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!