So Much to Learn, So Little Time

Today was probably the loudest day in Mrs. Barger's class. It was surprising to see how rowdy they were being after having seen them act like angels, but I just had to remind myself that, well, they're six. They are going to behave like children because that's what they are. And despite the volume and jitters of the class, they are still so adorable! After lunch we did more math rotations, the game that I had helped them learn how to move forward and backward with their numbers. They also have been working on writing all of their numbers from 1 to 100, and they enjoyed their other games and activities, at least that's what I got from the exuberant exclamations I heard all around the classroom. 

Throughout this short time that I've had to volunteer, I've learned how important it is to know that each of the kids are so different that the other, but that it is so easy to love each of them for their individuality. I can tell when I get to talk to each child that they have their inhibitions or are completely confident, or that they shine in some areas of learning but struggle in others. I know that you cannot teach all of these children in the same way, that they need us to teach them individually and be so specific in the ways we teach. 

But I think that the most important thing that I've learned through this experience is that each of those students want to learn and are completely capable of learning. Education has always been important to me in my life, and I believe that it should be and is so important to those children. Often times children may be discouraged because they are having difficulty with a certain subject, and they may feel like they can't learn it. Teachers need to keep encouraging them to try hard and not give up. We need to let them know that they can do it, whatever it is, and that they can be amazing at it. 

I love these kids so much, and feel so blessed to be able to see their smiling faces and be the recipient of so many small, affectionate hugs! These students are our future, and to me, the future looks bright!

Bonus Word: School

Today I came in to class and had about 26 pairs of eyes all look at me, and lots of shy smiles. I hate to interrupt the class when I come in, but it's really sweet to see all of those bright shining eyes look up at me. 

I graded some homework and spelling tests, the bonus word was appropriately school today, they are really good at spelling, and with a few of the kids, I had them tell me who the characters and what the setting, problem, and solution of a story was that they had read in class. During lunch Mrs. Barger stayed in to talk with me. She asked me about my family and how they were doing, she's in my ward so we get to see her a lot. She is such a sweet lady, and you can tell that she really cares about her students and makes them feel comfortable in the class.

I had a few minutes to walk around the empty classroom so I looked at all of the things that Mrs. Barger has on the walls. She had class rules and other ways to behave on the walls, and the clothespin chart I mentioned in the previous entry to help the kids see where they stand, if they are being good. She had four main rules for the class:

1. Raise your hand to speak
2. Be nice
3. Be honest
4. No talking in the hall

She has them on an erasable poster so that she could change, amend, or add rules as necessary. She also has a card system, where green is good, then yellow, orange, and red are the other card they can get if they are being bad. There was only one that wasn't green today, so I believe that they really like this system.

Other things that she had posted said thing like, we will be nice, we will help others, we will listen. These are more permanent rules for her class. Mrs. Barger can point these out to the students when they are misbehaving, but overall, her kids do a good job of following these rules without reminders. 

This is such a sweet bunch of kids, and it's so fun to volunteer with them. As I was getting ready to leave, Mrs. Barger asked the kids what they say to Ms. Becca. I got the loudest thank you from all of those kids. It was by far the best thank you I've ever gotten. I hope that they all actually like having me there, because I sure as heck love it :)

First Grade is Fabulous!

As I walked in to the class room today, I was greeted by a lot of beautiful voices singing and a lot of little hands signing along to a song about being thankful. After they sang some more, I helped a couple of kids with their reading words; the kids would read a list of words to me, just to help them learn how to read. Then they went to lunch and I got a packet ready for the students for math.

When the kids got back, we had them split up in groups for math rotations, three for quiet math time, and the other three with adults teaching them something. I got to teach them how to play a game called Spot It, which was really fun, and the kids were definitely having a great time. Mrs. Barger was teaching them how to use the smart board, and doing math problems with them to help them navigate their way around on it. Mrs. Barger does a fantastic job of involving her students and letting them learn hands on. She made sure to include each child in the activities and also made sure that they were participating and learning. 

