Week 12

So this week I unfortunately missed my field experience. We don't have much time left and I really love spending time there. I have grown close to my Kidwatching student and I am learning a lot from her. I am currently working on a poem about my grandmother for my publication. She passed away July of 2008. I am not really into poem writing, but I was really close to her so I am enjoying writing about her. I am really excited to see the final product! When I went home for Thanksgiving I rounded up a picture of me and my grandparents to put on my final project. I can't wait to share my poem with my family! I hope that it turns out pretty good!!! In class it was really fun to work on digital stories in our groups. I had made a digital story in one of my other classes and we didn't get to pick the topic so I didn't really enjoy making it. Although since we got to pick our topic in class I really did enjoy working on this one. I also thought the videos we watched in class were very interesting!! I can't wait to show off our finished project!!

Week 11

So last week in field experience I received my student's writing sample. I also got to help my student start to type up a play that her and the student's in the group had wrote. I had to help remind her to capitalize letters and were to use punctuation. She was constantly forgetting to put punctuation at the end of her sentences. Then after they went back to the classroom from skills I watched the teacher do I lesson. The teacher did a lesson on the overhead over correcting sentences. I noticed that a lot of the students weren't paying close attention and were doing other things. The teacher often ignored these students. I feel like that when I start teaching I won't be able to ignore these students causing disruptions. After the lesson they then went into writing workshop. When all the students started writing it was time for us to leave. That was my day in my field experience. In class we went over and shared our students writing. My student wrote a paragraph on what she was thankful for. We went through and answered questions figuring out what our student needed to work on. I think the hardest part of this was writing what I would say to the parents about their student. That is one thing I am really nervous about is talking to the parents and tell them where their child is struggling. I hope I never have a problem parent!!

Week 10

So this week in field experience I finally got my kidwatching student. My teacher actually just let us pick any student that we wanted to kidwatch. I choose a girl that I had previously worked with that I have grown a little relationship with. I picked her because I feel like it will be easier for me to interview and watch her since I know she is pretty comfortable with me and talks to me a lot. I really hope to learn a lot from this kidwatching experience!

This week in class we actually presented of our projects! I saw some really interesting genres. I noticed that a lot of students but a lot of work into their projects. I spent a lot of time making my poster and making it visual so I am glad that my other classmates did as well. Going through and looking at their presentations I actually learned a few things about some topics that I never knew about! As everyone knows I did Kendra for my project and her new season comes on tonight! Can't wait!!!

Week 9

So this week in field experience I started in music. Then after the code red and greed drills I went to gym again. This time they played some fun Halloween games. On of the games they played was called zombie tag. After gym we went back to the classroom and broke up into groups again. This time in groups we the students had to come up with Halloween sentences but leave blanks so that their partner could use the context clues to figure out the missing word. The students that I had were figuring the words out fine, but they weren't really creating sentences with context clues. I kept trying to get them to put in adjectives but they weren't really understanding. I don't really like this whole splitting up thing because I barely even recognize some of the students that our in my class because I never see them. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to see Mrs. Mori actually teach a lesson. I sure I hope I get to see some well taught lesson before I leave!

Week 8

So this week in my field experience I received the big news! My teacher had her twin girls! Now she will have four girls all under the age of 5! Wow she is going to be busy! I am so excited for her, but I sure am going to miss her in the classroom. While I was at University I also got to observe my fourth graders in gym for the first time. They were playing soccer! Thats just say that was pretty interesting, will balls going everywhere! After gym we went back to the classroom just a little bit before the students so that we could meet the new teacher! She seems like she knows what she is doing which is great, but she isn't Mrs. Mori. Then after the class came back from specials everyone spilt up into their normal groups for skills. In my group I actually got to read two books to my groups and ask them to figure out the meaning of words using their context clues. In one of the books there was few hard words I didn't know...now that was embarrassing! I'll be sure to look over the books before I read them in front of my class or any class again!!

