Week 12

My goals for last week were to have activities to take up the teaching time, and then to plan over the break.  Well I was able to have activities for the time. I think my teacher pinpointed a good thing that I missed on one of my activities. I had a game that was a blends Bingo, that was supposed to help students to identify blends.  I introduced it in a way that wasn't as great as it could have been.  We talked after about how to structure the game so that the kids were still getting some higher order thinking skills in.  She really made me think, and it was just a simple switch that I could have made with my wording.  This conversation helped me to make sure that I'm evaluating what I am asking of the students.  I want to be making THEM think, and not putting the thinking on myself.  If I did that all the time, I will definitely lose some of the kids who are higher.  I mean, they would still enjoy the game, but the learning that could have happened will just be missed.  This was a good lesson for me to learn.

One word to describe my week:  short.  It came and went, and now I'm in my almost last week of full time teaching.  It feels so good to be so close to the finish line.

A lesson I taught where I created multiple learning activities that allowed for variation in students' learning styles and performance modes was probably something that happened last week.  I've been trying to integrate a couple different things during Phonics.  So, we listened to a song, had kids come up to the board, and had pictures to pass out for the kids to see to illustrate what we were learning.  This week, I have a powerpoint for them to see a few of the words with long a (our focus this week) and then they'll be able to practice coming up with other long a words. 
I don't have any students with IEPs in my classroom and so I didn't have to plan instruction for any students with disabilities.  The students who receive reading/ELL services are pulled out of class by another teacher.

I have learned from my teaching that accessing students' prior knowledge of content before beginning the lesson is vital to grabbing the kids interest.  It also is the framework for getting their little minds thinking along the right lines.  I think it fires up their schema and that's what enables them to connect what they already know to what they're going to learn next. 

As of right now, I don't need any feedback.  I'm wondering if there are any teacher/resource websites that you have used/would recommend.  I've been trying to find supplemental sites, and so far Pinterest is a good site.  Otherwise, I'm looking up the sites that go along with the textbooks.

Thank you!