Well, I guess we can’t go a week of field without having a snow day! It’s funny to think that when I was a student I loved snow days so much and never really thought about how much the teachers would enjoy them too…
This week, much like every other week, was consumed by working in our Everyday Math books. I understand that basic math skills are important to students, but I am beginning to see some major pros and cons with this math curriculum. On a positive note, I like how this series brings information from previous lessons into current chapters. Instead of learning a concept and then moving on and forgetting it, the students keep seeing that concept in their Math Journals. In this sense, repetition is a great technique to ensuring that students know what is being told to them. Working on the same types of exercises provides a secure background that they can build upon. In Everyday Math though, I feel like students are not building upon background knowledge. They form a basic knowledge of a concept and that is it. Some of the lessons to introduce new concepts move so quickly that students do not really comprehend what they are supposed to be learning, so when review problems come around later, they are clueless as to what they are supposed to be doing. Also, some of the concepts taught in the series make simple topics more complicated than they need to be. I found an example of this on YouTube. This is a video that illustrates how the Everyday Math series teaches students to do long division. They try to teach tricks to make math easier, but it just ends up being more confusing. Not only that, but division is division. If children are learning a new way that is “easier”, parents are not going to know the tricks and will not be able to help with homework, thereby frustrating the student even more. Basic math skills are essential in life. If a series wants to offer tricks, that’s fine, but do so after the student has mastered the basic skill.
I don’t mean to say that what is present in this series is detrimental to the education of students, but I feel like this series should be paired with something else to provide a more well-rounded math curriculum.
This was a crazy week! This week we had Angela Evans start as a student teacher in the room so there are 4 teachers in the room everyday. We did not have school on Monday because of a snow day (again!).
On Wednesday I taught my first lesson. I taught one of the sections out of everyday math, and overall I thought it went over well. I started the lesson with a review of telling time. For the most part the students did very well, but they struggled with where the hour hand was placed for “a quarter til”. After this we reviewed the “What’s my rule?” tables out of the Everyday Math books.
I had students come out to go over an example on the overhead, and then they worked in their math workbooks. They seemed to struggle with subtraction so we had to do a review of that. While I was teaching there was a student, “John”, who was trying to draw attention to himself, but I just kept going with the lesson because I knew I had to get through the material before recess. When the students were working individually I went over to “John” and had him explain to me what we were doing and worked on a problem in his workbook with him. This seemed to help him become more focused. Mr. Larrousse also told me after the lesson that he liked the way I did not give “John” attention when he wanted it because it distracts the entire class and interrupts the learning process.
On Thursday we continued working in the Everyday Math books. We had the students use pieces from the Base Ten blocks to measure items around the room. This was also the first day that I saw the first grade classes switch. Mr. Larrousse’s class went to Mrs. Bucholz’s room for science, and Mrs. Bucholz’s class came to our room for social studies. It was interesting to watch how the classes were different. Mrs. Bucholz’s class was much more subdued and relaxed, waiting to be called up; whereas my class across the hall was energetic and shouting out answers. It was interesting to see that Mr. L’s teaching style didn’t really change between the two classes, though.
On Monday Angela (Miss Evans) takes over teaching math, so that will be interesting to see what I will get to do in a few semesters!
Well, this week was really short because we had snow days on both Monday and Tuesday. I was supposed to teach a math lesson on addition rules on Wednesday, but due to the snow days, the lesson got pushed back a week. I already had it ready, but now I have extra time to look over it and get a little bit more comfortable with the information.
On Wednesday in math we reviewed addition facts and fact triangles. We also read some of Roald Dahl’s Danny the Champion of the World. This is a great opportunity to introduce lots of new vocabulary that the students wouldn’t normally be exposed to (such as poaching, etc). There was also a whole-school assembly in the afternoon to celebrate Black History Month. The sixth grade classes read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech which was paired with pictures showing segregation (white-only and black-only water fountains, segregated buses) and photos of Martin Luther King, Jr. himself. After this, the high school jazz choir performed several African American spirituals. The students actually payed attention and were focused. One of the students is apparently scared of the dark, because before the assembly he kept asking about whether or not the lights would be off and what would happen if they did turn the lights off.
On Thursday we tried to show that the students can use Base Ten rods to measure objects in centimeters. They measured their pencils, art boxes, and a crayon. We finished reading a chapter out of Danny the Champion of the World, but the students were getting very antsy because of Valentine’s Day. They had their party that afternoon and there were 3 jars of different candy and the students had to guess how many pieces were in each jar. It was funny to see how they perceived the amounts. Some students were guessing 10,000 candy hearts, when in reality there were 500. They enjoyed their party and it was fun to see them not in “student mode” but being more of themselves.
So this was my first week of field and I am actually very excited for the next few weeks/months. I am in a first grade room at Melrose with Mr. Larousse. I had been in a first grade classroom at Kean, but this is a huge difference. Mr. Larousse is VERY energetic about teaching, and so the students seem to pick up on that and be very energetic (but in a good way) too. The classroom is bigger than any I’ve been in, although when I mentioned this he said that the room is smaller than what he is used to. There are 23 students in the class.
What excites/scares me the most is that Mr. Larousse want Ashley and I (we are co-teaching) to jump right in immediately. He was going to have us teach our first lessons the very first week there, but it didn’t work out. It’s really great to have someone who is so supportive of my jumping in to help though. On Monday the class started with some oral math problems which the students had to write answers to on their white boards. This was good for me because it gave me the opportunity to walk around and help students and get to know them without distracting anyone from Mr. Larousse. On Wednesday we worked on addition facts and playing a game with addition facts. Mr. Larousse had to be partners with one of the students because there is an odd number, so I got to be “in charge” for awhile. It went well, with the only major issues being students worrying about their partners cheating, etc. We worked on a timeline of major holidays, and it was funny to see what the students considered to be holidays (“My tooth fell out” or “My mom’s birthday”). On Thursday we went over math fact triangles and played the addition facts game again. After the students left for gym I got to write in some of their journals. Mr. Larousse writes in their journals every night, responding to what they wrote, and then they write back the next day. Well, I got to respond to them, which was funny to see what the students thought was important to write about.
They all seem very enthusiastic to have me there, so I really am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the semester goes. I teach my first lesson next week, so we’ll see…