Week 7

This week in my field experience we got to observe a writer's workshop! This was a great experience for me because I wasn't really sure what a writer's workshop looks like. I'm sure I have done it some time in my educational past, but I can't really remember it so this experience was great! I loved watching the teacher teach the mini lesson. I also really liked how she gave the students good ideas to start their writing. She just didn't expect the students to just go write, but she gave them a little head start with ideas. I think that I will probably use the writer's workshop in my classroom someday! I think its really important that students get the chance to free write and read!

For class we had to have our rough draft done! I finally picked a topic for my paper. I picked Kendra Wilkinson. She has a very interesting story to tell and she is fun! I really enjoyed reading her book so I thought it would easy to write the paper. In class we also started on coming up with ideas for multigenre papers. My partner and I did a picture and caption for her topic of September 11th. I am pretty sure I am going to use the picture and caption for one of my genres. After all Kendra was a model!!

Week 6

Today was the big day! In my field experience I completed the reading assessment! It wasn't nearly as bad or hard as I thought! Actually I was with another teacher and he helped me through it! It was a great learning experience. Also in my field experience this week I got the chance to grade some papers and I realized how soft hearted I am. A student answered one of the questions with " I don't know and I am sorry." I wanted to cry right there on the spot. It was so sad, but the one of the teachers made it a little better. She gave me wonderful advice. She told me that students put things like that all the time, but you have to be strong and be hard. She said " Just remember your not here to be their friend, they have plenty of friends." I know that when I become a teacher I am going to have such a strong connection with all my students and I am going to have constantly remember her advice. This will be one of the hardest aspects of teaching, but we are there to make them better and sometimes that means being mean and hard!

In class we discussed and did activities around our topics for our research paper. I really had a hard time picking my topic. I kept running into several problems with everything I choose. At first I was going to do Kendra Wilkinson because I just finished her book and she lived quite an interesting life. With her I just couldn't think of any questions for the activity because I had just got done reading her book. Then I was going to research about addiction, but that just seemed too boring for this paper. I love Carrie Underwood so I thought she would be a good topic, but then I got to thinking that researching her life would be hard. I have a feeling their won't be much about her on the internet or in books. So these our my 3 ideas, I better make up my mind soon. In class I was leaning more towards Carrie, but now its Kendra! Ah!! I hope I make the the right decision!!

Week 5

So this week I learned a little bit more about the reading assessment I will be doing! It doesn't seem too hard, but I'm still nervous! I think the hardest part will be timing the reader but also listening to them read and marking down their mistakes all at the same time. I'm not really good at multitasking sometimes so I hope I do okay! In class we again shared some lessons! I still really want a way of keeping everyone's they would be such a useful tool! We also did the Whales book. To me when we read it in a circle it didn't really make since, but I guess it was supposed to? Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention! Well next week is the big week with reading assessment..ahh!

Week 4

So this week my life has been pretty stressful because I haven't had my personal computer! In my field experience how ever I was informed that I would be doing a reading assessment with some of the students! I am really nervous about this because I don't want to mess up my student's grade! I really hope they don't depend too much on the score of their assessment! In class we discussed our craft lessons! Some people in my group had some pretty interesting ideas. I would like to have some way of keeping everyone's lesson plans so maybe one day I can use them in my classroom!!

Week 3

This week in class we discussed and learned about the Writing Workshop. I think this is a wonderful thing to use in the classroom. I believe that students should have plenty of time to write in class about anything they would like. Young students have wonderful imaginations and this is the time they can put them to work. You have to write your whole life so why not start young and get them ready for their futures. I think that I would have my students create a writers notebook to use for their writing workshop. I would like to come up with some type of system so that the students can share what they would like to share, but can give me some type of warning not to read their private writings. I would respect my students writing and not read things they wouldn't want me to.

This week was also our first week in our field experience. I was really nervous about going the first day, but I really think I'm going to enjoy it! I am in a fourth grade class room and even though I wanted K-3 I really think I will enjoy it. I am kind of glad I got the 4th grade room because it will give me the experience and really let me know what age group I like best. I think I am going to learn a lot about the reading and writing area. In my class room they actually are split up in different skill groups working on their literature. My teacher has the remediation group so I really think I will learn a lot about how to teach literature. My class is also in specials while we are there so I will also get to take part in their specials! I am really excited to go to their specials with them and see what they are working on! I can't wait to get to know the students and I think I am really going to like my teacher!

