Valmead: Week 5

1. What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction?

            The teacher, Mrs. Cantor, gave the students a worksheet first thing in the morning. The worksheet has four parts to it; first part is a morning story that has blanks for the students to fill in with the day, date, and a few other sentences about what is going to happen that day, things to do during the Fall, etc. The second part is sentences that students have to find the right spelling word to complete the sentence. The third part there is more sentences and a word box at the top, and again the students have to find the right word to complete the sentence. Later in the day, the students had a reading lesson in their reading books. The students take turns reading a page a piece until the end of the story.

2. What have you taught in your internship?

            Every morning we walk around the room and help students that are having trouble with their morning worksheets. A few of the students have trouble with putting their spelling words into ABC order, so I have found myself showing different ways of putting the spelling words in order. Sometimes the students are stuck on finding the right spelling word that fits into a sentence, so the student and I go down the spelling list to see which one belongs. In both areas, I have the student to think about what we are trying to accomplish and have them make the decision of what the right answer is.

3. Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

            Our teacher was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had to take some time off and have surgery. I was surprised by how the school took an initiative to raise money for our teacher in her time of need. They had one Friday where the employees of the school could wear jeans for a $1, which was donated to our teacher. They also where selling breast cancer items to help raise money for her.

4. Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

I have none at this time.

 

Valmead: Week 4

1. What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction?

            The teacher, Mrs. Cantor, gave the students a worksheet first thing in the morning. The worksheet has four parts to it; first part is a morning story that has blanks for the students to fill in with the day, date, and a few other sentences about what is going to happen that day, things to do during the Fall, etc. The second part is sentences that students have to find the right spelling word to complete the sentence. The third part there is more sentences and a word box at the top, and again the students have to find the right word to complete the sentence.

2. What have you taught in your internship?

            Every morning we walk around the room and help students that are having trouble with their morning worksheets. A few of the students have trouble with putting their spelling words into ABC order, so I have found myself showing different ways of putting the spelling words in order. Sometimes the students are stuck on finding the right spelling word that fits into a sentence, so the student and I go down the spelling list to see which one belongs. In both areas, I have the student to think about what we are trying to accomplish and have them make the decision of what the right answer is.

3. Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

            The teachers are good to work together in order to make the curriculum work.

4. Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

I have none at this time.

 

Valmead: Week 3

1. What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction?

            The teacher, Mrs. Cantor, gave the students a worksheet first thing in the morning. The worksheet has four parts to it; first part is a morning story that has blanks for the students to fill in with the day, date, and a few other sentences about what is going to happen that day, things to do during the Fall, etc. The second part is sentences that students have to find the right spelling word to complete the sentence. The third part there is more sentences and a word box at the top, and again the students have to find the right word to complete the sentence. The students have been learning capitalizations this week, Mrs. Cantor includes sentences with towns, cities, names, and streets. Emily has been doing reading time this week with the students and I got to do the spelling test. The students have also done some reading from their reading books.

2. What have you taught in your internship?

            Every morning we walk around the room and help students that are having trouble with their morning worksheets. A few of the students have trouble with putting their spelling words into ABC order, so I have found myself showing different ways of putting the spelling words in order. Sometimes the students are stuck on finding the right spelling word that fits into a sentence, so the student and I go down the spelling list to see which one belongs. In both areas, I have the student to think about what we are trying to accomplish and have them make the decision of what the right answer is. I had to give a quick lesson about capitalization, explaining that some names have more than one word to capitalize, for example Yellowstone Park, First Street, etc. I gave the spelling test for this week, announcing the word, giving a sentence with the word, and then announcing the word again.

3. Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

            Mrs. Cantor found that the students had a hard time with the spelling words this week. The reason is because the words ended with air and are, there were not as many hundreds on the test as there usually are.

4. Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

I have none at this time.

