A little help, please?

Throughout the course of this semester I have spent a lot of one-on-one time working with a particular student. He's that student who you never know whether or not he's listening to what you're saying-and when he is listening you wonder if he understands it. He's the student who goes to speech therapy once a week, but doesn't qualify for special education services according to IDEIA. He's the student who can't write the story that he can say, and can't say what you know he's capable of thinking. You know that he'd could do so much better and that he deserves to have services provided to enable him succeed. But his mother's in denial that there is anything "wrong" with her baby boy. She refuses to acknowledge the fact that he cannot read and still writes his name backwards. He doesn't know how to hold a pencil, even though you've showed in time and time again. And the other day, when he wasn't feeling well, he couldn't explain to you what was wrong. He looked like he didn't feel well, but you didn't know what was wrong.
What do we, as teachers, do with students like this? If you're a CT for MSU and lucky enough to have a student placed in your classroom you're all set for a few hours, because you can have them work with him (sarcasm). However, what are you going to do each day when it's just you, all alone with 24 other students?
For any general education teacher this is frightening. However, as a special education teacher I know this is where I want to be. I chose the field of special education for this particular student and all of the other students similar to him out there. This is my niche, my place to be. This is where I fit in best and this is where I can do my best.
When my CT set up the math centers that the students would be working at for the next 35 minutes everyone was excited. The students have the choice to go to whatever station they want and practice counting in different ways. When my CT told the students to pick a partner, this wasn't the first time that he was left all alone. Natually, I told him I would be his partner and he could pick where we were going to go. We went over to the station where you picked a pond cut out that had a number on it and grabbed that many frogs to arrange on the pond. As he was counting out his frogs another student came and asked me to help him with a deck of cards that were stuck in the bag. While I was busy helping the other student get the cards out of the bag, my partner says, "A little help, please?" in the clearest sentence I've ever heard come from his lips. I can't lie-I was shocked that something so clear came from him. Of course I helped him out, and together we counted the number of frogs he had been placing on his pond (clearly more than 5, the number on his pond).
When I asked him how many, of the 14 that he had, he would have to take away to have 5 he didn't respond. I asked again but it was clear to me that "take away" was foriegn to him. He just stared at me as if I were speaking another language.
What can I take from this experience? First, I know that if I had not been here today, he would have been working all by himself and he wouldn't have been counting. Even with me sitting right next to him, he just continued to put frogs on the his pond, because I was trying to help someone else. He requires a lot of attention, that's another thing. But how does my CT do it? Does she? I don't know what happens during the hours that I'm not there, but I do know this; he has made me feel like my time in this field placement is not about me, it's about the students I'm teaching and impacting and that is a much better outlook on teaching that I ever considered.

Short Timelines...

Today I taught my Social Studies lesson in the field.
I don't have too much to say about it because it only lasted for 12 mintues! I had planned on 30 minutes and I was done in less than 1/2!!! I guess it was a good experience, but I'm not the one that had to cover up the extra time.
Basically, I planned less in my lesson because my Science lesson went about 20 minutes longer than anticipated. When planning out this lesson, I allowed for 12 minutes to read a story instead of 5 because I found out last time that it really took 15 minutes to read a story that I only planned on taking 10. I also had several discipline/attention problems during my Science lesson, so I accounted for those things in my Social Studies activity sequence. However, the students were nearly perfect during my Social Studies lesson and we breezed through everything!
I also found out that my pre-assessment that I had completed with select individuals, from varying academic levels proved to be misleading as the students were much more aware of the purpose of a timeline when I was teaching the lesson; far more than during my interviews. So what was I supposed to do? Waste their time by explaining over and over why we use timelines, what we do with timelines, how we make a timeline, etc...? I didn't feel like that was fair to them-after all, they were answering my questions on the first try. And I was choosing students to answer, I wasn't just taking whatever hand flew up first. I deliberately tried to pick students that I didn't think would have an answer-not to shine the light on them-but to look for a reason to explain myself further, but I couldn't!
When I was done my CT looked at me and said "12 minutes". I immediately felt like a failure, moreso failing her. Now she has 20 extra minutes to fill in a classroom full of Kindergartners! YIKES!!!
She's an experienced teacher though, and she handled it great. Everything went smoothly from my unexpected quick ending and the students went straight into Math.
At the end of the day we sat down and talked about my lesson. I know that she was frustrated with the fact that she had to come up with something on the spot for the kids to do, but I know that she understands what happened. The week before I taught, the two of us had gone over my lesson and she thought it was great. My interpretation of that was, "it's great, don't change anything", so I didn't. Had I of looked at my activity sequence more I probably would have began to question whether or not I had the students doing enough, especially a formal assessment at the end.
But I also know that it's great to be able to have these kinds of experiences under the supervision of an experienced teacher. Had I been on my own I wouldn't have known what to do right away and I may have even lost control of the classroom. After all, a failure to plan is a plan for failure.

