october 6- october 16

Hello all! This blog is for the dates October 6 through October 16. Enjoy :)

Monday October 6:: We are working on an in class group project to make "Barrier Books." In these books we write a story the a certain audience, such as first grade or maybe seventh grade, showing how one type of barrier can affect a child's learning. Today was a workday for this book.

Tuesday October 7::
Today was another workday for the barrier books. Also, today we received our pot from our mailboxes. We wrote a reflection on how the comments from our peers made us feel.

Wednesday October 8- Friday October 10::
These three days were barrier book workdays.

Monday October 13::
Today was also a barrier book workday.

Tuesday October 14::
Today, we acted like preschoolers all day. Mrs. Turner set up different stations and we went to each one. But there was a catch. Mrs. Turner put labels on each one to limit how many kids could play there at once. And of course the fun station, finger painting, was only allowed to have two people there at once. Some other stations were the reading station, the games station, play dough station, and playing with toys such as fake foods or army men station. This day was a lot of fun because we got to play all day!

Wednesday October 15::
Today, we got to go out into the field and observe preschoolers. We had a three hour class because of testing so it gave students the opportunity to stay in the classroom longer, and most took advantage of that. It was a lot of fun.

Thursday October 16::
Today was yet another barrier book workday. These books are due Tuesday.

That is the past two weeks in Teacher Cadets!!!

Educational Quote::
"In order to be irreplaceable, one must be different."
~Coco Chanel
This quote says that for someone to be so important that they are irreplaceable, one has to stand out and be different from everyone else. This can be shown by all the teacher that have ever taught. For them to make a difference in their student's lives, they must be different from the rest, and I think each and every teacher is a little different from the next, therefore they are irreplaceable.

These are my closest friends,
I consider them irreplaceable.

September 22- October 3: Karli Keels

On Monday, we finished watching Grid Iron Gang. We discussed Maslow's five hierarchy of needs. We also discussed barriers to education and played the game, "What If You Just Don't Get It?". This was where Cathy was driving her car to Disney World and who wanted to come along. You had to say your name and something you were bringing that started with the first letter of your first name. Some of us found this very frustrating because we didn't know how to play and we just "didn't get it!"

On Tuesday, we did an activity where there were five stations of barriers to education. One of the stations was visual impairment, where you had to put on glasses that partially blinded you and tried to find something in the toy box. Another station was the hearing impairment, where someone read a book and two other people put tissues in their ears and one hummed and they tried to hear the story, which was in Spanish, which was another barrier. The third station was the speech impairment station, and you had to put marshmallows in your mouth and try and communicate with the people in your group. The fourth station, was the other visual impairment station, one person read a paragraph through a mirror, while one person copied it through the mirror, and another group member copied it with a blind-fold. The last station was the physical impairment station, we had to either tape our arm to our side, put our arm in a sling, or tape our three middle fingers together and wrap a present. Another activity was called "Hand in Life", this was where you were dealt five cards, which meant different characteristics of your new life. All of these activities were very frustrating because we didn't know how to deal with these impairments, and we just wanted to get out of them. Unlike people who actually have these impairments, we could just "get rid of them", while these children and adults have to live with them their whole lives. I really enjoyed these activities and realizing how lucky I am to not have any of these impairments, but I liked learning from a different perspective.

On Wednesday, we discussed the special needs classes we were going to the following Wednesday. We also exchanged our journals from our feedback on the activities the day before. On Thursday, we had a wonderful speaker, Joann Timberlake. She is the Teacher of the Year, who is also a special needs teacher. I really enjoyed hearing about the children in her class and I would love to go visit them.

On Friday, our class discussed Mrs. Timberlake and talked about ideas about things we could do for her class. We also voted for teacher of the month and started reading The Acorn People.

On Monday, we discussed The Acorn People and starting working on the actual characters in the book. We split into groups and each got a character from the book to make a model of.

On Tuesday, we continued to work on our 'acorn people.'

On Wednesday, we all went to different special needs classes and observed them for an hour. This was very interesting for me, and I'm sure for everyone else to see how these children worked and functioned in the classroom. I really enjoyed this activity because my little brother from Big Brother, Big Sister was in the classroom I observed.
On Thursday, we finished up our 'acorn people'.

On Friday, we had a work day. I hung up the 'acorn people' in the hallway and took down the butterfly display. The 'acorn people' all turned out to be awesome. They are all so creative and look wonderful in the hallway.

My educational quote for the two weeks is:
'Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.' -Marilyn Monroe

This quote means to me that being wrong and messy is fine and it shows your style. Also, being ridiculous is a lot more exciting and shows your character than being boring. Leave comments!!!!