EC Tutor Talent Show

Today all of the Elmira College student tutors performed a talent show for the students that we have been tutoring the past few months since today was the last time we will be seeing the students. I had a blast! According to my professors (and I agree with what they said), I demonstrated to myself and the people watching that I have what it takes to be a teacher who take risks, has fun, and engages students.  It is okay to show students that teachers can have fun too and be silly which is exactly what we all did in the talent show today. I got to tap dance to the YMCA for students as well as perform in a re-creation of a Richard Simmons workout video. I used to be afraid to go on stage and wondered what others thought of me, but today as I was performing for the students I was not nervous at all. I was excited to see their reactions to our sillyness. I hope they had as much fun watching the talent show as I had performing in it. I will truly miss working with these students each week. Watching the students that I worked with each week, for  literacy groups, develop into better readers and writers has been the most rewarding outcome of this experience for me. I have learned so much about myself as a future educator from this experience and I intend to bring what I have learned from this experience with me into my future classroom.

Something Different at Math Enrichment

For our last week with the students at the Math Enrichment program we did centers instead of individual math lessons. Some of the centers were math focused and others were science focused. My center was science based. The students did an activity that involved an M&M and hot water and they had to make a prediction of what they thought would happen if the M&M was placed in the hot water. Most of the students were good at guessing the water would change to the color of the M&M and that the candy would start to crack and dissolve. However, what the students did not expect to happen was the M on the M&M candy peels off and floats to the top of the water. This is a neat, quick, and easy science activity I found in the Kappa Delta Pi magazine. This activity can be done with students of all different ages. I think the students in the Math Enrichment program enjoyed doing something other than math for a change. I certainly had fun teaching my first science lesson.

Since this was the last time I would be working with my student, I had her complete an evaluation of me so that I could see what she liked and what she did not like. I had my student answer fifteen questions about  my teaching abilities on a scale of 1 to 5. On one of the questions I asked my student "Would you hire Miss Chipman (me) as a teacher?" and she was supposed to circle a number one through five with one being definitely not and five being YES! To answer this question, my student wrote in additional numbers six through ten and circled the number ten. This touched my heart in so many ways. I could tell by her responses that she thoroughly enjoyed the experience of coming to the Math Enrichment program and I certainly enjoyed working with her each week.

Literacy workshops are coming to an end

Today was my last individual session with my literacy group. I have had an amazing experience working with these children. I was scared at first to work with fifth graders and in a high needs school but I have gained nothing but positive outcomes from this experience. If I had the chance to continue working with the students I most certainly would.

I had the students fill out a teacher evaluation for me today and I got nothing but positive responses on that. I asked the students various questions and asked them to write yes or no in response to the question. The questions were all about my performance as a teacher and I asked the students to explain why if they wrote no because that means I had not done something well.  It turned out that none of the students responded no to any of the questions. That means, they must have felt that I did a decent job over the past few months. The only negative responses that I got on the teacher evaluation was when I asked the students to write one thing they would change about the college tutor experience. At first all the students in my group were like "There is nothing we would change because we liked it so much" and then someone said "I wish it was longer." This gave all the other students the idea to write the same thing. I asked the students to clarify what they meant by longer and they said they wished the college students came into their classroom more often meaning both more days a week and for longer than an hour and fifteen minutes each week. I got the impressions based on the students' responses to the teacher evaluations that they have really enjoyed this experience and I am glad because I am partly responsible for that and I have enjoyed the experience also.

My actual lesson today went well. I taught the students in my group about facts versus opinions. We watched two infomercials on YouTube and then discussed common characteristics in an infomercial. Then I asked students to say a fact and opinion that they heard in the infomercial. The next task was to create an infomercial as a group that is trying to sell a green marker. That was really funny. The uses that the students were coming up with for the green marker was making me laugh. Then once we finished the green marker infomercial I had students create their own individual infomercials.

For the individual infomercials I asked students to draw a random object out of a bag and then try to sell it using the characteristics of infomercials that we discussed as well as making sure to say some facts and opinions about the object. I challenged the students to come up with a use for their object other than its actual purpose. For example I said if they drew a shoe out of the bag they could not create an infomercial about a shoe. This was a challenging task for the students and I am not sure if it was because my directions were not clear or they were not able to think creatively, but most of the students created an infomercial about the real object such as a deck of cards. They were successful at saying at least three facts and three opinions about their object in their infomercial though which was good because that is what I was actually assessing.

