February 18-22

Monday, February 18

Presidents’ Day so no school!

Tuesday, February 19
Yay for a three day weekend and now back to my favorite class of the day, Teacher Cadets! Today Rebeccah Gerlach geared up to talk about double digit numbers. Her essential question was: Can you add numbers in order to make a double digit number? And the answer is yes and by learning this, we demonstrated with dominoes. A domino was a good tool to use because it showed vertical and horizontal addition and how with both, you get the same answer! Then it was Maggie Ambrose’s turn to talk about the American Revolution. She broke down the differences between the Patriots and the Loyalists. The Patriots supported America’s independence from Britain while the Loyalists were loyal to the king (hence the name “loyal”lists). I enjoyed guessing which of the two said which quote, even though some were pretty tricky!

Catherine working with Dominoes

Patriot or Loyalist?

Wednesday, February 20

Today Anna Reeps set up her presentation on meteorology. At first, she stated how meteorology isn’t the study of meteors, but instead the study of the atmosphere. She asked Alex Dawson to go look out the window and tell how the weather was. Then she handed us coloring sheets and told us to color the elements that represented how it was outside. I enjoyed the visual reenactment of how a Doppler Radar operates and learned who D.O.T. workers were (Department of Transportation). Next was Olivia Baddley’s turn to talk about the ocean. According to Olivia, the ocean covers over three quarters of the Earth! She then read us two books about the ocean, but my favorite part would have been when we searched in the sand bucket for seashells!

Doplar Radar

Thursday, February 21

Today was Frannie Erb’s time to present! Her lesson was on music and she even brought a guitar! We began by brainstorming what we already know about reading musical notes. Frannie then took us step by step into explaining how music notes go from A-G and where they are located on a musical staff. I enjoyed coming up with goofy acronyms to try to remember FACE and EGBDF. Next was Olivia Hodge’s turn to talk about penguins.  She started out with a poem describing a penguin and we had to guess what her presentation was about. She then named the five types of penguins (Adelie, Chinastrap, Gentoo, Emperor, and Macaroni) and based their differences by how they look. My favorite part would have to have been making the penguins out of construction paper!

Friday, February 22

Today I went to Pocketful of Miracles to check out my upcoming field experience. When I arrived, I was escorted to Mrs. Chris’ K4 classroom where I met about 15 or so preschoolers. They seemed very excited to see a guest and couldn’t help but show off. I introduced myself to the class and then each boy and girl stood up and told me their names. Once everyone knew each other, I helped Mrs. Chris pass around breakfast, which included juice/water and biscuits with jam. With the kids munching away and quieting down, I had time to go around to every table and chit chat a little so I could get to know them better. I found out that majority of them have a sibling that goes to Mauldin High and how much they love having sleepovers. I then had the class pick out a couple of their favorite books and gather around on the carpet. After I read Lyle Lyle Crocodile, 9:15 struck and it was time for me to head back to Mauldin. I look forward to doing my field experience at Pocketful of Miracles!

(in the meantime.... Saige taught about the Holocaust.  Manuela taught about inference v. observation, and Laura taught us CHINESE!)

Quote:

“Now, I'd like you to step forward over here. They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? Carpe...hear it?...Carpe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

 –John Keating, Dead Poets Society

February 11-17

Monday, February 11
Today we continued presenting our lesson plans to the class. The first person to present was Licha, and she did her lesson on Colombia. We learned that the capital of Colombia is Bogota, their money type is peso, their religion is 90% Catholic, and Colombia has 32 departments. Then, Licha discussed about the different festivals that occur in Colombia every year and more about the culture. Her brother also came to help with her presentation and at the end, they did an amazing salsa demonstration for us! After that, whoever wanted, got to go in front of the class to learn how to salsa! It was an amazing lesson. After Licha's presentation, we had Alex Corn present. She did her presentation on Ecosystems: The Desert. Miss Corn started her presentation with questions to see what the class already knew about the subject. She then described all of the characteristics of the desert and the different types of animals who live there. She then ended her presentation with a compare and contrast diagram to see how much the students learned. It was a great lesson and presentation! 

Tuesday, February 12

Today we continued to present our lessons and today Sydney Vail and I presented. I went first and I did my presentation on all of the seasons of the year for first grade. I started my presentation with pictures and asked the students to write down the seasons that they already knew. I then started talking about each season with an activity on the board in between each. For example, after talking about winter, I had a student come on the board and help the little girl get dressed for a snowy, winter day. I ended my lesson with a drawing activity where students were split up into four groups and each group had to draw a different season. The each group had to present and describe their season to see how much they learned. Right after my presentation we had Miss Vail present. She did her lesson on Ballet/ Dance. Sydney started with her EQ, which is What do Ballerinas wear? She then did a great job describing the different types of shoes that ballerinas wear. We also learned that ballet students must wear nylon tights and leotards. She then had everyone in the class stand up to learn all of the different positions on ballet. Ending the lesson with a coloring activity was a great idea! 

