Miscellaneous Post #2

Today, was out last FNED class. I thought I would be excited to leave class and endeavor into my summer, yet I found a since of sadness in departing from class for the last time. During this semester I have learned countless lessons through out this class and I will bring them with me throughout all I do in my major, and even more helpfully, in life. Thank you to everyone who brought new and eye opening opinions, and to Dr. Joyce. Without her, the class wouldn't have become a community.

Journal #9: Elementary School Visit

My last visit to the elementary was interesting at best. It started with Caitlyn and I driving to the school, me going to the literacy teacher's office, only to find her not there. I then went to class without a lesson plan and found that another volunteer in my class had some activities I could do with the kids. I started off by timing the kids on their fluidity in reading one to two sentence phrases. They have recently been working on timing themselves as to how many words they can read in a minute. They all took turns, and I even had a celebratory moment with one girl. She was able to read 8 out of the 10 phrases in a minute, and not only did she work through them all, she read them well, paying attention to punctuation. I was extremely proud of her progress and have noticed a large improvement since February.

I did however, have a mishap in the classroom that I was unsure of. One of the little girls I work with had told me she was tired. I then asked why and she said she had gone to bed at 2 in the morning because she was at a club for her sisters 26th birthday. After telling me that she went on to say they let her drink alcohol there as well. I took what she said into consideration and was concerned about the behavior. I also realized though, that this little girl likes t elaborate all her stories in search for some attention. She has also told me that her Grandmother is alive and 160 years old. I am going to see how she is next week though, and if it seems that she iterates an odd behavior again, I will probably tell the teacher and see how they should handle it from there.

In any case, I have only one visit left to my school and I am saddened to leave the kids. They are always so happy to be working on reading and literacy, even when it is difficult for them. I have very well behaved children in my group and it doesn't take long for them to adhere to the directions I give them at all. Overall these past nine weeks have been extremely helpful, eye-opening, and most of, fun.

Journal #8: Elementary School Visit

This week on my visit to the elementary school was alike all the others, with only a few exceptions. Like always, I entered the school, picked up lesson plans, and went to my classroom where the kids were, as every week, working on their stories they write every day. This routine reminds me of the discussion on lower, working class in the Anyon reading. My group is in fact from a distinctly lower class and I have noticed that every week I go to the room, they are doing the same thing every time. A very routine working schedule, just as the reading moderates.

While observing, I also taught the children games about fluency and matching. We played one of their favorite games, Go Fish. It is set up to be go fish, only with matching cards involved. The kids put together words such as, Hat:Cat and Fan:Pan. It makes them think about the rhyme, and also equally work on sight words. The next game we played was Candy Land. This game was fun, yet worked well because in order to move the pieces the kids had to say the sight words written on the back of the card.

I still have to attend the school two more times no oder to obtain my 15 hours, but I am not upset about it because I very much enjoy my children that I teach and I will miss them when I leave. They have all have made an impact on me in school and how I will teach throughout my career.