My Field III experience

I have really enjoyed my time in Field III. It has been my favorite field experience, and I believe that I took away so much knowledge about how to manage the classroom, and I learned about the importance of learning about your students' families and how to incorporate them into the classroom environment. At the beginning of the semester, I was very nervous about going to do the home visit. However, my whole attitude about it was changed after we went to visit our child's parents. I found the home visit to be the best way to get to know more about the child. I learned more than I thought I would about the child just through this visit. I know that as a teacher, I will be sure to make home visits to each of my students families.
Another think that I learned in Field II was about how important it is to stay in touch with the families of your students throughout the school year. It can be through email, or a simple phone call, or through an informal conference if a formal one cannot be scheduled. It is important to let the families know about the child's progress,whether positive or negative, throughout the year. This way, you can work with the families to help the child be as successful as they can be.

Last Day at SES

I have to say that this field experience class was my absolute favorite one. I loved being at Summerville Elementary, and I believe that I learned a great deal from my cooperating teacher and her students. I will take away with me many ideas from her classroom that I will use in mine. I was amazed to see how well the setup of her classroom corresponded with the lessons I saw her teach. For instance, I remember one time when she was teaching a lesson on patterns and she used the pattern that she had created in the class calender to show how patterns can be made. There was just so much thought that I think she really put into how she set up her room before school even started. I think that as a teacher, I will also try to think about how to set up my room so that it correlates with some of the lessons that I will plan to teach throughout the school year.
Throughout the semester we have talked in great leangth about the importance of connecting with your studen ts and their families. I definitly think that Ms. Patte has done a great job with getting to know her students and getting to know their families. I have heard her talk about regularly calling the students parents to talk about both good and bad things. Grant and Ray spoke about how informal conferences like these can be easily done through a phone chat or email if it is easier for the parent. Ms. Patte always seems to be well aware of what is going on in her students home lives which makes me think that she has spent a lot of time getting to know her student's families.
I was amazed to see how much the students' writing skills had improved by the last day we were in the classroom. It was remarkable to see how most of them had gone from not being able to write a full word, to now being able to write complete sentences!!
I have really really enjoyed my experience in the kindergarten class this semester. I hope to continue to stay in touch with Ms. Patte as she is a great resource to have.

Family Information Centers and Family Resource Centers

I really enjoyed reading Chapter 15 in Grant and Ray. This chapter was about how to get family members to volunteer in the classroom. One thing that I learned about family volunteers is that it is important to include families who are bilingual in the volunteer program. These family members can play a vital role in helping other students' families who may not speak English stay connected with what is happening in the classroom. In Ms. Patte's classroom, I have not seen many volunteers coming into the classroom during the school day. However, they may be volunteering in some way outside of the classroom. Grant and Ray also spoke about how it is important to include opportunities for families to volunteer outside of the classroom as their schedules may not permit them to volunteer during the school day.
Grant and Ray also wrote about the importance of forming Family Information Centers (FIC) within the classroom. These are small centers that the teacher can set up for families to come by and get information about what the class is doing, and what future events the clas will be participationg in. These centers are a great way for families to stay informed with what is going on in their child's clasroom. One way that a center can be set up is by having bulletin board set up outside the classroom where parents and other family members can drop by and pick up information on theis child's class. I believe this is what Ms. Patte has set up outside of her classroom.
Family Resource Centers (FRC) are set up somewhere in the school. These centers have school staff on hand who can sit down with families and answer their questions. They can be set up in spare classrooms. They also require funding. Parents and family members can stop by these centers to get information on the school, social services, and other helpful resource information. I am sure that SES has one but I am not sure where it is located.