Wednesday, February 13

Today we had Ashley Brady and Catherine Phillips present their lesson. Miss Brady went first and she taught us about letters and sounds! She started with a fun warm up where a students had to go up on the board and drag the first letter of the word each name of the animals started with. She then reviewed what letter each shape and their color starts with. We were all so excited when Miss Brady pulled names with the Popsicle sticks to separate us into groups for another fun activity! In this activity, each group received a baggie full of letters and we had a minute to make as many words with those letters as we could. She then ended her lesson with a Think, Pair, Share activity. Miss Brady's lesson was good because it involved every single student in the class and we were all active. Our second lesson was with Miss Phillips. She taught us about the different types of clouds there are in the sky. She started with discussion questions to see what we already knew about the three different types of clouds: Stratus, Cumulus, and Cirrus. She explained how clouds are formed and talked about each type of cloud. She then ended her lesson with a worksheet and a fun activity. She put shaving cream on each students' desks and we had to form one of the types of clouds! This activity really got the students involved and interested in the subject! We had a lot of fun! 

Thursday, February 14

 Today is VALENTINE'S DAY!! Today we went to Mauldin Elementary to visit our little buddies in Mrs. Vaughn's class for Valentine's Day. Each of the cadets brought their little buddies a gift for Valentine's Day and our buddies did the same for us! We did not get to do the activity we were supposed to, but that's okay because we had LOTS of fun spending time with each of our buddies by playing fun games and coloring! We all had a great time spending time with our buddies and we wish we could have stayed longer. It was a great day.

Friday, February 15

Today was a busy day for the Teacher Cadets! We had the whole class period to work on different things for the Family Connection Valentine Festival on Saturday. Many cadets brought in home made baked goods for example cupcakes and cookies. Some of us made signs for the different organizations that were going to participate. Others put brownies and cookies in small bags for the kids.We got a lot accomplished and and we were all really excited to volunteer at the event.

Saturday, February 16 
Our Valentine's Festival got rescheduled because of the weather. :( We had a blizzard and lots of snow!!

Sunday, February 17
Today was the Valentine's Festival. Many cadets arrived early to help set everything up. It was from 1-3 and even though I could not attend, it wad a very successful day!

Quote: “Give yourself entirely to those around you. Be generous with your blessings. A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.”  -Steve Maraboli 

February 4-8

Monday
Today we worked on finishing up our first lesson plans.  We are teaching our lessons to our teacher cadet class as practice for our field experience which starts next month! Everyone's lessons are on a different level and a different subject depending on where their field experience is going to be or just a fun lesson they want to share with us.

Tuesday
Today we continued working on our lessons.  Some of us were spread out in the library and computer labs working on promethean board lessons. And others worked on their official lesson plan template.

Wednesday
Today was another work day.  Alex and I were putting the final touches on our lessons because we present first on Thursday.  I can't wait to see everyone's lessons!

Thursday
Alex and I presented our lessons today.  Alex taught us a lesson on Ancient Egyptian mummification.  The highlight of her lesson for me was when she demonstrated how to wrap a body like a mummy with toilet paper (thank you for being the mummy Franny)!  I taught my lesson on first grade reading comprehension and we recreated a story as a class.

After the mummifcation process...

Friday
Today Rachel and Delaney taught their lessons to the class.  Rachel taught us about 3rd grade geography on the promethean board.  She also had a coloring worksheet we got to do after her lesson that let us see the different regions of America.  Delaney taught her lesson on money (2nd grade level).  She also had an interactive promethean board lesson and a worksheet to test our skills after.  I was glad to see Rachel and Delaney put the skills Mrs. Turner taught us on the promethean board to use in their lessons!



Rachel getting our class involved through her promethean board lesson!

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in a creative expression and knowledge"
                                                                                                             -Albert Einstein

January 28-February 1

Monday:
Today we had a shortened class due to the make-up pep ralley :( And the first day of spirit week, so everything was crazy at school that day! But we went over our webinger hunt and learned a lot about Greenville County. We learned how many schools were in our district (91).  We also learned how much you will make depending on how many years you've been teaching and also depending on what kind of degree you have.

Tuesday:
Tuesday we had the class Buy-Out so we went to see the student-faculty dodgeball game. We also got to see Mrs. Turners AWESOME dodgeball and dance moves!

Mrs. Turner with her dodgeball skills!

Wednesday:
Today we went to the library and started to learn about the Promethean Board and all the cool things it has on it! We learned about the board because we are going to do lessons for the class in a couple weeks. (sign up for your day if you haven't already) Some of the stuff we learned was really cool. Like how to take a picture from the internet, hide stuff on the board and make it appear when you get the right guestion.

Thursday:
We went to the library again today to finish learning about the Promethean Board. Some of us downloaded it to our personal computers at home. The stuff we learned about the Promethean Board was really helpful. And as future teachers it is important that we know how to use it! It will also help us when we go to our field study in March.

Friday:
Today we got to see our buddies for the 100th day of school. When we arrived they were dancing to get their energy out! Then we got them back to their tables and we told them what we were going to do with them. We counted to 100 with Fruit Loops and the put the on string for our buddies to wear as a necklece. Mr. Vaughn brought us Hot and Ready doughnuts. They were really good! I think our buddies really liked them! After that we helped them finish coloring their 100th day of school paper with them. It was great to see our little buddies, and we get to see them on Valentines Day.

Manuela and her buddy Nicholas.


 

Quote: "The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see." -Alexandra K. Trenfor