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.