Incorporating Art...

I've always been under the impression that art is a very difficult subject to incorporate into the general classroom setting. Most students go to art class once a week and are encouraged to explore their creative side. The typical artroom that I think about has a rack of painting shirts-large flannel shirts that the teacher has brought in for the students to wear so they don't get paint on their clothes-clay, paints, crayons/markers, paper, literature on famous art/artists, and an art teacher who sense of style is completely her own. At least this has been my experience with art class. However, the students in my CT's classroom have an advantage because she incorporates the arts into her classroom on a regular basis.

Today, the students used watercolors to paint pictures that they had drawn with black markers the day before. Of course, these pictures were all about severe weather because we are still in this unit. I handed back the students' pictures from the other day and I was really impressed with one of the student's drawings. When I asked her what she drew she said "I drew a picture of a doghouse with a dog running into it because there's a tornado!" She proceeded to tell me that even animals have to seek shelter. Although we had talked about seeking shelter during my lesson I realized that we never talked about everything that needs to seek shelter. Obviously our animals need to be safe too. The shear fact that she was able to make this connection without me directly saying it demostrates her deep level of understanding of the significance of seeking shelter during times of severe weather. Needless to say, I was incredibly impressed by her comments-and picture. All of the students continued painting for the next 25 minutes. During this time my CT put on some relaxing music (i.e., crashing waves, instrumental music, etc...). I was completely amazed at the level of concentration that these students had on their paintings. It was fun for them. It was also a nice wrap up for the end of their weather unit. And they didn't even make a mess! That's the most incredible part to me. Watercolors are really a great way to bring art into your classroom without the mess that's usually associated with artwork. None of the students got paint all over and the little bit that was on the tables wiped right up when the students went to music. My CT also let me lead the students to music today, which was a new experience. I know, from following at the end of the line each week, where she stops and where the greatest amount of noise usually comes from. Everything went great and I really felt like the students were listening to me until we walked up to the cafetorium and there was a presentation going on. Parents and other classes were sitting on the floor watching one of the 4th grade classes performing and we needed to walk right through them to get to the music room-YIKES! All went well after I waved my CT up to the front of the line, but for that one split second I was thinking, "Out of all days to lead the line..."

Billy, Maria, and the Thunderstorm

After useless attemps with Channel 10 News I decided to see what my other options were. In the course of one day I made arrangements with Rob Dale from Channel 6 News to come and do a school visit on Monday, November 12 for my CT's classroom and one other Kindergarten classroom.

After we got all the students seated on the cafetorium stage, Mr. Dale started his weather talk. He began by asking the students what they already knew about weather. For a teachers perspective, I could identify this Science-Talk like strategy that he was using to direct his discussion with the students. He covered a lot of material, and it was interesting for me to see the different answers between the two classes. Obviously I only taught one of these groups of students, but the other teacher had just finished covering severe weather too. My lesson did not go into certain things, such as seeking shelter in a ditch if you are driving and there is a tornado in sight. I focused more on seeking shelter within the house. So, when Mr. Dale asked the students, as one large group, what to do during a tornado, 1/2 of the students said go to the basement and the other half said find a ditch. I realized that at this age, the students don't feel like they are wrong because someone else gave a different answer. And, if they have an answer and someone else gets called on before them and gives a correct answer, they still want their turn to say their answer. For me, this was noteworthy because I've worked in upper elementary classrooms where this is not the case.

