Nov.3, 06

In the front of Ms.Carson's classroom, there are three little containers, labelled "ones", "tens", and "hundreds", with popsicle sticks inside them. They are used for counting the days that the students have been in school. When the "ones" container has 10 popsicles, Ms.Carson would tie them together and put the bundle in the "tens" container. I think it is a very good way to teach place values, and through practicing it everyday, students would be able to grasp the concept and relate it to their daily life. They would have a concrete understanding of what "tens" and "ones" mean, and also their relationship.

Today, I did guided reading with three students. Last year, in my course Worlds of Childhood, one of the requirements was to read with a literacy buddy from Shoreham Public School (near York University) once a week. Therefore, I have spent a significant amount of time reading and writing with my Grade One buddy, whom I have learned a lot from. I find this experience very useful, because as I read with the students today, the processes of going through the pictures and posing questions seem natural to me. I felt the confidence because I have done something similar before.

From observing during the first two months in Greensborough P.S., I noticed that one of the girls in this morning's guided reading group is shy and have some problems socializing with her classmates. She does not talk much, but she has problems sharing with others, and would sometimes lead to arguments. While I was reading the book "Out in the Weather" with them, she seemed to have lost focus while the two other students were eager to answer questions. Therefore, I began to pitch questions at them individually, so she had the chance to answer. I began to see a smile on her face, and she seemed to enjoy it much more afterwards. I feel that it is important to make connections with each child in the classroom, because students would want that close teacher-student relationship. Addressing them, recognizing them, and making them feel important are essential.

I was faced with a classroom management problem today. At about 10:30am, Ms.Carson had to go down to the staff room to prepare the treats. She asked me to supervise the class, to have them do silent reading for 10 minutes, then line up group by group to wash hands, and line up at the door to get ready for snacks. The silent reading was fine, other than one or two students who were a bit distracting. When they were lining up at the door, they began to play Rock, Paper, Scissors with each other and got pretty noisy. Since I didn't want other classes to be distracted, I told them to keep their voices down. They did, but it was still too loud, with 18 children talking all at the same time. Therefore, I decided to have them seated on the carpet. That calmed them down a bit, but then they started getting noisy again. After a few attempts to keep them quiet, I sat in the front of the class and began reading a story to them. That worked! They all sat nicely and paid attention to the story, except for one student. He turned around to stare at another student, who complained to me. I warned him a few times, but he was still being rude. In our classroom, there is a piece of green, yellow and red cardboard hanging from the board. If a student behaves badly, his/her clothes pin would be clipped to the green spot. The second warning would bring the pin to the yellow spot, and when he/she reaches red, he/she would spend the recess in the office. Unfortunately, I had to move that misbehaving student to the red spot, since he was already at the yellow cardboard.

I find that it was a very tiring experience. I usually speak at a relatively soft voice, but I had to raise my voice to speak over 18 talking voices. Since I am not really their teacher, they might not feel the need to listen to me under certain circumstances. However, I believed that I have made my best effort to handle the situation, and that it would be easier for me afterwards.

I think that Ms.Carson is a very creative teacher. During Art lesson, students are always creating differenit types of art work. Today, they were making a triorama. It's a 3D piece of art work, and the theme is fall. Ms.Carson let them work individually after giving instructions and showing them how to do the basic things, and she would give creative suggestions as they were working. For example, when they were cutting construction papers to make little people, Ms.Carson told a girl that she could use a pencil to curl the hair. She expects a lot of details from the students, and I think it's good because it makes the students observe and try to express their ideas aesthetically.