day one:
I have been placed in Ms. Ingram's Kindergarten class from Spring Hill Elementary. Ms. Ingram is a teacher who focuses on incorporating 21st century technology into her classroom. She has a smart-board as well as a smart-table placed within her classroom that is used on a daily basis. Our first day focused on phoneme blending with the letter 'K'.
day two:
Unfortunately my clinical week was cut short because of the snow storm we had. My second day was on Friday, February 12th. I got to help the children pass out Valentine cards and candy. Ms. Ingram continued working on phoneme blending, this time using the letter 'B'. The Kindergarten class also worked on their phoneme deletion. I must say that I am extremely excited to be working with these children.
day three:
Today the children learned about predictions. They learned what predictions were and how to make their own predictions. Ms. Ingram focused on phoneme blending as well as read a book on butterflies. After the butterfly book was read, the children reflected on this short story and drew a picture of one of the insects mentioned in the book and labeled that insect.
day four:
Another short week at Spring Hill Elementary due to snow and ISC meetings. We focused on phoneme blending again today, then we read a book about various types of melons. This book was about a spider who was too lazy to grown his own watermelons so he begins eating Mr. Elephant's watermelons when all of the sudden, he has eaten too much and cannot get out of the melon. The story progresses as the elephant believes he has a talking melon. I was impressed with how much of the story the children were able to re-tell. Children were given a beginning, middle, and end paper to re-tell the story.
day five:
Today we learned about earthworms and the purpose they serve in our gardens. After reading our book on earthworms the students were given construction paper a piece of pipe cleaner. We learned two new words 'stretch' and 'squeeze'. Children were to show one of the action words on their paper by either stretching their earthworm (pipe cleaner) or squeezing their earthworm and taping it to the construction paper. The children seemed to enjoy this lesson a lot.
day six:
Finally a full week of school for Spring Hill Elementary. Today we reflected on the life-cycle of a butterfly and we read about the life-cycle of a lady bug. We focused on the four stages of a lady bug's life. Students enjoyed drawing the four different life cycles but had difficulty with labeling the cycles correctly. I begin teaching on Monday... can't wait.
day seven:
Today was my first full day of teaching in Miss Ingram's Kindergarten class. Things went well. Today we learned about SPIDERS. We learned the motions to the song The Eency Weency Spider. Students reflected of the story by retelling the story in it's four parts: the spider going up the spout, the rain washing him down, the sun coming up and drying the rain, the spider going back up the spout. We also focused on short vowel O sounds like in the words hop and not.
day eight:
Today was my first day using the smart board with a classroom of students. We worked on phoneme isolation and being able to isolate the letter W from words that start with the letter W. We read the book Elmer. This book is about an elephant who is filled with many different colors. Because he is so different from all the other elephants he is sad. This allowed for a small discussion on why Elmer was sad and what made him happy at the end of the book.
day nine:
Today we worked on identifying words with the same ending letters. Example: sled, cloud, etc. We also introduced the letter and sound of X /ks/. If our list of words had the same ending letter children would give a thumbs up, if not they would give a thumbs down. We also read a folktale of a rooster going to his uncle's wedding. I had the students reflect on the story by completing a beginning, middle, and ending sections on a paper. The students were able to retell the parts of the story pretty well. Most of the children were able to identify the problem in the story and how the character solved the problem.
day ten:
Today I introduced the students to two syllable words. I was surprised at how well the students were able to break these two syllable words into the two syllables. Children were to clap out words such as moun-tain, etc. We reread the book Elmer and was impressed at how much of the story the children were able to retell before going over the book again with them. After our story, students were to color an elephant any color and write a sentence about what color they would be. Ex: My elephant is red.
day eleven:
Today was a bit difficult, but a learning experience nonetheless. Today we went over identifying words that have the same middle sound. Students had trouble identifying these similar sounds at first, but eventually caught on and were able to identify them correctly. Today we re-read So Say the Little Monkeys. Children were to design the monkeys a home. Their drawings were interesting.
