Assessment with Cheerios!

I babysit for a cute, little 2 year old girl during the week, which I will name Sara, and I usually am at her house by 7 in the morning and leave around 3 in the afternoon. My favorite part of the day with this child is when I first arrive to her house, and I get to go in her room and get her up once I hear her start to talk on the baby monitor. She usually has wild woman hair when she wakes up, and she is always ready to get up and get ready for the day. Our morning routine consists of getting her out of the crib, then a diaper change, and then it's time for breakfast. What's always on the menu for breakfast? A big bowl of Cheerios! I put Sara in her so called "big girl"chair aka her highchair and then I go into the pantry to get the Cheerios. Once I have the box of Cheerios in hand,its is time to do the Cheerio dance in which I shake the box of Cheerios while I dance around the kitchen. Sara has enjoyed this dance since the first day I made it up when I was trying to make her stop crying after her parents left her in my care and went to work. On that first day, I thought for a couple of minutes that it was going to take a while for this little girl to warm up to me. However, after I cleverly made up the Cheerio dance, she started to explode with laughter and we have been friends ever since. Now, this past Thursday when I was babysitting her, I had assessment on the brain because of our exam, and I decided to practice my ability to plan a short assessment that would definitely involve Cheerios. I knew from knowing Sara and how smart she was that she could already count to ten; however, I wanted to see if she could understand the relationship between the number name and the quantity of objects is stood for. I knew this may be to challenging for her,but I wanted to give it a try. I engaged her in the lesson by asking her to count to ten with me, which she did very easily. Next put one Cheerio on my spoon and asked her how many Cheerios did I have on my spoon. She responded by saying two. I asked her to count with me the number of Cheerios I had on my spoon. We both said one , and then she kept counting to ten. From this pre-assessment I determined that she had no concept of number quantities. To Sara, numbers were just words that were to be repeated in a pattern. I went back to trying to teach her how to count the number of Cheerios I had but this time I put three Cheerios on the spoon and asked her to watch me as I pointed to each Cheerio and counted to three. I modeled the same thing again for her by putting two Cheerios on my spoon this time, which I pointed to as I counted to two. I asked her if she wanted to try it, which she did and I put my spoon in my bowl and pulled out a spoon filled with four Cheerios. Both she and I counted together and I noticed that she stopped counting once she got to four. I tried another spoonful with her, this time with five cheerios as she again stopped counting after we pointed to the 5th Cheerio. I asked her if she waned to pick some Cheerios out of her bowl this time and try counting them. She regained interest in the lesson when I changed it so that now the Cheerios were coming out of her bowl. She stuck her spoon in the bowl and came out with three Cheerios. I asked her how many were on her spoon and amazingly she pointed to each one and said one,two,three and stopped! I praised her for saying the right answer and asked if she wanted to do it again which she did. This time she pulled out a big spoonful of nine Cheerios. I told her that she could count the Cheerios as she stuck each of them in her mouth. She started out and ended at nine and stopped counting! I was amazed at her ability to pick up this concept so quickly. We didn't do this very much longer as it was a beautiful day outside and it was time to put on her play clothes and go outside. However, once outside I found three flowers and showed them to Sara. I asked her if she could count how many flowers I had and she did it perfectly! I was surprised to see that she understood the concept hours after we had done the Cheerio assessment!
I know I'm a nerd, but it was fun!

Just a couple of thoughts:

