-Independent Reading: Date:

Today I went to Mesa Verde Elementary School for my practicum. As I entered the classroom, the students were all just coming inside from lunch. The teacher likes for her students to read as soon as they get back to class because she feels that this helps calm them down and focus them. I was a little nervous because the students were really hyper and I was afraid that they were going to have a hard time getting back into “learning mode” especially considering the fact that I had been in this class previously.

I began explaining to the students that they were going to the library today. To my surprise, the student really seemed to calm down by the time they entered the library. When we got there I assisted the students if they needed help finding books that are at their reading level. I also checked every book that the students were checking out to ensure that they were at their reading level.

When we got back to the classroom, I instructed them to begin reading quietly. I gave them the choice to sit at their desks, on the floor, or in the classroom library. The majority of the students sat somewhere other than their desks ex. beanbags, floor, reading table, etc. I was a little afraid that if I allowed students to sit next to each other that they would talk but actually I never heard anyone talk once they became situated in their reading spots. I noticed that everyone seemed to stay very focused and interested in their books. There were a few students that I noticed were kind of just “hanging out” and not really reading, at least until I walked by of course.

-: Date:

I taught a first grade class today at Lydia Rippey Elementary School in Aztec. I decided to read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I chose this book because of the predictable pattern in the literature ex. “And he was still hungry.” And I also chose this book because I absolutely loved it when I was in first grade!

I began my read aloud by holding up the book and showing its cover while saying, “This book is called The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I explained what the dedication page is and I read who the book was dedicated to. I then showed the cover of the book again.

I asked the students, “Can anyone guess what The Very Hungry Caterpillar might be about?” About four students popped their hands up at the same time, all giving me the correct answer. “It’s about a hungry caterpillar who eats a lot of food.” one student said. Another boy said, “It’s about a caterpillar who eats and eats and eats until he explodes!” Of course this created a few more silly answers about what happens to the caterpillar when he eats too much!

I began reading the story as all of the students sat with open ears and excitement. I took a lot of time to turn the pages, just to ensure that the students were able to experience all of the detail and great illustrations. After each page I would ask questions just to ensure that the students comprehended the story. As I progressed through the first couple of pages the students began to notice that the caterpillar was still hungry after eating tons of food. I then encouraged them to join in with reading the last line of every page which said, “And he was still hungry.”

Once I finished reading the story, I asked the class a few questions about the story. I asked if they liked the story, what happened to the caterpillar, and what their favorite part of the story was.

-Writing: Date:

For one of my classes I am tutoring two fourth grade students at Apache Elementary School. My job is to help them write a family story about a memorable event that occurred with a family member or members ex. family vacation, your favorite trip to visit grandma, a holiday tradition, etc. This was my first time to tutor students with their writing. I learned just from this first day that teaching writing is challenging but it is also fun and rewarding.

Because this was our first day of the writing process, the students worked on brainstorming for a topic, choosing a topic, and creating a four blocks model to organize their thoughts. I am tutoring two boys who both enjoy writing. So when we began brainstorming for a topic, they were both throwing out ideas right and left. Needless to say, the brainstorming and choosing a topic went by quickly. The next part of the writing process I assisted them in was creating their four squares. This got their memories, thoughts, and emotions on paper in an organized way.

One boy chose to write about a snowball fight he and his brothers had on a snowy Christmas morning. I liked his ideas and he was really excited to get start writing. The other student decided to write about a particular time that he and his cousin played a video game together. I was a little concerned about his topic when he decided that was what he wanted to write about because it might be hard to write a five paragraph paper about sitting in front of a television playing a video game. As they started to create their second squares, just as I suspected, the student writing about playing the video game couldn’t think of anything else to write about. As he sat quietly I tried to pull information out of him by asking him questions such as, “What happened when…”, and “How did you feel when…” He continually answered, “I don’t remember”. The other student had some really great ideas though I still asked him questions such as, “Were you cold when you were playing in the snow?” and “Who started the snowball fight?”

Though my experience went well and I learned a lot from it, I had a hard time working with a student who is so dead set on writing about something he doesn’t remember! It was obvious that maybe he just wanted his story to be about him and his cousin so I ended up telling him, “I know that playing video games with your cousin is really special to you but it seems like you don’t remember enough about that particular day to write a story about it. Do you have any other fun memories about your cousin?” He told me that he didn’t and that frustrated me even more. He finally ended up remembering more and more as time went on (even though I wondered if some of it was made up). I imagine that this is a problem that teachers face when they allow students to choose what they want to write about.

Phonics: Date:

Today I am working with a fourth grade student at Apache elementary school. I have been helping him with a writing project and today we are editing his rough draft. He really struggles with his spelling. When he was writing his draft he asked me how to spell at least every three or four words. I told him that his paper is just a draft and that he should spell his words as correctly as he can and once we get to the editing stage of the writing process, I would help him with the words he spelled incorrectly. So that is what we are doing today.

I started by reading through his paper and underlining all of the misspelled words. Once we figured out which words were spelled wrong, I then helped him spell them correctly. I had him slowly say each word slowly out loud.

Ex. s-n-o-w-b-a-l-l I would ask him questions like, “What word made the ss sound?” or “What word makes the l sound?” Then he would spell the words out correctly as he sounded them out.

This did help him a lot with the spelling of those misspelled words. He knows the sounds that letters make but I think that when he writes he doesn’t take the time to sound out words while he’s spelling them. I think that instead he thinks of the word as a whole and he becomes intimidated. Plus I also feel that he has little confidence in his spelling skills. I made a conscious effort to give him praise every time he figured out how to spell a word.