Mrs. Sullivans Room!

More Learning!

After my first eight weeks with my second graders, it was time to move onto my third grade class in Mrs. Sullivan's room.  It was hard saying goodbye to my second graders because I had been with them since the very beginning of the school year.  There were lots of tears shed, and lots of hugs on my last day with them.  But, time does go on and I had to continue my learning upstairs in third grade.

Boy.... what a difference in behavior from second grade to third grade! That was the biggest thing I noticed in my first week with Rachel and her kids.  I noticed many things about the way she managed her classroom, and it was run really well.  Kids followed directions, they knew what was expected of them, and they always got stuff done.  I was really impressed and knew I could learn more about classroom management from Rachel.  As the weeks went on she was really helpful to me by teaching me all the ways she manages her classroom.  She was always very direct with instructions, direct with students, and always held students to their highest expectations.  As the weeks went on, I found myself doing this too, but as a student teacher, I will always be learning new ways to manage a classroom!

Many exciting things happened in third grade, it's so hard to name them all.  I got to learn all about how to make maple syrup, and tap some trees outside of Old Town Elementary school.  Every day the kids and I would go outside to collect the sap, and it was always a blast watching the kids reactions when we got a lot.  I had never learned anything about making maple syrup, so this was a new learning experience for me!  We were even lucky enough to show off our knowledge when we were asked to visit the University of Maine's sugar shack and watch them boil sap.  The students who worked the shack were so impressed with my students knowledge.  Even I was too!

Rachel's class is very service oriented, and I was so excited to see a teacher who actively tries to get her students to do community service and get her kids involved in something.  Rachel has her kids do the upstairs recycling, and as they collect the recycling they collect bottles as well.  At a certain point in the trimester the students count up all the bottles, bring them to the redemption center, and use the money they get from the bottles to do service.  During my time in Mrs. Sullivan's class I got to watch her students go to the dollar tree, purchase three items for the animal shelter, and pay for it by themselves knowing exactly how much they needed to save for tax.  Once we returned to school, we walked right over to Bangor Savings Bank and brought all our goodies for the animal shelter to Lori Smart who worked there, and also happened to be the president of the Animal Orphanage in Old Town.  She was thrilled with the donations and sent us plenty of pictures of the animals using our donations.

The students in Mrs. Sullivan's class were hard workers, and even harder workers during my teaching week.  This week was a hard week on my students as it was also a state wide testing week so my kids were wiped.  In order to keep things easy and stress free on them, we worked a lot with The Lorax and did a close read on the cause and effect in order to better understand Earth Day that was coming right up!  Students worked hard on reading comprehension questions, and even made themselves a Lorax for our class bulletin board!  Also during my teaching week, we spent lots of time with Lego Robotics, programming some dancing birds and spinning tops and doing some problem solving!  The kids LOVED the lego unit, and were incredibly hard workers and problem solvers!

My seven weeks in Mrs. Sullivan's class went by so fast.  Just as I was truly starting to make some real relationships with students my time in her class was over.  Rachel taught me many things from classroom management skills, being better prepared, and working on collaboration and communication.  ALL goals I had set for myself.

At the end of my seven weeks, I was proud of the teacher I was becoming, and now I can't wait to have my one classroom soon!

Take a peek below at some student work!

My students spent lots of time problem solving how they could make the birds spin faster!  Do you have an idea?

Who knew a spinning top could still be such a fun toy!

All of my students thought like they were the Lorax!  If you were the Lorax, how could you help save the Earth?

Mrs. Stevens Room!

Hello All!

I've been very busy over these past 15 weeks and I am just now FINALLY getting a chance to sit down and share what I have been doing with you all!  My first eight weeks in Mrs. Stevens room flew by, and I accomplished so much in such a short amount of time!  I taught a stem scope science kit on the Diversity of Living Things, and spent eight weeks teaching students about Nonfiction and It's Features!  Students created everything from Habitat Environments, Nonfiction Notebooks, and Penguin Investigations!  My kiddos were always hard at work with everything I gave them, and we had a lot of fun together!  It wasn't always easy though.  I learned a lot in my first placement about classroom management and how to become better prepared as a teacher.  A lot goes into planning for lessons such as creating them and having all materials ready.  After my first eight weeks I learned a lot about being better prepared and brought that to my second placement.  I also learned about how communicating is important when you are working with other teachers.  I learned that communication is key when you have a mentor teacher, and I didn't always express the things I should have to Mrs. Stevens.  But, student teaching is a learning process, and my failures helped me to better prepare myself for my second placement, and for my teaching career.  All failures aside, there were lots of good moments as well!

Take a peek at some of my students work!

If you had to study a penguin, which one would you choose?

Students spent lots of time drafting and creating their zoo environments.  If you could design a zoo habitat, what would it be?