Clinical Observation Journal

Miss. Grube, 1st grade

Spring 2017

Entry 1- February 6, 2017

Telling Time
Today I observed Miss.Grubes 1st grade class. The lesson focused on telling
time. This was one of the last lessons in their
time unit. The students added activities to their
interactive math journals. These journals contain
most of their daily math activities. Their 1st
activity during math time was to finish up their
morning work. Students were asked to match an
analog clock to the correct digital time. I assisted
Miss.Grube in checking student work to make
sure theyd made the correct matches. The
students seemed to have a really good understanding of the material. I only had to help
one student make corrections.
After the matching activity students were given a accordion fold activity. For this
they were given strips with the time written out in words, a
blank digital clock and a black analog clock. Miss. Grube
had the same sheet displayed with the doc cam. She
walked them through each step. First they had to cut the
strips to glue them into their journals. She highlighted
where they needed to cut the paper and showed them
where it needed to be glued. As the students were
working on this, Miss.Grube had me start making a page
for her student who was doing testing. When the student
returned to class I worked with them to finish the activity.
While Miss.Grube was walking the students through the activity she would ask
questions like Where does the little hand go on this clock? Remember it's a little tricky.
Why is the little hand tricky? (it doesn't always point directly to the number. It depends
on where the minute hand is.) She would call on various students to describe where
the hands went on each clock. Then together as a class they would fill out each time.
Students then repeated this

Reflection
This lesson seemed to flow really well. However,
the lesson seemed a bit rushed. The majority of the day
was spent on reading a writing and only a small amount
of time was set aside for math. This could be due to the
fact that Miss. Grube was wrapping up the unit. The
students seemed to have a good understanding of the
material. During this lesson I was able to work one on
one with a student. I also had the opportunity to check
student work. This was nice because I got to interact with students and ask them about
their work. It would have been nice to see a little more instruction.

Entry 2- February 13, 2017

Place value
To start out todays math lesson students were asked to sit in their testing spots.
In Miss. Grubes class every student has their own space in the room that is referred to
as their testing spot. Some students sit in the
carpet with a whiteboard to write on. While
other students sit at the tables or in other
chairs. Today students were asked to sit in
their testing spots to take a pre-test. Students
are given a pretest before every new unit.
This is used to see what students already
know and to track their growth.
 During this time I was asked to administer a makeup test on time to a student.
This student was required to be provided with accommodations during assessments.
For this test I was asked to read him the instructions for each question. He was also
provided with a clock to model time instead of being required to draw the time on an
analog clock. He seemed to have a good understand of how to represent the hour
amount on the clock but struggled with moving the hand to the correct minute.
After students were finished with their pre assessment Miss. Grube introduced
the concept of place value. The class had been using a place value chart to count the
number of days theyd been in school. This provided
them with some understanding of how place value
works. Since last friday was their 100th day of school
she modeled grouping ten groups of ten straws into one
group of 100, and moving it over on the chart. She
made sure to have students count along, and had them
explain why the 9 in 99 represented 90 (its 9 groups of
ten).
Nathaniel Alexander Elementary is participating
in a fundraiser where students collect pennies, so Miss.
Grube had the students help her count the amount of
money theyd collected in pennies so far. She poured
the pennies out on the doc cam and they counted them together. They would group
pennies into groups of ten. Counting out loud every time they got to 10 then would say
how many groups of ten they now had. When they got to 10 groups of 10 Miss Grube
grouped them into a bag that represented $1.

Reflection
More time was spent on math today, because the penny counting activity took
more time than planned. Students seemed to really enjoy this activity. Miss. Grube
would have them do different movements as they counted (like 10 push ups or 10
jumping jacks). I had the opportunity to administer a math test to a student which was a
good experience. I was able to kind of see their problem solving process, and see what
they struggled with.

Entry 3- March 13th, 2017

Double Digit Subtraction (1.NBT.6)

Todays lesson was about double digit subtraction. Miss.Grube began the lesson
by working on a worksheet as a class.
Students were asked to subtract a
multiple of 10 from another number.
Miss.Grube use a tens models to show
how she subtracted each problem on the
worksheet. The class worked on three
problems as a class and then worked on
the last three independently. As students
worked on the last problems Miss.Grube
and I walked around to check for understanding, answer questions, or address any
misconceptions.
Once the students had completed the worksheet Miss.Grube called the class to
the carpet. She had the students sit in
the circle. She then passed out
hundreds charts, and slips of paper to
each student. Students were instructed
on how to play I have...! Who Has?
Each students slip of paper had one
sentence that said I have (a certain
number). and another sentence that
said Who has (ex: 20 more than 23)?
One student begins by asking their who has? question and the student who has the
answer to the question on their card says the answer and asks the question on their
card. Students would use their hundreds charts to solve the problems. All the problems
were similar to the ones they worked on during their warm up activity.

Reflection
I really enjoyed seeing this lesson. While it was still mostly teacher led, students
were able to explore a little bit more during this lesson. They seemed to really enjoy and
respond well to to the I have Who
has? activity. I was also able to
interact with the students and
participate in the activity. However,
through the lesson I taught and after
observing this lesson I noticed that
students overly relied on the hundreds
chart. They knew how to locate the
correct answer on the chart but didnt
understand it conceptually. If I were to teach an extension lesson based on this activity I
would focus on place value and have students work with manipulatives to solve similar
problems.

Entry 4- March 27th, 2017

Combination Strategies
This lesson focused on
different combination strategies
students could use to solve problems.
To begin the lesson Miss.Grube gave
students whiteboards and marks. She
put a problem on the board and asked students to use a combination strategy to solve
the problem. This is something students had previously learned but didnt perform well
on, during a test. While students were working on their problem Miss.Grube collected a
few of the students work that used different strategies.
She then used these pieces of work to introduce the
lesson. She asked students to explain the different
strategies they used. She talked about the different
approaches and how they worked or what different
students were missing.
After this Miss. Grube created an anchor chart with
the class outlining three different strategies: set up,
chart, and reverse strategy. She walked students
through the three different strategies and how to use
them. She recommended using the chart or reverse
strategies, because they were the quickest for students to utilize. She then gave
students a worksheet. She went through the first few problems with students as a class
and then let them solve the rest.

Reflection
This lesson was probably the closest to an indirect lesson I observed during my
clinical experience. Students were given a problem and then allowed to explore and
explain their thinking. I really enjoyed seeing how different students approached and
worked through solving the problem. I would have liked to have seen more lessons like
this, and been able to work more directly with the students during math. From my
observations its really beneficial for students to have time to work through and develop
better understanding of how and why different problem solving approaches work.

Observation 5- April 3rd, 2017

Graphing
Todays lesson focused on graphing. Miss. Grube began the lesson by talking
about gathering data by asking questions. She
passed out sticky notes to each student and
had them write their names on them. The she
posted a graph on the board and asked
students to put their sticky note beside their
favorite season. Once all of the stickey were on
the board she asked students what they
noticed. Students responded by saying which
season was the class favorite, which was their
least favorite, and how many people liked each
season. Then Miss.Grube asked them how
many people voted, and how they knew. She
then showed them how to add up how many
people voted in each category and find the
answer.

Reflection
This lesson was pretty short and focused on a single problem. It seemed more
like a mini lesson to me than a full math lesson. This is something I noticed throughout
most of my observations. Most lessons were mini lesson that built on each other
throughout the unit. I think this might have been partly due to the student's age group.
The lessons were long enough for students to understand the content but not so long
that they lost focus. It was nice to see this different approach and how it worked in a
classroom. However, I would have like to have seen and been able to participate in
more small group work.