One method that she uses to help them pay attention and try to be engaged in the learning is having all of their names on clothes pins and cards that they can each put their pins on if they are being good or bad. When their pin gets on the card "Outstanding" then they can take their pin down at the end of the day and give it to the teacher. I believe that they get a reward for being on the "Outstanding" card. When I look at all of their pins, you can tell that they are all trying really hard to be good and engaged. These kids are also very good at listening and raising their hands and being quiet when they are in the class. If you were to walk into that class room you would see that they are really learning well from Mrs. Barger. She has done an excellent job of making all of the children feel welcome to participate and safe from embarrassment. 

After all of the math rotations, we cleaned up and the Early-Birds went home. I stayed to watch the Later-Gators play duck, duck, goose, and then I was able to read them a book about having manners on the telephone. When I got up to leave, ALL of the girls congregated around me and asked me to stay. I got so many hugs and heard many little voices saying that I was the best teacher ever. Even though I haven't taught them anything and have done nothing to deserve that compliment, it was a really sweet thing to hear. I didn't know how much I could love little first graders until now. 

I Don't Remember What I Learned in First Grade

So today I was able to go back to my first elementary school, and the memories just flooded back. It's amazing what sights and smells can do to recall moments from your childhood... and none of it about what I learned. It was great to be back, the only difference is that I'm bigger and the school is... smaller... at least it seems to be now.

I volunteered in the class of a lady that I have known for... a long time, and who is a fantastic first grade teacher. Mrs. Barger was kind enough to let me watch these super adorable children as she was encouraging and challenging her little six year-olds to keep trying and to do their best. That's what I think is most important role that a teacher can play: being supportive and pushing students to do harder things because you know that they can do it. Mrs. Barger was very clear in her instructions to the kids, showed absolutely no doubt in any of them, was encouraging to them in their assignments, and was very good at giving compliments and boosting their self-esteem with the way she talked to and looked at them. You could tell by the way her students looked at her and flocked to her when they needed help that they just adore her and really need her appreciation. Mrs. Barger acknowledged each of her students by their name, and looked at them, and gave them the time that they needed for their questions or comments. This is so important to do at this time of their lives. They are so young, and will likely believe what anyone tells them, so when the teacher tells them that they can do something, that they can be great at something, they will believe it themselves. 

So while I was volunteering in the class, they had lunch and recess. I cut out a lot of shapes in colored paper for a future activity, and waited for them to come back. When they did, Mrs. Barger asked if I would like to read them a story. I excitedly looked through her treasure trove of books, and found one of my favorites from elementary school, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, by Doreen Cronin. I was really glad that they enjoyed it and were so quite as I read it. 

After that, they each worked on their own self portrait for an autobiography that they are writing. They were each doing a great job and they all looked beautiful. Throughout the day, if Mrs. Barger needed their attention, she would yell out "Classity Class!", and they would yell back "Yessity Yes?" as they put their arms over their heads. They were all very respectful and quiet, which is always refreshing when you're in a class room full of kids. 

It was hard to leave because it had been so fun to be there again, but I'm really excited to be able to go back really soon, especially to see one of my primary students being quiet :) 

This lil' dude is one of my primary students, so I was extra excited to be in this class! 

Divide and Conquer!

Today was my last day in Kristen's class for a while, so I was glad to have extra time to just watch the class and reflect on what I had done to help Kristen in any way. There are so many things that a teacher needs to do and definitely doesn't have enough time for, so when I was in the class, I did a lot of grading for Kristen. Spelling tests and history assignments mostly, but it was cool to see what they had written and to learn, well it was more like remember, what they were learning. I was also able to help prepare a poster as an example for them for their explorer posters, and I was able to cut a load of yarn into pieces and tie them together for cat's cradle. 

