Mylan Park Elementary Week 9

The Thanksgiving theme carried over into this two day week. We made turkey t-shirts, and read an interactive story of, "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie". Not only was the week short, but teaching time was interrupted by OT and PT on Monday. This takes away from my instruction time, but is important that the students receive it. Due to nice weather and it only being a two day week, we took the students out for an extra recess at the end of the day. Several of my students typically spend their recess in my classroom because of weather conditions, or overcrowded indoor recess so this was a real treat for them. It was nice to see them interacting outside the classroom. They all seemed so happy and free. Many of the general ed classrooms were doing their monthly reward on Tuesday so we decided it would be okay to watch a movie as well. This was my last week of full time teaching and starting next week, I will slowly be weened out. I am starting to get sad, because I am realizing my placement is coming to an end, and I really don't want to leave these kids!

Mylan Park Elementary Week 8

This week at Mylan Park was another adventure! We learned about Thanksgiving all week in the afternoon. I read several books to the students, and we took on the role of Native American Indians by making dream catchers and traditional headdress. We also several turkey crafts, wrote about what we are thankful for, and wrote an acrostic poem. To end the week of learning about Thanksgiving, we had our very own feast in the classroom. The students really enjoyed this and needed a break at the end of a long week. I wrapped up data collection for my action research by reviewing and giving students their post test. I gave them a variety of post test to get a better understanding of how they were learning the material. I briefly looked over them to see how they did, but have to fully decided on how to analyze everything. Data analysis is going to be a struggle for me. From the glancing over the data that I did, I know that the students have made some improvement, so that is always a good thing. I am finally feel like I can move forward with the action research paper and hopefully everything will start falling into place.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 7

This week at Mylan Park we wrapped up a two week unit on the human body. I believe that the students really enjoyed it, and I am very pleased with the overall outcome. We did many hands on activities to simulate different body functions, and built a human body with paper plates, and organ print outs. I continued on with my action research. I am so proud of my students and the progress we are making with it. I have also been trying to pull together my contract hours for next semester. This has been quite challenging due to the fact that I am completing them at three different schools, and have little communication with my first home school where I am required to do hours. I attended two IEP meetings which was really nice to be a part of. The meetings were very different because one of them had a re-evaluation. These meetings made me realize how much work goes into being a special education teacher and that it is going to be difficult to lead an IEP meeting. I had a hard time hearing some of the things that have to be said, and believe that I am going one day have a hard time delivering information to caring parents. The IEP meetings helped me learn a lot about my students and more about their goals and modifications. I think it is very important to know your students well to provide them with the best learning environment possible.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 6

I felt that this week at Mylan was very successful and informative. I am very pleased with what all got accomplished. I was observed twice and believe that both went very well. I was observed while teaching math, which is when I conduct my action research, so I was very anxious to see what she thought. She was very pleased with the good relationships I have with my students and how well I know them. She also noted how I knew what questions to ask and who to ask them to. She also mentioned that this approach I am taking with my students seems to really be working with them and keeping them engaged. I am happy with how well my action research is going and feel as though I got a lot out of it this past week. This week, we learned a little bit about our bodies. We labeled external body parts, learned about our bones, and their all time favorite learned a skeleton dance and song. The students loved having music in the classroom, and I was very excited to see how well they took to singing and dancing. I had the students put together paper plate skeletons which they will be completing with organs and muscles next week. This week I learned a little more about contract hours. I became familiar with what is wanted at Mylan and am trying to sort through when and where to spend my hours. I am really looking forward to next week and how my action research will progress and the continuing with our bodies unit.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 5

This week at Mylan Park Elementary was different from any experience I have had this far at any of my placements. On Monday afternoon, one of my students had an extreme behavior issue. This resulted with me having to take the other students out of the room. We went into their general ed classrooms and worked played educational games and played on an educational website starfall. This threw the entire week off, along with dealing with subs, plays, and Halloween parties. My student who had the outburst had to sit out of the party on Friday afternoon, I had to stay back with her. I was a little nervous thinking about what I would do if she had an outburst while it was just the two of us, but it went very well. My action research was almost non-existent this week due to the outburst, a cooking activity, and the party. This week taught me that plans will change and you sometimes just have to go with the flow and not let it get to you. It is a little frustrating when you have spent time making plans just to have them all pushed aside. I had to take what I thought would be most important and teach that instead of everything I had planned. All in all, this placement has shown me the true meaning of being flexible. You never know what will happen and you need to expect the best, but be prepared for the worst.