Next week we have a talent show planned for the students to see but they do not know (at least my group does not). Today my group wanted me to tell them what is planned for next week and if it was small group or whole group activities and I said a little bit of both. I cannot wait to see their expressions and hopefully excitement as us teachers get silly and perform on stage. It is going to be a great time. I am sad that next week truly will be the last week though. I have a had a great time working with these students and getting to know them as individuals and I have a feeling I am going to miss them.

How Tall We Are

Tonight I did a lesson with my student about measurement. I taught my student the importance of using a ruler or yardstick to actually measure things as opposed to just using our eyes to estimate how big or small things are because there are a lot of illusions in the world and we may think something is one size but really it is completely different.

To introduce this concept to my student, I showed her some optical illusion pictures and asked her which image she thought was bigger. In reality all the pictures were the same size but due to the illusion one looked bigger than the other. My student told me she had never heard of an optical illusion before so she was really interested to learn that the images were all the same size even thought they did not appear to be. I was impressed with a strategy my student came up with to determine if one picture was bigger than the other. I had told her she could not use a ruler or yardstick to determine which image was bigger, smaller or the same size so instead, she used her fingers as a method to measure things. She finger measured the length of one image and then kept that same position of her fingers and measured the next object and discovered they were in fact the same size.

My favorite part of the lesson, and based on my student's reaction I think it was her favorite part of the lesson too, was tracing each other's full body onto paper. I traced her and she traced me. Then for the rest of the lesson I told her she was responsible for my body tracing and I was responsible for her body tracing. We then took turns guessing the lengths of each other's various body parts such as a leg or foot and then actually measured them. It was obvious by looking at the tracings that we were not actually as tall as we had traced each other so we decided to measure our real heights. The funny thing was either I measured her wrong or she measured me wrong because based on our measurements we are only an inch apart in heights. I really hope this is not the case because she is a fourth grader and I am a full grown woman. She even looked at me and said something can't be right because you are at least a ruler taller than me meaning I was a foot taller than her height.

To conclude the lesson we each colored in our figures of each other. My intention for the closure activity of my lesson was to have each of us draw actual sized body parts into our figure based on the measurements we had found earlier in the lesson. However, I forgot to mention that and we both just began coloring. The thing that surprised me was my student was like can I use a ruler to draw your hair the actual length it is (which is 22 inches by the way, I informed my student I am growing it out to donate it) and this made me remember that was my original intention in the first place so of course she could use a ruler to draw body parts on the tracing of me.

At the end of the night when it was time for the student to leave she asked me if she could take the tracing of herself home to show her family. I told her of course and then let her keep some extra blank paper so that she could trace more things if she wanted to and then measure them to see how big they are. I suggested measuring one of her parents or her brother and maybe even a cat or dog. She seemed to like those ideas. I'll be curious to find out next week whether or not she actually measured something.

My student told me tonight she was sad to hear that next week is going to be our last week of Math Enrichment. This must mean she has enjoyed the experience. I know I certainly have enjoyed the experience of planning different math lessons and working with my student each week.

I'm going to be a great teacher

The reason I titled this post, "I'm going to be a great teacher" is not because I am cocky but because that is something the students in my literacy group said to me today and it really brightened my day. Although I do not want to sound cocky in saying this, I do see myself making a great teacher someday because I am dedicated to making a difference and helping the student's learn. Just in these past few months that I have been creating lesson plans and working with students in the elementary schools, I have seen myself grow in my ability to create engaging and educational lesson plans. I really enjoy what I am doing and I feel as though it is evident when I do my lessons each week with the students. I am having just as much fun teaching them the lessons as the students are having learning them. That is a sign that I am going to make a great teacher.

For this week, I did a lesson on the how-to genre. The students were familiar with ways we use the how-to genre (such as to give directions) but never realized the purpose of the how-to genre. I started out by asking my students if they had ever made or eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before. They all quickly responded yes. I then gave them different sentences that were about making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and asked them to put the sentences in order. This was to introduce students to the concept that when telling someone how to do something it is important to have steps and the steps should be in order.

