Myownsuggestion’s Weblog

So today was the last day of practicum. So sad. I really liked my class. Not that I’ve ever had a class I didn’t enjoy. They were 4th grade and I liked them because they were still young in spirit even though physically they were bigger. They didn’t really have attitudes yet and they always surprised me with their funny comments and by how smart they were.

I liked alot of the things my teacher did especially:

- Figuring out vocabulary with context clues in pairs

- Putting a powerpoint slide with the morning work up on the television

- Her energy and enthusiasm

Things I did not like:

- having the class work in pairs with someone they havent worked with yet… good in theory by two students were always left out.

- using the textbook so much! espcially for reading. She would complain about a story but still use it.

I’m not sure how I feel about how she did bathroom breaks instead of having students ask individually or having a pass they take. In some ways it worked well, they knew when they could go and didnt interrupt her. Also they had a chance to stretch. But it took alot of time and I think some students went just to fool around and talk to their friends.

It was a good experience overall.

It amazes me the random things you can find on the internet.  I was working on my lesson for practicum and found this site www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html. This man keeps a list of homonyms. Some I don’t agree with (ex. Berry, Barry, Bury). I definately pronounce those differently .

I can’t decide what to do for my lesson. I have 3 concepts, symbols, timelines, or words with multiple meanings. I really want to do words with multiple meanings because I can think of lots of fun activities, but I need to include some Children’s literature and I can’t figure out what I would incorporate. I’m leaning toward timelines right now. I could do a whole class part or have them work in groups to make big timelines by rearranging things on the floor. And then they could make smaller timelines that go with a story. I figure a biography might be good for that. I also thought it might be interesting to have them pick a favorite memory or event and make a class timeline of that. We’ll see.

Today was my first day of practicum. I’m in a fourth grade class this semester. I’ve had second and third, so this is interesting seeing a class that’s a bit older. I got there at 9:30 and observed a little of math. I got to introduce myself to the class. Then they went to special, and I got to explore the classroom and talk to my teacher for a while. The classroom is much smaller than others I’ve seen. The desks take up most of the space. I noticed that all the books are chapter books, which is such a big change from 2nd grade last semester.

My teacher gave me a copy of a form she uses for behavior management. Its a flow chart. It has the child’s behavior in the center, 3 reasons for the behavior leading to the center and 3 consequences of the behavior leading away from the center. I think its a really great strategy, especially for older students. This way they have to identify what they did wrong, and what caused it. They clearly see the consequences for their behavior and can try to change the situation that caused the behavior (i.e. I was talking because the girl next to me was talking… I could ask her not to talk to me during class).

The class seems nice and well behaved. My teacher is energetic and has a great rapport with the class. She said she wants to use literature circles because she has alot of readers in her class. I’m really excited to observe that.