day twelve:
Real or make-believe? That is what we discussed today. After practicing our phonemic blending skills we worked on identifying parts of The Strongest One of All and whether these parts for Real or Make-Believe and what those mean exactly. Students did very well with identifying what could happen in real life, or what was made up by the author. Students were also able to identify parts of the story that were partly true and partly made up. Today was neat.
day thirteen:
Today we retold the story of Walking Through the Jungle. I wanted to get the kids to use their imaginations for this activity. After we re-read the story I had the children think up and draw what the girl made herself and the six animals (crocodile, lion, polar bear, snake, whale, & wolf) for supper. Some children came up with food like apples, some would only draw enough for one person while some of them knew there were six animals and made enough food for the entire list of characters.
day fourteen:
Today has been one of my favorite days. I really enjoy introducing new letters/sounds to the classroom. Today we went over the letter/sound V /v/. We talked about the number of strokes there are when writing our v's. We also colored a van and glued it to a sheet of construction paper and labeled the van on the paper, as well as practicing our lower and upper case V's. The student's really seemed to enjoy today's lesson.
day fifteen:
Today was interesting. We worked on phonemic blending. We also worked on the letter/sound of J /j/. Students had trouble with hooking their J's to the beginning of the letter, but soon caught on. We read about The Shoemaker and The Elves. This story was about a man & wife (shoemakers) and the elves that sneak in at night and make the shoes for them. We discussed the possibilities of this story being real vs being make-believe and gave examples of other things that were real and make-believe.
day sixteen:
Today went very well. We re-read the story of Benny's Pennies and rewrote the story on big pieces of paper and made our entire retell of the story with pictures they colored from the previous day when we introduced the story. We also worked on distinguishing the difference between V and J sounds, words, etc. Today was very successful and very encouraging. Student participation was high and for the most part well behaved. Today was our last day for Marshall's Nutrition teachers to talk about the food groups within our classroom.
day seventeen:
Observation day!!! Today Professor Jeffers came and observed me during my teaching. We worked on our phonemic awareness, identifying the letter e and where it was placed in specific words like: bed, egg, etc. We read the story Good-bye Hello. We discussed this story and how it would make you feel if you had to move. We reflected on this story by making it meaningful to the students. I had the students draw something they would say goodbye to if they had to move. We also reviewed the letter E e, how to write it, it's number of strokes and the sound it makes.
day eighteen:
Today was a somewhat challenging day. We worked on identifying rhyming words. This proved to be difficult for the students. Students were able to identify rhyming words from a list of three words, but struggled identifying them for a shorty story. Ex: jam-ham-boat vs My brother is Sam, My sister is Pam. After identifying our rhyming words we re-read the story The Shape of Things. As we went through the story we worked on identifying our rhyming words again, as well as identifying the various shapes in the story and the objects that were built from each shape.
day nineteen:
Today went very well. We worked on identifying how many sounds were in each word from a list of words. We read the story "Caps For Sale", the students really enjoyed this story and did very well with retelling this story. I had the children fill out a beginning, middle, and end section sheet on a piece of paper. Most of the students incorporated the different colors of caps that were for sale, most of them included the monkeys in the tree, and some of the advanced students mentioned that the caps were being sold for 50 cents.
day twenty:
Today was an amazing day. The students impressed me very much with how well they did on their assignment. At the beginning of class we worked on phoneme deletion and identifying where we deleted the letter and the sound that is left after we deleted that specific letter. Ex: pig without /p/ would be ig. We re-read the story "The Shape of Things". I was highly impressed at how well the students were able to do with recalling the shapes from the story before we re-read the book. After we re-read the book, students were to cut out shapes and paste them to a piece of paper. On the other side I had them listen to, identify the shape from the object, and draw that shape beside the corresponding number.
