Mylan Park Elementary Week 4

This past week went well. It was a little broken up due to a PLC I attended on Wednesday. I learned that it is important to prepare for a sub, and that sometimes they don't get everything finished you had wanted. But that is part of being flexable. We wrapped up a unit on city and country by making large models of the city and country. The students worked together and created an amazing model that will be displayed in the library for the entire school to see. I did some of my action research this week, and it is going better than expected. Several of my students are really catching on and remembering the concepts from week to week. I am still struggling with feeling that I do not have enough data to collect, but I am happy with how the students are taking to this math program.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 3

This week went pretty well considering that we had a sub for a day and a half. I believe my students handled it better than expected because they are getting used to me being the room as well. I believe one of the best things week was the students writing their spelling words on the white board. They really enjoyed being able to use our new technology and responded very well to it. I also started to implement my action research. We completed lesson 1 over the course of three days. The students did very well Monday and Tuesday and were very proud of themselves. They were all smiles when they finished and had understood what they were doing. On Wednesday however, they got a little frustrated when we combined two concepts together. They all got through it, but I think I will review again on Monday to ensure they are catching on and remembering.
This week I have also learned that even though the students look so cute and innocent that you sometimes need to be stern or they can and will walk all over you. Many of my students will try people to see if they can get the attention they want or if they will really move their clips. I had to get a little tough this week and let them know that I am just like a teacher and can change their clips too. They try to get away with things when the sub is here that they would never do on a regular day. It is hard to have to not always be smiling and nice to my kids because they get you with their cuteness

Mylan Park Elementary Week 2

My second week at Mylan Park went very well. I jumped right in and began teaching math and science in the afternoon. I believe the students feel comfortable with me and have really enjoyed many of the activities I have done with them. We explored our five senses and did many hands on activities with that, even cooked! I also began taking data for my action research. I am planning on seeing how a multi sensory approach will help the students learning of addition facts. I gave the students a pre test with and without manipulatives to see how much they knew. The scores were low, but that was expected based off what I had been told by my mentor teacher. I also informally interviewed the students about what they thought about math and whether or not they liked it. None of them hated it, but they were not very happy about it either. I also made sure to closely observe while the students were taking the pretest. Many of them became frustrated and they all needed prompted to keep going and stay on task. I am going to implement the multi sensory math next week and am looking forward to seeing the results!

Mylan Park Elementary Week 1

My first week at Mylan Park was quite an adjustment. Coming from high school was going to be a big transition and having never been to Mylan Park made it even more difficult. I was welcomed by the all faculty and staff and have felt very comfortable at the school so far. I spent most of my first week observing and trying to get to know the students. This classroom is much different from any classrooms I have been placed in. I have seven students ranging from first to fifth grade, and many of them stay in my classroom for most of the day. I have never been a part of a special education classroom like this and am really looking forward to see how it all works. During my first week I got to attend a PLC. This was interesting to see how it differed from the PLC I attended at my high school placement. It was an all day event that focused on westest scores. It was very different from my high school PLC, but I am glad I got to see how different schools and levels do things. I am really excited about working with my students for these 11 weeks and cannot wait to see how much we can accomplish!