Renee Garcia

Field Experience #3

Working on my practice hours for a 1st grade classroom has been a roller coaster, it has
been full of awesome energy, emotions, but overall, a lot of learning.
Ms. Dreas is my mentor and being part of her class has been one of the best experiences
I've had so far. The moment I walk in her room I can feel the clean and safe environment. She
has posters, dinosaurs, and a lot of colorful things all over the walls, to me all that does is
motivate the students. The students are always motivated and ready to learn. Ms. Dreas has a lot
of techniques to help the students learn, the first thing I always notice is how good the students
are and it’s something that I always bring with me to my home because the way Ms. Dreas
teaches her students, it is full of patience, and the love she has for them is incredible. All she
wants for them is to move on and become the best students ever.
Ms. Dreas starts off her day with asking her students about their night and if they had
homework. They will continue to do work from the day before. Later they go for a short recess to
a bathroom break, and they come in and that’s where I start helping.
We usually do groups, independent work, and one on one with Ms. Dreas. I usually get
the group work which is reading and a little test for the students. On the reading we use a small
book that has no more than 6 pages and the first page is usually vocabulary that the students are
learning, and we go over them and throughout the reading we see them, and we stop, and we go
over the words and how it is related with the story. At the end of the story, we do a small
reflection and the I ask them questions which is considered a small test to see how well they pay
attention, how they process the words, and how they see the characters and pictures. This is how
we get an idea of where each student might be in there reading comprehension part.
Last week we had some testing on Thursday and Friday. It was going to be graded but it
wasn’t going to affect the student grade. The test had spelling, math, and sentence writing. The
first part was spelling, and it had ten words. The teacher would say a word and pronounce it and
the students had 2 minutes to spell it out and write out on the paper. The math test was 3 addition
and 3 subtraction questions. The sentence part was about an object the teacher would mention
and the student had to create a sentence. First of for being 1st grader they all did a great job but
they the more difficult part for them was the sentence part. They’re on track with math and
spelling. After grading some of the test we concluded that mostly all students needed help with
writing sentences. So that is something that we have scheduled to work on, not only so they can
get better at it, but as a part that they will take with them to the next grade level.
 These tests were created because that’s how we know where a student stands
educationally wise. Ms. Dreas had been sending worksheets inside their folders for them to take
home and practice. This something they already knew, and she decided to access them last week.
My mentor has a whole bunch of techniques to teach the students, they vary from songs, f
telling jokes, from reading stories, and from so many more things. But what I have seen is the
Ms. Dreas creates tests for them to see where they stand. Being part of that, now it makes sense
because she doesn’t do it to be a mean teacher, she does it so they can learn. Although they are
little kids, that is the perfect way to make them understand little by little different words,
different math problems, and different sentences and how to structure them.
This was and has been a great experience for me because I want to become a 1st grade
teacher and being there and observing my mentor gives me the most amazing ideas for when I
have my classroom one day. Ms. Dreas always makes sure to put her students first and she
always tries her best to make sure they learn, and they understand any topic of the day. She will
even joke around with them and makes sure her students always have a smile on their face. It
only makes me anxious to be part of a class and start teaching and helping little students. As I’ve
seen every student is different and they all learn at different a pace, and some are just on a roll
answering every question. Every teacher is different but since my first day of being with Ms.
Dreas class I have loved every second of it and every single student. As much as they are
learning from their teacher and me, I can proudly say that I am learning more from them than
they are from me.
Being a teacher isn’t only about assessing students with test and schoolwork. It is about
waking up every day and going up in a classroom and teaching students that are barely growing
and starting to get a taste of life. It is about caring for them and making sure they learn so they
can always look back and say only positive things.