Clinical Reflections:
day one:
I have been placed in Ms. Ingram's Kindergarten class from Spring Hill Elementary. Ms. Ingram is a teacher who focuses on incorporating 21st century technology into her classroom. She has a smart-board as well as a smart-table placed within her classroom that is used on a daily basis. Our first day focused on phoneme blending with the letter 'K'.
day two:
Unfortunately my clinical week was cut short because of the snow storm we had. My second day was on Friday, February 12th. I got to help the children pass out Valentine cards and candy. Ms. Ingram continued working on phoneme blending, this time using the letter 'B'. The Kindergarten class also worked on their phoneme deletion. I must say that I am extremely excited to be working with these children.
day three:
Today the children learned about predictions. They learned what predictions were and how to make their own predictions. Ms. Ingram focused on phoneme blending as well as read a book on butterflies. After the butterfly book was read, the children reflected on this short story and drew a picture of one of the insects mentioned in the book and labeled that insect.
day four:
Another short week at Spring Hill Elementary due to snow and ISC meetings. We focused on phoneme blending again today, then we read a book about various types of melons. This book was about a spider who was too lazy to grown his own watermelons so he begins eating Mr. Elephant's watermelons when all of the sudden, he has eaten too much and cannot get out of the melon. The story progresses as the elephant believes he has a talking melon. I was impressed with how much of the story the children were able to re-tell. Children were given a beginning, middle, and end paper to re-tell the story.
day five:
Today we learned about earthworms and the purpose they serve in our gardens. After reading our book on earthworms the students were given construction paper a piece of pipe cleaner. We learned two new words 'stretch' and 'squeeze'. Children were to show one of the action words on their paper by either stretching their earthworm (pipe cleaner) or squeezing their earthworm and taping it to the construction paper. The children seemed to enjoy this lesson a lot.
day six:
Finally a full week of school for Spring Hill Elementary. Today we reflected on the life-cycle of a butterfly and we read about the life-cycle of a lady bug. We focused on the four stages of a lady bug's life. Students enjoyed drawing the four different life cycles but had difficulty with labeling the cycles correctly. I begin teaching on Monday... can't wait.
day seven:
Today was my first full day of teaching in Miss Ingram's Kindergarten class. Things went well. Today we learned about SPIDERS. We learned the motions to the song The Eency Weency Spider. Students reflected of the story by retelling the story in it's four parts: the spider going up the spout, the rain washing him down, the sun coming up and drying the rain, the spider going back up the spout. We also focused on short vowel O sounds like in the words hop and not.
day eight:
Today was my first day using the smart board with a classroom of students. We worked on phoneme isolation and being able to isolate the letter W from words that start with the letter W. We read the book Elmer. This book is about an elephant who is filled with many different colors. Because he is so different from all the other elephants he is sad. This allowed for a small discussion on why Elmer was sad and what made him happy at the end of the book.
day nine:
Today we worked on identifying words with the same ending letters. Example: sled, cloud, etc. We also introduced the letter and sound of X /ks/. If our list of words had the same ending letter children would give a thumbs up, if not they would give a thumbs down. We also read a folktale of a rooster going to his uncle's wedding. I had the students reflect on the story by completing a beginning, middle, and ending sections on a paper. The students were able to retell the parts of the story pretty well. Most of the children were able to identify the problem in the story and how the character solved the problem.
day ten:
Today I introduced the students to two syllable words. I was surprised at how well the students were able to break these two syllable words into the two syllables. Children were to clap out words such as moun-tain, etc. We reread the book Elmer and was impressed at how much of the story the children were able to retell before going over the book again with them. After our story, students were to color an elephant any color and write a sentence about what color they would be. Ex: My elephant is red.
day eleven:
Today was a bit difficult, but a learning experience nonetheless. Today we went over identifying words that have the same middle sound. Students had trouble identifying these similar sounds at first, but eventually caught on and were able to identify them correctly. Today we re-read So Say the Little Monkeys. Children were to design the monkeys a home. Their drawings were interesting.
