3:2

Today right away in the morning (well after a little bit of time) I went with the third graders to watch Mr. H teach art. He had the students write out their own rules on the board- the never’s, and the always’ (I think grammatically that is wrong, but that’s ok!). He didn’t tell the class that he had already written the rules of the classroom until after they were finished making them up. All of the rules the third graders thought of were on the wall showing the rules of the classroom, it was quite interesting. Mr. H then had the students draw self portraits. That was interesting to see the students’ imaginations, and what they could and will think up. Some made pictures of themselves like they have seen it, or something that they have actually done, while others made silly drawings of their hopes and dreams (or imaginary times). It was really neat to see these ideas.
Mr. P came to visit today; he came while I was teaching handwriting, and guided reading to a small group of children. I taught guided reading first, and he just listened and watched while we did that. The students were reading Dooby Dooby Moo and answering questions that I had asked them, as well as some other things. I felt as though this went really well. I had a student who was asked at the beginning to sit by me, so that there were no behavior problems, and it seemed to work really well. Mr. P said that I did very well, and asked many higher order thinking questions. So that is a big plus for me, because I didn’t even realize I was asking them! I then taught handwriting, I thought that it went well, but there were some things that I would have changed. I had a student answer a question, she had the wrong answer, and I thought that I knew the right one, but I mixed them up too. So now everyone is messed up because I messed them up, so next time I would make sure that I double checked to make sure I knew them, and if I didn’t I would study them to find them out. I would have given students directions to put pencils down while showing them something, instead of just saying look up here; I want to show you something. Students were still writing in their handwriting books, and not paying attention. So I would have done that differently. I also got word from Miss M that I should have modeled the strokes before allowing students to write them on the board, in case they have it wrong, then if they see me model one, then they will be able to get it right (hopefully) and then the student and the rest of the class won’t learn the incorrect stroke. So that is something that helped me out. There were plenty of good comments that I had heard from Mr. Petersen, and the one that is the best, and will always stick out of me is that he heard many good things from Miss M while I was not in the room (he got there early before the class and I were back from Art), as well as the comment about putting children down gently rather than tearing them apart. This made me feel as though it really mattered the way I was doing some things, and that I was doing them correctly. He also pointed out something that Miss M did while she was teaching, and that was to get the students attention and to have them focus without being harsh. She told the students that she loved to see their eyes! The way that she said it and how the children responded was very good!

The rest of the day ended up being a jumbled up mess, and it got really confusing. Miss M wanted the students to do some AR (accelerated reading) work, so she had them do that during math time rather than, well, math. So students learned how to do that (the idea is the same, but the rules and logistics is different between last year and this year). The students enjoyed that time. The end of the day ended with Title I kids being pulled again during Social Studies time to do Math, while the rest of the students learned about the 5 oceans, and the 7 continents!