5th Observation

What a busy week! Oscar started swimming lessons this week (he's the first kid shown on the news clip http://www.keyc.com/node/19429 ). I carried him into the pool area crying because he didn't want to go in the water without me. And I carried him out of the pool area because he was having so much fun. He got 1:1 instruction with a lovely young lady who built up his confidence quite nicely. Lots of positive reinforcement. It just goes to show, you can catch more flies with honey...



This week I also observed a different kindergarten classroom at a school in North Mankato for one of my other classes. This class was the complete opposite from the one I normally observe. They have the same intro to literacy curriculum, so it was interesting to see how someone else utilized it. The class had 20 students (2 more than the other class). When I walked in the teacher was giving them instructions on what they would be doing while she was working with small groups (which is how she delivered the literacy instruction). They had 3 tasks. First they were to write in their journals about something that happened to them over the weekend; the "Weekend News" is how the headed their paper. Then they had to complete 1/2 of an art project (they could only do 1/2 because they needed to wait for the glue to dry). Then they could choose either a book or a game off the shelf. They also went to a station in the hallway as a group when the teacher was done with them and that rotated as well. The teacher had the class broken up into four groups based on ability and worked with each group for about 15 minutes. So she was occupied for just over an hour with these small groups. In this hour she did not have to address one single behavior issue or remind anybody to stay on task. The kids stayed busy and quiet. I couldn't believe it. This was Tuesday.



On Thursday I went to observe for Methods. Like I said before. The two classes are day and night. The teacher presented the same curriculum, only she did most of it as a whole class. She would stop every so often to play a song and let the kids get their wiggles out. At one point they even took a bathroom break so the kids could get up and move. After whole group instruction, the class put on their coats and went outside for 5 minutes. Then they came back in and broke up into small groups. There were 4 stations with a teacher at each table (even I get my own table to works with each of the groups). Kids were constantly being redirected and encouraged to get back on task. The station I was working at involved showing the kids a picture and they had to write a sentence about what was happening in the picture. The had to sound out the words they wanted to use (it was tough not to just tell them how to spell something).



I usually spend about 1 1/2 hours in this classroom and then I go to the ESL room to work with 3-4 2nd grade boys. This was the week I videotaped my lesson. It was kinda fun (the lesson, not the videotaping). We read tongue twisters together. They hadn't ever heard of a tongue twister before. They did a good job.



Then I spend the last 1/2 hour of my time at the school going back to the kindergarten room with one of the ESL teachers. She gives me some materials and a specific goal and sets me up to work 1:1 with one of the students. This is the best part of my day because all of the kids really want to work with me. They love the attention and the work the teacher assigns in usually pretty relevant and interesting to them (like reading a dinosaur book or a bug book and talking about it). Good times.