Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Blog 9
The reading talks about starting the day for a younger group of students in the classroom setting. The classroom can be set up in a way that best benefits the teacher and the students. Having young students can be very difficult in the sense that classroom management has to be drilled into their heads before any curriculum can be taught. Some Kindergarten teachers spend the first few weeks of school teaching their students to be disciplined and teaching them the flow of the day. The reading talks about bringing all of the students to the carpet to start the day, which is exactly what my teacher does in my field placement. She calls her students to the "pit" to start the day. In the pit she goes over the date, the weather, and other items to start the day. The children know exactly what to do and when to do it, but my teacher said it was not easy to get them to that point. The reading also discusses different ways to get children to not only read and write, but to get them to discuss reading and writing. Children have a hard time talking in front of their peers, so I think it is important for teachers to think of ways to get children to discuss. My teacher in my field placement always opens the discussion to something that the children can relate to, because children love talking about personal experiences.
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In my field placements they have always used something similar to "the pit" that you have described here. In my second grade classroom that I helped with for two years, she had the students sit down on the floor and they would go over the date, weather, and they also had a countdown of how many days of school they had left. Every day they would subtract one, and then use tally marks to show the bases and ones so they could understand better and subtract easier. I have also noticed that kids love to talk about personal experiences and tell others about their connections.
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely adore our placement teacher. I think I have gained a whole new respect for Kindergarten teachers. It is a very difficult age to teach and guide efficiently. I think her use of "pit time" in the morning is the best way to start the day because it is part of the routine. She definitely made it clear that routine is essential to success in this type of learning environment. I think it would be neat to split our field placement into two different sections: time in Kindergarten, and then in sixth grade. I think the differences in routine would be interesting to compare and contrast.
I have so much respect for the organization of kindergarten teachers! I know many kindergarten teachers start with "meeting in the middle" or some variation of morning meeting but I am always curious about how they decide what things to include in this short period of time. I am also curious about how teachers of younger students can get them to develop some independence and self-sufficiency. Obviously, students have to be able to work independently, at least for short period, but building this stamina in young students seems really difficult. What sort of strategies has your teacher used for this?
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteEarly Elementary grades are so much fun to work with! I have loved being in my kindergarten classroom and I really enjoy hearing about yours and comparing our experiences. I truly wish we could have experienced this first few weeks of kindergarten to see how the teachers conducted their classroom management. I think all of the kindergarten teachers did a great job in doing so!