Travis Snyder

October 15^th 7:00-2:30

Exploration #2

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 we painted cut outs of children. The students were required to match their skin, eye, and hair color to the cut outs. A couple children didn’t follow directions and colored their whole face a different color like blue or green. The teacher was not too worried as long as other students didn’t start doing it. 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. Today one child’s mother informed the teacher that her daughter wasn’t having a great morning and was warning her of an upcoming illness. Sure enough the girl did complain of head pain and was able to go to the nurse. Once she left magically five other students had the same problem. The teacher told me it is a fight with sending students to the nurse. The students enjoy visiting the nurse for a little extra attention. 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 today’s question asked if student could drag the “f” into the “f vortex” and the “t” into the “t vortex”. I sat this time awaiting any aid I could be to the children. Some students stuck around to help any friends arriving to the board. I enforced any time the students would just do it for them. I would remind them to try and let their friends do it on their own. 

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….. Students had music today which they enjoy. As before another greeting game was introduced where students were given each other’s name on a colorful leaf, they colored the week before; one child was asked who they had and go say morning to their person. This activity helps children read names and also learn names. My teacher reminds students to make eye contact and be loud when another classmates bubble. 

8:30 a.m. The students have a story read to them for an introduction to Reader’s Workshop. Today they were read a number book. Students were read the book first where it included images of money (coins and bills). After the story children were given coins that added a total of one dollar. Two students received quarters, two students received dimes, four students received nickels, and ten students received pennies. One by one the students added the coins on the Elmo projector. 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. Students were average today with only one reminder that the volume was increasing. During this time one child is bothered by another because of a term “Black Angel” I’m not sure why there is talk of this and don’t understand if this has to do with race or evil doings. The child becomes upset and both are talked to privately. The issue is resolved and snack proceeds. 

9:30 a.m. – Writer’s Workshop is opened with a story about a Llama missing its mama. Many students have heard this story including myself (it is one of my favorites). At the end of this story the llama has so much fun it forgets how upset it was earlier. Perfect story for a kindergarten class who all misses their mothers and father at sometime. Once again the teacher opened with a drawing of her parents who live in New Jersey and how she misses them but is really excited when they visit for the holidays. The students are expected to draw something they miss when the go to school or during an outing. 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. Show me a number picked by the teacher on their figures 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. Surprisingly our class got to go first this time.

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. Today the story was “Going on a Bear Hunt” When a student has too many reminders at lunch they sit alone for the remainder of the  lunch period and will “practice” quiet bodies the next day during recess period for ten minutes. Sadly four students were placed into this category.  

11:30 a.m. – Math. Many events happen during math; once everyone is placed onto the rug they all count the number of days in the month of October until they get to the 14^th. Once they get here the teacher flips the card over to show a 15. After she tells them “today is October 15^th 2012” the students are told to count backwards together from 15 to 0. Children aren’t as loud until they reach ten. I’m guessing most children have heard 10-0 a couple of time between T.V. and other events. Three smart board activities are done. The first asks the children what the weather was like outside. Today was cloudy so a circle was placed in the “cloudy” graph. The second asked the children how many days they have been in school. They counted together as they reached 35. The third page asked the children to map the weather on the calendar of October. One student points out that October has many cloudy days. once smart board activities are complete children receive their math packets and are asked to turn to page 17 were they left off. Page 17 consists of tracing numbers with a doted pattern and trace numbers to the correct domino with the same number value. Some children have missed school so I am asked to help them catch up. One student has missed about a week of school so we blasted through the packet. She only needed help with shape patterns it showed images of circle, square, triangle, circle square, _______. Needless to say we caught up to the rest of the class. Once the children are done they are able to play with games connected to math. Dice game where children fill in graphs with the number they roll, shapes they build to make creatures, categorize bugs and graph…. Children are also able to go from table to table and play different games. Surprisingly children are equally dispersed.

12:10- Music- I Stay and Chat with teacher about day. Students are given a good report from the music teacher.

12:50- Science and Social Studies. Today the plans changed and Guidance replaced S+S. Students were talked about feelings and shown faces on posters of other children showing emotion. Students were asked to mimic the images they saw. Children did great having a guest speaker.

1:30- Fun-dations. Children are able to play a game of around the world including letters. One boy cries because he lost and the game is ended early. The teacher reminds students to be good sports if they want to continue fun games like this.

2:00- Dismissal. Children are asked to receive their backpacks and jackets and return to the rug quietly. Once they do so they receive their pictures from picture day.

2:15- Children are told were to go and escorted out to their buses or lobby.  

  Phonological Awareness:

The ability to perceive units of sound in spoken language like syllables, onsets, rimes, and phonemes. The kids have played many games to increase their phonological awareness. One game was called “Tongue Wizard.” Students sit in a circle with their eyes closed and say the chant: “1 tap-wizard! 2 taps- detective!” The teacher taps the heads of one student to be the tongue wizard and one student to be the detective. The tongue wizard sticks his or her tongue out at friends who lie down quietly in their spots. The detective has 3 chances to find the tongue wizard. This game helped them hear the beat in the syllables of the song.

Alphabet knowledge: Letter recognition

Alphabet knowledge includes recognition of letters, their production, and understanding of the sounds that go with them. The kids use flashcards to work on their alphabet knowledge. On each flashcard there is an uppercase and lowercase letter along with a picture. They echo the teacher: “B-Bat-Bah.” And so on for different letters. Eventually they can do it themselves, the flashcards really help them burn the image and the letter in their minds. This process will go on throughout the school year, with the kids learning a few letters at a time.

The students also play a version of “around the world.” They go around the circle and hold up a flashcard. Whoever can say it first moves on to another spot. This helps them access the information quickly in their heads, while having fun.

Phonemic awareness/alphabetic principle (beginning sounds):

Students practice consonant sounds. Students continue using their flashcards to practice their beginning sounds. They also use the game called “baby echo.” The teacher says the letter and sounds for each letter (t-top-/t/), then the students and the teacher sing the be my echo song. The teacher sings and the kids echo her. For example: “Be my echo, be my echo, t says /t/, t says /t/, turtles and trees, turtles and trees, /t/t/t/, /t/t/t/. They do this for each letter with different words that go with each letter.

 

 

Concept of word:

This is when kids understand that each word is a different word. Many teachers have their kids finger point while they read or listen along to a story. In the classroom, the kids have books with a four word sentence on each page in large print. For example, one book is about dogs, and it says: “I like big dogs. I like little dogs. I like brown dogs.” Etc. The children are taught to point to each word as they try to read it. They also color in the picture that accompanies the sentence so further their comprehension of the words. They are still confused with two syllable words at this stage while finger pointing. Some have trouble with slowing down and pointing to each word as they read. Others don’t have much trouble at all.

Concept knowledge:

Concept knowledge is the understanding, categorization and groupings. An easy start to this would be asking them what does not belong in a picture. One way the kids practiced this in the classroom was a math time. They have a “bucket of bugs” and they each have to take a big scoop out of the plastic bugs, and sort them out. The grasshoppers go with the grasshoppers, the worms go with the worms, and so on. They can then further sort them by separating what bugs hop, what bugs make noise, etc.  Another time they practiced this with food as well. They each said what things they liked to eat and what kinds of food is similar to another.