Mr. Dale went on to explain the job of a meteorologist while still keeping the students engaged in his talk. I can tell that he has been giving talks to students for quite some time because he really knows how to speak to the children, not at them. And relating to a Kindergartner is not always the easiest task!

Towards the end of his school visit he had us take the students out in small groups and he let every child have the chance to sit in his weather van. Watching the students as they thought of all the different things Mr. Dale does in this van was a great learning experience for me. Something as simple as sitting in a van was concrete enough to reinforce the information they had learned, really lock it in place.

Mr. Dale also gave all of the students a coloring book called Billy, Maria, and the Thunderstorm to color and take home to explain what they learned to their families.

The BIG Day!!!

After several hours of planning a science lesson on severe weather safety my day to teach has finally arrived :)
When I woke up this morning I was without a voice. At first, I contemplated whether or not I should immediatly call my CT, in case I got worse before I had to leave. But then I decided that after 3 hours I would probably be feeling better-plus I've been waiting to teach this lesson long enough!
When I got to the classroom the noise level was high, especially for publishing time. The students should have been sitting in their seats, writing a story based on the drawing that they first completed. Many students got excited that I was there and tried to read their stories to me-some from all the way across the room. While it's exciting that the students are so engaged in their stories, it's also disruptive to yell across the room. The first chance my CT had to say something to me she said, "I don't know what's wrong with them today. I can't do anything!" (in reference to their behavior level and loudness). What a great way to begin my first time teaching in front of this almost stranger!
After the kids came in from recess we sat down on the rug and I introduced my story to them, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". I asked the students to listen as I read, because at the end I was going to ask them if they thought this was a real story, or a fake story.
As I was reading the story, which is quite funny, some students began repeating the name of the town (Chewandswallow). At first, I ignored it. But it quickly became a distraction and I had to stop and acknowledge the fact that it was a funny name. I then told the students that from this point forward they can say it one time-and then they need to let me continue with the rest of the story. That seemed to work :)
Once we finished the story and the students acknowledged that it was fake, we made a list of different types of weather that come down from the sky. Rain was quickly mentioned, along with snow. I had anticipated to hear sunshine, lightening, and hail-all of which eventually came out. One boy said "Crystals" which I immediately knew was a connection from my CT's lesson on clouds the previous week. I then used this as a seg-way into asking the children who else thought of another connection to something they already know.
Next my CT lead a demostration of the shelter drill during severe weather situations while at school. I had decided that this drill would be most beneficial for the students if the instructions came from my CT as she will be the one giving instructions to them if they ever have to do this drill again.
Once we returned from that we had a discussion about where information about severe weather comes from. The students decided that news about severe weather comes from 3 places; the TV, the Internet, or the radio. I guided the rest of our conversation about severe weather information as coming from the TV and talked about a weather man's job.
Discussing the job of a meteorologist smoothly led into my next activity, which involved using a concrete manipulative to stress the color of warnings/watches to the students. The object was a traffic light and we repeated "Stop, and seek shelter" for warnings and "Slow down, look around" for watches. The students were dismissed to their seats where they completed a worksheet that I made. On the worksheet student had to fill in missing letters of the sayings and color a traffic light.

What is a Kindergarten Education Worth?

After learning last week about the significance of this lesson for some of my students I have decided to take my CT's suggestion of bringing in a local weather station to heart. I really want the students to remember this lesson; not so I can feel proud, but rather so they can learn this really important information.
So, I called Channel 6 News and talked to Darrin Rockcole. You won't believe what he said...

Hello, I am an MSU senior majoring in Elementary Education. For my field placement this year I am at Pleasant View Elementary Magnet School and I will be teaching a lesson about severe weather on Friday, Nov. 9th. I would love it if someone from your weather lab could bring in a weather vehicle and talk with the Kindergartners on Monday, Nov. 12th around 1:15pm, for about 30 minutes. Please get back with me at your earliest convenience to make arrangements if possible. Thanks!

Re: Hi Kelly- First grade is our low end cut off for school visits. Younger than that and we just don't have anything to offer to them and it becomes a waste of all of our time.

