8:30 -10:30 am
Literacy centers
learning objectives were diriment at each of the various centers. At the center I was at, I
was working with children to write sentences about what the weather looked like in
specific pictures. At the teacher’s center she was helping kids work through learning
about the /th/ sound and how this can help them in the future with spelling. The teacher
had made it very clear that at my table students were to use their best spelling by
sounding words out and that it was more important that they were writing sentences than
they were spelling things correctly. When working with the groups I made sure to hand
out the colored markers so that time was not wasted arguing over which marker they
would use. It was clear that the students were learning how to construct sentence because
in the beginning their sentences would not make sense however towards the end of the
rotation I was able to see the students grasping the information and formulating more
complicated senses as well as those that grammatically made sense. Throughout this time
I would help students figure out how to spell works be helping them sound it out or
chunk the word, using the appropriate hand gestures that the teacher had taught me. I
noticed that throughout the time the teacher would use a timer to signal that it was the
end of the rotation. Then, she would often ask if the students wanted two more minutes
and then set another timer. At one point, the teacher said, “freeze” and all students
dropped their writing implements and placed their hands on their heads.
Reflection
From this lesson I learned how hard it really can be to control students when each
of them need specific individualized help and have a difficult time working
independently or continuing independently after I got them started. I learned that timers
are very efficient in a classroom because then a teacher does not have to yell over the
students to gather their attention and the sound is a very clear and specific sound that it
cannot be missed no matter the noise level in the classroom. I also learned that it is very
important to make students feel successful because at this point in their education is it
primarily about identifying letters to their sound and not having the correct spelling for a
word.
topic of classroom management. I had seen timers used in classrooms before but never
one that actually rang loudly. Through observing this, I realized how this allows the
teacher and students to become immersed in their work and not have to worry about
paying attention to the clock. Another classroom management strategy I observed was
her use of the world “freeze.” This added to my knowledge of classroom management
strategies because I have hear this term used before, but only in a setting were the
children were being physical such as a PE class. I was very pleased to find out that it
how successful a classroom can be when the structure and classroom is set up from the
begging of the semester so that the students have clear guidelines of what is accepted. I
hope as a teacher I will be able to implement both the teaching strategies in my future