Spring+2012School+Placement

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 * Kilie Pennington's Spring 2012 School Placement is at Gleenwood Elementary School.**

I am in Mrs. Carpenter's third grade classroom She has 18 students in her class and 2 of them are special needs children. Mrs. Carpenter's class are a group of very lively and very energetic students. The love to talk and share ideas with the teacher and each other. The class room is set up where the teacher's desk is in the back of the room and all of the students' desks are in little pods of four or five desks in each. One whole wall is windows and the front wall has an interactive whiteboard. The other two walls are storage closets for the teacher and a little nook for students to put their backpacks and jackets. I am very excited to be in this classroom environment. My mentoring teacher is very helpful and answers any questions that I have. I think this will be a great experience and will prepare me very well for student teaching and beyond.
 * Reflection of visit #1 (April 5)**

This week in my placement at Glenwood in Mrs. Carpenter's thrid grade class, I've really been put to work. I have helped students with math review groups, reading groups, spelling tests, and grading and other projects. The first thing Mrs. Carpenter had me do was go through the past math benchmark tests to find out who was struggling and in what area. Once I figured that out I started pulling those students for little math review groups. I've also been leading the reading groups and their word study spelling tests. Later on in the week I started going down the hall to Mrs. Harrell, the resource teacher. There I started working with a special needs students for an hour each morning. We focused on good test taking skills and staying focused on the work. All the third grade teachers had a meeting on Monday and were talking about this website called edmodo. Basically, it's like a facebook for the classroom and only the teacher, students, and their parents can view it. I thought that sounded like a great tool to use but, there are several students in my classroom that do not have access to the internet at home. So, I came up with a kind of "twitter board" outside the classroom. Each student has a page and can comment on the topic that Mrs. Carpenter puts on her page. I laminated the paper and divided it up for a whole weeks worth of comments. They are right outside the class and whenever the students have finished their work they can come out a few at a time and write something on their page. They seem to really enjoy it and I had a blast coming up with the idea for it. The students are all so much fun and energetic and they all are already great listeners so, I don't have to do much in the area of classroom management when I work with them. Some of the students to have a hard time in math so, I try to make myself as available as possible to ask questions and help explain things. I've loved my time at Glenwood and am sad that next week is my last week. I will definitely come back to visit them after I've gone.
 * April 12th Reflection**

This was my last week at Glenwood Elementary School, in Mrs. Carpenter's third grade class. I worked a lot with a little boy in another class that had special needs. We worked on math reviews for the TCAP test. What I tried to do with him, was take the boring math question on the paper and make it related to the real world. I also helped students in my class with their language arts and social studies TCAP review. I pulled the students who were at the bottom of the proficient mark, basic, and below and had them rethink some of their responses. It seemed to help them once they understood that all they needed to do was take their time and really think about the questions. On Friday, the teacher was not there so, I pretty much got to be in charge. We played little review games to give the students a break from the worksheets and test booklets. They really enjoyed the games, and I was glad since I was the one who put them together. The end of the day on Friday was a lot of fun. We went out for an extra long recess and had a TCAP pep rally in the gym to get the students excited about taking the test. Once it was about time for me to leave for the last time a lot of the students wanted to know if I'd be back. I told them that I would, but only if I heard that they did really well on their TCAP's. I plan on going back regardless of the outcome of the test. The students are so sweet and I'm already sad that I won't be there to see them on Monday.
 * April 18, 2012**

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 * Science Night at A.L. Lotts**

Instructions for Science Night activity...Why's That

Pictures from Science Night working with students.


 * Science Night Reflection**

Science night was such a great experience. I loved getting to interact with different ages of children. My partner for science night was Allison Carr and we worked through our activity several times to make sure that we knew our directions and explanations backwards and forwards. Our activity was called "Why's That?" and basically we had the activity that was just a bunch of fun. We had several different things going on at our table. We had a sand stick that you had to get the metal ball from one side to the other(a parent actually figured out how this worked). We had a cool little car called a zecar that represented momentum, the faster you pushed the car, the faster it would go. Another activity we had was looking through these rainbow peepholes. Basically it had defraction lenses that separated the light into the colors of the rainbows. The last activity that we had was an atmospheric pressure mat that you pulled up on a handle and tried to lift the mat up. It seemed like it was stuck or suctioned to the table but it was actually just the atmospheric pressure pushing down on the mat. I enjoyed science night, because it was a fun opportunity to try our hand at explaining science concepts in a way that children can understand. I was surprised to see so many kids there and getting really involved. I wouldn't have thought that kids would want to spend there evening learning about science. There were also a lot of parents that went around with their child and got really involved in the activities. A few parents even tried out the sand tube and atmospheric pressure mat. My favorite part thought, was when the kids would get so excited that they figured something out or learned something new and they would run and tell their parents about the activity. Overall, I feel that Allison and I did a very good job at setting up and presenting our activity. The only thing I would change is have more of an attention getter. Some of the children would just walk by our table and see that we didn't have anything for them to make or to eat and they would keep walking. I really liked our activity though, because it was actual scientific terms that the children either have learned about or will soon learn about in school.


 * Math Night at Glenwood Elementary School**




 * Math Night Reflection**

Math night was a great experience. There were so many students and parents that came out to participate. My group was made up of Catherine, Margi, Allison, and myself. Our activity was called "By the Foot." We had several activities for students to do with measuring and estimating. For students who were in in Kindergarten and first grade we had them measure their stride, height, and foot size using the ruler that was shaped like a foot. For the older students we had them estimate the same things first and once they had done that they went around to the different stations and found the correct measurement. The students seemed to really enjoy all of our activities. I would love to do another math night in the future. There was a huge turnout and we were busy the entire night. The only thing I would change about our activity would be the number of stations. We had a lot to do and not enough time or space to do it in. I loved doing the math night at Glenwood Elementary, because all the teachers, students, and parents were so active in participating in every aspect of the evening. When I am finally in my own classroom at my own school, I plan to organize a math night for students. All the activities are so much fun, and the students are brushing up on some math skills too. That was another thing that I thought was great, I'm not sure if it was planned to have the math night the week before TCAPs or if it just happened that way, but I think it worked out perfectly. The students got to come out and have fun doing so many activities and also, each station was focusing on something different so, I think it even helped them review some skills that they might have otherwise forgotten about. Overall, I feel that Allison, Margi, Catherine, and I worked very well together. We had so many different ideas for the activities and each of us got to bring something extra to the table. I got to be creative with the sign, Allison put together some great activities, and Margi and Catherine put some extra details into everything and made great worksheets. Once again, I loved the math night and would love to do another one very soon.


 * Social Studies Strategy Lesson- Community Maps [[file:Community Maps.doc]]**


 * Language Arts Grammar Lesson- Present Tense [[file:PRESENTtenselesson.docx]]**