Placement+2+Wk+5+Experience


 * Full Week at Waterford Elementary School (Orlando, FL)**


 * (*All real names are substituted for made-up names for teachers' and students' safety.)

Monday, April 12, 2010**

Some days are good and some days are not so good. Sixteen (16) developmentally-delayed 3-yr-olds can fill like a truck hit you at the end of the day. The kids were rowdy with almost everyone acting up (not sharing, throwing toys, hitting, crying). Maybe it's because they've had quite a few teachers and paras in the short time I've been there. The main teacher was sick for a week so she had different subs while she was gone. And then her main paraprofessional had to leave the country to visit her sick mother for more than a week and now the para is sick too so she's been gone a while. I was so exhausted at the end of the day today. My supervising teacher has been testing like crazy for this assessment she has to finish by the end of the month so there hasn't been a lot of whole group teaching going on.

Nevertheless, I'm excited to teach my 2nd lesson plan tomorrow about Transportation, specifically School Bus and School Bus Safety. I have a couple of good transportation books to share with the kids and a fun activity afterwards, plus "The Wheels on the Bus" song!




 * Tuesday, April 13th, 2010**

I'm so glad that the regular paraprofessional who's been gone for 2 weeks is finally back today. However, I can tell that she's not herself because she didn't interact with the kids like she normally does. It's a challenge to be happy and perky when one has so much going on in their personal lives.

So I got my "Transportation/School Bus Safety" lesson ready and taught it today. I think it went pretty well. I brought these flat painted wood shapes of different types of transportation to show kids and get their attention to the lesson. (rocketship, tractor, dump truck, race car, school bus, train, airplane) I then showed the two books I brought and oh the kids are really thrilled to see pictures of different types of transportation that go by land, sea, and air.

At the end of the lesson, we also got up and sang "The Wheels on the Bus" with actions! The kids love doing the actions for that song! And as an extension, we did a school bus activity where the kids practiced their fine motor skills by cutting and pasting different parts of a school bus together. They love cutting and pasting too!

media type="youtube" key="xSnD7RGyHNk" height="385" width="640" Part 1 of my 'Transportation/School Bus' Lesson Plan 04.13.10

media type="youtube" key="zvUpK9WpQp4" height="385" width="640" Part 2 of my 'Transportation/School Bus Lesson Plan with "The Wheels on the Bus" song at around 4 mins. 04.13.10


 * Wednesday, April 12, 2010**

Wednesday is short day. I'm excited to have found a 'Caldecott Medal' Award book called "Officer Buckle and Gloria" by Peggy Rathmann. It's about a Police Officer who takes his dog Gloria to speak at schools about safety. I'll be looking for a lesson plan to go with it for our "occupation" unit. I also found some other books about astronauts, mail carriers, and grocers, so we'll see what I find.

My heart was heavy and desperate to find ways on modifying some of the pre-k's difficult behaviors so I scoured the internet and youtube videos for ways in teaching young ESE students about sharing. The thing I learned most is 'modeling' the behavior and lots of positive reinforcement before the kids start acting up. I tried some 'sharing' techniques with the kids that seemed to have worked for today. I also printed a couple of 'social stories' to use with them.


 * Thursday, April 13 and Friday, April 14, 2010**

Teaching Pre-K's is definitely one of the most labor-intensive and most draining work a teacher can do. But I'm a firm believer in:
 * Establishing explicit structure and schedule in the classroom especially with younger children.
 * Wide variety of activities is also a must.
 * They need to have the comfort of stability and predictability. (these include not having so many different aides or paras)

These, I believe will prevent misbehaviors from happening (kids fighting, kids getting into every part of the classroom they're not suppose to go into)

Young children need consistency in everyday schedule. My classroom now can be a battlefield. I have small cuts, burns, and small bruises from the kids throwing toys, tearing books and paper, etc. I've learned to act and move very, very quickly with 16 developmentally-delayed students.

I believe that since most of the kids are speech and language-impaired, they can definitely benefit from learning simple sign language to communicate their needs and wants.


 * Next week, I've arranged to work with older grade level students who are ESOL with the Speech teacher so I'm looking forward to that and to getting part of my TESOL Performance Profile signed.