Carolyn Beaty

Weekly Log February 3rd-7th

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have? This week I began transitioning from mostly observation into more teaching and responsibilities. I do the daily read aloud for students, and I have learned to slow down when I read and make sure that I am using good fluency to be an example to the students. I also created a mediated read aloud lesson this week on visualizing. This lesson went very well, and the students really seemed to understand the concept based on the worksheet I gave as an assessment. This week I also created a health unit for students on how to test their best. I conducted two of these lessons this week and will finish next week. I attended to all small reading groups on Monday, and assisted two of the groups on Wednesday helping them with their vocabulary assignment and spelling sort. On Wednesday, I did a math read aloud (The Greedy Triangle) and taught polygon names to students from three to ten sided figures. This week I attended district professional development with my mentor teacher and third grade collaborating teachers on Wednesday afternoon. I also attended IB planning and standard aligning with the entire third grade team and IB coordinator Thursday morning. This week I continued to grade student assignments, worksheets, and tests, and also checked in assignments and other important paperwork. I helped to check students summative assessments that go into their portfolio and answered students questions about this assignment and other assignments. I check planners every morning and give students stickers if they have a parent signature. This is a great way to communicate with parents and make sure they are aware of what homework their child has. I look for the parent signature and I also look to make sure that students have filled out their planners and have glued in their spelling words and written in their math facts. I also helped a student who was absent all last week catch up, and explained assignments to her in order to help her catch up to her classmates. I am constantly helping to facilitate transitions with students and I bring them to and from specials, lunch, recess, and dismissals. I continued to learn routines and procedures this week and I have gained a lot of insight into classroom management aspects that I will need to master. 2. What were the most satisfying experiences? Greatest challenges? My most satisfying experience this week happened after I taught my second health lesson. I taught students three different ways to help reduce stress or frustration during a test. At the end of my lesson we talked about how these strategies do not need to be used just during a test, but can be used in all aspects of your life. Later that day the students had an hour of guidance in our room. The guidance teacher was having computer trouble and expressed her frustration to the students. Immediately, several students started suggesting that the teacher use the techniques they just learned from our health unit. This was a huge moment for me because not only proved to me that my students were listening to my lesson and understood the concepts, but they were transferring what they had learned to new situations. This was definitely my highlight. My greatest challenge this week was classroom management. I can see myself getting better at this aspect of my teaching, but I still have a long way to go. This week I was struggling with a student and asked him several times to put his scissors away. He was refusing to follow my instructions. My mentor teacher then saw what was going on and took the scissors away. This possibility never occurred to me, and I felt silly for not simply taking the scissors away from the student. I am still learning classroom management techniques, but I feel that I have a wonderful mentor to help me learn.

3. What are the plans for the upcoming week? Next week I will continue to facilitate, grade, and organize papers and assignments. I will continue to do the read aloud every day, and I will finish the health unit that I created. I will also continue to attend professional development meetings, which will be building led next week. I will also help to plan and facilitate our Valentines Day party on Friday. I will also take over morning math this week. This is a daily math review for students and helps get their day off to a good start. I will also be conducting a math lesson on Monday called What a Square where students will continue to work with and naming polygons with a fun activity. Students start with a square and fold it (so the sides do NOT match up) four times, and trace the lines it makes. They will then name each shape after they have counted the sides. I will also continue to learn as much as I can and jump in whenever possible. I hope to work with small groups of students as well and continue getting more practice in front of the whole group.