Date: March 2, 2023
By: Shaylee Marr
Today was another amazing day at my field experience location. As the day began, I did the normal task of greeting the students as they came into the classroom and the student sat in their seats and began the bellringer the teacher presented on the board. Many of the students seemed much more hyper today, most likely due to the fact that they were allowed to play outside for recess. As the day continued, my MT allowed me to teach both a portion of the math and literacy sections to the students to become more engaged as time went on. Doing things even as small as these helps me to develop a sense of classroom management and control over the classroom to ensure content is being delivered as intended.
When it came to the math activity, I told my MT that I was unfamiliar with the way that the students were taught how to solve mathematical word problems due to the significant difference from when I was in first grade to the students who were now in first grade. The strategy used when completing the word problems was for the students to create a square and create a ten block depending on what the question asked. If they were to take away from the block, the students would put a line through the necessary dots that are placed in the block that represents one. The image to the left gives an example of how the students would complete the word problems and how this method assist them interesting what is being asked of them. For example, for problem one, the children would begin by drawing 9 hollow circles. After doing this, the students will be use continuous counting to add circles beginning from 9 to create 11 yet they new circles are filled in circles. Next the students will box off them circles, creating 10 frames. Since this is an addition problem, the students are going to go back after boxing off the circles and count how many boxes were filled in. With only 2 circles filled in, this lets students figure out the answer to the statement under the question that there are 2 more dogs that came to the park. This method seems to have students take a word problem which is abstract, show the representation of the problem with the though of a concrete item being present such as the 10 frame blocks. This method seems widely effective within the classroom and the students seem to genuinely like completing problems such as these.
As the day continued, the MT also wanted to complete an activity that continues based off my 2 previous outer space lesson. This week, the MT prepared information that presents what astronauts are to the students. Information such as this is important because the students within the classroom will have a better understand about what astronauts do, why they are important, and the vocabulary terms that are essential for the social studies lesson I have prepared next week. The lesson I have prepared to present to the students next week directly relates to outer space, astronauts, women’s history month, and an amazing closure for black history month, the students will be learning about Dr. Mae Jemison. I greatly appreciate the MT preparation for my teaching. By doing this, she is ensuring the content I deliver to the students is quality and being acknowledged. Here are a few worksheets that were presented to the students about astronauts.
This week, I feel that when teaching the math and phonetics lesson went well when instructing the students. I feel that I could do better when getting the students attention and keeping their attention for an extended amount of time. So far I feel that I am doing a good job at ensuring the lesson is engaging and developmentally appropriate for the students yet it is still difficult to keep their focus throughout the entire lesson. Hopefully as this week comes up, I am able to do better at managing the classroom. I look forward to this upcoming week and what is to come