I just wanted to blog about how just recently I really have been thinking a lot about assessment and the important role that the teacher plays in finding appropriate assessments to conduct with children in order to find out what their needs are. I guess I have heard that over and over again this past semester, however for some reason it really didn't hit me that the way to evaluate what kids needs are is to do an assessment. I know that may sound dumb that I really am thinking of it now, but it is so necessary for a teacher to be well informed about appropriate assessment methods to use with their students so that they can plan appropriate instruction to meet their students needs.
Another thought that I had was that assessment never stops, it is a continuous cycle in that once a teacher assesses a students in a particular skill, area of development, or disposition, the information that the teacher receives from that initial assessment lets the teacher know what areas the student needs further instruction in. After the teacher plans appropriate instruction for the student(s), then the teacher must plan another form of assessment to see if the students needs were met by the instruction the teacher provided them. Then the teacher must take the information she gathers from that assessment and formulate an effective plan of instruction to either help the student take the new found understanding that he received from the previous instruction and build upon it, or if the student did not do well on the assessment, then the teacher must modify their original plan of instruction so that the students needs are met. Then the teacher will reassess that student until he/she can attain the skills they need top pass the assessment.
Anyways, this is just a light bulb that went off in my head. I think that when I was originally thinking about planning assessments, I had the mentality that as a teacher, I would teach the students a skill and then assess their ability to complete it and then we would move on. Of course I knew that I would have to help any of my students who had trouble grasping the concept he first time I taught it, but I just feel like I connected the dots to a big puzzle and it really makes sense to me. I think that my original notion of using assessment was based on how in Field II we would go into the class and teach our Literacy, math, Social studies or Science lesson to the students, and then we would have a plan to assess their understanding of what we taught them at the end. However, since we were only with the students for one day during the week, we never got the opportunity to modify our instruction in order to suit the needs of kids who may have needed further instruction. I know that I will have the opportunity to do this when I am in clinical practice. Field II was such a great learning experience for me. I am glad that I finally made this connection , and hopefully I am not the only one who has ever had this A-ha moment. But anyways, I just wanted to blog about what I learned and how I connected everything together.

Goals I would like to set and reflection over this past semester

A I look back over this semester, I can definitely see how my confidence in my ability to teach has grown. I believe that one of the goals I will continue to strive for is to continue to make good assessments of what children's needs are , and create lessons that will most efficiently meet their needs. I also would like to continue to learn how to create engaging lessons by expanding my knowledge of how to use technology within the classroom. This semester I was able to use the SMART board, and I really enjoyed using it. I only hope to become more familiar with the technology that is availability for me to use in my classroom. I really enjoyed this semester and I am looking forward to Field III!

Last Day in Field II

I totally forgot to blog last week about my last day in Field II! I guess I was so overwhelmed by the goodbye party and the thanks that we received from the students and teacher, that it totally slipped my mind! Anyways, last Wednesday was our last day at Drayton Hall. Mrs. Martin and the students had planned a goodbye party for Tiffany and I, which was absolutely amazing! I had no idea how much of an impact we had made on the class and the impact that they had mad eon us until we left that day. I really learned a lot in this Field experience, and I am much more confident now in my ability to assess and create lesson plans that will meet the individual needs of each child.
Our going away party consisted of Mrs. Martin and the students surprising us with a cake and gifts! I was so honored to be a part of their class this semester. Tiffany and I also had a few small gifts for the students and a gift certificate for Mrs. Martin that I am sure they enjoyed! This class has trully been a great experience for me.

Teaching my lesson on Earth Day

This past Wednesday I taught my 4th lesson on Earth Day. Earth Day will be celebrated next Thursday, April 22. In my lesson I chose to read Dr. Seuss' book "The Lorax."This was a great book to use because it focused on what can happen to the environment if it is not taken care of. The class seemed to really be into the book and the lesson as a whole. I believe that this was the best lesson that I did in which I basically had the whole class engaged the whole time. I was so excited to see how interested the class was in, in learning about why we celebrated Earth Day, and what we could do to help celebrate it. In order to asses the students' knowledge on what I had just finished teaching them, I had them write in their journals about the things that the Earth provides us that they are most thankful for and why did they think these thinks were so important to them? I had the class share their journal entries if they wanted to. The ideas they wrote down were wonderful! I could tell that they really thought hard about what to write down. At the end, I had them make a class book that was filled with their ideas on how to they could celebrate Earth Day on Thursday. One little boy really impressed me when he said that he had noticed that there was a lot of trash around the Bi-Lo grocery store where he lived. He said that on Earth Day he was going to ask his parents to take him there so he could clean it up! When the book was finished I stapled the cover that I had made to the front of their "idea" pages, and I gave it to Mrs. Marti to keep. They loved the fact that they had made their very own class book!
This was definitely one of my favorite lessons that I taught. I believe that over the semester I have become more and more comfortable with writing lesson plans and teaching them. I really really enjoy being in the classroom , and I can't wait to be a teacher!!

