Half Way There!!!

I would rate this week a 5. We had a great week in the class. We had excellent behavior, and did not need to write in any planners this week, which is the first week for this to happen! The pleasant surprise this week was I taught students punctuation on Tuesday (period, exclamation mark, and question mark) and the next day when I was reading to students and when they were reading in centers, they pointed them out to me. I also had a parent/teacher conference Wednesday and the mom said her daughter came home and said “can I have a snack QUESTION MARK” Then said “when I am yelling at you, I’m going to use an exclamation mark” This made me laugh, and also happy that students learned the meaning of these different punctuations. Reflections of this weeks lesson showed me that my higher groups have almost mastered the letters they have been taught in phonics so far this year, some just need a quick review and more practice with the letter G. It showed me that my lower groups still need lots of practice with their letters because if they do not know letters and letter sounds then they will not be able to read. My short-term goals of whole class and individual positive proximity praise, is aligned with my long-term goal of classroom management. I have noticed especially this week how well this works. When you give one student a compliment, they will all do what that student is doing because they want a compliment as well. This week I was able to use my time really well and have a really productive week because there is finally no edTPA to worry about. The work day on Thursday also really helped a lot! Apprehension about passing out materials in whole group math lessons stopped me from doing so in the first whole group lesson I taught. However, the next day I passed out whiteboards so they could practice writing their numbers and it was very successful. On Monday, I will be passing out cubes for students to complete the lesson, so we will see how that goes. The first logical steps for next week is to continue videoing lessons and working on my portfolio.

I analyzed my students’ phonics, math, letter writing, sounds, and recognition this week. It helped me realize that my lower groups still need a lot of practice with their letters and my higher students are more proficient, so they will only need to review the letters before lessons. I also was made known that most of my students can write their numbers 1-5 but ¾ of the class wrote one or more letter backwards, so I will continue to show them the correct way to write their numbers. One piece of advice I would share with the other student teachers is to really enjoy the time we have left since we are halfway there.

NCPTS

This week I increased my rating in standard 1b by creating my professional development log. I increased my rating in standard 2b by including differentiation in each one of my lessons to meet each student where they are. I increased my rating in 3d by connecting all of my lessons to NCPTS, including global awareness, and making the instruction I teach relevant to students. Next week I will include literacy in global awareness by creating a thinking map so students can see a visual to increase my rating even more. Students now use the computers on a daily basis for literacy centers and math centers, which increases my rating in 4d for integrating and using technology in instruction. For standard 5a, I reflected on each one of my lessons and my students’ work each day, and adjusted my lesson plans for the next day accordingly.

I started to complete my parent log, PD log, and PDP this week for my portfolio. My CE and myself are both all set right now!