// Taking Part in Morning Meeting \\

The school that I am placed in for my internship, enforce and encourage morning meetings and even afternoon meetings. They use this strategy to build a sense of community within their classrooms, and since I am in a kindergarten classroom, this community is extremely important to build. Many of these students are still learning social skills because of their age. Since morning meetings are all about sharing and communication, this is almost in line with the kindergarten curriculum and standards. My teacher structures her morning meetings a little differently than how I have learned it to be. She begins her meeting with “today is…” which is always written on the easel white board. The students are always situated in their designated squares on the rug when they begin. In the beginning of the year when my CT was still trying to get the students to learn each others names she would do name games such as the “brown bear, brown bear” activity. In this activity the class would say, for example, “Kevin, Kevin who do you see?” and Kevin would then answer “I see Tori looking at me’. It would then go on to Tori repeating the same structure: “Tori, Tori who do you see?” and so on. Since most of the students know each others names, my CT skips over this portion most of the time and goes on to an alphabet and vowel song that the students sing together. One student comes up and points to the letters as the song says the letter and says the sound it makes and an example word that makes that letter sound. When the song is finished, she will either have the students look at the word wall and go through the letters, sounds, and the words that are under each letter, or she will just move onto their focus letter for the day. After introducing the letter and the sound she will have the students repeat the sound, and as a class they come up with a list of words that start with that letter. As students come up with words they then come up and draw a visual of their word on the board. She ends morning meeting by either going straight into the daily 5 centers or going into the ELA content lesson.

I took over part of morning meeting out of spontaneity because my CT was sick and didn’t have a voice one day. The portion of the meeting that I took over was teaching the letter of the day, since the rest of it was almost student driven. From being in the classroom two days a week, I had seen my CT do this portion of her meeting many times, so I felt confident that I could reciprocate what she normally does. As I started, I introduced the letter with enthusiasm in order to gain the students attention and excitement. I ask the students what letter does “X” make? and they all began to make phoneme noise. I then made the letter sound noise so that students who didn’t know could hear it from me. Again I asked “what sound does X make again?” in order to reinforce their knowledge and to give students who didn’t know the first time a chance to practice this time. Afterwards, I posed the difficult question “what words can you think of that start with the letter X, or what words have the letter X in it?” (I gave the second option since there aren’t a lot of words that start with X that kindergarteners would know) When all of the hands shot up, I was genuinely surprised. These students really knew some good words. As each gave their example word, they would come up and draw their visual representation. The students really seem to have a sense of self-confidence when they come up with a word and get to draw it. At this age, self recognition is a big factor and when they are able to do something in front of the class they feel very special.

Although my CT’s approach to morning meeting isn’t exactly in line with how I would hold morning meeting, I can see why she implements the activities that she does. She orchestrates the meeting in a far more curriculum based way, but she still encompasses that sense of community and self-actualization within it. I think that children at this age really need that sense of initiative and industry (according to Erik Ericsson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development), and my CT’s use of repetition, songs, and student involvement encourages these qualities. However, I think that it is still important to have more social based activities that aren’t so much based on letter and sounds. These students are still learning how to be act like a human and a citizen, so I believe they still need opportunities to have a structured time for communication. Having such would allow the students to see how the teacher is modeling how to communicate and interact with another, how their voice matters, and it also will teach them social skills such as structuring their language. If I end up having a kindergarten or even first grade class when I am a teacher I think I will use what I know from my CT’s morning meeting, such as her student involvement and the songs, and sporadically incorporate them into my meetings, but also keep the meeting more in line with the traditional structure.

// Teaching in Kindergarten \\

My first formal supervisor lesson in kindergarten, I’m not going to lie, was intimidating. I have had experience teaching and I wouldn’t say I get nervous when I teach; however, in this case I was extremely nervous. During lunch I couldn’t stop pacing back and forth because of the nerves that I felt. If I had to guess why I was nervous, I would probably assume it is from my lack of experience with kindergarteners. I haven’t really had much experience being around kindergarteners or teaching them. My CT has given me many tasks that I have successfully completed in the class, but this just seemed different.

My CT wanted me to teach a math lesson, and because I have seen their engagement during read alouds, I knew that I wanted to incorporate one into this lesson. Luckily, I found a good book that followed the standard that I was teaching. When I made my lesson plan, I felt as though I had a pretty solid plan. It wasn’t until after I conferenced, my perspective was opened and I knew I had to add some things in order to see a full picture of my students learning.

