Reflection #19

This week during my experience at the elementary school started off pretty boring. The first day was student benchmark testing day for 3rd grade. The students had to take their 3rd quarter benchmark test for reading and writing. Last time they took the test the students did fairly poor on it. However the work that they do in the morning is specifically geared towards the benchmark test and FCAT. After the last test the students and teacher made a data chat chart. This chart showed their weaknesses and their strengths. Since Ms. C knew what the students needed to work on that is what she focused on. All the morning work was focused on the topic areas that required the most work. I really liked the idea of the data chat chart however I would not call them 'weaknesses' I would maybe call them 'focus points'. 

The second day was more eventful. The students were able to work in centers! The class started the day like most days, morning work, FASTT math, and then centers. The students from the other class are still coming into our classroom and our students are leaving our class and going to another class to practice for portfolio testing. 

I noticed that D wasn't in class for two days. I asked Ms. C were he was. She told me that her, D, all the administration and D's parents had a meeting together. After their meeting it was decided that D would be moved to an EBD classroom. Everyone in the meeting thought that it was for the best interest in D for him to be in that classroom. He will get more one on one attention and that is really what he needs. It was not fair for D to not be getting the attention he really needs. 

On the third and final day that I was in the classroom I got to teach the students!! I had a lesson plan and activity for the students to do having to do with idioms. First thing in the morning the students did their normal morning routine. After they reviewed and came up with the right answer Ms. C gave me the reigns and let me take over in teaching the class. I began teaching by asking the students if they knew what idioms were. The class went completely quiet. At that point my nerves were taking over and I started to feel butterflies in my stomach. I decided to change my question and asked students if they have heard of some idioms before. I showed them the idiom activity card. Some students raised their hands and said they have heard that before. Next I started to ask students to tell me what they thought the idioms meant. Some of the things they thought were hilarious! Other times I was pleasantly surprised by which ones they did know! I wrote all the idioms that we talked about on the board and the meaning for them. When we had almost 20 idioms on the board I told the students what we would be doing next. DRAWING! The students love drawing! They enjoyed being able to have fun and draw. 

Credit to Iowa Digital Library 

After most students were done drawing Ms. C was going to read them all a book. P ask if I could read it so of course I did. It was kind of a tongue twister of a story but I manged to make it through. 

I feel a lot better about teaching my real lesson for the class. This practice lesson has made me a lot more comfortable with the classroom and how I would control it if it was my own. I hope that my next lesson goes as well as this one did!