An Introduction to 3rd Grade

So as a Liberal Studies major, teaching hours or observation hours are required in a lot of my classes (taking the place of research papers and the like). This last week I taught a California History lesson to a group of 3rd graders at a Newbury Park elementary school. Despite the chaos and the late nights that went into planning and organizing and creating the lesson, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. It was also more fun because it was a dual teaching assignment with one of my best friends here at school.

So the premise of the lesson was "Who has walked here before you?" We were to present 5-6 of the cultures that walked in this area in the history of California and present a cultural activity that the students could participate in. This relates specifically to Community, which is the theme of 3rd grade history (actual California history is in 4th grade). So we outlined our lesson plan to include the contributions and impact of the Chumash, the Spanish, the Basque, the African-Americans, the Chinese, and the Norwegians.

We incorporated creative dramatics and had them imagine that they travelled back in time and were walking back forward to present day, meeting a specific person from each culture in the time that they were most prevalent in this area, and having that person introduce them to the activity for each lesson. Here's what we did for each culture:
Chumash - Traditional game of chance
Spanish - Decorating sombreros
Basque - Learning a children's dance
African-Americans - simulating the blacksmith experience by creating "tools" out of pipe cleaners
Chinese - Learning to write Chinese symbols and know what they mean
Norwegians - Number ordering contest

It was a lot to cover in 40 minutes and it was incredibly chaotic. But the students had fun and the teacher had really great feedback for us. Honestly though, I would never try and incorporate that much stuff into such a short period of time. There's a difference between being ambitious and unrealistic. But we made it through...barely! The students had some good reflections for us, too.

I know I can't base my whole decision on this one experience...but I walked out of that classroom feeling really affirmed in my desire to teach LOWER elementary. The students were still fun and young and interesting....but based on this one experience...I prefer my Room 3 munchkins. :)

I get to go teach it again to a different school in a couple weeks. A less financially well-off school (the one I went to this week was bigger than my high school and had only 21 kids per class!). We'll see how that one goes, stay tuned for some more perspectives on this one.

Oopsie...

I have been a bad, bad blogger. But let's be honest, I knew this was going to happen as the semester wound down and project due dates approached. Let me back up a little bit...

Two weeks ago the kids were on spring break so I didn't see them. As much as I missed their smiling faces, I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy sleeping in on Tuesday and Thursday. :)

I went this Tuesday (March 27th) and they were so excited to see me (as I was to see them)! They all had stories to tell me and things they needed to catch me up on...it was wonderful. I love feeling that I am someone they look forward to talking to. Morning routine was the usual, I helped on some math corrections for kids who didn't understand the lesson from the day before. Centers were really loud - lots of high energy. But mine was pretty quiet and everyone stayed pretty focused. We were making our own book titled "Graph it!" Working together with their cooperative learning group, they graphed different animals in a picture using bar graphs and answered some questions based on the information they saw in their graph. It was strange to think about these little five year olds doing graphing; I don't remember ever doing graphing when I was in kindergarten, but most of them didn't even have a hard time with it.

The most shocking part for me was how easily it came to some of our ELD students, particularly Ashley. She has a really hard time staying focused and getting things accomplished; she entered our class at the beginning of the year significantly farther behind developmentally than many other of the students. So while she has progressed, she will probably be repeating kindergarten. But she stayed really focused during the graphing activity - I don't know if the methodical/repetitive actions of the activity were helpful to her, or if it was just something that she truly understood. But she was understanding and progressing through it faster than some of the other kids. It brought a smile to my face and one to her's too; I think she needs to start feeling proud of herself and to build some confidence in her abilities.

It's hard to believe I only have 5 more weeks with them. I will be so sad to leave them when my school year is over and theirs still has another month. I wish I could be there to watch them be promoted to first grade; but I'll be in Costa Rica hopefully volunteering in a local elementary school in the area I will be studying in (new blogging adventures!).

