Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in alvarado001's LiveJournal:

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Friday, May 26th, 2006
12:01 pm	Getting toward the end My last few days with the students went so well. On Monday I had an observation that went much better than the one last week. The kids were on their best behavior and they learned a lot about the Food Guide Pyramid. The best part was having the students draw their own healthy meal on a paper plate. After the lesson, I let all the students pick from the treasure chest because they did such a fantastic job listening and paying attention. I told them before the lesson even started that if they showed me good behavior they could pick from it. There were a few students who started going off track during the lesson, but I lose them because I would stop in the middle of the lesson and tell them "I'll wait". I would also thank others for being such good students. This definitely worked! I taught this lesson on the second to the last day of school. The kids were already excited and amped up so I was especially proud of them for doing a fantastic job during the lesson. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
8:56 am	literacy unit I had to teach a literacy unit this quarter in my first grade class. I chose to do it on the story "Strange Bumps" in the students' unit called "Being Afraid". It was a cute little story about an owl who is afraid of the bumps in his bed that are actually his own two feet. I was really nervous about video tapping one of my lessons because the students tend to be really talk-a-tive. I decided to tell the students that if they were really good they would get to pick from the treasure chest. The treasure chest is where the students get to pick a candy of their choice. This was enough incentive to keep most of the students on their best behavior. I did a few students who couldn't seem to stay focused and kept talking. I did not let these students pick from the treasure chest, but I did let everyone else. I think I may use this technique again for times when I really need them to be on their best behavior. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 22nd, 2006
8:54 am	My spring quarter of student teaching has just flown by! I had such a good time teaching the Literacy unit and the art unit. I have to admit that the art unit was much more fun for the students and me. The students absolutely loved their dragons and they especially loved that I made a bulletin board in the hallway of their beautiful dragons and the poems they wrote. They would admire them as they walked down the hallway. The students never got to work with paint until I came into the classroom. It was great that they got to enjoy the experience with me. I think that the students were very mature when they were working with the paints. There was only one student in particular who did not follow directions. He had to sit out when we were mixing paint, but he learned his lesson and was able to paint his dragon. The dragons came out really bright and vibrant when the students painted over the crayon. I was pleased with the outcome. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
10:58 am	Finishing up Art! My art unit went really well this week. The students were so excited to make their dragons. On Monday, they drew them with me and then colored them either warm colors or cool colors. Their options for warm colors were to use yellow, orange, and red and their options for cool colors were to use blue, purple, and green. Almost everyone followed directions. There was one student who used warm and cool colors together when he wasn't supposed to. I just told him to continue with the cool colors because that's what he told me he had wanted to do in the first place. On Tuesday, the students got to paint their dragons using water colors. The only problem with that was that the water colors at the school didn't have red and green! These were very important to have. Luckily we had also learned that certain primary colors mixed together make other colors. So I asked the students what two colors make the color green and they responded with blue and yellow! I was so proud that they remembered. The dragons turned out really great! The students were also pretty mature as they used the paints. On Thursday, the students wrote about their dragons. They had to tell me the shapes they used to create it, the colors they used, and how the dragon made them feel. I told them to also add in other details about their dragon. I typed these up and I'm going to make a bulletin board of their work. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 28th, 2006
1:48 pm	Art Unit This week, I started my art unit! The first thing that I taught the kids was that shapes can definitely be used to create art. We drew a picture using simple shapes and the kids identified shapes in a drawing of a building. They seemed to really enjoy this. My next lesson was on Claude Monet and how colors can show feeling. Yesterday, I taught them that there are certain colors they can use to show warm and cool. Warm colors are red, yellow, and orange. Cool colors are blue, green, and purple. They had a chance to color using warm and cool colors by coloring in "haystacks" by Monet. The best thing about yesterday was that the students got to paint! They learned that blue, red, and yellow are primary colors and that orange, green, and purple are secondary colors. They were able to show this by mixing the primary colors together to make the secondary colors. One student just couldn't handle the project and started mixing all the colors together. His paint was taken away. Everyone else handled the lesson very well. In fact, I was very pleased by how mature they were acting. Next week, I will be continuing my art unit with them as well as starting my literacy unit. (Comment on this)
Monday, April 24th, 2006