Re:Re: Darrin, Thanks for getting back to me so promptly. I understand that with young students there is often a lack of background knowledge and attention spans with topics such as this; however, I was just wondering if there is any possible way for you to come and do a modified school visit that specifically focuses on weather safety? I will be teaching the students a lesson on safety precautions during severe weather and I want to emphasize that we get these warnings from the TV. I would love it for someone to come in and just explain that process to the students. Please let me know what your thoughts on this are. Thanks!

Re:Re:Re:Kelly- After years of doing school visits, we just do not have anything to offer to classes lower than first grade.


What an insult to the future generation! I cannot believe that a man in his position would say such a thing! People don't give Kindergarten teachers a lot of credit and I don't understand why. With Kindergartners, you're shaping a life. You're not dealing with the latest drama of whose dating who or petty things like that; instead you've got children who have a lot of respect for you and the things you teach them are the foundation for several more years of education. To say that you cannot accommodate the needs of the children that will someday take care of you is ignorant.
Even though I was very upset at this point, I went out on a whim and contacted Channel 10 News. Rob Dale is one of the nicest men I've ever had the pleasure of talking with. He came to our school on less than a weeks notice and did a fantastic job teaching two classes of Kindergarten students about meteorologists, severe weather, and safety. Not only did he come and give a presentation, he brought coloring books for every student and let every single student sit in his weather van. I know that this was a memorable day for many of my students and I feel like this kind of stimulation re-inforced what I had already taught them. As they were answering Mr. Dale's questions correctly they kept looking back at me, almost as if to say, I remember you saying that.

Science Talks

After much class discussion on and reading about Science Talks, today was my big day :)
I spent some time preparing a list of questions regarding severe weather topics so that I could get a more accurate picture of where my students were in terms of their prior knowledge. I can then use this information to make my severe weather science lesson the most appropriate for my students, because I will begin with what they already know and build from their personal experiences.
When my CT initially told me that I could teach a science lesson on severe weather I was disappointed. I didn't really see the value of teaching students about severe weather protocol because my parents had taught me what to do at home and my teachers had shown me what to do at school during severe weather. Much to my surprise though I quickly learned during my science talk that this kind of lesson is almost crucial for this particular group of students. It was made very clear to me that the students I will be teaching this lesson to don't have the kinds of prior knowledge that I did at their age. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that I had a stay-at-home mom until I went to Kindergarten and I was very prepared for school. I also grew up on a farm and knew the significance of severe weather, especially for our animals' safety.
One of the most important realizations that I came to during my science talk seems obvious, however I don't think I fully recognized it until it stared me in the eye. We all have different life experiences and learning opporunities that build our foundation of knowledge.
Almost all of these students come from a very different background than myself and I cannot assume that any of them have had any specific real-life experiences to learn from. In this specific situation, I assumed that all students would be able to relate to their experiences from last night with the severe weather that swept through the Lansing area. However, as I began to ask questions like "Who had to seek shelter in their basements last night" only about 3/4 of the class raised their hands. One student told me that he saw something on the TV that showed a picture of a storm, but his mother didn't make him turn the cartoons off.
Then I began to think about just how much our backgrounds allow us to build on the real-life applications that teachers bring into the classroom. I had the assumption that this was a great example that all the students would be able to relate to, but I was wrong.
So, where do I go from here?
The information that I was able to gather from the students today has given me much more incite about the necessity of the lesson that I will be teaching in a few weeks. Now that I understand how important it is I almost feel as if I have more responsibility. For some of these students, this will be the first time that they've heard about when to seek shelter during severe weather and I only have this one shot to convey the significance of this topic to them. I have 40 minutes to teach this lesson, and I know that I will only have 10 minutes of full attention from some students. I have to make this the best that I can.