Before my teaching, I had thought I had a good plan to have the students sit in a circle and count the students in the class. I would have them stop and then another student would start counting again. When I actually implemented this part of my lesson, I had a little bit of a struggle. I don’t feel as through the students knew what I was asking of them and because there was a student that was being disruptive my mind was racing and I don’t think I was being very clear in what I wanted from them. If I were to teach this lesson to the same students I think I would still keep the read aloud because for the most part they were all fully engaged during it, however I think I would add more choral reading. I think this would help my ELL student make connections and it will also help my below level students with visually linking words with their voices. I would also do something different with the practice time of the lesson. Although the students enjoyed their activity of counting up to 15 from their number and counting down to 1 from their number, the enrichment group got really distracted and I think it may have helped if they had some way to write what they were doing, and I might even increase their challenge level of activity. This would also challenge their writing skills as well, thus diminishing their likelihood of becoming distracted (FEAP 3b) From observations between my lesson and the lessons I’ve watched from my CT, the students normally work in leveled groups. That is they are in group with a high, medium, and low. The students seemed to get more rowdy and distracted much quicker in the groups I had them in than what my teacher does. I’m not sure why this happened, I would still like to explore this concept. I would also cut the time of the activity and have the students come together to discuss what they did in their group since the groups did different things. They could use this time to share their challenges and their successes, which would build the learning community and their confidence. During my lesson I was actually surprised to see two things. The first one was that I felt as though the students really understood the concept I was teaching them. They loved being able to count and hold up their fingers while the snack was counting the mice. They seem to do better with read alouds when they are actively involved with the story. The second was how quickly the students lost interest in the practice activity. When thinking about my lesson, there is one thing that really sticks out in my mind. This event is when I had called up the students groups that they would be working in and was explaining to each group what they would be doing. Kindergarteners need both auditory directions paired with modeling since many of them are not at the level where they can read directions and truly comprehend what to do. Because of this, I had a little bit of wasted time during my leveling group split. Since each group was having a different task with the paper mice according to their level, I had to then explain to each group what they would be doing. I’m not sure how I would solve this challenge so I would like to brainstorm some ideas that would better serve me in the future. Another thing that really stuck out to me was when I was working with my below level students. There was one student that was really resilient to doing the activity, he asked me if he could get water while I was trying to help them, since he wasn’t really paying attention I told him now. Immediately I noticed that he sunk down in his chair looking disappointed. I paused and quickly asked him if he were to get water would he then be able to participate in the activity? He shook his head yes, so I allowed him to go. (there is a water fountain in the room) When he returned, I noticed a spunk in his attitude that wasn’t there previously, he was excited and participating. I was genuinely surprised by what I had experienced, and I think it was a good reminder of being cognizant of your students’ needs. In my class, there is only one ELL student. She has actually gone through kindergarten already, however it was in her native country and in her native language (Spanish), I think it would help if I knew simple commands that she would be able to follow when giving instructions. This will allow her to understand what to do at the same rate as her peers and she wouldn’t be trying to learn what to do from watching her peers (FEAP 3c). The main vocabulary that I wanted the students to learn was counting backwards. During the lesson and even after watching the lesson, I felt that the students understood and made connections to what that vocabulary meant. I even saw one of my below level students enthusiastically saying what I was doing when I said “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4,…”. At this level in many of the students’ academics, they are still relying on pictorial and visual representations of numbers. For this reason, I based my lesson practice on this type of mathematics (FEAP 1c). During my coursework as a pre-service teacher, I have learned about The Daily Five and the explanation and research that supports it. The research about the brain’s ability to focus and concentrate on a task is only 10 minutes give or take a few minutes based on age was truly prevalent and visible in my lesson (Boushey & Moser, 2006). At these kindergarteners developmental level, it isn’t appropriate to ask such strenuous tasks for a long period of time without some sort of change. Knowing this now, next time my tasks will be formatted in short bursts of an activity with whole class discussions put in-between.

 

Resources:

Boushey, G., & Moser, J. (2006). The daily 5: Fostering literacy independence in the elementary grades (2nd ed.). Portland, Me.: Stenhouse.