day twelve:
Real or make-believe? That is what we discussed today. After practicing our phonemic blending skills we worked on identifying parts of The Strongest One of All and whether these parts for Real or Make-Believe and what those mean exactly. Students did very well with identifying what could happen in real life, or what was made up by the author. Students were also able to identify parts of the story that were partly true and partly made up. Today was neat.
day thirteen:
Today we retold the story of Walking Through the Jungle. I wanted to get the kids to use their imaginations for this activity. After we re-read the story I had the children think up and draw what the girl made herself and the six animals (crocodile, lion, polar bear, snake, whale, & wolf) for supper. Some children came up with food like apples, some would only draw enough for one person while some of them knew there were six animals and made enough food for the entire list of characters.
day fourteen:
Today has been one of my favorite days. I really enjoy introducing new letters/sounds to the classroom. Today we went over the letter/sound V /v/. We talked about the number of strokes there are when writing our v's. We also colored a van and glued it to a sheet of construction paper and labeled the van on the paper, as well as practicing our lower and upper case V's. The student's really seemed to enjoy today's lesson.
day fifteen:
Today was interesting. We worked on phonemic blending. We also worked on the letter/sound of J /j/. Students had trouble with hooking their J's to the beginning of the letter, but soon caught on. We read about The Shoemaker and The Elves. This story was about a man & wife (shoemakers) and the elves that sneak in at night and make the shoes for them. We discussed the possibilities of this story being real vs being make-believe and gave examples of other things that were real and make-believe.
day sixteen:
Today went very well. We re-read the story of Benny's Pennies and rewrote the story on big pieces of paper and made our entire retell of the story with pictures they colored from the previous day when we introduced the story. We also worked on distinguishing the difference between V and J sounds, words, etc. Today was very successful and very encouraging. Student participation was high and for the most part well behaved. Today was our last day for Marshall's Nutrition teachers to talk about the food groups within our classroom.
day seventeen:
Observation day!!! Today Professor Jeffers came and observed me during my teaching. We worked on our phonemic awareness, identifying the letter e and where it was placed in specific words like: bed, egg, etc. We read the story Good-bye Hello. We discussed this story and how it would make you feel if you had to move. We reflected on this story by making it meaningful to the students. I had the students draw something they would say goodbye to if they had to move. We also reviewed the letter E e, how to write it, it's number of strokes and the sound it makes.
day eighteen:
Today was a somewhat challenging day. We worked on identifying rhyming words. This proved to be difficult for the students. Students were able to identify rhyming words from a list of three words, but struggled identifying them for a shorty story. Ex: jam-ham-boat vs My brother is Sam, My sister is Pam. After identifying our rhyming words we re-read the story The Shape of Things. As we went through the story we worked on identifying our rhyming words again, as well as identifying the various shapes in the story and the objects that were built from each shape.
day nineteen:
Today went very well. We worked on identifying how many sounds were in each word from a list of words. We read the story "Caps For Sale", the students really enjoyed this story and did very well with retelling this story. I had the children fill out a beginning, middle, and end section sheet on a piece of paper. Most of the students incorporated the different colors of caps that were for sale, most of them included the monkeys in the tree, and some of the advanced students mentioned that the caps were being sold for 50 cents.
day twenty:
Today was an amazing day. The students impressed me very much with how well they did on their assignment. At the beginning of class we worked on phoneme deletion and identifying where we deleted the letter and the sound that is left after we deleted that specific letter. Ex: pig without /p/ would be ig. We re-read the story "The Shape of Things". I was highly impressed at how well the students were able to do with recalling the shapes from the story before we re-read the book. After we re-read the book, students were to cut out shapes and paste them to a piece of paper. On the other side I had them listen to, identify the shape from the object, and draw that shape beside the corresponding number.