A New Look @ Substitutes

My CT was absent today as well, however, I was immediately relieved to walk into the classroom and see a woman with a Pleasant View Staff lanyard on. All of the students were sitting on the rug, finishing up a writing lesson and the substitute had total control over the classroom; unlike the substitute from 2 weeks ago.
Even though I enjoy my CT, I was really glad to step into this situation today because I got a chance to actually sit back and take some notes about individual students and the classroom as a whole. I feel like every other week that I come I immediately jump right in wherever I’m needed; not because my CT doesn’t have full control, but just because I more or less want to impress her. However, today I sat down at the round table and watched as students worked on their journals. One of the boys who knew it was his publishing day came up and asked if I was going to publish his tables stories again, like last time my CT wasn’t here, but I was relieved when Mrs. R. already knew which table was supposed to publish today and she took care of it.
We went out for recess for about 3 minutes before it started raining and I figured that the students would be disappointed that they didn’t get to play that much. But, much to my surprise, I didn’t hear one student say a word about having to go in early. Surely if they didn’t complain than they’d act up, right? Wrong. They were totally fine without that 20 minutes of free time and physical exercise. When we came back inside the students went straight to the rug and sat down, waiting patiently for their math lesson. But Mrs. R. sent them back to their seats. This confused a few students as they couldn’t understand why they had to sit at their tables after recess, because they always go to the rug. The students KNOW what they are supposed to do. My CT has done a great job of implementing a daily routine that the kids have absorbed.
I guess this can be a lesson learned for the future...building substitutes really have the advantage of knowing a lot of students by name already as well as the layout of the building. Our route to get outside for recess, for example, goes all throughout the building and I know that if I was substituting in this classroom as my first time in this building, I would be TOTALLY lost! Especailly because this building has the old part and the new part, including all the renovations and new sections, such as the auditorium and cafetorium (which I didn't even know was a word until today :) ).

The planning begins...

So, now that I know where my CT is going with both science and social studies for the next few months, it's time to figure out what I'm going to be teaching in November.
Science: We just began this unit on Tree Homes last week, but the unit will be completed by the end of October. The next science unit will be on Weather. When I asked for a copy of the curriculum my CT is using I was very surprised when she told me that they were instructed to get rid of their MI Curriculum Frameworks because a new verison was being drafted. However, because this new version isn't approved yet, my CT currently has NO copy of the curriculum she is teaching these students. Her plans for teaching are the same as they were last year, as the teachers in this building have been instructed to carry on until the new curriculum is approved. In the mean time, she's just going to keep doing what she's always done...So what if I was a first year teacher and my principle told me to do this...I think I might freak out a little bit!
All I know if that I'm covering a small section of weather safety, including what to do during severe weather. I know that for my science talk I'm going talk to some students about what they have done in the past when there has been some kind of servere weather. Other than that, I don't really know how I want to go about teaching this lesson. My CT did suggest to me that I try to bring in a local weather person to talk to the students about severe weather...but I almost feel as if that's something she'd like me to do rather than leaving me the freedom to come up with something from my own line of creativity.
Social Studies: Personal history and timelines are a bulk of the curriculum for Kindergarteners so that's what I'm teaching on. I really want to go with this "When I Grow Up" theme and have the students make puppets of themselves as adults-but I have to work out the logistics of that first...
Being able to identify past, present, and future is also a major focus of this unit and therefore will be incorporated into my lesson in some manner, so, I think that I will have the students make a timeline of their lives (birth, now, as adults...) to place significant events in chronological order. This lesson is going to be really easy to base off of benchmarks, however I'm not so sure about the science lesson because there is only one benchmark about weather safety and it only includes key concepts like thunder, lightning, watch, and warning.
Let the planning begin!!!