Stop and Think Chapter 4:

What are your earliest memories about how your family and your teachers related? Did anyone in your family visit school? Who? Why? What was that like for you?

I can remember when I visited my third grade teacher a week before I started back to school. My family and I had just moved back to Charleston, and I was excited to start back to school because I would be going to the same school as my cousin. A week before school was to start my mom asked me if I would like to drop by the school to see if we could see the classroom that I was going to be in. I was very excited and a little nervous as well. When we arrived at Mason Prep, I remember going into the office with my mom and meeting a very nice secretary. She told us that we were more than welcome to go look at the classroom that I would be in. As we walked down the hall and neared my classroom doorway, I noticed that my teacher had put up pictures of me and my classmates on the wall. I was amazed to see that she already had a picture of me before we had even had the chance to meet!! My mom said that my teacher had phoned her to introduce herself and also to ask my mom to send in a picture of me. It was comforting to know that my teacher was expecting me.
When my mom and I entered the classroom, it was as if my teacher was expecting us ( looking back, I think my mom and my teacher had prearranged the meeting). My teacher greeted us with a nice smile, and she knew my name when she saw me! She showed us around the classroom and told us a little bit about herself and that she had a lot of wonderful things planned for the year ahead. I left the school excited about my first day of third grade. It was nice to know that my teacher already knew who I was, and that she was excited about having me in her class.
I think that it is very beneficial for teachers to meet the students that will be in their class and their parents before the year begins. This meeting help to comfort the child and their parents by helping them to know what to expect from their teacher.

Assessing my case study

In my assessment project, I focused on handwriting and word spacing in writing sentences. I found that my case study child struggles to space words when he is writing sentences. I believe this may be partially due to the fact that he holds his pencil incorrectly when he writes. I worked with him a little bit to help him correct this problem, but I mainly focused on assessing his sentence structure when he writes. Ms. Martin, his teacher, has told me that it is so important that he develops his handwriting skills further before he reaches second grade. I have personally noticed improvement in his writing from the work I have seen him do over the semester. I think with more individual instruction with this child may be beneficial for him.

Anti Bias Chap 2 Stop and Think Question and Answer

The question that I chose to respond to form Chapter 2 of the Anti-Bias Unit was :What is your earliest memory of realizing that some people were different from you and/or your family?

I can remember one day, I think I was in first grade, when I realized that there were some families that were different from my own. I realized this when I went over to one of my friend's house to play. We were talking about what we had done with our families over the weekend and my friend shared with me that she had gone over to her dad's house. I was shocked to hear that her parents did not live in the same house as mine did. I went home and discussed this with my mom, and she told me that my friend's parents had gone through a divorce. Before that moment, I had always assumed that everyone's family was like my own, and that everyone's parents lived happily together under the same roof.
I think that as early childhood teachers, it is important to understand that kids are dealing with a variety of differences within their families. It is important for teachers to be sensitive to this. Furthermore, it is important that the teacher helps children to understand that even though they may come from a different family background than other children did, they are just as important to the class as anyone else is.

St. Patty's Day with Ms. Martin's 1st Grade Class!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Today in Ms. Martin's class, Tiffany taught an awesome science lesson on the growth of plants. The kids loved the lesson, especially when we got to go outside to the school's garden to plant carrot seeds! I think that one of the best things about Tiffany's lesson was that she used a variety of methods to teach the lesson in order to adhere to the different learning styles of the students. Some of the ways in which she did this was to have an interactive power point presentation which she displayed on the Smart Board which was good do have for the visual learners. She also read a story to the class and discussed how it related to the lesson which was good for the audio visual learners. Then she had the class go out to the Garden and actually practice planting the seeds to make them grow, which was great for the tactile learners. I definitely think that she had the whole class engaged throughout her entire lesson.
Next week I will be doing my lesson on the colors of the rainbow, and I am very excited about it! ROY G BIV here I come!

