Internship 2
District: Blue Valley
School: Sunrise Point Elementary
Grades: Kindergarten and 5th
Teachers: Courtney Falk and Jennifer Duggan
11/11/14
Today was my first day of observation and it was far from what I expected. First, I went to my kindergarten class, but the schedule was messed up, so we went straight to PE. One of the boys had his shoe untied and I asked him if I could tie it for him. He said that was ok so I did, and while I was doing that, I noticed that the girl next to him was untieing her shoes. Right when I finished and stood up, the girl who had untied her shoe, she rose her hand and asked me to tie her shoes. I thought that was funny. After that, the kindergarten class came back and Mrs. Falk had her friends from college who were in the air force come in and talk to the kids about Veterans Day. They asked really funny questions. The teacher also likes to post pictures of her class on her Facebook page and in order to do this, she isn't allowed to show their faces. To fix this, she had each of her students cut out an american flag heart to hold over their face when they took the picture.
I went to fifth grade next and they had silent reading today, so nothing that exciting happened. They do have these reading groups where the kids are plcaed according to skill level and they meet with the teacher as talk about the book. I thougt this was a good idea because it prepares kids for socratic seminars as they get older.
11/19/14
Today during my Kindergarten class, I walked around the room and helped the kids with their writing journals. They were required to draw a picture and then write a story about their picture. I spent a majority of my time helping kids spell certain words that were a higher level and most of the kids also wanted my help drawing certain parts of their pictures.
I went to fifth grade after Kindergarten and observed their reading time. I thought it was beneficial how the students were paired with the group that had the same reading lexile range. The teacher set up confrontations every week to discuss the plot line with the students and make sure they are keeping up with the reading and understand the topics.
11/25/14
Today was the day before everyone left for Thanksgiving break and the schedule was messed up so I didn't get to see the kids for a very long time. When I did see them, they were all very excited because Mrs. Falk was making stew for the kids to celebrate Thanksgiving. She assigned a "helper" that was in charge of stirring the crock pot. I thought it was funny that all of the other kids were jealous of her because she got this big role throughout the day.
Afterwards when I went to my fifth grade classroom, I thought it was very interesting that the class didn't celebrate anything about Thanksgiving. In fifth grade, I remember my class had a party and all brought food to share.
12/4/14
Today I did my lesson plan with the Kindergarten class. We played a Marshmallow Math Game. The lesson plan and video can be found on the Lesson Plans and Media page. This was also my last day with the Kindergarten class. Although I am going to miss them so much because I thought they are so cute and fun, I now know I could NEVER teach elementary school. Everything it very structured and the kids need a lot of assistance. Also, especially with kindergarten, they like to hold your hand and give you hugs and I don't like to be touched. I think this was a very good experience for me because now I know my preferences.
12/10/14
Today I had my final day of internship 2 with my fifth grade class. Up until this day, I wasn't really a fan of fifth grade. I liked all of the students, but I never felt that connection with the class like I feel most other CAPS students do in their classes. Today was the day that I finally made that initial connection. My last day was by far my favorite. I did my lesson plan with the class on prefixes. First, I told them the objective: that the prefixes Co- Col- Com- Con- and Syn- all mean ''with" or "together." After that, I had them write the defenition in their journals and draw a picture to help remind them of the meaning. This took around 5 minutes and then they got to play the matching activity. The students worked with their table mates and matched the flashcards I made according to prefix. The flashcards consisted of a variety of pictures that fit into the categories. For example, CONgress or COMmunicate. Overall, my teacher really liked the lesson I did and said that this is the best reaction she has ever had from the students while working with prefixes.
12/9/14
Because today was early release, I came back to CAPS instead of go to my school. Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of class time with this internship because the schedule was often messed up and caused the kids to be either at specials/recess/lunch when I was in their classroom. However, reflecting on the whole internship together, I came across that I didn't hate Kindergarten and fifth grade as much as I anticipated. With this being said however, I still would prefer to work with older, more (hopefully) mature students that I could build a relationship with and help them grow and prepare them for the future.