Substitutes

The stereotypical substitute teacher to me is an old woman, retired from teaching herself, who isn’t “up-to-beat” with the ways kids act nowadays. Coming from a small, rural school setting, these are the only substitutes I ever remember having; expect for the one 20-something guy we had one time in high school for computer class who got fired, on the spot, for looking at inappropriate Internet materials. Other than that, this is really my only experience with substitutes; until today.
As I was walking to my CT’s classroom I thought it was strange that there was so much noise bursting out the door. As I got closer, I realized there were several different familiar voices crying. My mind immediately began racing; what is going on in there? Why are so many kids crying? Is there a fight going on? I honestly didn’t know what to think. Then I walked in and saw a substitute teacher frantically trying to get 24 students to write in their daily journals without the “go-stamp”. Each day when I arrive, the students are working in their daily journals and they have very specific instructions to not start drawing their picture until they have the “go-stamp” which is a dated stamp on the next piece of clean paper in their journals. They cannot start until they have their “go-stamp” because their teacher is checking to make sure that they are writing their entries in order and not leaving blank pages in between their daily stories. It’s a system that they have been using since school started and judging by the frustration level of the students who literally couldn’t write without it, it’s something they’ve become depended on and they know the rule very well.
I immediately stepped in and got most of the kids settled down, especially the ones who were crying. I went around, table by table, and explained that I was so proud of them for knowing what they were supposed to do and I was going to tell my CT what good students she has, but I also told them that just for today we were going to bend the rules and write without a stamp. I also made this sound like something exciting because I told them all that their teacher was going to be so proud of them for knowing what to do, even when she is not there.
With Kindergartener’s, it’s all about delivery! They will believe almost whatever you tell them, and chances are, they’ll remember what you say too. It’s so important not to “brush” them off just because they are so little. What you tell your students can have a bigger impact on them than you’ll ever think.
Back to the substitute. I got them all lined up for recess, using the same song that my CT uses, and we went outside (Friday was 85°+). Up until this point I haven’t felt very strongly about the singing, but I think it might be growing on me…After 40 minutes of recess the students began lining themselves up. I knew they were hot and sweaty and ready for a drink, but I wasn’t too comfortable pushing my boundaries with this substitute, after all, I’d been at the school and in this classroom for over an hour now and she hadn’t even introduced herself (even after I did!). She just kept playing, and I’m almost positive that she was under the impression that the longer she kept them outside, the less she had to do with them inside.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore; I was hot too! I lined the kids up and she caught on to what I was doing and gathered a few more towards the line and we went inside.
When my CT walks the students to the playground she has certain stopping points where she waits for everyone to catch up and makes sure that everyone is still being quiet. I knew if I let the substitute lead them into the school she wouldn’t do these things, so I went ahead and kept the lead. When we got back into the classroom I went straight to the drinking fountain and used the same routine that the students are used to.
For the remainder of the day I kept the lead and took my liberty with this classroom. It felt really good to be able to maintain structure in the classroom; after all, who wants 24 screaming/crying Kindergarteners?
So, what did I learn from this experience? Aside from seeing all of the things that this substitute did wrong, I realized how important structure is in a classroom. This isn’t something that I just learned; it’s something that I practice every Sunday morning in my Sunday school classroom. But it is something that was able to see in a new setting.

Tree Homes

We started a sciene unit today on Tree Homes. It wasn't until after class today that I really found out what all that entails, but basically, the students are going to be studying and observing different characteristics of tree's and the relationships that different animals have with them. On Monday we went outside and sat around a big locus tree in front of the school and everyone was given the opportunity to make an observation about the tree. Lot's of students commented on how much fun it was to climb tree's, which tied in the animals aspect of this unit. We looked at a piece of bark that had fallen off the tree, stood close to the tree and looked at some different insects that were living on the tree and even tore off some leaves of the tree branches so that we could compare them to other leaves around the area. This entire time I couldn't help but think about our In the Woods activity and how cool it is that I'm actually doing something similar in my placement. The kids loved putting on their scientist caps and really thinking about this large tree.
From there the lesson went back inside where my CT brought out a cardboard box tree that she's been using for several years and the students were able to point out differences about this tree and the one they observed outside. They were then told that the tree would be in the room for the next 3 weeks and at any point during free time they thought of something to add of this tree they were allowed to do so. I can only imagine what kinds of drawings are going to be taped to this tree next week!
Journals were the same story this week...everyone wanted to read me theirs. As I'm actually walking around the room I'm seeing even more of a variation in writing skills and it's a reality check for me. Teaching in a classroom isn't about teaching every student the same thing. What about those who are "gifted" and those who have a different ability? There is a wide learning gap between those who know how to write a simple sentence, with correct spellings, and those who are still struggling to remember how to hold a pencil correctly. How do you accomodate for all learners? There's a million dollar question!
As of right now I've observed about 10 hours of this classroom, including all the singing and I'm beginning to question it a little...The thing with singing to your students in a soft, calming voice is that those who are paying the least attention to their assignment and/or those who are able to multi-taks better than others are always the first to hear the instructions being given via songs. So, the same students are always hearing instructions first and always doing them first, and the same students who are only doing something because someone else is are always stuck doing just that. It's almost as if the students are learning from each other rather than the teacher, which is good for them to be able to identify with their peers, however, at the same time the same students are always last to catch on. Obviously this is just something I was thinking about as I was sitting here typing this and I need to think through it more clearly, but as someone who is not a big fan of the singing aspect, I feel that it may have it's pitfalls.

