With testing season approaching next week, my classroom has done nothing but test preparation, aside from specials, lunch, and science. I can feel the pressure building and the anticipation of the tests in my students. For the past two weeks, we have taken part in test preparation and I think it is beneficial that the students get exposure to what the testing conditions are going to be like. I am grateful that we gave them time to practice, gradually giving them more and more reading passages, and math questions given orally, which is how they are going to be on the test. I think that the students really need this practice as they prepare to take the test during the next two weeks.
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Wow! The weeks keep on flying by! I can’t believe how close I am to the end of the semester. Over the past few weeks, my second graders have been preparing for the SAT which is coming up next week. They have also been learning about the life cycles of plants and will soon be learning about the life cycles of animals. In reading, we are trying to get them prepared for the duration of the SAT, with them having to sit for hours and read many passages without taking a break. We have been giving them more stories as the days go on and eventually we will give them nine stories, like on the real SAT. This is proving to be quite difficult for some students. They complain about how long it takes, and just want it to be over. But this is why we are doing the practice, so they build up their stamina and are able to better handle the duration of the test.
My-oh-my! These past few weeks have been crazy busy with assignments! I have been working on a lesson plan for my social studies class with my friend, and we spent at least 12 hours working on it. I also had to study for a content exam in math and tons of readings and classwork to do. And on top of that, I have been taking over a lot of teaching responsibility. I teach at least three subjects on Tuesday when I am there all day and at least two subjects when I am there half of the days. All of this teaching means more and more planning. I am enjoying learning how to plan an effective lesson, and I am also learning that a lot more goes into planning than I thought, and it is not easy.
Over the past few weeks I had a realization in my classroom. I have been teaching lessons a lot over the semester, and I have been really proud of myself for getting up in front of the class and teaching. But I was thinking, just because I am getting in front of the class and delivering content, that doesn’t mean I am delivering an effective lesson that reaches all of my students. I talked to my CT and PRT about what I was thinking about and they agreed. A lot more goes into planning an effective lesson than I thought. I have to think about how I am going to introduce the lesson, activate prior knowledge, introduce new vocabulary, actually carrying out the lesson, how I am going to make it effective for all learners, and timing( which is what I struggle most with). After talking to my CT about all of these realizations, I made plans with her to make my lesson plans effective. I know all of this will take time to learn and practice, but I am glad I am making these observations now. For the rest of the semester, I will be focusing on making my lessons effective and keeping on pace with time. For the past few weeks, my Instructional Planning and Integrating Exceptional Students class has been focusing on differentiated instruction. I have really enjoyed these past few classes because I like the idea of differentiated instruction. I have learned many ways to differentiate, including differentiation based on process, product, and content. I can also differentiate by interest, ability level, and learning style. In class, we did a lot of activities that taught us how to differentiate. We made cubes based in ability level, and tic-tac-toe activities based on learning style and interest. In my classroom, my CT does not do a lot of differentiated activities, but last week she made a differentiated assessment. She made the assessment based off of ability levels, struggling, on-level, and above average. I really liked this way of assessing students because it gave them an assessment on their level, something that would show their true mastery of the lesson. When I have my own classroom, I plan on using differentiation a lot. I really like the concept and I think it is something that all students deserve, because no two students are like, so why should their instruction and assessment be the same. On Friday, we celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday in my second grade class. This was tons of fun! We started off the morning by having the students write the steps to make green eggs and ham, and following their directions while making it. Doing this activity was great! The students liked telling the teacher the steps it took to make the green eggs and ham, and of course, they also enjoyed eating them! After eating, we had the students make a line plot of whether or not they liked green eggs and ham. They just learned about line plots during the week, so we thought it would be a good idea to integrate the math activity into the day. I talked to the students about the type of data for the line plot, and what the title and labels for the graph would be. After that, I numbered the students and they marked on the line plot whether they liked green eggs and ham. After this, we analyzed the data, and came to the conclusion that they whole class liked the food. And another conclusion was that I was a good cook :) We then read Green Eggs and Ham to the class. Another Dr. Seuss activity was on that another intern and I designed. We read Happy Birthday to You! by Dr. Seuss. This book was about celebrating yourself, about being happy for being you and being alive. I talked to the class about this for a little while and had them do an activity. I had them made themselves at Things, Earlier in the week, I took a picture of their faces and I had them cut them out and place them on the Things, blue hair and all. We had them also write about what makes them special, and who they are as people by finishing a quote from the book. They finished the sentence I am I because… and wrote about themselves. When they were done, we posted their Things and sentences on the door with the quote “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you from the book. It turned out cute and it taught the students to value themselves. Overall, these past few weeks have been crazy!! But they are also very valuable. I had a good spring break and I’m ready to get back into the classroom and learn! |