12th day in the classroom

Yesterday was a great day in Mrs. Almond's and Mrs. Greenfield's classrooms.  I arrived at Mrs. Almond's class at 1:30, like always, and Mrs. Almond had me take the students out to recess while she set up her science experiments.  During recess I discovered that children gravitate toward slippery ice, especially if you tell them to stay away from it.  After I saw two students run across the ice and biff it, I stood right by the ice and told the students to stay away.  I think they needed some salt to melt the ice.

When the students went in, Mrs. Almond had transformed into Professor Scatterbrain.  She had on a whit lab coat and protection goggles.  The students always love it when Pro. Scatterbrain comes to visit the classroom, she does a lot of fun experiments.  The class has been learning about air pressure, so Mrs. Almond did a couple of great experiments to help them understand air pressure better.  She talked about how the air is pressing down on us all the time, but we can't feel it because we are accustomed to it.  Then she pointed out that the higher up you go in elevation, the less the air pressure is.  She had 5 boy volunteers come up to the front of the class.  Next she had the first volunteer lay down on the floor and the second volunteer doggy pile on top of the first .  She said, "How are you feeling number 1?"  He said he was feeling a little squished, but that he was ok.  Then she had volunteer number 3 doggy pile next.  Number one was then feeling a little more squished, number 2 was feeling a little squished, number 3 felt just fine.  Number 4 was the next volunteer to pile on.  By this point number 1 could only grunt because he was so squished, number 2 wasn't feeling too great either, number 4 was a little squished, and number 4 felt great.  Number 5 was the last one to doggy pile on top.  Number 1 couldn't make it much longer because he was being so squished.  Number 2 was feeling pretty squished too, number 3 wasn't feeling great.  Number 4 wasn't too bad.  And like always, number 5 felt great because he was on top.  The classroom was having a blast, they were laughing so hard at poor number 1 and 2.  Mrs. Almond talked more about pressure at different altitudes.

Next Mrs. Almond did some more great experiments with a 2 liter coke bottle.  She punched 4 holes down the front of the bottle and then taped them up.  Then she filled the bottle with water and put the lid on.  She had the students predict what would happen if she took the tape off of the top hole.  Most of the class thought that water would come out of the hole, but they were wrong.  When she removed the tape, nothing happened.  Next, she had them predict what would happen if she took off the tape over the second hole.  A lot of the class thought nothing would happen this time since nothing happened the last time.  Of course this time water did come out.  She then took off the rest of the pieces of tape and the lower the hole was, the farther the stream would shoot because of the air pressure.  The students were so excited about this experiment.

Her next experiment was with a can of water.  She had a hole on the bottom with tape over it.  She put a balloon at the top of the can and then took the tape off the bottom of the can.  All the students got to watch as the balloon was being sucked into the can as the water poured out the bottom of the can.  She told them that they were seeing air pressure in action.  It was a pretty great science class and all the students loved it.

In Mrs. Greenfield's class the students were working on writing a sequel to a story.  They had to use their dictionaries to look up how to spell words that they did not know.  I walked around answering questions and helping them find words in their dictionary.  After writing, they worked on phonics.  I love the way that Mrs. Greenfield does phonics.  Each student has a white erase board and a white erase board marker and an eraser.  She gives them a few minutes to draw and play with their boards, after that they are expected to practice writing their phonics words.  They write the word and then mark all the rules that they have learned.  They always seem to love phonics.

During phonics they had a fire drill.  It was obvious that they have practiced a lot because they got right up and out the door so quickly.  When they came back in they didn't have time to finish their phonics lesson so they started getting ready to go.

I helped hand out papers and folders and then the students were ready to go home.

11th day in the classroom

On Thursday January 24th I had my 11th day in the classroom.  When I showed up at 1:30 in Mrs. Almond's class, she had a substitute teacher.  The substitute teacher said that she didn't have anything for me to do, so I headed on down to Mrs. Greenfield's classroom.  They were not there, so I looked around and found them in the library.  They got to pick out books for silent reading and then they got to take them home.  Back in the classroom, Mrs. Greenfield had the students get out their squiggle word journals.  They turned to a page and found a squiggly line.  They had to make the line into a picture and color it.  After they finished their picture, they had to write two complete sentences.  Then the best part was that she had each student come to the front of the class and show their picture and then read their sentence to the class.  It was fun seeing how creative the students were.  They all had such different ideas about what they could make out of the same squiggle.  Mrs. Greenfield looked at all of their sentences and had them fix different mistakes like capitalizations, spelling, and punctuation marks.  This assignment took a good amount of time, so when they were all finally done sharing it was time to start getting ready to go.  Mrs. Greenfield is such a fun teacher, I love watching how she interacts and plays with her students.  One of the kids favorite things that she does is when she passes out their take home folders she stands in one spot and yells out a kids name and then tosses his folder to him or her and they try to catch it.  She constantly yells, "heads up".  While she is handing out folders, she always has the student of the day pick some helpers and they pass out all the students work to put in their take home folders.  It is a really fun time of day for the kids.
After all the craziness, all the students sit at the rug and she reads to them until its time to go.  During reading time at the end of the day the student of the day gets to pick some friends to help clean up the floor.  They crawl under the desks and pick up little pieces of trash.  Something about this makes it really special so they love cleaning.  When they are done, the student of the day always gets to sit by Mrs. Greenfield in a special chair.  

Tenth day in the classroom

On Thursday, Jan 17th I went to Mrs. Almonds classroom at 1:30, they were working on an art project when I got there.  Mrs. Almond had one more student to test so she asked me to stay with the kids during their indoor recess and then to get them started in science.  Indoor recess was the same as always.  The kids play games and goof off, sometimes they get a little too active for indoor recess and I have to help them find something to do.  Some of them like to play with Bubber which is like play dough that never dries out.  It is really fun, I need to remember about Bubber for my classroom someday.

