This has been the first full week of school we've had in November. It was a struggle to get through all five days. I've been so spoiled! The week went well. We've been focusing a lot of our instruction around a Thanksgiving theme, included the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians. The students learned the sound for the letter Ii, so it worked out perfectly. They make wampums, Indian headbands, Pilgrim hats and bonnets, canoes, pots, and lots of other fun crafts. For their ABC book, they made an Indian, to represent the letter I. I was impressed to see how well the students caught on to the word Wampanoag and how much they understood about the way they lived during that time. I videotaped a vocabulary lesson on Tuesday for my portfolio. I read the students the book, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," and had them incorporate movement. They loved it! The lesson tied in the vocabulary words with the story. They did a great job with it.
For action research, I let the students play different games they seem to enjoy the most, such as fishing for letters or matching upper and lowercase letters. I also had them write invisible letters on the wall with their fingers, and make the letters using their whole bodies. They surprised me with how well they could do. Their favorite activity is matching the letter flashcards when they are face down and I timed them. We did these activities everyday during that morning block. The biggest problem I faced was attendence. Three out of my four students missed over half the week due to pink eye and other sicknesses. I just decided to take whoever was there each day, and keep my research going. I think it was helpful to the students that were present because they had more of my attention. On Friday, I assessed the students for the final time. It was wonderful to look at the chart and see the progress they made within five weeks. Of course I know that their was a lot more that went into that progress than what I did, but I'm glad that they are closer to being on level with their peers.
No school next week!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Student Teaching Week 12
This week was a very hectic week. The school conducted their bowling incentive, so our schedules were flip-flipped on Monday through Wednesday. Of course, in Kindergarten, this was tough because the students are so used to their schedules, and the change rocked their worlds! I was observed during one of my lessons that totally failed during small groups. Since rhyming is big for phonemic awareness in kindergarten, I had a lesson to reinforce the skill. In the small group, I first said two words and wanted the students to give me a thumbs up if the words rhymed or thumbs down if they didn't rhyme. This failed for two reasons. One, it was too loud in the room and the students couldn't really hear the words. Two, they use the thumbs up/down/to the side when rating a new book during a read aloud, so they didn't grasp what I was asking them to do. A lot of them were just doing a hand motion without really understanding why, but just copying the person next to them. I then had a cube with words on it for them to take turns rolling and then they would say a rhyming word. This went okay, except they can't read, so I had to wait for them to roll, read the word to them, and wait for them to think of a word. Looking back at this, I now know that I should have used pictures rather than words so they could easily identify and think of a rhyming word. The third activity I had was a concentration game with picture cards of rhyming words. Of all the activities, this went the best, because the students were familiar with the pictures and they enjoyed matching them up. When planning this lesson, I thought it would go great, but it just goes to show that not everything goes as well as planned. Kindergarten is definitely harder to teach than it appears to an outsider of the classroom. I never quite understood this until I really started teaching in the classroom. The students are all so different that you never really know how a lesson will work out.
My action research this week went pretty well. Once again, I only got to meet with the students one time, but the activity I planned was successful. I had them use fingerpaint on glossy paper to practice writing their letters. I had a dry/erase board, and would write a letter, have the students identify it and make it's sound, and then I would have them write it on their paper, while repeatedly asking them, "What's this letter?" I only focused on the letters we've learned the sound to, as well as the letters in their names. The students seemed to enjoy playing with the finger paint and most of them were exclaiming things like, "This is fun!" and so on. On Friday, when I assessed the students, I was pleased to see their progress once again. Although I know that my part in their progress is small compared to all they do in one school week, but I am happy to see that they are coming along. Next week is my last week collecting data for my inquiry. I am anxious to look over all of the data I've collected and see how everything will fall together for my paper. I am also planning on assessing the students after they have that week off for Thanksgiving, to see how much they have retained over the nine day break. I think it will be interesting to see who increased, decreased, or stayed the same. I am hoping that their parents will use the letter flashcards we sent home to help them practice, so they just keep progressing!
