Should Santa be Allowed to Come to School?

In Fort Worth ISD, district officials have just said that Santa and other Hoiday characters can not be in the classroom while the teacher is teaching. They can, however be anywhere else in the school. My field site classroom is doing a lesson on Christmas and is actually doing lessons including an elf. If our district passed that vote, we would no longer be able to teach that. I do no believe that parents would want to take extra time out of their already busy schedules to take their children to a holiday party either early before school or late after school. Maybe if he officials jus set allotted dates where holiday characters could visit, that would solve the problem.

Week 5!

      This week in the classroom I had so much fun! But, while I was out of the classroom, I found a new teaching website. I just LOVE Busy Teachers Cafe. The website looks so colorful and interesting and it is so easy to navigate. It also has free worksheets and printable material! I am so excited about all the different  free worksheets, especially the ones for writing and math which are for every grade!

Week 3!!

This week in the classroom, my teacher decided to let me take a few kids and give them a reading assessment. After I finished that, I got to read them my favorite book from when I was younger. The book I chose was a Miss Spider book. When I finished the book I got to go through and ask them questions about what I read to them. After that they told me that they loved the book and that they loved how much of a faun reader I was. When we finished the math lesson, my teacher decided to take a breather and sit for a few minutes so she told me to go around and help all the kids with what they didn't understand. I loved getting given those leadership opportunities. 

Week 2!!

This week I tried to closely watch a child in my class named Bobby. Bobby is a very talkative child but when I was watching him I noticed that when we do things on the board or we do activities with books or something involving sight, he is really captivated and understands the lesson better. it then clicked in my head that he is a visual learner so after lessons that didn't involve visuals, I would go over to his desk and explain it with visuals. Now in class, he is really succeeding and really grasping the concepts better.

My First Week In The Classroom!

I had so much fun this week in my classroom! The first thing i did was meet a Scooby-Doo loving, 2nd grade teacher. The first day, I got to watch my teacher teach a lesson on adding numbers in different orders. After the lesson i got to go around and show each child a different way to try and look at the lesson that made it click in their mind. After we were done with the math activity, the children got to all ask me questions. I got a range of questions from, favorite food (green beans) to my favorite animal (dog), and even to my favorite school ever (Oklahoma University). When i only had a few minutes left, i walked the children to the office where they kept walking to the picture day.On the second day, we had an activity called pocket day. Pocket Day is where every child counts how many pockets they have and when every kid was done we added them all up and the children would guess how many total pockets there were. Whoever is the closest to the total amount, wins the prize. After pocket day, we all went to the library and the librarian read a story called, Harry and the Terrible Whatzit. The librarian was an amazing example on how to read a book to a child and how to keep their focus and keep them entertained the whole time. I had to leave after i scanned the books the children were going to take with home with them to read. I had so much fun this first week and can not wait until my next week there.

Image Scrimmage

Last week and most of this week, my class did the Image Scrimmage. In the image scrimmage we did activities including, a verbal essay, a "what would you do?", a "how to" demonstration and we read a book to classmates. I believe that these activities really helped everyone get more prepared for the classroom. I know that I need to practice more about reading a book and being more comfortable reading to children slowly and more like a character than a narrator. I also need to work on being prepared ahead of time instead of having to do things last minute. Other than those few details, I know I am ready to be in the classroom!

What Wll Tehnology Look Like in My Classroom

I just finished looking at an infographic of teaching technology from the beggining of teaching. Just thinking about the advances really makes me think about what my classroom is going to look like. I think it will have a smart board, ipads for all students, a mac for me and a pod of computers. I will use the pod for educational games for rewards throughout the week and ipads for interactive learning diagrams or word docs and so on.

Facebook Destroys Brains?

I just finished reading an article called "What Facebook Does to Kids' Brains".  I would like to say that I agree with all of the positives and only a few of the negatives such as, it being addictive, Facebook can make children depressed, and that it is distracting. To read it for yourself you can visit the URL: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/what-facebook-does-kids-brains/40973/#.TmTHQo33SKY.facebook

Hi!

Hello, my name is Aly Dunn. Welcome to my blog! I hope you enjoy reading about my experiences with my classroom for education and training.