Teaching my Language Arts Lesson

Today I taught my Language Arts lesson to Mrs. Miller's first grade class. I taught my lesson on defining key vocabulary words that were essential to know in order to grasp a better meaning of the text. The short story these eight words came from was called "My Robot." The text identified the words to be discussed by highlighting them in yellow. My job, as a teacher, was to appropriately define the words and present them to the students in ways that engaged them in learning vocabulary knowledge. I used several methods in my teaching to convey the definitions of the words to the students.
I started out my lesson by introducing the words from the text that we would be focusing on. I created an interactive power point presentation in which the words were creatively displayed and defined on the smart board. I was able to stop as long as I needed to during the power point to discuss the definitions of each word with the class. I also included a vocabulary review at the end of the power point in which I had fill in the blank sentences for the students to come up to the smart board and fill in the correct word for each sentence. The students really like being able to write on the smart board! Mrs. Martin also really liked how my presentation looked when the kids wrote in the blanks. She said the colors in the background of the slides I used really helped to magnify the colors of the smart board pens the students used to fill in the blanks. If I could change anything about my power point, I might make it a little bit shorter because I could tell that some of the students were starting to get fidgety towards the end of the presentation.
Next, I had the students pull out their reading books that contained the "My Robot " story and I explained to them that I would ask students to raise their hands to read a page of the story aloud. I asked the students to focus on the key vocabulary words we discussed and were highlighted for them in the text as they read. At the end of the reading, I went over the review questions that are found at the back of the stories. I noticed that the students seemed to really comprehend what was going on in the story from the answers they gave me.
Then I had the students do a matching vocabulary worksheet that I created. The students had to connect the word with the correct definition by drawing a line to it. Some students found this challenging, but I had to encourage them to think about the words and their meanings . In order to give early finishers something to do after they completed the worksheet, I had purposely made the worksheet on an 11x17 piece of paper which I folded in half to look like a book. The worksheet was on the front cover, and then when students opened it up I asked them to draw a picture of a robot they would like to have and write a few sentences using the vocabulary words discussed to either describe or tell a story about their robots. The kids really seemed to get into this , and I was most impressed by those who used the vocabulary words we discussed in their descriptions and stories of their robots. I asked if anyone would like to share their Robot stories and pictures to the class. All of the students eagerly volunteered to share their stories in front of the class.
The last thing I did was to orally ask students to tell me what the words meant as I asked them what the words definitions were aloud. I recieved good responses from the students who answered my questions.
Overall, I think this lesson proved to be a successful one in that the students were actively engaged in learning about the vocabulary words and their meanings, along with seeing how they themselves could use them in their own writings.

4th week in Mrs. Martin's 1st grade class

This week in Mrs. Martin's 1st grade class Tiffany taught her Literacy lesson. She did an excellent job presenting the lesson! I shall teach my lesson this week as well. When Mrs. Martin teaches the vocabulary words of the week to her students, I noticed that she has a computer program that is a fill in the blank game. I know that this is a fun way to get them to learn their vocabulary words!As a teacher, it is necessary to keep up with the technology that can be used to help you teach lessons to your class. Technology is a great resource to utilize!

Teaching my Math Lesson

Today in Mrs. Miller's firt grade class I taught my Math lesson. It was about introducing a new Math text book that the students had never used before. The book is a part of the "Everyday Math" curriculum and it is called "My Resource Book." Inside the book are definitions to different math concepts that the students have learned or will learn throughout the year. I took the time in my lesson to go over the table of contents with them to show them what kinds of things were in their book. I explained to them that the book was to be used as a helpful resource for them to look to when they need help with a math concept. I made up a scaveger hunt game for them to do to help them have fun going through the book. The lesson, I believe, went really well. At first I was nervous because I did not know how much fun this lesson was going to be for them, however they seemed to really get into it!

Field Experience Day 3

I am steadily becoming more familiar with the students in my class at Drayton Hall. I am beginning to understand where each child's strnegths and weaknesses are. There is one kid in particular who soars in Math. The teachcer acknowledges this when she calles on him to do the more challenging probems. I was able to spend alot of time today with one little girl who has speech problems. I worked with her on her writing worksheet that the class was doing when
I walked in. I found myself recalling and using some of the literacy teaching methods that we learned about last semester as I helped her with her worksheet It is so fun being able to use what I learn. I gain more and more confidence in myself in knowing that I will be able to be a great teacher one day!
Tiffany taught a great lesson today on using "Function Machines" in math! I was very impressed with how well she developed and presented the lesson to the class! Great job!!

