Field Experiences 3 &4

Week 3: Third Day in the Classroom!

yaraalaarej1

Hello, and welcome! This week was a nice and smooth day in the field. I was able to teach another subject in the classroom. I got the chance to conduct social studies, and the lesson topic was kindness. I read a book about kindness, and afterward, we created an activity about what we think kindness is and different ways to spread kindness, whether at home or school. This opportunity to teach the subject has enabled me to interact more with the students and find other strategies to approach different situations. Looking back on the first field day, I strongly see a difference in myself in the classroom. My MT has been beneficial and allowed me to continue teaching either Science/ Social Studies lessons until it is my time to teach fully. My goal for next week is that when I teach Social Studies, I will feel calmer and less anxious when reading the book. I’ve noticed that I miss a few words on the page because I’m nervous, so my goal is to slow down, breathe, and go with the flow. Some of my strengths are that I can communicate with the students without hesitation and that it is easy for me to build those relationships with most of them. What helped me achieve that was due to the interest inventory questions. That was the door to knowing the students more, not only their names but also their interests.

Till next time!!

Here are some images of what we did in class!

Field Experiences 3 &4

Week 2: Second Day in the Classroom

yaraalaarej1

Hello friends, today was my second day in my classroom, and I had a great time. As I was preparing in the morning with my MT about what the day would look like, we thought it would be nice if I were to teach some of the subjects. I got the opportunity to teach science for the day since I will be creating and teaching science independently in a few weeks. I read two different books about groundhogs since that day was groundhog day. The students were interested and were engaging during the storytime. After reading the books, we did an activity where we created groundhog headbands along with coloring in a groundhog handout. 

During ELA, I was helping students with questions and having one-on-one help sessions with a student who needed help creating a story. I was surprised that I was getting involved and was hands-on without feeling nervous. During the student’s free time, I got to interact with the students even more and was able to continue with my survey questions, but this time I went with the flow and listened to what the students liked. I learned a lot about the students and built a bond with them. I believe that I achieved my goal of feeling more comfortable in the classroom, along with slowly taking over a few subjects. We also created a self-portrait of ourselves as old people since it was the 100th day at school.

I was discussing with my MT that I will take over Social Studies next week. I will be reading a book about kindness and having an activity along with it. I am excited for next week because this will allow me to enhance my skills in teaching and feel less anxious when it comes to my teaching.

Till next time friends!!

Here are a few images of what we did throughout the day!

Field Experiences 3 &4

Week 1:First Day in the Classroom

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Date: Sunday, January 29th, 2023

By: Yara Alaarej

Hello and welcome back my friends that have been with me till now! I have some exciting news to share with you all. I met my new MT and was able to get to know more about the classroom and it’s environment. My MT was great at welcoming me into the classroom. I learned more about the student’s curriculum and what they did throughout the day. I was able to see the students in action taking a math test and see the teacher’s assessment skills as well. I was part of the teachers meeting during lunch on the topics in ELA and Social Studies and how the teachers will be aligned to ensure that every student will understand the topics that will be taught. They also gave me the booklet of what the students will learn more about in February. I was grateful that they included me in their meeting. Throughout the day, I was able to observe and help students with assignments that they were working on, such as 95% when it came to reading the passage, passing out worksheets, and writing their names on new math books that they were going to be using. I got to know the students’ names more, which helped me in my teaching.   

My goal is to know all of the names of the students and get to know them more by doing my survey questions. From that, I attained what the student’s interests and hobbies are. Another goal that I had was to feel more comfortable in the classroom and not like a stranger. I achieved those goals because I learned the students’ names, as I collected data from the questions, and read books to them during their free time. My goal for next week is to be more confident when speaking to the students and be able to teach some of the subjects with my MT. On my first day, I aided the MT in the classroom, so that when I take over the class for my teaching lessons I would feel more comfortable around the students.

I look forward to next week and am excited to see what will happen next in the classroom!

Here are a few images of what the students were doing throughout the day. They were learning about polar bears during Science and how snow melts, along with some Math practice problems.

Field Experience!

Week 7

yaraalaarej1

Hi guys! So today was our last day in the Pre-K classroom. I am going to miss the students that were in that classroom. I made some students be more social in the past 7 weeks, which is a great improvement. I was able to see the growth in those 7 weeks as well. It didn’t feel like seven weeks it only felt like three weeks, but times move fast when you are having fun. Something that I will use in my new field setting is that as the students are engaging then you are doing something right. My mentor teacher gave me a tip that short could be better sometimes when it comes to teaching a lesson plan due to the students not having that long attention span. I now know that keeping it simple is a lot better than making it complex and that it won’t always be perfect. I am excited to see what Kindergarten is going to teach me! Till next time!