In this class I really enjoyed decorating my writers journal. Although I didn't find many cut outs I liked learning about what everyone else found. I really want to add real pictures to the front of my journal. The spelling section of class really hit home for me. I have never been a good speller. I had to write my spelling list so many times just to remember how to spell them. As a teacher I want to give my students the relief of writing their spelling words 50 times like I had to. Learning some spelling strategies was key for me. I want to try out all of these strategies in my classroom to see what works for what student. I really liked the focus of focusing on a students strengths and to build of their strengths instead of the their weaknesses. If all a teacher points out is a student's weaknesses the student is going to think they do it all wrong all the time. If we focus on the strengths we can not only build on what they are good at, but also boost their self esteem because they will see their own accomplishments. I would love to have all types of sources for my students in the classroom. One source I will stress in my classroom is other classmates. I want my students to be able to work and learn productively together!

Junior Year

My junior year is off to a hectic start. My schedule this year between school and work is very busy and I think it will take some getting used to. Although it will be a busy year/semester I have some mixed feelings. I am nervous, but yet excited at the same time. I am really excited to get going because it just puts me that much closer to graduation and having my own classroom! I am really nervous about starting the field experience. Although I had some time in the classroom last year I never really taught a lesson or was actually in front of the class or the teacher. I think this field experience will be a whole new world for me and will really be an eye opener! I really hope I get a nice and helpful teacher. I am so ready to learn a lot this year and really get going on actually learning how to teach children. I can't wait to start my career and actually have my very own classroom, but then again that is a scary thought too!

At first I was really skeptical about the writers notebook, but after reading the book I am actually excited about it. I'm ready to make it my own. I love being creative and doodling so my writers notebook will have a lot of color and doodles in it! I remember when I was little I actually tried to write a story. I wanted to write a chapter book and publish it. I never finished it, but I really wish I still had it so that I could go back. I think the writers notebook will really help me to remember my thoughts and ideas. I also think the writers notebook is a great writing source to use in the classroom. I think even for the younger ages they could use a writers notebook, but maybe draw pictures instead of using words. It would be a great source of practice. Like stated in class the easiest writing to do is writing about yourself or free writing. I think students could really have a lot of fun with this and could even share some of their ideas with the class if they wanted to. Like I said I can't wait to get started on mine since I can write whatever I want! :) Needless to say I am pretty excited about this year!

Assisstive Technology

This is a screen shot of an inverted screen that can help students with visual needs. This can assist a student that has trouble seeing the computer screen. These arrangement of colors makes it easier for the students to see.










This is a screen shot of an on screen keyboard. This can help students that have a physical disabilities. Such as a student that has limited mobility maybe the student only has movement of one hand. This on screen keyboard would make typing way easier for them. They could just use the mouse to click on each letter and type away!

This is a screen shot that could also help a student with a visual impairment. This particular tool magnifies what is on your screen. This could help students that can see, but can not read small or see small print. This tool is very easy to use because where ever your mouse goes that is where the magnifier goes. With this tool you can actually move the magnifier to where you want it and you don't have to look in two different places.

Photo Editing

Photo editing can be used for many reasons in the classroom. It can be used to make lessons more interesting or fun. In a lesson you could put your face as the topic making the children eager to learn because they think its funny. An example of this is putting your face on the moon when learning about space or putting your face on an animal when learning biology. Photo editing can be very creative and can make your classroom more unique. You could even use photo editing to make fun bulletins in your classroom. An example of this is say you are doing a unit on multiplication and each student has to pass a certain test. You could make a bulletin board of the multiplication queens and kings and use photo editing to put the face of your student as a queen or a king. Another idea for a bulletin is for your classroom helpers. Most teachers use classroom helpers and each student gets a certain job. You could use photo editing to make pictures of the student actually doing this certain job and adding some creativity to make it more interesting.

Photo editing can even be used as a technology tool in the classroom. If you have time you could teach your students how to photo edit their pictures. The students could then use their skills to make their projects more interesting. Photo edited pictures can really make a powerpoint really interesting. A teacher could also use photo editing to create different games or even the student could make the game. An example of this type of game might be a learning the presidents types of games. You or the student could edit the picture making it difficult to identify the president, but possiable. This could help the students to remember what each president looks like.

