September 16th-20th

  On Monday, we played two games that allowed us to understand how children with certain learning barriers feel about things in school that come easy to us. One game was played when Polly the penguin wanted to go on a picnic and she wanted to being pizza. Polly asked everyone in the room if they wanted to go and what they wanted to bring. The object of the game was that if you wanted to go, you could only bring something that started with the first letter of your first name; so Audrey could bring apples, but Whitney couldn't bring tomatoes. This game continued for a while, and you began to hear classmates say they gave up. Hearing so many people say they were confused and couldn't understand so they were just going to quit was exactly like how many children facing barriers feel daily! The second game dealt with numbers and trying to make sense of a jumbled  mess. While this compilation was intended, for children with disabilities things that look clear to us look jumbled to them. This was a great way to understand what learning barriers actually feel like and how discouraging they can be!

  On Tuesday, we did a craft called "Paper Plates of Prejudice". In this craft, we had to draw a picture of ourselves on a paper plate and then write 2-3 words on the front describing how we think people see us. On the back we had to draw a heart, and write in the heart 2-3 words describing how we actually are. This was a great way for us to understand how so many kids can put on a front, and hide how they actually feel. It reminded us that we should never judge anyone because we never know what they are hiding behind their paper plate. It was a really good way for us to get to know our classmates too, and find out how many people felt the same exact way we do!

  On Wednesday and Thursday, we split up into pairs and read articles about the barriers of learning: abuse/neglect, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, bullying, esl, poverty, sleep deprivation, death/grief, eating disorders, ADD/ADHD, and depression/suicide. When everyone had finished reading their assigned topic and picking out the highlights, we presented our topics and gave the most important parts. It was a really great way to just cut to the chase and understand challenges many kids face! Mrs. Vaughn also stopped in to let us know approximately when we will start coming to her kindergarten class, and to give us advice on things to do and bring. She also brought her precious new baby Cooper! They were great to have in class!

  On Friday, Mrs. Charlton came in and explained to us exactly what a 504 plan and an IEP plan was, and the requirements for both. Both are great ways for helping kids overcome their barriers to learning, and Mrs. Charlton really made it clear what the difference was, and how it would be our responsibilities as teachers to accommodate follow each plan, in order to provide the child with the best experience possible! All in all we had a great week and learned a lot about problems we never really think too much about!

"Live as if you die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

                                                -Mahatma Gandhi

 

September 9th - September 13th

This week we learned about gangs and gang activity.

Officer K talked to us on Monday about his history in a gang and why he decided to leave and become a "new person." On Tuesday we learned about the signs of gang members and how to deal with them if they are students in your class some day. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we watched Gridiron Gang which was a true story about boys in the juvenile delinquent center who start a football team. This inspiring movie relates to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Monday September 9th, 2013

Tuesday through Wednesday- September 3-4th

Today we read and discussed the "pot" article. Different people's
pots are filled with either positive or negative things. We also l
earned that people should fill each
others pots with positive things. After reading the "pot" a
rticle we started to craft our
 own buckets, relating to the pot article. On each
of our buckets we created them to
reflect our personality or special qualities.




Morgan crafting her Gamecock bucket 



Other creative buckets

Thursday- September 5th

Today we read two different pieces of writing that
relating to our bucket crafts. The first was
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? This was an
8 time awards winning children's book. This book
 is a cute way of teaching little kids how to
"fill someones bucket". This was a great book
to read in our class today for many reasons.
It taught us today that the little things in life
that you do for a person can fill someones
bucket. We also received our own buckets
filler slips to put in each others buckets to
give to each other anonymously.

 

Bucket fillers



Also we read another article called the

Self Esteem Fraud. This article was a real

eye opener to me. Many kids earn praise that

is undeserved. This is bad in many ways for

kids, because they will always believe that they

are right no matter what. We also had to choose

 one quote from the article that made us angry

or mad.

 

Friday- September 6th

 

Today we had a guest visitor, Greshan
Charlton, come to
speak to us about the
scholarships offered for teachers.
The Teaching Fellowship is
worth up to $24,000
(up to $6,000 per year) and
is forgiven by teaching in
a South Carolina public school
for each year funding is awarded.
We greatly appreciated her for
helping us learn about this great Fellowship
scholarship. Also we learned about
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Mrs. Charlton

 “Education is the most powerful weapon

 which you can use to change the world.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

 









August the 21st through the 23rd
During the first week of school, we did icebreakers to find out more about each other. The ice breakers were the six word poems, the inside outside circle, and the activity where we had to line up in a certain order based on shoe size, birthday etc. without talking. The six word poem was where we could only use six words to describe ourselves and we had to guess who's was who's. The activity where we had to line up without talking, showed us how it would be if we were deaf and had to use "sign language" or communicate to others that didn't know sign language.

My six word poem

Monday the 26th
We assigned our name tags that we decorated above the six word  poem they completed. The person that guessed the most correctly got a prize. We also did an activity where we were assigned a crayon, but we couldn't share the crayon or use another person's. The thing we had to draw was our vision of a teacher with some words that describe it. We presented our teachers to the front of the class and then we read The Crayon Box That Talked.


My group making our teacher



Tuesday the 27th
We played a game called Human Bingo where we had to go around and ask questions without asking the same person twice. Also we did an activity where we had to change 5 things about our appearance and our partner had to guess what we changed. Then Mrs. Turner, told us to change five more things and finally ten things. This showed us how difficult change is and how overwhelming it can be. Then we read the book Wings of change that deals with children having to go through change.

My Human Bingo card

The book Wings of change

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Wednesday through Friday the 28th-30th
On these days we did a craft in response to the book  Wings of Change. We made our own butterflies and got to decorate them however we wanted to. On our butterflies, there were certain questions the we answered and glued onto the wings of our butterfly. The questions were "If I were guaranteed success I would...", "I strongly believe that...", "I _______ very well", and "My source of strength is..." We worked on these until Friday and then presented our butterflies to the class and read our answers to the questions.

My butterfly

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

Albert Einstein