I'm on spring break now so I will have a lot of blogging time. Not only will I be in Room 3 on Tuesday and Thursday, but I will be observing a first grade class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Busy week coming up, but I'm sure that it will be very enjoyable. :)

Academics Took Over

And that is why I've fallen behind on my blog updates. Honestly, I barely even remember Tuesday. Thursday we spent most of the day doing St. Patrick's Day activities. They got to make their own leprechaun traps out of blocks and legos, and all week they had an optional homework assignment of building leprechaun traps at home and bringing them into the class. It was the highest participation I've seen on any optional homework for the entire year. They were pretty creative; you could even see their personalities reflected in some of them. :)

I'm teaching them how to jump rope at recess, so every day I come home with this stuck in my head:
Cinderella dressed in yellow
Went upstairs to kiss a fellow
Made a mistake
And kissed a snake!
How many doctors will it take?
1...2...3...
They're doing pretty well! I get a line of all the kindergarteners from all the other classes too; they all just love the attention so they want to try whether they know how to do it or not.

We've been doing a lot of reading practicing in the mornings, and there is no other activity that makes me see how much they've grown as much as that does. Andrea and Briseida both read an entire story to me, sounding out letters and blending them together to form words. Call me a nerd, but I think it is so exciting to watch a child learn how to read. Reading just opens up this whole new world that they will have access to for the rest of their lives.

There was a lot of imagination going on this week too...leprechauns "tickling legs" and "crawling under tables," but obviously, no one can see them. They don't like to be seen by people, right? Haha, what a great holiday for stimulating story-telling.

Little Socrates and Shakespeares

Big philosophical and eventful day for kindergarten. I think this ranks up there as one of my best days yet, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the content for instruction for the day - so let me just get that part out of the way first.

Thursday - cutting out pictures for their frog metamorphosis project, library time, centers where we made animal cubes. One cube that they colored and I folded and taped had animal heads on it, and the other cube had animal bodies. They were supposed to stack the cubes after they were made to match the animals, or create silly animals of their own. Ok, moving on.

Story #1. Ryan came and sat down at my table during center rotations, and all of the seats were full except the one right next to him. Austin was the last one to arrive at the table, so that was to be his seat. He looked at me and said, "Well Ms. Downing, I don't want to sit next to Ryan." I looked at Austin, looked at Ryan, and then back to Austin. I could handle this situation in one of two ways: 1) I could tell Austin that I'm sorry he felt that way but that is where he is going to sit, or 2) I could have a little lesson on kindness and empathy. I went with my second option and said to Austin, "Well that wasn't a very nice thing to say. I think you know how to be a kind friend, Austin, but that wasn't a very kind friend thing for you to say to Ryan. How would you feel if someone said that to you?" Austin slowly sat down and said, "I would feel sad…" I asked him if he thought he should apologize to Ryan and he said yes, so he did. I moved on with the lesson, but within seconds, Ryan quietly said, "Thank you, Ms. Downing." I said, "You are very welcome," but as I said it, I was struck with how powerful that thank you was. It would have been easier and far more convenient to dismiss Austin's comment and just tell him, "Too bad, that's where you are sitting." But how often do things like this happen and teacher's don't take the time to address the real problem of the situation? The problem wasn't that Austin wouldn't sit down, the problem was that he was saying hurtful things to Ryan, that he may not have originally seen as hurtful.

Story #2. Sophia loves cats; it wouldn't even be too much of a stretch to say she is obsessed with cats. Well, yesterday her mother came into the class before school started to inform us that Sophia may be having a rough day because the night before, her cat Ernie had died. I immediately understood that this was not an easy event to overcome for her as the young animal lover that she is, as did Mrs. Brasler. She asked Sophia's mother if it would be okay for her to use this as a platform to have a discussion about death that morning, in a sensitive and empathetic manner. With the okay, before doing the morning sharing of celebrations that the students may have to offer, Mrs. Brasler invited Sophia up to the front of the room for a hug and to talk about what happened with her cat. Sophia teared up a little bit and shared what happened, and then Mrs. Brasler talked about death being a terribly sad thing, but also a reality. She then shared that when a person or a pet close to you dies, you may be sad for a while, but you have to know that it will be okay because you are going to carry them with you in your heart forever. As she said this, Sophia put her little hand over her heart and I absolutely thought I was going to lose it. All the other kids in the class were so quiet and respectful, and wanted to share how sad they were for her, and how they could understand because they too had known people or pets that had died. Mrs. Brasler pointed out how we are never alone in our experiences, as shown by all the other students who had experienced losses similar to hers.