I then told students I was going to give them a book to read and they had to make mental observations of what they saw in their books. The books were not reading books though, they were instruction manuals. The students laughed at this first and were like "these are not books." However, once I asked them what I had given them to read, students identified them as instruction manuals and I informed them that instruction manuals are part of the how-to genre so they are in fact books even though they are not the typical reading books. I asked the students to create a list, as a group, of some of the common characteristics they noticed in their how-to guides (instruction manuals). They did surprisingly well  with this. I thought for sure I would have to help guide them in coming up with characteristics but they were able to identify the fact that for the how-to genre it is important to number things, put things in order, and list the necessary materials, tools, or ingredients in order to do something.

The next part of the lesson was my favorite. It involved oreos. Each child got to show how they eat an oreo and the rest of us watched and made observations. Then as a group we created a generalized guide on "how to eat an oreo." It was funny to see how everyone eats theirs a little bit differently. For this part of the lesson though I made the group come up with only one way to eat an oreo. The students in my group were excited to see how I ate my oreo. They were surprised to see I do not dip mine in milk. In fact I never have before.

The most important part of this lesson was having students create their own "how to eat an oreo" guide. So I gave each student another oreo and had them create oreo books that listed the instructions on how to eat an oreo. They did really well with this task too and seemed really engaged in this lesson.

I can remember at the beginning when I first met my students they disliked doing anything that involved writing assignments. However, now they do not even realize they are doing writing activities when they are because they are so engaged in the lesson. Like today for example, I had the students write instructions on how to eat an oreo in their oreo books which required writing sentences but they did not even realize it was a writing assignment that I was having them doing.

One last thing I did in this lesson was have students swap oreo books and try someone else's method of eating an oreo. Even I tried a student's method and it required me to dip my oreo in milk (something I had never done before) and must say it was quite delicious. I myself thoroughly enjoyed this lesson along with my students.

For the past two weeks, the students and  I have been reading  Hatchet by Gary Paulsen aloud. We do not have very much of the book read so I have chosen to purchase a copy of the book to give to each student once  literacy groups are over. Today they asked if they get to keep the copy of the book they were reading, and I thought to myself "how perfect that they will be receiving their own copy and can finish the book on their own time." One of my students expressed to me today that she wished she could read ahead and find out what is going to happen but does not have a copy of the book. This gives her something to look forward to each week because she knows we will be reading more and finding out what happens.

I am sad to think that this experience is almost over and I will no longer get to spend time with these students. I have enjoyed watching them grow as learners and myself grow as their teacher. I used to say for sure I wanted to teach first grade but now after working with these fifth graders I am starting to consider the idea of teaching older students instead. Honestly though I will be quite content teaching any grade as long as I can make a difference in the students' lives.

Centers

I had a great time today working with the fifth graders. For this week's literacy workshop my collaborative group decided to try centers with our students and I would say they were a success. Each one of  us college students did a different topic for our center and our assigned literacy groups rotated through the different centers. I am glad we got to experience doing centers with students because it allowed me to get to know the other students who are not in my literacy group. Although doing centers this week was a positive experience for the three of us college students as well as the fifth grade students, we have decided that for the remaining weeks we will continue doing what we have done previous weeks which is working with our individual groups for the entire time.

My center today focused on the importance of detail. To introduce students to the importance of detail I read them two fake advertisements for cars that are for sale and then had them say which car they would buy and why. The catch was that one car sounded really nice but was a short description and the other car was older but the advertisement had a lot of detail. It turns out that the newer car had been in an accident but the advertisement did not say that. The students who said they would buy the newer car with less details were "mad" when I informed them that the car they just bought does not actually run. This quickly helped students realize the importance of detail.

The next part of my lesson required students to create a character that is an animal and write a detailed description of this character. I gave each student three minutes to do this. Before they started this, I reminded them the importance of including as much detail as possible because for the next part of the lesson someone else would be drawing the character they created based on what they write for a description. They got really interested in the lesson when they found out they would get to draw a picture. Art is something I know my literacy group mentioned they enjoy doing the first week I met them but it is something they do not get ot do a lot of in the fifth grade classroom.