8:34 pm	Week 4, Art Unit Today was the beginning of my art unit and I taught the students that simple shapes can easily be used to make drawings and paintings. First, I read the students a story about dragons to get them interested in the final project where they will draw and paint their own dragons. Then, I read them a book about shapes to introduce the fact that shapes are used in art. Next, I had the students look at a picture of a building that someone drew and tell me in a complete sentence how many triangles, rectangles, squares, and circles they see. This task was a little more challenging for the students because they had to adjust their perception of the drawing. They had to see that there were squares within squares. Last, the students had to follow my lead and with a colored pencil make circles, triangles, and simple lines to create a drawing of a cat. They seemed to really enjoy this; however, some of the students did not entirely follow the directions along with me because their cats are missing some things. The whole focus was that the students understand that shapes are used to create art. The next lesson I teach in my art unit will be on the painter, Claude Monet. We will talk about how Monet uses color to show feeling. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 21st, 2006
5:21 pm	On Wednesday and Thursday, I taught social science lessons that seemed to go ok. I didn't realize before how difficult it would be for me to teach social science to little kids. I needed to know how to break down the big ideas and make them understandable for their growing minds. Some of the students had some excellent questions. On Wednesday, I taught a lesson on Mexico and the post office. The students loved the fact that we were talking about Mexico and they seemed to understand how letters get from our country to there, but I don't think that my writing assignment was relevant to what I wanted the students to know. I had them write a letter to a pretend class in Mexico explaining the kinds of things they like to do in the United States. It really wasn't a compare and contrast letter and it should have been. I think that this would have pushed the students to think a little bit more about our country and Mexico. On Thursday, I taught the students a social science lesson on how countries make goods, put them on a ship in the harbor, send the ship across the ocean, the ship unloads the good in the United States harbor, and that's how we get the goods to our homes. It seemed quite complicated for some of the students to understand, but others were not even attempting to become engaged in the lesson because they were too busy fooling around. They are quite the talk-a-tive bunch! I think that the assignment helped the students understand what they were supposed to understand. In the assignment, I gave the students cut outs of ships and told them that they needed to lift the first page and on the second page draw pictures of goods that they would take to another country. They needed to draw at least five things to take to another country on their ship. After they did this, they decorated the outside of their ships. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
9:01 pm	Tuesday and today I had to proctor for a fourth grade class while they were taking a standardized test. It doesn't really seem to get in the way, but I'm glad that today was my last time doing the proctoring. Yesterday, I taught a social science lesson on the location of the United States and California. I also taught the students more about the United States flag. The students were really eager to share information that they knew about the flag. They kept getting mixed up about where they live. When I would ask what state they live in they would say the United States. I explained to them that I was asking for the state and our state is California. I don't know if it sank in for all the students, but I know that some of them understood. After we discussed the flag, I had the students make their own flags to represent their families. Today, I taught the students about the post office and Mexico. I told them how a letter goes from the United States to Mexico. We talked about the different modes of transportation that was used to get the letter to Mexico. The students also got a chance to learn a little more about Mexico as well. After the lesson the students wrote a letter to an imaginary class in Mexico explaining what they like to do and what they like to eat. This was sort of a challenge for many of the students because writing a letter is something new to them. (Comment on this)
8:52 pm	Week 3 Monday was supposed to be the beginning of my art unit; however, I didn't feel like I was prepared enough for the unit so I decided to wait until next week to teach art. I'm still not entirely comfortable with the art unit that I have planned out. I want the students to know that simple shapes can be used to create art work when you want to draw something. I also want them to know that colors show feelings, such as the color red shows anger and the color blue shows that someone is sad. Since this is Monet's idea about color showing feeling I will give some background information about him. I also want them to know about the color wheel and what colors are complimentary and what colors combined make another color. For this I would have the students actually mix red and blue together so that they can see that these colors make purple. I would do the same same for the colors blue and yellow to make green. I just feel like I need to know more about all of these things in order to feel like I can teach the students. (Comment on this)
Monday, April 17th, 2006
11:20 pm	Week 2 Last week went by so fast! I was so busy preparing lesson plans and teaching them that the days just flew by. I taught about two lessons a day last week and I have to say that I'm much less stressed in this classroom setting. It's also because I'm getting used to teaching. The students had a fun time learning about math because we went over the different ways to measure something. We talked about capacity, length, weight, and height. The students loved weighing objects with the balancing scales and they really understood the concept of 1 pound after I let each of them hold the bag that weighed about 1 pound. My one big problem is that many of the students finish very quickly and I don't have anything planned for them to do and a few others take a much longer time to complete their work. So, I have one half of the class who is told the read a book and some of the other students are really struggling to complete the assignment. I think I need to come up with some modifications for the advanced students. (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 15th, 2006