// Saying goodbye for the day \\

Day by day my collaborating teacher has been giving me more and more tasks to do within class, and day by day I am feeling more and more comfortable with being with Kindergarteners. The newest task that my teacher has given me reigns on is the dismissal of the students who are car riders and walkers. My CT will take the remaining students (students who go to YMCA and students who ride the bus) to the designated teachers that go to those areas. Normally, my CT will pick a well behaved child to choose a book to do a read aloud, allow students to share if they want to, and then call them up one at at time–appropriately behaved students would be called first in order to show students what they should be doing–in order to give them their choice of candy. Once they have their candy they line up by the door and wait until they are allowed to be dismissed.

The first time my CT gave me this role, I only handed out the candy when she called the students up. Then she gave me the role of doing the read aloud and then handing the candy to students she called. Once I had done that, she gave me full reign on this task. The students really enjoy this portion of the day because they have the ability to choose a book, they get a candy, and they get to go home. Because of my teacher’s gradual release of responsibility with this task, I felt like I have been able to have pretty good control. I truly feel comfortable with this students and doing this task. My CT’s confidence in me enables me to have this comfortable feeling with doing dismissal. When I do dismissal, I structure it the same way as my CT with a read aloud (choose given to a well behaved student), sharing if there is time, then students are called to get candy and get in line. The students seem to really respond well to me in this task as well because there is always something keeping their attention. Additionally, I think that having a smaller group of students during this time aids my ability to manage the class.

Prior to this year in my other internship classroom, there wasn’t really a dismissal routine. The students packed up and were “supposed to” line up at the door. I’m not sure if it was because there were no set expectations, the procedure wasn’t practiced enough, or if it was because there wasn’t much of a behavior management system in place, but it was pretty much chaos. Seeing the two different environment shows me how important it is to have structure and set procedures for everything. Even if students are older, they still need to have procedures to follow, otherwise students are able to do almost anything. I like how my CT this year structures her dismissal routine with a read aloud and sharing moment. I think that doing this is a great community building opportunity. Additionally, I think that giving a treat at the end of the day (if class was well behaved) is also a great way to give students a positive reinforcement at the end of the day and ending their school day positively no matter what may have happened. In my classroom I would like to do something similar because I think its important to end the day on a positive note everyday. I would never want a student to go home upset causing them to have a negative feeling about school all night long.

// “building” instruction \\

Planning effectively prior to instruction is an important aspect of being a teacher. You need to ensure that you are making appropriate accommodations for the students within your classroom. These accommodations involve their learning style, their interests, their culture, their funds of knowledge, their readiness level, etc. (Tomlinson, 2005) The list can go on, and this is why planning is essential. As a pre-service teacher, I am able get a lot of feedback on my lesson plans I create before I actually teach them. Through these conferences I am able to develop my lessons to include proper accommodations for my students. When I am a teacher with my own set of students, I plan on incorporating many “getting to know you” kind of activities during the sharing portion of my morning meetings (Kriete, 2002). This will enable me to get to know the students in my class and be able to make lessons and activities more engaging and enjoyable for them. Additionally, observing students throughout lessons and reflecting on their reactions to the strategies that were used is a great way to gain information. If you are able to it is wise to try and talk to the teachers that students had before to gain information on them.

I am a big advocate for making lessons engaging by using student interest rather than just teaching from a textbook. However, when not using a textbook, you have to ensure that the lessons that you are making should be aligned to the state standards. Looking at these standards is a good way to gauge what a students general background knowledge of a topic is because they should have learned the year before. Additionally, the standards that have been set in place have considered the developmental level in which it is appropriate to introduce such material. Readiness and developmental level is a big part of deciding on how and what to teach.

Being able to be a reflective practitioner is another vital aspect of being a teacher. As a teacher, you need to be able to look at what you’ve taught and analyze how your students comprehended the information and what you should do from there. There may be a time when your students don’t understand a concept so you will have to go back and teach them this concept in another manner instead of just moving on. If you were to just move on, it could create a large gap in their foundational knowledge for material that is connected to that concept later down the road. In order to reflect, you must have something to reflect on, maybe it was observations of the students reactions or thinking, maybe it was a formative assessment, or even a summative assessment (Dana & Yendol-Hoppey, 2009). All of this data is part of this practice of being a reflective practitioner and a teacher. Without the reflecting, you might as well just be video that doesn’t take into concept being rewinded when something is missed, slowing down, having any kind of differentiation, etc. As a teacher there is a lot of responsibility that comes with the job, so being cognizant of this key aspect is important.

