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.