The choir continues...

Now that I've spent three days in my placement I can see that the singing is not going to stop. My CT uses songs for everything. She practically sings instructions to the students and today I had the opportunity to ask her a few questions about the logic behind it. Music is very soothing to the ear, and in any Kindergarten classroom calmness is desired. My CT is actually a model teacher for the magnet school program and she attends conferences hosted by the Lincoln Center in NY to bring information back to Pleasant View. She is a teacher of other teachers as well; a mentor if you will. She was part of the initial grant writing process that happened a few years ago when Pleasant View was considered a failing school (for not meeting AYP). Now that this form of intervention has been brought it, the schools population is increasing as well as the students' academic performance. Pleasant View was originally a K-5 building, and enough parents got together to form a committee that expanded the building K-6. Within the last two years the building has expanded to a K-8 setting, with most of the older kids being schooled in portables near the playground. My CT noted that the facilities of the school are being pushed to their maximum right now and she would like to see the older grades split to a new building-but funding is always the issue.
Anyhow...today I was a little surprised when my CT turned on the "Cha Cha Cha" song for the students. Developmentally, moving along with the words of the song is probably a great them for them, but I'm not so sure I would want my 5 year old hearing the words to the beginning of this song. Anyhow, I know that the students had a great time with it because they were singing aloud and doing all of the right moves. At this point I'm really blown away by the intense amount of songs that my CT uses AND the students all know. Many of them sing along with her and my guess is that the music also has something to do with the visual and performing arts piece. But that would be a good question for me to inquire about later.
Journals were really fun this week because I really had a chance to get involved in the classroom. Once the students finished "writing" their stories, they were told to raise their hands and either myself or their teacher would come around and they could read their stories to us. After they read them, we write out the correct words/spellings and give them checks for each sound that they correctly identified. Because it was the first day that I was going around and doing this, everyone wanted to read their stories to me. It was a nice feeling :)

Welcome to C-2

Today was my first day of field placement at Pleasant View Magnet School. I've worked in a magnet school before, however, Pleasant View focuses on visual and performing arts, which is new to me. The school seems like a nice place; it has a warm feel to it. However, I have heard from some friends that live in Lansing that the surrounding neighborhood is a little "rough".
My first impressions of C-2...
I walked in to a class of about 25 students with 1 teacher, all sitting on the rug in the front of the classroom singing a song. I quickly noticed the students' artwork hanging on the walls and the globe shaped lights that my CT has hung above the windows-which have cute little curtains hanging from them. The students sit at tables, in groups of 4-5. There is a play corner in the back of the room that has a Little Tykes kitchen along with student cubby's. There is a pretty diverse crowd sitting on this rug...racially at least. As I'm walking around, taking in this sense of community that has already been established, the students are dismissed to their seats for journal time. My CT then introduces me to the class and then they go about their business. It's clear to me that they know what is expected of them-they get right to work.
They begin their journal work and in a matter of minutes I can see the different academic levels coming through. Some students write whole words and simple sentences. Other students are still drawing a picture to get their brains thinking of words to use. Other students are drawing lines, instead of letters, as if they were text. Some students are copying their names from the name tag that is taped to their desk.
Recess time.
We all go outside and play for about 15 minutes. The playground is a busy place! K-8th grade students attend this school, and many classes are out for recess at this time.
When the students come back in the classroom they go straight to the rug and wait for their teacher to start singing a song. I'm noticing that there is a lot of singing going on in this classroom and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Would I be comfortable doing this in front of someone else? Is this my CT's personal choice?
The rest of the day breezes by as I spend more time observing the different interactions taking place and try to place faces with names as my CT calls them aloud.
This is going to be an interesting year...I wonder if the singing will continue???