Travis Snyder

9/11/12  7:00-11:30am

Exploration 1

7:00 a.m. – Morning briefing with other kindergarten teachers if need be. They discuss plans for the day ahead.

7:30 a.m. – Students are first allowed to enter classroom. As students arrive their morning routine moves like clockwork. Only after a couple of weeks students remember to say good morning to the teacher, hand her their folders, move milk card, wash hands, see what the smart board says, and then free time if the teacher doesn’t have a classroom activity. Most of the time if I’m there she will have me do it with them. Today I helped them paint their hands and make a “helping hands rainbow”. Once they finished they have choice time with their friends until all the students show up or 8:15 a.m. this is a great time for parents to bring up any concerns or inform the teacher of any new issue that may show a problem for the classroom.

 This shows a wonderful time for children to ease into school without too much commotion so early in the morning. Many children have a blank face walking into school as if they just awoke. The smart board has a way of jumping the small brains by giving them a question they can read with their parents and answer. For example one question asked how many pieces of candy they received for Halloween. The answer isn’t relevant it’s more to wake them up slowly.

8:15 a.m. – Students are asked to clean their messes up and meet on the alphabet rug. Once everyone is settled and bodies are still. They read the morning message together which is very important. Reading similar messages everyday helps students recognize simple words called “muscle words” for example is, a, the, me….. Today a student noticed that “this” had the chunk word “is” in it because “is” was one of the students muscle words that they learned, this is one way they integrated “talk”. The morning message read “Good morning, this afternoon you will be going to P.E. today”. After they read the morning message they learn a greeting game where every student places one of their shoes in the center of the rug. Once every student has a shoe in the center one student starts by picking up a shoe and asking the owner of the shoe if it is theirs. The receiver says “yes” and “thank you”. Once they received their shoe they pick up a new shoe and repeat the same process until everyone has their shoe back. This becomes very humoring because there are many small shoes and one extra large shoe which belongs to me. I joined the game late but once the students saw my shoe being dropped into the middle many of them began to laugh and my shoe was the very next one to be picked.

8:30 a.m. The students have a story read to them for an introduction to Reader’s Workshop. Today they were read Knuffle Bunny and then the Scholastic DVD was played for them. They really enjoyed it. I believed it helped different students because they first heard the story from the teacher for the verbal learners then for the visual learners they saw the movie. The Reader’s Workshop or Literacy Stations as the children call it was as follows (see back page labeled ‘Our Literacy Stations”) the stations change every day until each colored table has done every station. Once the students finish one station they move on to the station below.

9:15 a.m. SNACK!!! A wonderful time for students to interact with each other and share war stories from the night. My teacher does a great job with including every student each day. Since there are five tables each day she sits with another table. On Monday she sits with the red table, on Tuesday see sits with the blue table and so on and so on. This is one plan I plan on using when I become a teacher. Surprisingly enough the classroom is very quite during this time I’m very impressed.

9:30 a.m. – Writer’s Workshop is opened with a story about a Hermit Crab and losing his home. The students are very intrigued by the story and comment how someone they know has a sister, who knows a friend that has a hermit crab. The teacher was very patient after every story without getting to far off task. The students were then asked to draw a story of something they enjoy doing. The teacher opened with a drawing of her two kids and made them stick figures. The students mostly drew their parents playing with them. One line below the image was expected to have words describing their picture. The teacher and I walked around helping students sound out words and reminded them to pinch their pencils when writing.

10:20 a.m. -RECESS!!!!!!!! Children were not allowed outside until a quite, still, and single filed line was formed. The students were counted off learning new numbers as they were tapped softly on the head. Student were expected to answer an “exist card” before enjoying their outside time. Spell “yes” was the mission today.

10:45 a.m. -The children line up for lunch, the quietest line/class leaves first for lunch. This proves to be difficult after just going mad for 25 minutes straight.

10:50 a.m. –Lunch. The students are told many times to quiet down and eat their lunch. The children are read a story to quiet them down. When a student has too many reminders at lunch they sit alone for the reminding lunch period and will “practice” quiet bodies the next day during recess period for ten minutes.

11:30 a.m. - I left as an introduction to the first day.     

The teacher I would talk to in the text is Linda Zeck. I like her organization tactics/techniques. I would ask her how long it took her to create the perfect chart to categorize her students learning.

1.      Do all the students know each other’s names?

-Yes, greeting games work well.

2.      Is good readers modeled?

-Yes, “good readers point to the words as they read stories”

3.      Do the students feel safe?

-Yes, student conflicts are handled on a one on one basis with all involved.

4.      How is order brought back to the classroom?

-Lights being turned off, chime, clapping, chants…..

5.      Do all students know their Alphabet?

-No, but consistent practice every day. Many children come from different homes.