9:01 pm	Moving along in 1st grade On Tuesday, I came to school feeling much better than the day before. I was eager to teach the students a lesson from their Open Court red section and math. From the red section I had the students get into groups of four and make posters of their favorite stories in the unit on games. Each student had to draw a picture and write a sentence explaining a part in which ever story he/she chose. Then, the students needed to put the drawings in the correct order on the poster. I had to go around the room and make sure that no one was drawing the same event as another person in the group. The point of this lesson was to get the students to understand how to order events from what happened first to what happened last in the story. The students worked well together. One group in particular did an awesome job because each of them got right to work and stayed focused on the task at hand. Their drawings all had a lot of color and they all had a sentence to go along with the drawing. This was the first group to be finished as well. Once the students had completed the posters, I had a person from each group come up to the front and present the poster their group made. I think that it was a good idea to do it this way because the students had a sense of pride to be able to come up and explain their work to the whole class. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 14th, 2006
12:04 am	Beginning of Week 2 On Monday I wasn't feeling too well, but I went to school anyway so that I could teach the lessons that I had planned the night before. I didn't want to do all that work and then not come in to teach it to the students. I ended up leaving early anyway because I just wasn't up to sticking around. I thought it would be better if I stayed home and got better. My lessons ended up going really well though. The students were really involved with the lesson about first, second, and last. They liked getting to write about a game that interested them. The only problem was that not all the people in the group were interested in the game that was chosen. The whole point of getting the students into groups and writing about the same game was to have the different groups present what they have to do first, second, and last in the game; however, I forgot to have the students share. I wish I would have remembered so that students could see that writing about games using a sequence of events helps others understand what happens. If I ever teach this lesson again I would definitely have them present the sequence of their game. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 7th, 2006
11:22 am	My first two lessons Yesterday I taught my first two lesson to the first graders and they both went really well. The students were really engaged for the most part. I did have a couple students who were having a difficult time paying attention, but when I saw this I started asking them questions about the story we were reading. The lessons that I taught were on blending words and sentences and the other was about introducing and reading a new story for the first time. I think that the unit that we are on right now is a fun unit because it's about games. The students have a lot to talk about when it comes to games and they were doing an excellent job coming up with connections to other stories they have read in this unit. I am actually really impressed by their intelligence. I'm also looking forward to teaching another lesson. Next week, I'll be teaching some more language arts as well as social science and math. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006
8:35 pm	Day 3 Today was my third day of student teaching although I haven't really been doing any teaching as far as teaching the students a lesson. I'm going to be teaching my first two lessons tomorrow! I'll be teaching language arts word knowledge and introducing a new story. I'm excited to teach tomorrow because it definitely makes the day more interesting when I get to interact with the students more. Today I just went around to individual students and helped them with their math. Today they were practicing counting money using pennies, nickels, and dimes. My cooperating teacher also gave them a worksheet to complete on their own so that she could see who understands the concept of counting money and who needs more instruction on it. When the students completed the assignment she took their work and depending on how well they each did, their paper would either go into the stack of those who are doing great, those who need a little more instruction time, or those who just don't understand the concept at all. I thought that this was a great way for her to see where her students are before moving on to the quarter. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006
10:31 pm	A great second day! Today was my second day of student teaching and I had a very enjoyable experience. I haven't had the chance to teach the students, but just taking the attendance today was neat because I was able to say good morning to them and begin to develop a teacher student relationship. The students seem to like me so far and are open to having a different person in the classroom helping them out. My cooperating teacher is really a great person. She treats the students with respect and kindness and teaches them to be Peace Builders. She is the only teacher so far who has actually put effort into developing peace building skills in the students by helping them figure out real life situations and problems. I'm excited to be teaching on Thursday. I'll be teaching Open Court Into Reading (Red Section)which involves reading a story with the students. I just have to type out some lesson plans for it now. (Comment on this)
Monday, April 3rd, 2006