Needless to say, death was the discussion among the kids for a great part of the rest of the day. Not in a bad way, but just sharing stories about pets they once had that died. But here's the real kicker…you ready? Adrianne comes up to me after another student had been telling me about a dog that died and says, "I keep my grandpa in my heart because he died, but I still love him." Right!? Break my heart.

Story #3. Not as emotional and heartfelt, more of an interesting experience to be a part of. The Kingsmen Shakespearean Company came to do little performance/history lesson on Shakespeare. They started out by talking about who Shakespeare was, and the time period that he lived in. The two actors had created a "play" that they wanted to present to Shakespeare, but they needed Room 3 to help by being actors in their play titled The Storm. They traveled back in time to go present the play to Shakespeare, but along the way they ripped a hole in their pants and had to call a tailor, broke their shoe and had to call a cobbler, and got hungry and had to call a muffin-man. They finally made it to Shakespeare and acted out their play, where 1/3 of the class was the rain, 1/3 of the class was the wind, and 1/3 of the class was the thunder. Every single child was absolutely riveted. They were involved and they were learning and they were having an absolutely fantastic time. They learned about the Elizabethan period, but to them it was all fun and games. They learned to curtsey and bow, they learned that "Huzzah!" means hello and good job, they learned that "Cease!" was the command to stop, they learned about Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre, and they learned about jobs that people may have had during Shakespeare's time. The actors pretended that their idea of The Storm was what inspired the play The Tempest, and they avidly used their imaginations to pretend they were time traveling and encountering different obstacles along the way. The enthusiasm and the energy were catching. It was a flawless blend of Theatre Arts and standard curriculum and it was a pretty inspirational thing to watch as a future teacher. You can bring the arts into your classroom and keep up with the standards and required curriculum, as long as you are willing to put in the creativity. Something like that would be a great activity for the start of a new lesson, like an overview style. I enjoyed it almost as much as the kids, and it definitely got my brain thinking.

Tuesday, March 6th

Yesterday was a drizzly sort of day; muddy shoes means sock feet on the calendar rug and lots of shoe tying for me. The letter of the week is Y and we have started our unit on animals; this week's poem is about giraffes and their silence. It's a nice, relaxing week after the craziness and eventfulness of the last few with President's Day and Dr. Seuss Day.

One of our parent volunteers couldn't be there to help, so I took over her center and the kids at my typical center had floor puzzles with animals to work on instead. At Center 3 we worked on a cutting/pasting and matching activity. Each child had a piece of paper with 10 animals on it - 2 mammals (a boy and a girl), 2 insects (a ladybug and a grasshopper), 2 birds (an eagle and a flamingo), 2 reptiles (a snake, and a tortoise), and 2 fish - all mixed up. Their assignment was to cut up these 10 pieces and glue them in the correct categories on a second piece of paper. *Side note, the general rule is "Cut one, glue one" to prevent students from cutting all ten at the same time and undoubtedly losing one or more. Great rule, but not fool proof - we still lost at least one animal per rotation.*

We worked on it as a group, talking about what qualities define animals as mammals or reptiles, why birds can fly but humans can't, and how different animals move. I love being able to have these open ended discussions with them where I can pose a question and they can take off with it, relating it to things they already know or have experienced. They feel so much more eager to learn in discussions like that, not that they aren't eager to learn always. But it makes me realize how beneficial it can be to make information relatable to students in later grades, where eagerness may not be as common. I read about it in all my text books all the time, but it's different to actually see it in practice. It feels more real that way, you know?

