Stacie Sessions Anecdotal Records Spring 2014 Week Date January 6 Anecdotal Record During math class, I worked

with small groups of five students during first and second period with the review packet they received. I walked around the classroom during third period and helped students as needed with the review assignment. I enjoy working in small groups and have seen how more individualized instruction helps the students who are struggling. During math class, I continued to work with small groups on the review packet they received on Monday. During reading class, I taught the students how to read to someone and gave them an opportunity to practice reading to one of their peers. The students enjoyed doing something other than read to self. We (Kimberlee and I) are also planning on having the students read books instead of Imagine It stories to hopefully engage them more. I worked in small groups with both first and second period in math. I also taught all of third period about writing algebraic expressions. In reading, we are starting to read Holes as a class. We will either read chapters as a whole class, in partners, or in small groups. Today I taught whole class during the second and third period of math. This was a lot of fun to teach these students and help out. I have also been continued reading Holes in class with my students. I created activities for them to do with the chapters they read. During math class, I worked with in small groups with the first two periods. I also assisted with third period by walking around the classroom and answering questions. During reading class, I lead our discussion about Holes and asked the students questions about the chapter. We will be starting writing activities in read class soon which I am excited about. Today I taught the last two periods of math and all of reading. One main thing I learned today is to make sure we make connections with what our students already understand. This helps our students understand more of the content being taught. Today I worked with small groups in first and second period in math and taught whole class third period (in which I was observed). I taught the students about inequalities and it went really well. Through this observation, I was able to see just how much I have improved over the course of student teaching and I am excited to see how much I improve by the end of student teaching. Today in math I helped the students review for their test tomorrow. I handed back their review, had them look over the review, and helped them with problems they had questions about. One thing I learned from reviewing with the students is how I need to show my thinking as I am doing problems. Especially for the low group, by showing my thinking on each step of the problem, they were able to understand what they needed to do. Today in reading, I had the students read more of Holes. I love seeing the students so excited to read it. Every day before reading they ask me if they get to read Holes today with a partner. I enjoy seeing my students, especially those normally not excited about reading, become engaged in this book.

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Today was a planning day for the teachers since it was end of term. We graded our pre-CFAs for our students so we can review them in class. We also planned our subject area plans for the next week. No School MLK I have taken on all three periods of math. It is interesting to see the different levels of differentiation I need to do for each class. Through preparing for these classes, I have realized how I need to scaffold the instruction for each class in order for them to get the most out of the lesson. I have started several elements within reading class. In addition to reading Holes in class, the students also are working on writing by choosing their own topic and writing for 10-15 minutes, working on summary skills, and working on other skills required to become a better reader. This is not only helping the students learn different skills, but it is helping keep them engaged by switching tasks every 15-20 minutes. Today I worked with the students on forming inequality expressions and finding solutions to inequalities. While working with the students, I found that as I applied inequalities to the students lives, it helped them learn the concept much better. They would struggle with a concept but once I applied to their lives, it made much more sense for them. Today was a great day of teaching math. I figured out the pacing of my lessons in math and apply to problems to real life. I also enjoy teaching Holes in reading class because my students enjoy the book. They are always excited to read Holes. Laurie is gone to a funeral in Minnesota so I am teaching both math and her reading class while she is gone today and tomorrow. It was interesting teaching her reading class because I didnt know how the class as a whole would act. It put me in the mind of both substitute teachers and teachers at the beginning of the year. You dont know what to expect when walking into a classroom, but you need to be prepared for what comes. I introduced area of a rectangle and triangle in math today and the lesson when well. I continued to teach in Lauries reading class today and taught them how to form a summary of an article. The students enjoyed the article they had to summarize and they understood the graphic organizer. It is great to see the improvement of these students in seeing their pre-CFA test and their practice summaries now. I have no doubt these students will perform much better on their post-CFA. I woke up this morning and my voice was completely gone. Thankfully Laurie was back and she was able to teach math. However, this made me think about what would have happened if I was the teacher in my own classroom. I wont have been able to just have someone else teach the class so I would need to find different ways to teach. Laurie said when this has happened to her in the past; she would do a review and have the students teach each other in the front of the classroom. When in college preparing to become a teacher, you never really think about losing your voice as a problem until it actually happens. This has made me think of other things I might need to have some sort of plan for when I am teaching. Today was the day of my observation. Besides me not having a voice to teach with, the lesson went great. I was able to learn a lot from this lesson.