 

Valmead: Week 2

1. What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction?

            The teacher, Mrs. Cantor, gave the students a worksheet first thing in the morning. The worksheet has four parts to it; first part is a morning story that has blanks for the students to fill in with the day, date, and a few other sentences about what is going to happen that day, things to do during the Fall, etc. The second part is sentences that students have to find the right spelling word to complete the sentence. The third part there is more sentences and a word box at the top, and again the students have to find the right word to complete the sentence. The students have been learning abbreviations, so the fourth part consists of the months, days of the week and miscellaneous words for the students to abbreviate. The students also do AR tests in the mornings, some have to practice reading with us or another student. Mrs. Cantor also has reading time as a whole class, she sits in a chair in the corner and the students gather around her as she reads a story. Valmead uses Braille readings, they go through Letter Land, Mrs. Cantor has the students take turns reading the story and at the end, they discuss what happened in the story. Emily and I have also sat down with students and listen to them read their AR books.

2. What have you taught in your internship?

            Every morning we walk around the room and help students that are having trouble with their morning worksheets. A few of the students have trouble with putting their spelling words into ABC order, so I have found myself showing different ways of putting the spelling words in order. Sometimes the students are stuck on finding the right spelling word that fits into a sentence, so the student and I go down the spelling list to see which one belongs. In both areas, I have the student to think about what we are trying to accomplish and have them make the decision of what the right answer is.

3. Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

            When we were talking to Mrs. Cantor, she informed us that her class did not have a science curriculum, I am not sure if this is so for the entire school or not. I asked how the students received any information towards science and she said that her and other teachers fit it in when they have a reading lesson that includes any subject that can be linked to science and expands the lesson to include information towards science, such as plants, animals, etc.

4. Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

I have none at this time.

 

Valmead: Week 1

1. What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction?

            The teacher, Mrs. Cantor, gave the students a worksheet first thing in the morning. The worksheet has four parts to it; first part is a morning story that has blanks for the students to fill in with the day, date, and a few other sentences about what is going to happen that day, things to do during the Fall, etc. The second part is sentences that students have to find the right spelling word to complete the sentence. The third part there is more sentences and a word box at the top, and again the students have to find the right word to complete the sentence. The students have been learning abbreviations, so the fourth part consists of the months, days of the week and miscellaneous words for the students to abbreviate. The students also do AR tests in the mornings, some have to practice reading with us or another student. Mrs. Cantor also has reading time as a whole class, she sits in a chair in the corner and the students gather around her as she reads a story. Valmead uses Basal readings, they go through Letter Land, Mrs. Cantor has the students take turns reading the story and at the end, they discuss what happened in the story. On Thursday, a man from the Letter Land Company came out and observed Mrs. Cantor do a lesson using the company’s techniques in teaching the lesson. While Emily and I watched, we questioned a part of the lesson, where the students were learning r-controlled words, the way Mrs. Cantor performed the lesson it did not make a lot of sense to us. In addition, Mrs. Cantor had to show pictures in a book to the students so they could find items in the picture that contained the “er” and “ar” sounds. However, I found this book too small for the students to view. Emily and I have also sat down with students and listen to them read their AR books.

2. What have you taught in your internship?

            Every morning we walk around the room and help students that are having trouble with their morning worksheets. A few of the students have trouble with putting their spelling words into ABC order, so I have found myself showing different ways of putting the spelling words in order. Sometimes the students are stuck on finding the right spelling word that fits into a sentence, so the student and I go down the spelling list to see which one belongs. In both areas, I have the student to think about what we are trying to accomplish and have them make the decision of what the right answer is.

3. Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

            I find the way that Mrs. Cantor runs her class interesting. She has an independent environment, when she gives the students their worksheets in the morning, she lets the students work at their own pace and gives them ample time in completing the work. She does however check up on them to make sure they are staying on track, but she allows them to be individuals by letting them work how they feel comfortable.

4. Post any questions that you have about teaching/learning.

I have none at this time.