Field Experience 4551

DODGE PG 60 Questions

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  1. Children that are in my classroom, I do not know much about the student’s parents and how they feel about dressing their children, but from what I have seen I think the parents are pretty lenient towards their children in the classroom. I think maybe for the young children in the classroom like infants their parents would maybe want them to have certain clothes on due to them being premature, but other than that I think the parents don’t have a certain about how their child is supposed to be dressed.
  2. The next time when the students will dress up if they go outside, I will conversate with them and ask open-ended questions to hear what the child will respond. I think it is fascinating what children say when you ask questions because you don’t know what to expect from there, and they view things differently from adults.
Field Experience!

WEEK 6 Field Experience

yaraalaarej1

Hi folks, and today in my experience it was something you would typically see in a classroom. Today when we went outside for an outdoor time, the students were playing with the ball. So what you would typically see boys do is kick the ball. Well, in this situation one of the boys kicked the ball too hard and it hit the other students in the face and they started crying. It was not intentional, it was by accident, so what I did was I explained the situation to the boy that got hurt and that, it was not on purpose it was an accident. The student was understanding about it, it was they were crying from the pain, not the fact his friend threw the ball in his face. Another thing that happened today was hearing a few students say that they didn’t want to play with other classmates. I brought up how we share the toys we have with other classmates, so they can play with them as well, and from a previous lesson when we are with our friends we take turns and play nice with others. From that, the students ended up playing together rather than having a student cry about the other student not wanting to play with them. I feel that today I did a lot of guidance towards students and I think that is one step closer to being an intentional teacher. Stay tuned for more fun stuff!

Field Experience!

Week 5 Field Experience

yaraalaarej1

During my field experience, I got the chance to get to know more about students and build that positive relationship that we read in our textbooks. I was able to step into a role that I never thought I would see myself in which is seeing myself from a teacher’s perspective. I knew I was going to be a student when it comes to being in my classes and teaching, but to actually feel it and realize like wow this is it is different for me. In class, I read through a few books, but it was hard for me to finish them due to the students being more rowdy than usual. It was challenging to grab their attention to the book, so when it came to my peer’s time to teach the students were not as cooperative as we anticipated. The students were engaged in the activity after reading the book and the students were working on their fine motor skills while talking to their classmates. I engaged with the students and assisted the students if they needed any help. Overall, the day was an okay day and I am looking forward to what next week holds!

Field Experience 4551

DODGE PG 48 QUESTIONS

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  1. I have never had the experience when it comes to a bedtime ritual for children. I don’t have children of my own for me to be able to go in-depth, but what I have seen thought was how the caregivers in the classroom would make the infants go to sleep they feed the infants and then change their diapers at least twice before they go to sleep. They then rock them on their rocker until they fall asleep. Another thing I also saw was the caregiver wrapping them in the blanket and the rock themselves on the rocking chair until the infant falls asleep. The infants fell asleep soundly and there weren’t any problems. 
  2. From what I have seen in the classroom, the only time I get to see any student really sleep are the infants. Their nap time is after lunch which I don’t stay for so I miss that part of their routine, but when the infants do wake up for a tiny nap during the time I am there they do cry a little when they wake up but that is if someone disrupts their nap that is why they wake up crying.
Field Experience 4551

DODGE PG.35 QUESTIONS

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  1. I would think I am somewhat of a healthy eater. I eat some salty and sweet treats here and there when I crave them. Most of the time, I just crave coffee, that’s what I mostly intake. If I were around children I think my nutrition would change a lot with children, because what I eat is what the children would see and copy. If they see me eating more unhealthy food then they would do the same, but if they see me eating healthy foods, then I would be more encouraging for them because they would see me eating what they are eating as well not only them.
  2. During breakfast time, I somewhat encourage conversation. One experience that I remember from breakfast time was when the children were eating toast and applesauce, so when I asked a student how the toast was, they corrected me by telling me that it was cinnamon toast, not normal toast. I then asked the students if they like cinnamon toast and they agreed they liked what they were eating. I then started talking about applesauce and a few students were using their hands to eat applesauce, so I told them to “let us use our spoons and scoop out our applesauce so we don’t spill it on the table.” I remember a toddler mimicked me and said “scoop, scoop, scoop.” The teacher was impressed by the fact that the student repeated what I said and actually used the spoon to pick their applesauce rather than using their hands.
Field Experience 4551

Dodge p.19 Questions

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  1. The way would I feel when changing a child’s diaper is discomfort. I wouldn’t feel too great changing a child’s diaper especially if I don’t know the child, and there is a relationship bond between us. I feel if it was my siblings when they were babies then I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable because I know them. I never had the experience when it comes to changing a child’s diaper, but from what I have seen in my field experience, I have seen the teacher have conversations with the child and explain the rationale as to why the teacher is changing the diaper for that child.
  2. What I would feel if a child had a toilet accident is I would let them know that accidents do happen and it is ok, just next time if you feel that you have the urge to go just stop what you are doing and go to the bathroom. I would let them it takes a few times before they can get the hang of it and accidents won’t happen as much. I would not yell at the child to make them feel that what they did was wrong or horrible but let them learn from the mistake with a more positive and calm approach.
  3. What I would teach the children about their bodies would be that you have the feeling that you need to release to listen to that feeling and go to the toliet.