Week 7- September 27th-October 1st, 2010 and Inquiry

This week at my PDS, I took over the whole morning routine (8:00 a.m.-9:00a.m.). This routine includes the Calendar routine, Morning Message and Shared Reading. Next week, I will begin taking over Word Wall instruction after centers and Read Aloud after Writing in the afternoon. I was very nervous this week for some reason. My main concern was time management. I wanted to make sure that I could get through all the activities in the allotted time plus make sure that students understood everything. After the first few days, I felt more comfortable in my teaching. I also think that the students are becoming more comfortable with my teaching and beginning to see me as an authority figure in the classroom. Three days this week, my mentor teacher had to be out of the classroom in the afternoon which left me to cover for her and our aide to assist me. It was very different being in the classroom and taking over subjects that I had not taught yet. I learned that you have to stay very organized and keep the lesson running smoothly as well as add transitions between activities. The afternoon is always rough in Kindergarten because they are in the mode of getting ready to go home. I know that you have to think up very engaging lessons/activities that involve hands-on or else you will not keep Kindergarten students’ attention in the afternoons.


This week I am still working on pre-activities to help with missing number. I am doing a number before, number after activity with the students during Math center time. I hold up a number (1-10) and ask students, “What number comes before? What number comes after?’ This will help with the missing number concept because the students will understand how to fill in the missing number blank when they know understand what number comes before and what number comes after. Next week, I will begin my official missing number activities with the students. I am hoping that I do not have to go back again and do more beginning activities or I may have to re-evaluate the research that I have chosen and see where to go next.

Week 6- September 20-24, 2010 and Inquiry

This week at my PDS, I really started to teach more in my classroom. I have taken over the Moring routine/Calendar and the Morning Message. The students have really begun to respond to my teaching and I believe they are beginning to see me as an authority figure in the classroom. I always seem to forget one part of the morning routine and the students are quick to remind me. One day, when I was doing the leader’s “name cheer”, one student said, “Wow, You look nervous.” I was nervous that day because I had never done the name cheer before (because the leader usually does it, but it was a boy and he did not want to). It was amazing to me that Kindergartners could pick up on how I was feeling. Next week, I will begin taking over the whole morning routine before center time. This is 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. and I will be conducting Shared Reading with the students. My mentor teacher sat down with me and explained everything that I needed to teach each day and I feel confident to begin taking over.


Inquiry: I began my first small group activity, Missing Number Flashcards, with the students. I got through six students and realized that I need to go back a do a simpler activity with the students. About eight students in the class scored a 0 (deficient) on the missing number assessment. Other students were either distinguished or emerging in this skill and they were about equally divided between the two groups. The flashcards I used were set up the same way that the missing number assessment was. However, the six students that came to my center did not understand. So, I came up with a supplemental pocket chart activity that I tried with students this week to get them prepared for the flash cards next week. The pocket chart activity used the hundreds chart and my teacher suggested only using numbers 1-10 until the students became more comfortable and understood the concept. I took out numbers 2, 6, 8, 10 and laid them on the table and then had students come over one at a time and place the “missing” numbers back in the chart where they should go. Students seemed to have an easier time with this activity and seemed to grasp the concept a little more. Most students got all the numbers correct with the exception of about 2 students who only got two correct. I am going to try to start the flash card activity next week and see how it goes.

Week 5- September 13-17, 2010 and Inquiry

This week at my PDS, I started taking over the Morning Circle/Calendar Routine. The first day was interesting because I was unsure what to expect and I think my students felt the same way. The week before I began the routine, I observed my mentor teacher every morning and wrote down the routine step-by-step so nothing would be different for the students when I began teaching. On Monday, I was a little bit nervous, but everything went smoothly. I believe that I had control of the class and handled any problems that came up. On Wednesday, one student pointed out that I looked nervous when I was doing the name cheer. It was the first day I had done it, because the leader was a boy that day and he did not want to do the cheer. I was nervous and I was surprised that a student picked that out. The rest of the week went smoothly however. I did not forget anything in the routine and my mentor teacher said that if I had, the students would have definitely reminded me! Next week, I will continue with the Morning Circle/Calendar Routine and pick up the Morning Message with the students. I am curious to see how this will go with the students because so far, I have had a great experience!