7:48 pm	First day of 1st grade Today was my first day student teaching the 1st grade and I had a pretty good time. The students are really great. Most of them are meeting the 1st grade standards or exceeding them! I'm lucky to get such a great group of students. They are a bit talk-a-tive though and I don't exactly know how to handle that especially when it is the norm in this classroom. I'm still used to how things were in the Kindergarten classroom from last quarter. I think that the students are happier in the 1st grade classroom though because they actually look and act like they are having a great time while in school. My cooperating teacher is really fun and exciting for them and I know that I have a lot to live up to, but I'm going to try my best. The only thing that worries me is that my cooperating teacher may not want to give her class up so easily to me. I guess as long as I have one long lesson plan per day I'll do fine because that's what's expected of me. I know that I will be a bit nervous when I have to teach my first lesson to this group of students. I hope I'll be able to do something soon, otherwise I'm just going to be so bored observing all day long. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
2:14 pm	Still on spring break! I am looking forward to starting the new quarter becasue I know that after this quarter I'll be graduating! What a relief to be this close to finishing. I do wish I had a little more time for spring break, but I guess I'll have to make the most out of what I have. I'm going to be working my butt off this quarter though because I'll be working and going to school. I'm not going to have much time to do other things so, I better enjoy my free time while I still can! (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
4:21 pm	Last days in the Kindergarten classroom My last two days in the Kindergarten classroom my friend taught the morning class and I taught the afternoon class. We did this while our cooperating teachers prepared last minute report cards, etc. I actually really loved teaching my afternoon class the whole time because it gave me a sense of what it would be like to have my own classroom. This was also the week I finished up my science unit on "Movement". On Monday I taught the class about rolling and sliding and about pushing and pulling. Then, on Tuesday I taught them about magnets. The science lessons on Monday went really well because I was prepared for them. The lesson on magnets wasn't planned out so I had to kind of improvise. Then, on Tuesday after the science lesson I didn't have any time left to do the red section "into reading" from the Open Court textbook. I know that time is definitely something I need to work on while I'm in the classroom. Instead of doing the red section, we made time to get ready to go home and pass out prizes and gifts. The students got a chance to pick from the treasure chest that my friend put together and I passed out lolipops and chocolate smelling erasers. The students really seemed to love that they were getting lots of stuff. I actually received a gift from my cooperating teacher and my afternoon class. They gave me two Eric Carle books to add to my collection for my classroom. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 27th, 2006
10:00 pm	February 21 & 22 Last week I began my science unit and the first lesson I taught for it was a lesson on things that are faster and slower. The students really seemed to enjoy that we were doing something different. They don't usually get to learn about science concepts. The students liked the Big Book on science because it was colorful and the students had the chance to interact with the pictures they saw. I would ask for volunteers to come up and point out things that move faster and things that move slower. They were eager to come up and show me what they know. We also talked about things that move round and round, back and forth, and up and down. The students pointed out the pictures that did each of these movements. I also had the students act out what the different movements were. I had them turn round and round in a circle, move their arms back and forth, and go up and down from a standing position to crouching down. This made the lesson more interesting for the students and for me. I mostly did this with them because I knew that the English learners would benefit from the nonverbal communication. I was also evaluated again last week while I taught a math lesson on counting forward from 0 to 30 and counting backward from 30 to 0. The lesson went so much better than the last one I was evaluated on. I implemented some great instructional strategies. I used manipulatives for the students to count on and I made up sounds and movements for them to do to go along with the story about counting. The most fun came later on in the lesson when I had the students come outside with me and jump into squares as they counted forward from 0 to 30 and backward from 30 to 0. It was like having math and P.E. put together in one lesson. I think that all of us had our workout for the day. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 17th, 2006
3:40 pm	Evaluation Day On Wednesday I was observed and evaluated by my supervisor. Talk about being stressed out. I thought the lesson went pretty good for the most part, but I got some pretty low scores. Let's just say that Wednesday was not my day. Now I am really pressured to do well on my last evaluation. I'm going to be evaluated this Tuesday. I'm hoping things turn out better. I thought that it was really great how my cooperating teachers said that I did a good job. One of them even came to me and told me that I did well even before I had a chance to say anything. It is really great to have lots of positive feedback when you feel down and I appreciated them telling me that they thought I did a good job. I had the chance to teach the lesson again for my afternoon class and it went really well. I think that I did a good job for it being my first time doing blending with a class. The class was also very new to blending. Next week for my evaluation I am going to be teaching a math lesson on how to count forwards from 0-30 and how to count backwards from 30-0. (1 Comment |Comment on this)