Being an Asset-based and Family centered teacher

Chapeter 13 of Grant and Ray's text focused on the teachers role as a resource and advocate to their students families. The text talked about the difference of being an asset based teacher and a family centered one. I think that it is very important to be both, but I really liked how they spoke about the importance of being and asset- based teacher. Asset based teachers are those who focus a lot on the good qualities that the students have and the areas that are strong in. They do not ignore the areas the students may be weak in, but they focus on the positives so that this positive energy helps students find confidence in their ability to do things well. The confidence that these students gain allow them to be more confident in trying to work on the areas they are weak in. I think that a lot of the time is spent in the classroom on focusing on where a students weaknesses lie, but I believe that a lot of progress can be made in those areas if the teacher focuses a lot of time on the students areas of strength.
It is also important to be a family centered teacher, because when you are one you are sensitive to the families needs. You respect where their problems may lie and you try to work with them. A resourceful teacher is one that combines both the asset based and family centered approach to their technique for helping families.

The importance of forming relationships with families

I really enjoyed chapter 11 in the Grant and Ray book because it talked a lot about the importance of forming a relationship with the families of the students you teach. As a teacher, it is so important to keep in touch with your students' families. Teachers need to continuously update families on their child's progress within the classroom. At times, it may not be easy to meet with families for a formal conference, so informal conferences such as a quick chat with the mom or dad as they drop off or pick up their child from school are still very helpful. Also, a conversation through email may work almost as well as a face to face conversation if parents have a hard time getting off wrok to meet for a formal conference. If a formal conference can be held however, it is important that the teacher have documents to show of the students work that can help the teacher provide families with evidence of the students progress, or lack of progression. Another great way to keep in touch with families is to regulary make home phone calls.Reasons for making phone calls to students families need to be for both positive and negative reasons. I know that Ms. Patte makes phone calls to her students' parents to let them know that their child ate all of hi/her veggies at lunch. So, it is important to keep in contact with students' families on a regular basis in order to ensure that the students will have the greatest amount of succes both inside and outside of the classroom.

My Final lesson in Kindergarten

The third lesson I taught was a writing lesson about using complete sentences when writing. The students had been reviewing throughout the week about what words need to be resent in a sentence to make it complete. In my lesson, we learned that a complete sentence has 2 components. 1) The sentence must include a who or what word, such as "I." 2) The sentence must also include an action word which tells what is happening in the sentence, such at "playing." The students learned that they must use these words in the sentences they write in oreder for their sentences to make sense. I opened my lesson by putting some examples on the board of sentences that were complete, and sentences that were not complete. I found that most of the students were able to identify which sentences were complete and which were not. We then moved onto our journal writing in which I told a story about my plans for Halloween and drew a picture and wrote a complete sentence in the teacher's journal for all the students to see. I made sure to point out that I had used a who/what word as well as an action word in my snetence in order to make the sentence I wrote complete. After giving the students time to work iin their own journals, I was pleased to see that most of them used complete sentences in their writing! For those who struggled with doing so, I spent extra time with them trying to help them come up with a complete sentence in their journals. Throughout the readings that we have done, I have continuously noticed that all of the texts mention how important it is to scaffold your lesson so that all learning styles can be reached. It is utterly important for teachers to do this in order to help each child understand the concepts that are taught to them.

How to handle abuse and neglect

Chapter 9 of Grant and Ray's text talks about how teachers should deal with students in their classroom who are being effected by abuse and neglect within their homes. This issue is a very serious problem that teachers must be aware of and always be alert to. Teachers have the responsibility of reporting abuse if they suspect that it may be happening tpo one of their students. It is a crime not to report it. Grant and Ray also talked about using corporal punishment within the classroom. They said that teachers need to think about whether or not it is ethical to strike someone else's child. I personally do not agree with it, even if it is legal to do. I think that there are better ways to deal with discipline issues than using corporal punishment. Grant and Ray quoted the NAEYC's code of Ethical Conduct and Satatement of Commitment which says, "Above all, we shall not harm children. We shall not participate in practices that are emotionally damaging, physically harmful, disrespectful, degrading, dangerous, exploitative, or intimidating to children. This principle has precedence above all others in this code." I think this statement clearly defines why we should not use corporal punishment to discipline children. I have never seen a teacher use it in any classroom that I have been in, nor was it ever used on any of my classmates. I know that I will never use it in my own classroom.