Also this week, I started the counting and missing number mClass assessments with the students. I plan to be finished with the missing number assessments by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. After I am finished with the assessments, I can load the baseline data from the Palm onto the computer and see exactly where students are with the missing number concept and print it out for my records. I will start implementing my first missing number activity, Missing Number Bingo, next Wednesday during Math Center time. It will take me the rest of the week to get all the students through the game at my center. I have all the games and activities planned for the next five weeks that I am implementing at Math center time. They include: Missing Number Flashcards, Missing Number Bingo, Missing Number Board Game, and Oh No, Missing Numbers! (a folder game with chance cards). I am anxious to see how the students will respond to these games and if they will begin to understand the missing number concept more

Week 4-September 7-10, 2010

This week in Kindergarten, I became more involved in center time. Each day, I was assigned an educational game to play with a small group of students at center time. I really enjoyed being involved in a center during this time because it allowed me to work closely with students and get to know them and their abilities. The games that we worked on were rhyming games and the majority of the students did a great job on these. It was interesting to see how the students helped each other out if they got stuck on a word. There was no laughing or teasing involved (as I have observed in the intermediate grades.) All students were willing to help each other out.

Also this week, my mentor teacher and I planned out when I would be taking over certain lessons in the classroom and when I would start implementing my small group Math activities for my Inquiry Project. She also picked a topic for me to teach about every Friday in the afternoon. Topics include magnets, apples, friends and pumpkins. I was very happy with this and I am excited to start planning my own lessons for the classroom. On Friday and Monday, I will be teaching the students about magnets and conducting a small group activity with them. I am interested to see how the students will respond to my teaching as well as respond to the lesson about magnets. I will also be taking over the calendar routine and weather graph on Tuesday, 9/14.

Week 3- August 30-September 3, 2010 and Inquiry

This week was the Kindergartner’s first full week at school and it was better than last week. I think that the majority of the students are becoming familiar with the classroom routine and rules. We implemented our rewards and behavior system this week, which was new for most students. It was interesting to see how the students reacted to this system. I can tell that they really like the reward system which involves marbles and prizes. If the class as a whole is quiet, or gets a compliment from another teacher, they get to “put a marble” in the jar. When all the marble are transferred from one jar to another, the students get a prize. Prizes usually consist of a Game Day in the afternoon or extra recess. Also, the students have a chart for stickers. They get a sticker every day that they do not get their butterfly taken down. After five stickers, the student gets a trip to the classroom treasure box. After the class heard this, they were very excited. It is difficult because they are still trying to get into the school routine. I would say, in a few weeks, most students will know the routine and what is expected of them.


My teacher and I have decided on a topic for my inquiry project. There are four main domains of Math in Kindergarten. They are counting, number recognition, quantity discrimination, and missing number. We decided to focus on missing number because my mentor teacher said that missing number is usually the concept that most students have difficulty with in Kindergarten. We will be assessing the students in the middle of September using the mClass Math assessments. After the assessments are completed and we have baseline data, I will then be implementing Math games/activities that concern missing number during Math Workshop time. I will be working with small groups of students each day. My mentor teacher said that it would take about one week to get through one game/activity with the whole class. This will work out perfect because we are supposed to conduct research for minimum 5-6 weeks and I am thinking of using 6 games/activities with the students. I will also use the same mClass assessment at the end of my research to collect data to use to compare/contrast to the baseline data that I collected. I have collected data from counting and number recognition and it was very interesting to see the varying ability levels in the classroom. I am excited to start my research and see how it impacts the students in my classroom.

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.