Today wasn't a super busy day, especially since they are getting ready for fall break. I helped grade some more papers on European explorers, and I was able to stay long enough to listen to their math assignments. They were dividing today, which took me back less than 24 hours to my own math class. Yesterday we were learning the same things, how to divide, what the easiest way was to divide, but we were learning how to teach it. It's nice to be past the point where I was learning what division was all about. They had a problem up on the board that said, is 9585 divisible by 9?, so for fun, I pulled out a piece of paper and did the problem using the partial product method (which I just learned yesterday but should have learned 10 years ago), and found out for myself that 9585 is indeed divisible by 9. For those of you that are curious, 9585 divided by 9 is 1065.  

I know that in comparison to the time I am not there, I didn't even contribute a fraction of the time that Kristen or any teacher would spend in a year, or a month, a week, or even a day on grading papers, helping students with questions, etc. I feel overwhelmed when I think about the amount of time that a teacher puts in to her job, but then I remember that I won't be in school full time with a part time job as well as being a teacher :)

I just want to thank Kristen and her kids for being so nice for letting me join in their class if only for a little while, and for giving me a glimpse into what I hope to be doing as a permanent career in the future. It's been fun to spend time doing this, and I'm excited to see what the younger grades are like. Oh, and for Kristen's kids:

WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY!

Money Money Money!!!

Today when I went into class, I asked Kristen about both exceptional students and English learners, because teaching both requires most of the same things. She said that they both have modified spelling tests, a lot of visual and audio lessons to help them remember and learn better, and they have more one-on-one time when they need it. With the exceptional students, they can have aids come into the class to help them, a push in, or they can go into a separate class with other exceptional students and work in that type of class room setting, a pull out.

For English learning students, they really focus on vocab words, acting out what they mean, drawing what they mean, looking at context clues to figure out the meaning of a word. Their spelling tests are modified to what words they are learning as well. 

The word that this is portraying is transform. 

After I talked to Kristen about this, she told the class about an activity that they will be doing for the rest of the year. They have "colonial money" that they can earn by doing things that they are supposed to do or if they are behaving, or they can lose money when they do things they aren't supposed to do. At the end of the activity they will be able to use the money they earn for a colonial store. 

I think they will really enjoy this assignment. Tomorrow, although I will not be there, all of the fifth graders will be doing a colonial day where they have different rotations and learn different things or play games, like marbles and cat's cradle, and then they will enjoy ginger snap cookies and apple cider :) I hope they have a fun time with that.  

Boys and Girls, You Are... Different...

As soon as I got to the class on the 17th, I knew something exciting was going on. It was picture day! There just had to be a reason some of the boys were wearing ties, I know they didn't volunteer to do that :)

After they had all gone to capture their smiling faces and I had graded some history assignments, Mrs. Barnum had them start making posters on some of the explorers that they had been discussing. They broke up into groups to look at where they each explored and how significant their exploration was to America. I was able to help a couple of different groups in each rotation, and there was something really obvious: the boys didn't want to work and the girls did :)

This didn't surprise me entirely, but the boys were so talkative, and the girls were just trying to encourage them to help work on the posters. Some of the boys got hung up on how one of the explorers had been eaten by cannibals, and I don't think that the girls were too excited to listen to that. I could tell that the girls were enjoying being able to find what they were looking for about the explorer in a paper about them, and they made their posters look nice.

 

 

I went back to the class on the 24th, and graded some more spelling tests. This weeks bonus word was exploration, which I thought was fitting. These are the best ways that they misspelled it:

• exploreation
• explortion
• exploreashin
• explorashon

After grading the spelling tests, I listened to Kristen read a book about the first meeting between a Native American tribe and European explorers called Encounter by Jane Yolen. She had them each take the point of view of either an explorer or a Native American, and write what their thoughts would be if they were there.

 

I've loved being able to see how they learn about when America was discovered, and how they are making connections between all of the events. History is one of my favorite subjects and it's fun to relearn all of these things with these students.