2nd Day in Ms. Martin's First Grade

Today I found myself at ease as I interacted more with the students in my field experience classroom. The first activity the students worked on was their phonics worksheets and DOL assignments. They did these independently and would raise their hands for my help if they needed it. The phonics worksheet was again focused on distinguishing the difference between short and long /u/ vowel atterns. I had a great time helping kids who were struggling with this.
Next Ms. Miller moved onto whole group instruction when they did their calendar time. She had a pocket chart from which she moved a plastic straw from one envelope that was full of straws to another that already had 2 in it in order to designate that this was the third day in February. I was impressed with the students engagement and interest in helping Ms. Martin figure out todays weather, including the temperature, and wind chill for today. I was so impressed with how much technology they use in their classroom. As I look back on my own elementary school days, I can definitly see a huge degree of advancement in technology from then to now. I cannot wait to learn ho to use the Smart Board as it seems to be such a great tool to have in the classroom.
During Math, the students worked on using Factor Families. The students did a pretty good job with understanding this concept. I was pleased to help those who needed it.
After Math, the students moved onto their Reading lesson where they each took turns reading aloud as the teacher called on them. During this time, two students were called out of the room to go to "Speech." I noticed that these were two students who struggled with reading and I am interseted to find out if their speech has an affect on their confidence to read. I would propose that it does, but it will be interesting to see if their reading improves over time as their speech does.

I'm loving the 1st grade!

First day in Ms. Martins 1st Grade Class

First of all I need to say how much I enjoyed my first field experience at Drayton Hall Elementary! I absolutely loved my 1st grade class. When I arrived this morning, the students were quietly working at their desks on a phonics worksheet. They were concentrating n distinguishing words that contained long /u/ vowel sounds verses short /u/ vowel sounds. I was very impressed with the students ability to quickly grasp this concept on their own and without the teachers help. During the math exercise, the focus was on adding and subtracting by using what they called a "function" unit. The students worked with the teacher for a long time trying to figure out what the different patterns were that made each addition or subtraction problem have certain outcome. This was difficult for some to grasp, but the teacher assured them that they would get it. I think it is important for teachers to continue to encourage kids, especially those who are having a hard time, to help to motivate them to try to understand concepts that they may be struggling with.

Blog Entry #2

The Delpit text discusses the probems that students of other cutlures can have in school when teachers try to enfrce the use of Standard English, and they neglect to focus on how the culture from which these students came can have an affect on how they speak and write. I strongly believe that as teachers, it is our responsibility to instill within our students the rules of proper English and Grammer. However, we must not ignore and try to get rid of the students culture or heritage. Effective teaching will occur by being sensative to the different cultures from which each student comes from.

Blog entry 1 for EDEE 636 :Why do I want to be a Teacher?

I have always enjoyed working with kids. Throughout the summers of my high school and college days, I worked as a camp councelor and on staff at a summer camp. This camp was ccalled Camp St. Christoher, and it is located on Seabrook Island. It was here at camp that I grew to love working with children. I majored in Christian Education in hopes of becoming either the camp director, or a youth minister. However, I was never certain that either of these careers were what I relly wanted to do. After having worked at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island for several years after graduating, I realized that I missed working with children, and I knew I wanted to become a teacher.
I have really enjoyed the MAT program so far and am excited about enhancing my knowledge and teaching skills. I love working with little kids which is why I wanted to be an Early Childhood teacher. Last semester, I observed the third grade class at the Charleston Developmental Academy on Line Street. Prior to this experience, I had thought that I wanted o teacher younger age students, but after working with the third graders, I fell in love with them! So now I am not sure which grade I would like to teach. I definitly know though that I want to stick with Early Childhood. I am excited about what this year will bring. I am a little nervous about teaching on my own for the first time, however I am confident in my ablity to do so.