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Stacie Sessions Anecdotal Records Spring 2014 One of the main things I learned was the softer you talk in the classroom, the more the students need to quiet down and listen. I also learned how the Big 8 Strategies help make a lesson run smoothly. As I compare teaching at the beginning of August and September to now, I can see a huge improvement. Today I taught reading. I enjoy seeing my students so excited about reading Holes. After school, I sat down to plan with the teachers. I am now rotating out of math and into science. I am really excited about this because the students are just starting to learn about light and sound. These are two of my favorite science concepts. I am super excited about the sound unit (which Melissa is happy about because she doesnt like teaching about sound). Today was my first day in science and it was great. Melissa was gone for the day so I immediately started teaching all three periods about light. I taught students about transparent, translucent, and opaque objects. I also taught students about how light affects shadows. Instead of having the students look at the diagram about shadows, I had them gather around an object to see how light affects shadow. I started with direct light and small shadows. I then tilted the light on the object to show how indirect light makes a shadow bigger or longer. I felt the students understood what causes shadows better than looking at a diagram. Today in science the students made corrections on their heat test. It was fun being able to go around and give individualized instruction on concepts the students needed most. This helped clear up any misconception the students had. In reading, I taught a vocabulary lesson to the students. They looked up words in the dictionary, found the parts of speech, wrote the definition, and drew a picture of the word. The students, because it was related to the article, started to see how these words (barren, astonishment, refuge, and parched) played into the story. The students made connections to these words by using them in sentences. My favorite was, Zero ran away into the desert. Since it is barren, he is going to become parched. He needs to find refuge in the desert. Today I taught a really cool lesson in science. I was teaching the students about the electromagnetic spectrum and how light is made up of the rainbow colors. We used spectrum classes to explore the classroom and then we went on a light walk. It was so much fun to blow the students minds with this activity. They always assumed light was either white or yellow. They never thought it was all the colors of the rainbow. In science, Melissa wanted to have the students do an art project involving colors and have the students write about their art. This reminded me of the activity that Beth Olshansky taught us in class last semester. I told Melissa about it and we are having our students do this activity. My students are amazed at how my samples look and they are excited to do their own painting. In science, the students are continuing to work on their paintings. These paintings are turning out really well. I am excited to see what the final product will be. On Monday, I will be assigning the writing portion of this assignment. The students will be writing about the colors of their paintings.

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Today I learned about being flexible with my schedule. I had a nice reading block planned out for the day. At lunch, I found out we had am assembly at 2:30. Therefore, instead of my 1 1/2 reading block, I had 45 minutes. This just taught me to be prepared for whatever happens. Today in science, we did group rotations. The students worked on their watercolor art unless they were with me for 15 minutes. I really enjoyed the small groups in science because I was able to make the instruction more individualized for those in each group. I would like to continue doing small groups while in science as well as in the other subject areas. Today I had my observation. I felt it when very well and the students were engaged in the lesson. I incorporated various activities into the lesson. This helped keep the students engaged in the lesson. Today we had our Valentines party. The main thing I learned from this is to do the party at the end of the day. After seeing what my kids acted like towards the end of the party, they would be nightmares if I had to teach them while they were on their sugar-high. No School No School Presidents Day Today I learned the importance of baby stepping activities and concepts which are new to students. We have been working on teaching our students finding reasons and evidence from articles to write argumentative essays. We have a graphic organizer which the students are filling out. We have had to go slow and give our students several examples of how to find reasons and evidences. I am usually tired after these lessons. Today I learned how to be flexible with technology. Melissas computer had a virus so we couldnt watch our 25 minute video we were going to watch. Therefore, while the students were working on a different activity, we had to figure out something else to do with that 25 minutes. It made me think that I should always have some sort of backup plan during each lesson in case technology or something else doesnt work. Today in science I introduced sound. Melissa has let me take over the sound unit. I have been planning the sound unit and then reviewing what I have planned with her. I enjoy this a lot because I feel the lessons are more of mine. For tomorrow, I am working on creating centers where students can experiment with the vibration of tuning forks. It should be fun. Today I taught my sound center lesson and it went very well. I started by explaining my expectations of the students and each activity the students would be doing. This helped the students while they traveled to each station. At each station, I also gave them step-by-step instructions of what to do at the station to help them remember. By frontloading my expectations of the students before centers, it helped centers run smoothly. In science, I started to introduce pitch to the students. I started the lesson by having the students think of their favorite song and why they like it. I asked the students if their favorite song was only one note or if it changed. I told them the change in notes in a song was called pitch. This short and simple activity helped engage my students and activate their background knowledge about pitch. Today I did more sound centers focusing on pitch and volume. I pulled in xylophones, hand bells, hand drums, and brought in my guitar, clarinet, and

