awards are given out by teacher to the students in their class. Awards are given for bringing up grades, attendance, positive attitude etc. I think the awards are a good idea however I think they should maybe be only once or twice a year. If they are too often then they lose their value. 

Photo from the U.S. Department of Education

When we returned from the ceremony the class got right back to work. The class had read a new story the day before and was reviewing it. The students were on the carpet with their notebooks, a pencil and their reading books. I sat with D (he has a learning disability and needs extra help sometimes). When I sat next to him he got very hesitant. He didn't really want to talk to me. I tried asking him questions and he scooted away from me. Ms. C saw that he wasn't accepting my help and told him why I was there. She said to D "Miss Marissa is sitting next to you to help you, how is she supposed to help you if you keep scooting away from her?" He shrugged his shoulders and moved back next to me. 

The last day I was in the class for this week was sort-of normal. It was all normal except for the projector was broken. The light bulb in the projector wasn't working. Everything is usually done on the projector so Ms. C was struggling with that all morning. The warm up, which is normally done with the projector, had to be skipped. so most of the students just talked all through the morning. I would have written the warm up on the board so that the class had some order and the students had something to do.Next they got a new packet that they will be working on every week. It is to help them with reading and answering questions about the story.  

After all the students finished with one story they worked on writing. They learned about expository writing. they compared expository and narrative essays. Ms. C told them that expository papers have about five paragraphs. She passed out papers to all the students that had five boxes in a row all the way down the paper. She copied what was on the paper onto the white board. Next she gave them a topic. "Why are cats good pets?" In the first box was in 'intro' "Cats are good pets" In the next three were reasons explaining why they are good pets. and the last one was a conclusion "Cats make great pets for people." 

Reflection #11

I began my observation in Ms. C's 3rd grade classroom this week. I was only in the classroom for one day this week. The classroom went through their regular routine. They had a morning warm up, it was to figure out past present and future tense of words. After the warm up the Ms, C asked the students to come to the carpet so they could discuss their benchmark test. She made a chart and wrote down their strongest and weakest points on the test. They were all very excited to see their strengths, with many 'oohs' and 'ahhs'. When it got to the weaknesses K shouted out "You are just showing us this to say that we are dumb!" Ms. C had to reassure him that she was just showing him to to tell the class what they need to work on more for next time. 

The next thing they did was worked a little bit in science. They talked about Fahrenheit and Celsius. Ms. C passed out worksheets and explained how to do them and then let the students return to their desk to finish them. I would have explained some of the worksheet to the students but not all of it. It was a pretty simple work sheet, they finished it quickly. 

After science they went on to reading which was what is normally in the scheduled. The students came to the carpet with their notebooks and a packet (they have been working from it all week). Today they were going to read a poem from the packet. They also had to answer 3 questions at the end of the poem. A lot of the students struggled with reading the poem, understanding it and answering the questions about it.   

I am very happy that I am back in this classroom. I really enjoy this group of children also I like the teacher a lot. The atmosphere is enjoyable as well as the content of learning. I look forward to spending the rest of my time there and getting to know the students and the teacher more.