Sunday, October 10, 2010

Another great day at SES!

Thursday was another good day for KB. I am starting to notice a trend! They are so well behaved. At recess, Lindsay and I noticed how bad the playground really is. We are looking forward to working on our advocacy project to clean up the area. There are a lot of dangerous roots, holes, etc that could be easily fixed with a little time and a little love. Lining KB up from recess was left up to the two of us that day and let me tell you its not as easy as Mrs. Lacey makes it look! When I asked her about it she explained to me how important the first few weeks of school are in drilling procedure. As one of Lemov's techniques, "Do it again" explains, doing a task again, and doing it right, better, or even perfectly, is the best consequence for not following directions the first time. The teachers at SES do not seem to hesitate to have their classes do something such as line up or walk quietly over and from the start, even if it means taking up time that would otherwise be spent elsewhere. Lindsay taught a great lesson on ordinal numbers that the class seemed to really enjoy. After her lesson, she called students over a few at a time while Mrs. White and I oversaw the rest of the class doing a rather messy activity! They used newspaper advertisements to find the numbers 0-10, cut them out, and glued them on a number line. This gave me a great opportunity to see the advancements that a lot of the class have made, and also see the children that are still lacking in skill and confidence. While one child went up to number 15 (and could have kept going if given the time), others struggled to get started at all. I can see what a struggle teaching a class of 20+ students on different levels can be. Mrs. Lacey some time during this activity to call students into her office one on one to work on some math skills. She says she really tries to do this as much as possible because this is when she can really focus and this is where a lot of the teaching, especially for children who are behind, is done. Another great thing I witnessed in the KB classroom last week was at the very end of the day. As Mrs. L called the students one by one to line up to go home she had them come by her and gave them one skittle each. Individually, she complimented each and every child on something they had done well that day. You would have thought she gave these kids a thousand dollars-each one lined up with the biggest smile on their face I have ever seen! When I become a teacher, I will be certain to do something like this every once in a while to boost the student's confidence and remind them that you care. : )

1 comment:

  1. I was really excited to hear about your advocacy project in class last week. I think it is a wonderful opportunity to get the students, teachers, parents and community involved. i think it also shows the children how as a community, we can all come together at times to help one another out. I also think this will be a great learning experience for all of you in the future by getting out and asking local business to help contribute to the cause of creating a safe, clean, and appropriate play area for the children. I'm taking the PE class right now and it is more apparent to me now then ever how important it is for children to have an area that they can expend some energy in.

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