Once the three minutes were up and students had written their descriptions, I collected the papers and distributed them to someone different. The students then read the description of the animal character they were given and then had to draw exactly what the description said. I told the students they could not add any details to their pictures that were not included in the description. For example, I told the students if the description they were given did not mention anything about a head then they could not draw a head on their animal. Also, if no colors were mentioned in the description, the student could only draw with a pencil. They laughed at this at first but then found it frustrating as they were tying to draw their characters and realized that the person who wrote the description had not included enough detail. This was the purpose of the lesson, to help the students realize why having details is important.

To wrap up my lesson, I had each student read the description they were given and then show the picture of the character they drew to see if what they drew matched only what the description had said. It was funny to hear students who actually wrote the description say "that's not how my character was supposed to look." I informed them that they had not included enough detail to help the drawer realize what the character was supposed to look like.

The centers today took longer than we had originally planned in our agendas. We had thought fifteen minutes would be enough time at each center but we ended up spending at least 20 minutes at each center. This meant we had less time at the end of the morning to do an activity with our individual group. However, I think it is good that we allowed the extra time at each center so that the students were fully able to do everything we had planned at each center. One thing I found to be difficult about doing centers is that not every group finished at the same time. My center always finished before the others did so I was left with the students waiting to move onto another group. It allowed for some extra discussion on our pictures that we created but it would have been an appropriate time to move onto a new group instead.

I liked doing my center with my literacy group the best, as opposed to with the other groups, because I think they were the most successful in following directions. I believe the reason they were best at following directions correctly is that they are my group and are familiar with my teaching style and how I give directions whereas the other two groups might not have understood my directions as clearly because they have never worked with me before.

I am very pleased with the outcomes of today's lesson and I think all the students along with myself enjoyed doing it. I even participated in today's lesson by creating a description of a character and drawing a picture of someone else's character with the students each time. This lesson is definitely something I will consider using in my future classroom.

Math Enrichment Lesson with Manipulative Resources

This week I did a lesson with my student on perimeters of various polygons. To help my student understand how to find perimeters of polygons I had her use a geoboard to create different polygons. We focused on triangles, squares, and rectangles.

I asked my student if she had ever used a geoboard before. She said no and seemed really excited to get to use rubber bands to create various shapes on the geoboard. I remember my student saying a while back that she does not use manipulative resources in her classroom. That could explain why she had never seen a geoboard before. I find it very valuable to use manipulative resources when teaching lessons because it helps students understand what they are learning better. Manipulative resources, especially in mathematics courses, allow students to actually see what they are learning or trying to demonstrate as opposed to just reading or writing about it. Each week I plan to use some sort of manipulative resource with my lesson that I am teaching so that the lesson is more hands on for my student and she will get the chance to use the resources that she does not have or get to use in her classroom.

This week my student gave me a suggestion on how to be a better teacher and it made me laugh. I had given her multiple sheets of dot paper so that she could sketch each polygon that she created on the geoboard onto paper. I had given her a separate piece of paper for each polygon that she created. She told me instead of doing that I should have saved paper and just had her draw multiple images on the same piece of paper. She said it would make it easier for me to grade too. That made me laugh! I will definitely keep her suggestion in mind when I do future activities that require paper.

One thing I realized this week is you do not always have to stick exactly to your lesson plan if something better comes to mind or there is a teachable moment as you are teaching your lesson. This happened in my lesson plan this week. My original closure activity was to have the student find an object around the classroom that was a polygon and then estimate what the new image would like if that object was stretched or shrunk and then we would measure the perimeter of that object. Instead of doing this, I noticed my student wanted to create her own polygon on the geoboard (a very unusual shape) and then determine the perimeter of that. I thought this would be a great way to wrap up the lesson and allow her to show me what she had learned. So I had the student create some sort of polygon on the geoboard, determine the perimeter, and then change the polygon in some way so that she could determine a new perimeter. This was a successful closure to the lesson and I could tell she really enjoyed using the rubber bands to create polygons on the geoboard.

I am looking forward to working with my student again next week and doing a lesson that involves using a different manipulative resource.