Week 12

During field experience today, my class was in the computer lab. The students were playing map games on the website www.sheppardsoftware.com. Remember this website! It was an awesome website and has so many very educational games for the students! The students were learning about European countries and their capitals. I honestly learned a lot just by watching the students play the games so many times. The students loved these games and really got a lot out of them. This will definitely be a website I will be using in my future classroom!

The students also got an extra recess today. Which was very fun. It was nice just to be able to hang out with the students and see how the interact during social situations. The teachers were also hanging out and talking with their students which I thought was cool becuase I really want my students to see me not only as a teacher but a friend as well.

During E339 today, we talked more about our seed ideas for our final published piece. I haven't decided if I am going to write a few short poems or one longer one. I also need to figure out how I am going to make my piece "look nice." I am very eager to see what ideas everyone has come up with! I think all of the final products will look great!

Week 11

Last week during field experience my class unfortunately had a substitute for the day so most of the time was spent on busy work for the students. The substitute was told to have the students do map stations for most of the morning. The students had dry erase maps at each of their desks as well as a folder that was a "station." The folder had specific instructions for the students to follow and sometimes a worksheet for them to fill out as well. I think our teacher did a great job of preparing the sub for the day and the students seemed to enjoy the map activities as well.

One of the parents from the classroom also took out small groups one at a time to work on the school garden. I thought this was a great activity for the students to be able to work outside and learn a new skill. Some of the students didn't take the activity very seriously though and I think this had a lot to do with the fact that their normal teacher wasn't there. I think it was great for the students to be learning this new skill.

During E339 class, we had peer conferences about our seed idea for our published piece. My partner is making a children's book about one of her vacations and I am going to make a collections of poems as of now. I am excited to see what other pieces people choose to create.

Also during class we performed our writing analysis. I think this was a great idea to really look deeper into one of my student's writings and look for very small details that I wouldn't normally notice.

The last thing we did in class was reading photographs. I thought this was a great activity because a photograph can really be interpreted in so many different ways. It was interesting to see what people thought of the picture that Linda brought in. It could have meant so many different things. I think this would be a great activity in my future classroom.

Week 10

In my field experience last week my teacher did a different kind of lesson. She played the song "Image" by John Lennon. A few of the lines in the song "Imagine there are no countries" and "Imagine there are no possessions." The teacher played the song for her class twice and had them think about all of the lines in the song. After the students listened to the song the teacher had the students focus on these two lines in the song. They had a whole group discussion about it and it was very interesting to see what some of the students had to say. I think this type of lesson would be great to have in my future classroom if I were in a 5th or 6th grade classroom.

The class then focused on the book "Echoes from Mount Olympus." The teacher read aloud two chapters in the book and then had an open group discussion about each of these chapters. Then the class compared and contrasted each of these chapters.

In E339 class, we presented our MGRP. I think it was great to see everyone's topics and to see what genres everyone made. I think doing something like this is one of my future classrooms would be a great idea. This would give students freedom and choice in which topics they would like to research. Students would also be able to show their creativity through the genre pieces that they selected.

Week 9

Last week during my field experience my students were learning about soft and hard ending words, particularly in poetry. After the lesson the students then made up their own Halloween themed poem using either hard or soft words. In the middle of this lesson however we had to go into a code red for about 15 minutes because it was national safety week at the schools. After the code red we had a code green which meant we had to evacuate the building. All of this probably lasted over 30 minutes. Once we got back into the building, it was time for our class to go into the other classroom for their Halloween celebration. The students got Halloween goodies and we watched the movie Up. I didn't really get to do a whole lot of observing that day because of the hectic schedule. but it was still a fun day overall.

In E339 last week, we read Voices in the Park which told the same story from four different view points. We then created extensions of these voices in the story. I think this would be a great activity for elementary children.

We finished the class by talking about out MGRP paper. I am excited to see what everyone's will look like tomorrow!