Week 2- August 23-27, 2010 and Inquiry

This week at my PDS, we finally received our students. The kindergartners came to school on Tuesday and it was hectic! I didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be to get these students into a school routine. The first day of school was spent getting the students used to the classroom, the school and the classroom rules. There are five classroom rules and the students have been trying very hard this week to follow them. Mrs. DeFazio decided not to have the students “take down their butterfly” yet for misbehavior. We started this week by using 5 minute time-outs (from playtime) and this seemed to be effective for the students. Starting Monday, she will implement the classroom management system that she uses.

It was interesting to see how these students acted in the school environment compared to how they acted in their home environment. Surprisingly, a few students acted way different than they had on home visits. I think the most interesting part of the first week was to see how the students used pencils and crayons. A lot of our students had been to preschool before coming to kindergarten. However, it was amazing to see how each student held and pencil and in general, the different ability levels in the class. By Friday, I could see that the majority of the students had started to learn the routine at school. It will be interesting to see what or if the students forget the routine or rules over the weekend.

My mentor teacher and I also discussed topics for my Action Research/Inquiry this week. We discussed different options and decided on that a Math topic would be the best. The Kindergarten students work on Math in the mornings when they do their calendar/attendance routine and also in the afternoons when they work at Math centers. I started baseline counting assessments on Thursday and Friday with the students. On Monday, I am planning to work on number recognition with the students and assess where they are currently. After I get an idea of where the students in the class are with Math concepts, I will begin to implement activities during centers. We will also be doing the first assessment for Dibels in Math in September. This will also be good data to use/analyze to plan activities for the students.

Week 1-August 16-19, 2010

This was the first week at my PDS in the Kindergarten classroom. We will not receive students until August 24th so this week was spent helping my mentor teacher get the classroom ready and conducting home visits. I never realized how much work went into setting up a classroom for the school year. My teacher had worked in the classroom prior to this week and there was still so much to accomplish. I think it was important for me to observe and help with this process. It truly made me feel part of the classroom environment and I was glad to help. This weekm we also attended Investigations Math training, teacher meetings and Faculty Senate. The Investigations training was beneficial to me because this will be the new system adpoted in the classroom and I will be able to use it as well as help my mentor teacher with Math.

I was also glad that I could participate in home visits. In classes and discussions, home visits tend to be a controversial topic. However, I think that they are appropriate for teachers to understand their students. I thought it was very interesting to see how the students interacted in their home environment and it can be interesting to compare this to how they interact in the school environment. It was also great to see how proud the students were when we came to their house and most of them gave us a “tour” of their bedrooms. I am excited now to meet the students and observe them in the classroom setting on Tuesday. I am looking forward to this year and getting to know and work with the students in the classroom. I am also anxious to start my Action Research and develop a wondering that can benefit my students.