My action research this week went pretty well. Once again, I only got to meet with the students one time, but the activity I planned was successful. I had them use fingerpaint on glossy paper to practice writing their letters. I had a dry/erase board, and would write a letter, have the students identify it and make it's sound, and then I would have them write it on their paper, while repeatedly asking them, "What's this letter?" I only focused on the letters we've learned the sound to, as well as the letters in their names. The students seemed to enjoy playing with the finger paint and most of them were exclaiming things like, "This is fun!" and so on. On Friday, when I assessed the students, I was pleased to see their progress once again. Although I know that my part in their progress is small compared to all they do in one school week, but I am happy to see that they are coming along. Next week is my last week collecting data for my inquiry. I am anxious to look over all of the data I've collected and see how everything will fall together for my paper. I am also planning on assessing the students after they have that week off for Thanksgiving, to see how much they have retained over the nine day break. I think it will be interesting to see who increased, decreased, or stayed the same. I am hoping that their parents will use the letter flashcards we sent home to help them practice, so they just keep progressing!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Student Teaching Week 11
This week a little hectic, because Valley only had school for 3 days. On Monday, I read the new story called Animal Babies in the Grasslands. The book focused on the different names for child animals compared to what their mother's are called. The students seemed to really enjoy the book, compared to how they sometimes react to books included in the basal curriculum. I introduced three new sight words, and the students were already pretty familiar with them because of the daily news report done at the end of the day. We, my, and like are used a lot in kindergarten, so most of the the students didn't have a lot of trouble picking up the new words. On Tuesdays, I taught the initial sound /p/. The students liked making the noise with their mouths, and did not have much trouble with recognizing what letter the sound matched up with. Since it is fall, I decided to plan most of my activities for the rest of the week around a pumpkin theme, since "P is for Pumpkin." I read books about how pumpkins grow, and they created a book about the life cycle of a pumpkin. The vocabulary words for the week were fun words, so the students picked up on them pretty quickly as well. It's so interesting to see the difference in how much they learn when they are actually enjoying themselves!
For my action research, I did not get much data collected in the three days we had school, because no school for students on Friday was a last minute decision due to one of the staff passing away. On Monday and Wednesday; however, I had the students roll playdoh to form letters. I had them put die-cut letters underneath clear plastic plates, and roll playdoh to form the letters on the plates. The students did really well with this. My hope is that by forming the letters, they picked up on their different lines and circles to descriminate between each of them. On Thursday, I played BINGO with the students in the conference room. They had to spin to get a letter and then find the letter on their card. I was surprised to see how well some of them were doing with their letters. It also helps a lot when I make the sound of a letter they can't recognize right away. This shows me that there is definitely a strong correlation between letter recognition and letter sounds. Last week, we sent home capital and lowercase letter cards along with a ring to hook them onto. Students that did not do well recognizing their letters on their progress notes received these. Since there is research that says that students need that extra parent motivation and help at home, I am hoping this will help not only the small group I am focusing my action research on, but all of the students who need the extra help.Next week, I plan to have the students write their letters on wax paper using finger paint, and writing their letters on trays filled with sand. I'm hoping these kinesthetic activities will continue to help them learn their letters. I plan to continue to only focus on the letters we've gone over in class, vowels, and the letters in their first names. If they veer from these letters, of course it is okay. But I feel this is a better approach rather than overwhelming them with all 26 letters.
For my action research, I did not get much data collected in the three days we had school, because no school for students on Friday was a last minute decision due to one of the staff passing away. On Monday and Wednesday; however, I had the students roll playdoh to form letters. I had them put die-cut letters underneath clear plastic plates, and roll playdoh to form the letters on the plates. The students did really well with this. My hope is that by forming the letters, they picked up on their different lines and circles to descriminate between each of them. On Thursday, I played BINGO with the students in the conference room. They had to spin to get a letter and then find the letter on their card. I was surprised to see how well some of them were doing with their letters. It also helps a lot when I make the sound of a letter they can't recognize right away. This shows me that there is definitely a strong correlation between letter recognition and letter sounds. Last week, we sent home capital and lowercase letter cards along with a ring to hook them onto. Students that did not do well recognizing their letters on their progress notes received these. Since there is research that says that students need that extra parent motivation and help at home, I am hoping this will help not only the small group I am focusing my action research on, but all of the students who need the extra help.Next week, I plan to have the students write their letters on wax paper using finger paint, and writing their letters on trays filled with sand. I'm hoping these kinesthetic activities will continue to help them learn their letters. I plan to continue to only focus on the letters we've gone over in class, vowels, and the letters in their first names. If they veer from these letters, of course it is okay. But I feel this is a better approach rather than overwhelming them with all 26 letters.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Student Teaching Week 10
This week went much better than last week because my health was finally back in order. Since Halloween was on Saturday, my lessons for the week tied a lot around that theme. We had a lot of Halloween book read alouds, the students created their own Halloween books, and they completed a journal on what they were going to dress up as. I think that the students definitely see me as their teacher, rather than just a student teacher; however, they are still a little talkative at times when I'm teaching whole group. This is also due to them being 5 and 6 year olds! I am definitely getting much more used to the flow of the lesson plans, and it is becoming easier and easier to plan for the entire week. I have also developed a greater sense to timing and if students aren't ready for a certain lesson or activity I may have planned for them. The students learned the initial sound /s/ this week, and I had a lot of fun incorporating that into almost everything we did throughout the day. I also started sending home a weekly parent letter this week to inform parents of concepts we are working on and how they can practice these with their children at home.