Favorite part of the day? Blowing five year old minds when telling them flamingos aren't born pink. And then hearing Ethan say, "What if when kids became grownups, their normal hair turned pink?" and all the other kids getting wide-eyed and grabbing their hair…so imaginative. Love it.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."

Happy Birthday to a revolutionary of children's literature, Theodore Geisel! Today would have been his 108th birthday, and his life and his work was celebrated in elementary schools across the nation - Pajama Days, Literacy Nights, Book Readings, Arts & Crafts, etc. A big advocate of imagination and the power of reading, Dr. Seuss wrote timeless stories that will probably be enjoyed for as long as there are books to read.

Room 3 has been celebrating all week with readings and a Wednesday night literacy night for the whole school, and many Cat-in-the-Hat crafts at center time. Today we made Thing 1/Thing 2 out of handprints and did some fun Dr. Seuss themed activities on the Promethean board. They also got to wear their Cat-in-the-Hat hats that they had painted earlier in the week.

Today was Specialty Day - every Friday the kids go to Science Lab, Computer Lab, and Math Lab all before lunch. It's pretty neat that the school is able to do these things for the students; they get benefits in these subjects that other schools may not be as lucky to have. The kids don't realize it now...but I think they'll look back on it fondly and realize what a neat experience that was.

In Science Lab we talked about animals and how they move. The teacher started them out with a brainstorm about how different animals move, and then they got to dance to a song called "Animal Action" and practice their different animal movements.

After this she took them over to the tables to watch a video that had different animals and their motions, and then reinforced the different ways animals can move by having them help her create a list of animal motions on the Promethean Board. Needless to say, they were very wound up, but it was a good kind of wound up. And it was a good reminder of how young they really are - watching them move around and dance to a song as simple as this and just have a wonderful time.

In Computer Lab, they got to explore a new website - ABCya.com. Today's focus was on the math activities, and they were so engaged. They went from wild and crazy animal students to focused and mature students in the matter of a short walk from science to computers.

I didn't stay for all of Math Lab because they weren't doing a full lesson today. They were however learning about the up and coming World Math Day! Each of them has been given their own profile on the website where they can participate in Math activities on Math Day.

I left when they went to lunch, because they have minimum days on Fridays - they get out at one so they only had a brief amount of time left in class anyway.

In other news, on the first Friday of every month there is an assembly for the Students of the Month in each class; teacher's decide on a girl and boy from their class who wins the title each month, and they go to an assembly that their families are invited to and they receive an award. My focus student, Lizzeth, was Student of the Month! And she got all dressed up and looked so cute and was so proud of herself...oh my gosh, the wonders it will do for her confidence. I'm so proud of her, too.

Tuesday, February 28th

This morning's prep work included my gluing these lions onto background papers and cutting up a bunch of teenie pieces of yarn that the kids were going to glue on for the lion's mane Thursday during centers. We're getting into things that I remember doing with last year's students, so I'm more familiar with the activities and starting to recall what things worked/didn't work with the class last year.

I got to read with my focus students during morning routine; watching a child learn to read is seriously one of the most wild things. I mean, I don't remember learning to read, I just know that at one point I couldn't, and now I can. So to actually watch the progress of a student who barely knows the alphabet at the beginning of the school year to a student that can read full sentences...wow. It's so exciting to listen to them sound out each letter and then smush them all together to form a word. They do their little animal symbols for each letter, and then when they say the word they do one big CLAP that symbolizes all the letters coming together into a word.

I didn't get to do anything really fun at centers today - I was monitoring the finishing of the "Shape Books" where they are creating objects out of different shapes. It was just stressful. But I think this was the last day of it, fingers crossed.

The room is all decorated for Dr. Seuss Day! They've spent all week doing related activities, but the actual Dr. Seuss Day is tomorrow (Friday, March 2nd). I didn't go to Room Three today because I wanted to be there tomorrow to read a Dr. Seuss book to them and help them with their crafts (we'll be making Thing 1 and Thing 2 out of handprints). It's also their Special Lessons day - they go to the computer lab and the science lab...so I'll get to go and observe some different activities that I'm not usually a part of; looking forward to it!