 

References:

Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2009). Facilitator’s guide: The reflective educator’s guide to classroom research: Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practitioner inquiry (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Kriete, R. (2002). The morning meeting book. Thunder Falls, MA: Northeast Foundation, Inc.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2005). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson education.

 

 

 

// Reading is Life \\

Being in Kindergarten, books are often more frequently implemented to curriculum and lessons then most other grades. In my classroom, the students are so inquisitive and love when my CT or I read aloud to them. They are perk up and listen intently to the story and each word that is written. My CT has been giving me more and more small tasks in the classroom, one of which are read alouds. She often has me do read alouds right before lunch and at the end of the day. I have always loved reading aloud to kids, so for me this “task” was more of an enjoyment than a task to check off the list. Since I had done more than one read aloud in the class, I’ve seen myself becoming more and more comfortable with just spontaneously coming up with pre-reading, during reading, and post reading questions that my teacher often does.

As I have observed my CT doing read alouds she always some how links the book to something the kids have learned before, their sight words, or gets them thinking in a higher manner. The first read aloud that I did in this class, I wasn’t able to ask very many questions, the kids were engaged, but I wasn’t really able to hear if they were. The next couple of times, I was able to have the kids use their sight words they have learned so far to help me read. Now I am able to stop and ask inferencing and predicting questions that the kids really enjoy. At this age, these kids really want to give their input (whether its on topic or not), so giving them opportunities to share their thinking benefits the entire learning community.

Prior to being in this class, I struggled with spontaneity and I think that this simple task of doing read alouds is really strengthening this skill in me. Having the guidance of my CT, I am able to watch and see the strategies that she uses, the termonilgy that she uses, and her teaching philosophy. After watching these things I am able to implement them into my own teaching and better myself as a teacher. Additionally, after seeing the excitement and the engagement when doing the read aloud, I would like to incorporate them more often into other subjects such as social studies, math, and science. I think that it would benefit them because the will be more engaged and be able to make connections between reading and other genres of reading. Teaching students at such a young age that through reading you can gain as much information as you would like in almost any field you would like is a valuable concept that I would like to see these kids understand. In the lesson that I am teaching next week, I planned on incorporating a read aloud into my math lesson to take this concept and implement it into my teaching.

// “Good Morning!” \\

The next step after learning your students names you should make it a point to greet each individual student when they arrive in the morning. This establishes their feeling of being welcomed into the learning community. Additionally, learning about the students such as their birthdays and their interests can be a great tool to differentiate your lessons and make the student feel valued.

This week, my focus was on greeting every student and learning information about each student. I noticed that my CT actually has her door locked throughout the day so that she is always welcoming the students into her classroom, rather then them sliding into class unexpected. I liked this idea because she would always tell them good morning, which could potentially be the first “good morning” they received for the day. Since I already knew all my students’ names I found it easy to welcome each child into class. Additionally, it became more of an enjoyable experience for me as well. Telling someone good morning is such a fulfilling thing that seems so minute. It makes both the receiver and the giver a better sense of community and citizenship. I noticed that when the students saw me opening the door and telling them good morning a large smile would spread across their face. They were excited about coming into the classroom! After greeting the students for a couple of days, I saw the students respected me a lot more. They saw me more as a co-teacher rather than a random person in the room. I think that that shows a lot in the impact that a morning greeting can do.

Throughout this week I have also been trying to get to know my student. I make it a point to go around to each of the students during their morning work and make conversation with them. I normally ask them about their drawings first and then ask them about what they like to do for fun or at home. As kindergarteners they are in the developmental stage were egocentrism is still prevalent. They enjoy talking about themselves and I definitely noticed that as they spoke. Many of the students would answer my question, but go on a tangent about something else. The difference between these students and my fifth grade students last year was really apparent while I was talking to them about their interests. Many of the fifth graders were able to answer the question short and sweet, these kindergarteners continual line of self-talk often made me feel unsure as to when to stop the conversation. I think that students should have the power to stop in a conversation like this because sometimes this might be the only chance someone is talking to them in such a informal and friendly manor. However, even with this question, the students really enjoyed telling me about themselves and I can see how this information can be beneficial to me later down the road when I begin lesson planning.