The Learning Connection

The Learning Connection is a great way for teachers to stay connected with parents and students, and to keep organized. The Learning Connection has many helpful tools for teachers. The teacher can post homework assignments, grades, projects, or anything they want their students and parents to see. The parents and students can join the teacher's community and view what the teacher has posted for them. This is a great tool to use to keep the parents updated on whats going on in the classroom. Papers that teachers send home don't always make it home to the parent so this way the teacher has a back up plan. This can also be used to help students in case they forget how or what to do for an assignments they can easily look it up online. This can also help the student stay on top of their grades by being able to view them in an organized manner.

The Learning Connection can also help the teacher stay very organized. The teacher can post their personal activities, lesson plans, and grades. While posting activities and lesson plans the teacher can easy access the Indiana State Standards to make sure they are covering the standards. When posting activities and lessons there is even a place for which standard it is covering. This can save a teacher a lot of time when setting up their lesson plans and also keeps them very organized. On the Learning Connection there is even a place for teachers to type out a plan for her substitute teachers. This way she will always know that she is covered and that her substitute can find her instructions easily. Another way to help the teacher stay organized is an online calendar. The teacher can post up coming events for her parents and teachers or even just keep it personalized. The Learning Connection is a great tool for teachers and could be very helpful!

Lesson Plans

A to Z Teacher Stuff

In this website you can search by the subject and grade also, but there are more than subjects. This website is a great page to search for learning games for your grade area. The lessons are very descriptive and easy to follow. I would like to use this website to get ideas for different learning games. We all know that children love to play games, what better way to learn!

Education World

This website also has many tools to search for lesson plans you would like to use. The one that I really liked that I found was the “five minute fillers”. I think these little lessons will come in handy when I am looking for something little and fun to do with the classroom. This section has many different types of five-minute actives you can find. For each lesson it states what skills your classroom will be working on so you can use these during the time of topic they are learning about or even as introduction.

HotChalk

In this website you can search by grade level, subject, or sections. There are many different sections to choose from. I really like the seasonal lesson plans in this website. In the seasonal section you can choose almost anything you would want to use in a classroom from the Olympics to Easter. On this page you can search by the four season or month to month. I really like this websites variety of seasonal lesson plans and would find these really helpful for those types of lessons.

Teachers.Net

In this website you can also search by grade level or subject area. In this website the lesson plans are actually entered by actual teachers. Since the lesson plans are entered by actual teachers most of them give you hints on how the lesson works out and what to look out for. In this website I also found some very interesting games that you can use in the classroom. In this website there is many cute fun ideas for lesson plans that I plan to use someday.

TeacherVison

In this website you can search by grade or subject. Then the search goes further you can search by themes, type, most popular, class management, new, or TeacherVison books. This website has outstanding lesson plans that are very easy to follow. This website is also very organized and has many different topic for each subject. Another helpful thing about this website is that is very easy to print worksheets or the actual lesson plans. You can actually view the printable version before even printing. I really like this website and I plan to use it a lot.

Measuring Ourselves

Station 2: Measuring Ourselves-Height and Foot Size in InspireData

• Give the title of the module/station: Measurements
• Who was in your group: Robin & Caroline
• A (group) description of what the station was: This station was a way of measuring different parts of the body and inputting the data in to Inspire data to compare with graphs.
  
• A (group) description of what your group did: In the station we measured our height, wingspan, and foot length of ourselves and five other students in the class. Then we made graphs in the Inspire Data comparing the foot size to the height and the wingspan to height.
• What did you was an individual do? I helped measure the other students in the class and our groups. I also helped measure my own body parts so I was apart of the data.
  
• 

• This is a screen shot of the data table we used to make the graph below. We put in information that we collected from the different measurements.

Wingspan vs. Height

• This graph shows us that their is a relationship between wingspan and height. The wingspan and the height should be about the same. Also from this graph you can see that the taller the person is the longer their wingspan will be. When looking at the graph you can see if the wingspan is more to the right then the height is higher on the graph.
  

