Nancy Pham Thursday 9/6/12

Reflection/ Week 1

Today in the classroom I observed how my cooperating teacher explained to the students the routine, procedures, and directions on what to do about the supplies they brought in. I collected the paper towels, tissue boxes, and disinfecting wipes. Since today and tomorrow are half days the teacher was not able to do the fire drill and lockdown procedures. The students desk arrangement was in a shape of a U. The teacher had the students color pages in a packet while other students decorated a hat and took pictures. Then the students had snack and shared their picture from home in front of the class. I introduced the behavior chart that I brought in to the students. I told them that everyday they start on Ready to learn! and the students could be moved up or down depending on their behavior. Then I introduced the pirate theme bulletin board that I created for the students. I told them that the bulletin board would grow when they complete their pirate faces and pirate letter. All the students were excited about making the pirate faces. Throughout the whole day the students had a difficult time following directions and rules. They were really chatty. However, since it was the first day of school and the first time in a long time of seeing their friends it was understandable. By the end of the day my cooperating teacher and I realized who needed to be moved in order to stop the chatting of the students. I had the opportunity to join in training after school with my cooperating teacher along with other staff and the principle for teachers in-Service. I learned about the Danielsons Framework for Professional Practice and about the new math series called EnVision Math. I really enjoyed the teacher in-Service because the other teachers saw me as a colleague and I was able to learn about more strategies to use in the classroom. Finally, I was told to do the pirate face activity for my bulletin board tomorrow. I am very excited and nervous at the same time. I have all my materials ready to teach. Friday 9/7/12 I took the opportunity to help the students put their crayons, erasers, pencils, glue sticks, and scissors into their boxes that they were suppose to bring in. There were a few students who still didnt bring in a box, crayons, or forms. The teacher took the students through a tour to the main office, the copy room, and the nurses office from the classroom. It was a different way to getting to those three places since they were on the other side of the building for Kindergarten. I was able to observe how the teacher lined the students up and how they acted going down the

halls. Walking down the halls was one of the things I want to help the students work on. I know I was suppose to observe for the first week, but I couldnt help myself to interact with the students and help the teacher with passing out materials. I was able to talk all the students at different times of the day. I find that talking to each individual student about himself or herself allowed me to memorize who he or she were due to their personality. The pirate face activity went really well. Some of the students didnt follow directions, but they went back and fixed some of their frown faces to happy faces. The students added their personality to their pirate faces even though I said to make a line for the mouth. Overall the students were able to follow most of the directions in pasting the hat to the head. The students enjoyed making the pirate faces and I enjoyed seeing their creativity. They turned out really cute. I stayed for another teachers in-Service after early dismissal today. We learned about the online programs for teachers to enter in attendance, find out medical information such as allergies on the students, trouble with technology related issues, and real time. I also learned more about the math series on how to get to different tabs and how to utilize the tools in the program. After the workshops, my cooperating teacher and I went back to our classroom to figure out what I had to teach for next week. I was really overwhelmed because I didnt get to observe my cooperating teacher teach anything. I decided to teach the first math lesson out the new math series. My cooperating teacher did not have time to digest the whole series so she could not help me as much because she didnt teach it yet. I was a bit nervous and confused when I was reading the math manual. I never saw one before so I was again a bit overwhelmed. I went home and researched for hours on ideas about how to teach the first lesson. I cried a bit during my research because I was afraid I wouldnt be able to teach this math lesson or how to go about teaching it. However, I was able to find some ideas, which eased my anxiety.