Kolb EDUC 461 Fall 2014

Journal Entries: October 27-30

October 27, 2014
Today was the first day of our Halloween unit and I know the students were excited
because not only was it going to be a short week but they get to dress up and go out trick or
treating. In ELA, we did the book called Five Little Pumpkins and then I would show them the
song that goes with it. We talked about the rhyming that occurred in the book as well as the
concept of first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. It is not a standard anymore but I feel like they
need to be introduced to them. I had to tell them that first means one and second means two. I
would then ask them what they third, fourth, and fifth would mean and they would say three,
four, and five. In open court, we did an introduction of blending letter sounds together, which is
a basic skill for beginning reading. Ms. South did it first to refresh my memory from last year.
They have to say the first sound and then the second sound and blend the first two together. If
there was a third sound, they had to say it and blend all three together. At first, the students did
not quite get it but eventually they will because it is new to them.
I then showed a video about bats and some facts about them. The students had to find one
fact they learned about bats. The next day we would put facts together about bats and put them
outside with our actual bats that they created last week. Students had to complete a bats fact book
by putting it in order and coloring it. We then would do a small guided reading lesson on the
book by reading it together.
October 28, 2014
Today we did the story of GO AWAY BIG GREEN MONSTER! Students love this book
because you can put animation into your voice when you read it and then you also talk about
describing words. I talked about what the color yellow described which the eyes were. On each
page, I would ask the describing words described which Ms. South was surprised to see me
doing because it was a good lesson for the students to know. Students were catching onto it and
they were understanding that adjectives described nouns which I did not say to them but they
were doing it. We created monsters last week but we put them up on the wall. I showed them the
video of the five little pumpkins which the students knew the words and they were singing along
with her.

In Science, I showed the same video of bats for a refreshment of some facts that they
could say about bats. After they watched the video, the students got into pairs where they to
decide on one fact to share about bats. I was going to write down each fact and put the students
name that said it. I was going to cut it out and put in the middle where our bats are on the wall
outside of the room. It was surprising to see what the students were learning from the video
because they mentioned some great facts about bats like mom bats have four or five babies at the
same time. The students were excited to show their facts about bats and wanted to show how
much smarter they were than the other classes.
In Math, the students were going to play a game of Roll and Color. There were two levels
of the game where one sheet had the numbers one to five and the other sheet had one to twenty.
The students were paired according to ability and one student had to get their whiteboard and
their pencil poach. Each pair was given one dice if they had the one through five paper and the
two dice if they had the one to twenty paper. The concept of the game was that each student had
to take a turn to roll the dice and whatever number they landed on they had to color that number.
Students were spaced around the room to play the game. It was cool to see who was winning
because they would come up to me and say I won the game.
October 29, 2014
For the next couple of days, it was just going to be me and Ms. Bolden because of my
teachers husbands surgery. So today was going to be a fun day for the students because this
week was going to be the week of the Halloween party we were going to have for the students.
Ms. Bolden and I decided to do it a day earlier because we were concerned that one of the
parents was going to bring some more kids to the classroom and they might tear stuff down. This
parent was going to bring cupcakes for the party. But before we could get to the party, the
students had to learn first.
In ELA, we read the story of The Little Old Lady who was not Afraid of Anything. First I
pulled up the song that goes with the story which the students loved. Then afterward, I read the
story to the class but the students got to act out each part of the story. I had props that were in the
story like the boots, pants, shirt, gloves, hat, and a pumpkin. The students enjoyed this story
because not only did they get to act it out but they got to say the parts with me. I told them we
would read it tomorrow where I would have more students act it out. After that the story, I put on

a worksheet that we would do together as a class on the Elmo. The students did not have a copy
but I did have them do it verbally. The skill for this lesson was more reading comprehension
because I read a short story of three lines to the students. I then had the students read it back to
me as we went along in the story. The story had questions about a bat and what he liked. The
format of the worksheet was multiple choice so I had the students raise their hand as I said each
answer choice. They did not catch on to it until the last question which there was only three
questions. This is a new skill that the students were introduced to so I was not expecting them to
catch on to it until later.
In Math, we worked on writing number sentences. First I would do it with them together
so they understand the idea of number sentence structure. They knew the plus sign and the equal
sign. I have taught them how to write it and what number to put first in the number sentence. As
we did some together, I would verbally say a word problem because that is what they do on the
math program in the computer lab. The students were understanding it but some would put the
equal sign after the plus without putting the last number in between it. I would go back and write
it the correct way for the students to see their mistake.
At the end of the day, the students got to enjoy the Halloween party. As a present to them
from me, I showed them a Disney Sing Along: Happy Haunting in Disneyland. I told them that
this is a video I used to watch when I was younger. From one student, she said that today was the
best day ever. I am glad I was able to make that happen for everyone.
October 30, 2014
I knew today was going to be difficult today because the next day is Halloween for the
students so I knew the excitement was going to be overload. We did another reading of the story
from yesterday and I had more students act out the parts of the story. In Math, we measured with
candy corn on the SmartBoard which was fun for the students to come up and be part of the
activity. I had the students go to centers early because I was planning a small group math lesson
on measuring. We were measuring certain things in the room including a book, paintbrush, their
pencils, scissors, and their chairs. I first introduced the idea of a ruler which helps them measure
how long or tall something is. The special ruler I was using had bats on and whole numbers. I did
not let them measure using four and half or any others. I just wanted them to understand just
going to the whole number instead. Reasoning for letting do centers early was so I could get to

everyone in the class. I had to teach them how to use the ruler and where they needed to start to
make an accurate measurement by showing them to start the object on the edge of the ruler.
Some of the students were able to do this like my higher students but some had a little trouble so
I would redo it and show them again. The students enjoyed this activity because they go to
measure how bats an object was. They were so excited to measure their chairs.
At the end of the day, I had each student talk about what theyre going to be for
Halloween and we would write about it. I also talked about rules of tomorrow night as well as
what we will talking about for the next couple of weeks since we are starting our zoo unit. I also
talked about our field trip in the next couple of weeks too. I believe the students had a fun week
learning how we related everything back to Halloween. Honestly integration is key for the
students to learn in the best way possible.