Foot Length vs. Height

• This graph shows us that there is a realtionship between foot length and height. The taller the person is the longer their foot length will be. When looking at the graph you can see this by if the foot length is farther tot he right then the height we be more towards the top.

• What did you like about this activity, if you were the student? What about if you were the teacher?: I liked that fact that I was using real data that I collected from my peers. If I were a teacher I would also like this activity because the students are working on their measurement skills. As a teacher I might have the students also create their own graphs because they have to learn those skills also.
  
• What did you not like about this activity, if you were the student? What about if you were the teacher?: If I were a student I would not like the fact that the data is not very spread or or unique to the graphs are not dramatic. If I were a teacher the only thing that I would not like is maybe this station would be interrupting the other groups when collecting data.
  
• What were the most interesting and/or surprising parts of this activity?: The most interesting parts of this activity was seeing the actual class data into a graph. It was also interesting learning how to use Inspire data.
  

The tool I used for this activity is called Kidspiration. Kidspiration is tool that can be used for many activities. You can use this tool to make hand outs for your students or even work sheets. This tool can also be used directly by the student, for example instead of printing off a work sheet the student can go directly on to Kidspiration and fill out the the activity and submit it to you online or however you choose.

The content eploration used in this activity is open-ended because it is helping the student problem solve. In this acitivity say the student is having trouble writing a short poem this tool helps them to explore their options and guide them to a short poem idea. This activity also can help the student to explore and understand different poem structures. This tool is also covering the content area of poem writing.

This tool is great tool for elementary education students for many reasons. This tool can help kids stay interactive in their learning by keeping them interested. If the students are directly filling out or playing with Kidspiration they are going to be more excited to learn rather than just doing it on paper or reading it from a text book. This tool is also a plus for elementary education students because the page is very eye catching. Younger students often get bored with lots of words or plain black and white, but with this tool is different. In Kidspiration there is lots of color and few words making it more eye cathing to them and making them more curious to learn.

Engaging Our Youngest Minds- Angela Maiers
This podcast is about how technology does not intrigue our students, but how passion does. Young students have to passion to be intrigued it what they are learning. Technology will help them to learn more about their passion, but there has to be an interest first. Technology can also help them proceed with their passion. In this podcast there is a great example of passion and how a very young girl used technology to express her passion for animals particularly panda bears. This podcast is trying to get teachers to realize that there has to be passion in the classroom in order for the students to learn. Teachers need to work on bringing passion back into the classroom and be willing to let the students express to you what there passion is. This podcast also expresses that teachers need to be more willing to let their students express to you how they believe the world around them is living. This is a great podcast and really opened my eyes!

Elementary Math is a wonderful website to find many activities for teaching elementary students basic math skills. In this website you will find many activities and games. This covers a lot of the mathematical skills taught in elementary. This website even has activities pages that you can print out for your students. The games that you will find on this website are very elementary based and are easy to play.

Often times teachers spend a lot of time trying to figure out fun activities for their students. Well this website is perfect for finding fun math activities. This website will also take you to other very good websites that you can use to teach your students. The games on this website are games that a student would play on a computer so they will be working on their computer skills too!

PowerPoint Games is a wonderful website for teachers because it has games that can be played in the classroom! Not only can you play these games in the classroom, but you can make these games your own. You can put your own information into the game so that your students can play with the materials you are teaching. This website has many different types of games that you can you choose from and use.
After going to the website all you have to do is download which game you want and then put in the information that you wish to use. Elementary children love to play games. This is a great way to keep your student intrigued while learning important materials! I know many teachers make their own games and this website will eliminate the time you spend on making these games yourself. Its a wonderful resource for teachers!

Videos safe for kids.

Kideos is a good website because you can actually pick the age group of students you are looking to the show the videos to and it will show you the videos appropriate for that age group. Sometimes its hard to find videos that can be shown in an elementary classroom and this website helps to eliminate all the searching. When you go to this website you will find many cute and fun videos to show to young students.

This website also has certain categories that you can search from making the searching even easier. In this website you can also type it something that you maybe looking for. This website also gives a brief description of each video so that you can read what the video is about before actually watching it. This website can even be downloaded as an app for the iPhone users!