On Thursday, I stayed after school to help with the Authurdale Service Club at Valley. The two head teachers of the club were past mentor teachers of mine, so I felt very comfortable at the meeting. I helped the students create treat bags that would be passed out during trick or treating at the Authurdale Historical Building. It was nice to work with an older group of students and to help them out at the club meeting. I definitely want to attend more in the future.
My action research this week went well. I decided to play a game on Monday and Tuesday called Roll-Say-Keep with the students. On the game board, there are six spaces and in the top left corner of each space is one side of a die (i.e. one dot to stand to represent the first space, two dots to represent the second space, and so on). Using the game board and a stack of note cards with lowercase and uppercase letters, you place one card, face up, on each space, leaving the remaining cards in a pile. The student take turns rolling the die, and identifying the letter in the corresponding space. If the student could identify the letter, they get to keep the card. If he or she couldn't, I would tell them to "phone their friends" and get the answer. Thus, they still got to keep the card. The students loved this game, and it was great because they got lots of exposure to the letters. To tie it in with Halloween and the initial sounds, /s/, I mixed in cards with spiders on them. If the student rolled and got those cards, they had to say the sound they heard at the beginning of spider. I made a big production out of the spiders, so they all tried to roll the number to get the spider cards.
The students had RTI Wednesday morning, so I was not able to pull my AR group of students on that day. On Thursday, I just pulled all five out of their playtime together and used the Fishing Pole Game as incentive. Since I know they love the fishing poles, I figured it would reduce their behaviors and they could just take turns. The students did a good job cooperating, and they helped each other out when one of them didn't know the letter. Since they were sitting in a circle, it was easier for them to see all of the letters, and get more exposure to them. During both activities, I've continued to notice that a lot of the students relate letters to the names of their classroom peers. I plan to use this method more next week to see if learning how to spell their classmates names helps their recognition.
To assess them on Friday, I did the usual flashcards I've been using. This time, I got the students much more involved with the sheets I circled the letters they knew, and brought out the "Letter Stars" poster. If they had three circles around a letter, they were allowed to put a star sticker by that letter on the poster. I had them find which letters they had three circles, and let them pick out the color star they wanted to designate as their color. We counted how many new letters that had circled, and they all showed excitement about the poster and the stickers. I am hoping that this type of reinforcement will encourage them to try harder and practice more with letters. Next week, I plan to do more kinesthetic types of activities with the students to make them more aware of letter formation.
On Thursday, I stayed after school to help with the Authurdale Service Club at Valley. The two head teachers of the club were past mentor teachers of mine, so I felt very comfortable at the meeting. I helped the students create treat bags that would be passed out during trick or treating at the Authurdale Historical Building. It was nice to work with an older group of students and to help them out at the club meeting. I definitely want to attend more in the future.
My action research this week went well. I decided to play a game on Monday and Tuesday called Roll-Say-Keep with the students. On the game board, there are six spaces and in the top left corner of each space is one side of a die (i.e. one dot to stand to represent the first space, two dots to represent the second space, and so on). Using the game board and a stack of note cards with lowercase and uppercase letters, you place one card, face up, on each space, leaving the remaining cards in a pile. The student take turns rolling the die, and identifying the letter in the corresponding space. If the student could identify the letter, they get to keep the card. If he or she couldn't, I would tell them to "phone their friends" and get the answer. Thus, they still got to keep the card. The students loved this game, and it was great because they got lots of exposure to the letters. To tie it in with Halloween and the initial sounds, /s/, I mixed in cards with spiders on them. If the student rolled and got those cards, they had to say the sound they heard at the beginning of spider. I made a big production out of the spiders, so they all tried to roll the number to get the spider cards.
The students had RTI Wednesday morning, so I was not able to pull my AR group of students on that day. On Thursday, I just pulled all five out of their playtime together and used the Fishing Pole Game as incentive. Since I know they love the fishing poles, I figured it would reduce their behaviors and they could just take turns. The students did a good job cooperating, and they helped each other out when one of them didn't know the letter. Since they were sitting in a circle, it was easier for them to see all of the letters, and get more exposure to them. During both activities, I've continued to notice that a lot of the students relate letters to the names of their classroom peers. I plan to use this method more next week to see if learning how to spell their classmates names helps their recognition.
To assess them on Friday, I did the usual flashcards I've been using. This time, I got the students much more involved with the sheets I circled the letters they knew, and brought out the "Letter Stars" poster. If they had three circles around a letter, they were allowed to put a star sticker by that letter on the poster. I had them find which letters they had three circles, and let them pick out the color star they wanted to designate as their color. We counted how many new letters that had circled, and they all showed excitement about the poster and the stickers. I am hoping that this type of reinforcement will encourage them to try harder and practice more with letters. Next week, I plan to do more kinesthetic types of activities with the students to make them more aware of letter formation.
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