Stacie Sessions Anecdotal Records Spring 2014 trumpet. Letting the students play with sound and experience pitch in hands on activities really helped the students understand what pitch is and how it can be changed. Today my focus was on how we can organize pitches to make music. We have some palm pipes in the class and I numbered each palm pipe. I had students come up and play the pipes in an organized way to make music. My students thought this was really neat how when organized, pitches can make familiar songs. We also made straw flutes and talked about how to change the pitch with these flutes. My students thought this was the coolest thing ever. Today in science, we did a small lesson and a review game. Melissa has clickers which students were able to use. This allowed us to ask the students a question and get immediate information about what concepts the students know and dont know. It also made it fun for the students. I would like to have a clicker system in my classroom. It would help me engage the students in sometimes boring review games. Today was my final day in science. The students took a test today and I am anxious to see how they do. I have completely planned and taught the sound lesson and I want to see if my students learned what I wanted them to learn. Through me completely owning the curriculum for sound, I have so much more fun teaching than I ever had. This only makes me more excited to have my own classroom where I can own the entire curriculum. Today was my first day of social studies. I introduced the Renaissance era to my students. I started to talk about some famous people from the Renaissance ear they might have heard of before: Shakespeare, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello. In every class, my students pointed out that the last four were the names of the ninja turtles. I was able to have a quick discussion of how the ninja turtle names came to be. This engaged my students a lot in the lesson. Today I had the students work on a WebQuest to introduce them to various aspects of the Renaissance era. My students enjoy using the computers a lot in the classroom. I want to try and do more activities in which my students can use the computers more. Today was the day of our Medieval Festival. In order for students to qualify to go, they needed to have no missing work and have completed all their knight and lady stuff in social studies. Due to how many people were missing assignments, we had a huge make-up day for those students. If we didnt, only 30% of the 6th grade would have gone. This taught me that it is important to give students some time to work on missing work. If we dont, it turns into a nightmare for us. I introduced the students to their Renaissance project today. They are going to be writing a report on a famous Renaissance artist, scientist, inventor, or play writer. I allowed the students to give me a list of their top three choices for a topic and I assigned them. This helped the students have a choice in what they learn about and engaged them in who they were researching because it was someone of interest to them.