At 2:00 I had the students clean up and then log the weather in their weather journals.  I have decided that I like smart boards, but they are a little unpredictable.  It seems like so many of the teachers have issues with them?

For science Mrs. Almond put a movie in and all I had to do was push play.  We had some technical difficulties with the smart board of course.  But eventually I got it started  and the kids took notes.  Mrs. Almond came in right before it was over and I headed to Mrs. Greenfields at 2:30.

In Mrs. Greenfield's class the students were working on phonics when I came in and then they did their scholastic books reading.  They have a great program online that Mrs. Greenfield pays for.  Each student gets a little scholastic pamphlet each week and it has some online games and reading.  The whole class reads them together and the students get so excited every time she pulls it out.  Another thing I need to remember for some day down the road.

To end the day Mrs. Greenfield passed out folders and take home work.  Then the students sat on the rug and she read to them until 3:30.

Teachers deserve so much more praise than they get.  They put in so much time and energy to be amazing!

Nineth Day in the Classroom

Today was a fun day in Mrs. Almond's class.  I got there at 1:30 and Mrs. Almond told me that she was going to teach me how to test the students reading levels and then I would teach science class for her while she finished testing students reading levels, i was really nervous, but excited.  It was interesting to see how reading level testing is done.  After that I stayed with the students while they had an indoor recess because it is very windy and cold weather outside today.  At 2:15 I had the students clean up and then I taught the students about weather.  We had a group reading paper about weather that we all read together.  We read and talked about meteorologists and how they study the weather.  We learned about the different types of clouds and we discussed how tornadoes are formed.  The students had fun talking about the tornado that Salt Lake had in August 1999.  Mrs. Almond came back into the classroom at 2:30 and I headed over to Mrs. Greenfield's class.

When I got to Mrs. Greenfield's class, they were learning about maps and compasses.  Mrs. G. put a compass on each students desk so they could see that the arrow always points north.  She put an N on the North wall and then an S on the south wall.  An E on the east wall, and a W on the west wall.  The students were able to understand which direction north, south, east, and west were in the classroom.  They located the compass rose on the maps and learned that north is always pointing up on a map.  After learning about compasses and maps, Mrs. G. had me pass out the scholastic readers and the students read about ice caves and snow leopards.  After scholastic reading, they sat on the rug and Mrs. G. read The Magic Finger by Ronald Dahl.  At 3:30, the students were excused to go home.

I love helping in the classrooms and learning different skills and tools that will help me as a teacher someday.

Eighth Day in the Classroom

Today I went to Mrs. Almond's classroom at 1:30.  She had me grade some math tests and then we took the kids out to recess.  It was very cold and there was lots of snow on the ground.  Her four rules for playing outside on a snowy day are.  1) Never throw snowballs, it is a state law on school property and students can be expelled.  2) Do not play on the big piles of plowed snow, kids always fall off and get hurt.  3) No sliding on the ice, she has had kids knock their front teeth out doing that.  Last but not least 4) Students can not play in the snow unless they are wearing snow pants and snow boots.

At 2:30 I went to Mrs. Greenfield's class. The students were making paper poinsettias.  They have been learning about Christmas around the world, and learned that we got poinsettias as a Christmas tradition from Mexico.  The students then got all of their Christmas projects organized to take home and then sat in a big circle around the rug and went over rules and procedures for tomorrows Christmas party rules.  The students will be doing a gift exchange at the party where they can steal the gifts from each other or pick one from the center.  Her first rule is...No Crying!  After preparing them for the festivities, she read to them out of another Roald Dahl book.  The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me.   School was out at 3:30 and the students ran out the door on their way home probably to play in the snow!

7th Day in the Classroom

Today I went to Iron Springs Elementary at 1:30 and helped Mrs. Almond.  I cut some papers for her and then took half of the students to another room and played a game with them while she tested the rest of the class.  We played a game called Cherry Pie.  I would tell the students one of their spelling words and then they would each take turns saying the next letter that comes in the word.  Then after the word has been spelled, the last person says the word and then the next person is out and we all say, "Cherry Pie".  The kids loved the game.  We also had a challenge round with the vocabulary words.

I went to Mrs. Greenfield's room at 2:30 and stayed until 3:30.  The students have been working hard making lots and lots of Christmas chains, and the whole classroom was decked out in colorful chains.  They were still working on Christmas traditions around the world, and today they were learning about Germany.  In Germany they call Santa Claus, Father Christmas.  After that they worked on a Christmas tree art project.  Then Mrs. Greenfield's husband brought their new 11 week old puppy to the classroom and all the kids got to sit in a circle while the puppy walked around visiting with them.  They loved it.  To end the day, Mrs. Greenfield finished the book "The Witches" by Rhonald Dahl. 

Sixth Day in the Classroom

Today I went to Mrs. Greenfield's 2nd grade classroom from 1:30 to 3:30.  When I got there the students were just heading back to class from the library.  When they got there, Mrs. Asay's class came into Mrs. Greenfield's class for a math competition between the two classes.  It was cute seeing the two classes compete, Mrs. Greenfield's class won again. 

After the competition, the students went outside for recess.  I went out and played a game with them where I would throw the ball way up in the air, and whoever got the ball first got the next turn to throw the ball.

When they came back in from recess, they had their timed math and then took a test.  After their test, Mrs. Greenfield did a little activity where the students "traveled to Italy".  They learned about Italian Christmas traditions.  After their travels, they got ready to go and Mrs. Greenfield read to the students while they sat on the rug.