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Today our student council kids performed their Dr. Seuss plays for the 6th grade. I really enjoyed watching these students perform in front of the classroom. This has made me think I need to do more activities where students are performing or presenting in front of the classroom. I would love to have more presentations in the classroom. Today in social studies we did an art walk. Students looked at five Renaissance paintings and had to rank them on a scale of one to five. Students then had to write why they liked or disliked the paintings. This was a simple introduction lesson into the arts of the Renaissance which really engaged my students and taught them about art. Today in social studies I had my students pretend they were Leonardo da Vinci and draw portraits. I taught them about Leonardo and his style of art. I then had them pair up and take seven minutes each to sketch a portrait of another person. I then had them write about the demand Leonardo had to make these portraits look amazing for the patrons. Today in social studies I had my students pretend they were Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. I taught them about Michelangelo and his job of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Students got the opportunity to experience what Michelangelo experienced for six years by taping paper under their desk and drawing for ten minutes. This was another great activity which engaged the students while allowing them learning at the same time. Today in reading we gave the post argumentative writing CFA. We have worked so hard on argumentative writing that we are all hoping our students will do well. While walking around, I was so happy to see the students were doing what we had taught them and that they seemed to understand the articles. I am excited to grade them to see how much the have learned. Today in social studies I ended up teaching a math review. Due to SAGE not being ready next week, they moved math acuity up. This meant Donnay lost two weeks of instruction. Therefore, in order to help her out, I offered to help teach or review some material so she could continue to teach concepts the students would need to know for Monday. This taught me that I need to be prepared for anything and to rely on my team for help as needed. Today we changed the way we keep track of behavior. We changed from cards to a clip system. We have one clip system which travels from class to class during the morning. We have another one in our reading classes. During lunch we look at all the rotation behavior clips and adjust our reading clips as necessary. This method has so far made keeping track of behaviors a lot easier and has also helped us keep track of what students are at what colors (what students we need to keep an eye on). My students have been working on their Renaissance person research essay. They are currently in the process of writing the rough draft of our essay. For those who finished the introduction paragraph, I told them to go onto the body paragraphs. I didnt go over the requirements yet because the rest of the class wasnt ready yet which resulted in tons of questions and confusion. I went over the requirements today and there were hardly any questions about what was expected of them. This taught me how important it is to give explanations and model in a classroom. It helps clarify the information to the students and makes the assignment less confusing. It also makes it less stressful for me.

Stacie Sessions Anecdotal Records Spring 2014 March 19 Today we spent all day on our field trip at the Clark Planetarium. The students had a lot of fun there and they learned a lot of information which is related to the science core they have been learning about. During our Dome Theatre show, the instructor asked questions related to the solar system and most students yelled out the correct answer. Today in social studies we talked about Gutenberg and the printing press. I gave my students time to create their own printing press by cutting out letters of their name, painting them, and then stamping them onto a piece of paper. I then talked about the impact this invention had on our lives. The students were amazed at the fact that if they needed to copy something back before the printing press, they would have to handwrite it again. I am enjoying the learning I see my experience through these hands-on activities. Today in reading I had my students do a reading activity where they read a narrative story and had to answer a variety of questions about it. Since this is the first activity we have done like this before, I went through each activity with them and showed them my thinking behind each question. This helped my students not only get the right answer, but understand why it was right and how to figure it out. I am having my student finish up their Renaissance reports in social studies. This report will be their final project for the Renaissance and that way, after spring break, Kimberlee can start into a new era of social studies. Kimberlee has been telling me how important it is to try and finish up everything I can before spring break because when the students come back, they hardly remember what they learned before the break. I did a trade day with Aubrey who is in 5th grade at Granger Elementary. This was a great experience to get into an upper grade at a different school. While there, I taught a comprehension lesson using their Imagine It story they have been reading. The students are starting to learn how to cite information and I was able to give them an insight into how important it is to know in 6th grade. This seemed to engage the students more into citing page numbers because they knew they would be using this concept the rest of their lives. Today we had our ZAP day (Zeros Arent Permitted). We printed off the students progress and showed them any zeros they had. Those students who didnt have any zeros went to the instructional center and watched a movie. The other students stayed in the classroom and worked on their missing or zero work. Days like this, although they are chaotic, are good for the students because it gives them a chance to improve upon their grade. I want to include days or times like this in my classroom as needed. Today is social studies my students turned in their Renaissance Reports. Just by looking at them, they look like they will be really good reports. I am excited to see what they have learned during their research. Today was my last day at Monroe. It is a bitter sweet feeling to be leaving. I have learned a lot about teaching and I am excited to get my own classroom.

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