09/15/2014

During this classroom time I was able to work with the students during their small groups.  There were 4 groups reading, writing, math and alphabet.  I worked with the students that were working on the alphabet group.  The teacher had the alphabet written on strips of papers and then had all of the students names printed on small strips of papers that she cut out.  The students would take the names and put them under the letter that the name started with.  So if it was Riley they would put it under the Rr.  Of course the first thing each student wanted to do was find their own name and put it where it was supposed to go.  Once they did that they really got into finding the letter to match.  A few of the students were a little disappointed that they didn't have a name for every letter of the alphabet but soon realized they could figure out other words that would fit.  Once all the names were placed they started to to look at the letters with no names and would try to figure out words that started with those letters.

I really liked this activity.  It not only reinforced the learning of letters and sounds but the kids really did show that they could think outside the box.  Once the names were gone they came up with their own sort of game to continue in their learning.  They would think of words and really sound them out and figure out what letter they were using and how it matched up with the letters in the alphabet.  This was a great learning activity that helped me see that sometimes the students don't even realize they are learning because they are having fun.

9/12/2014

     Today I observed a kindergarten class at Vineyard Elementary in Orem.  There were about 20 kids in the class, which I would think would be hard to handle at times.  The teacher was very good at keeping their interest and attention during her morning opening activities.  They went over the days of week, date and months of the year to different songs and the kids were very engaged.  She allowed children to come up and help her at times so they weren't just sitting. 
     Then they did center time.  This really made me think about what we have been learning with different styles of learning.  There were listening center's, writing center's and reading center's with the teacher.  I could see that in each center it really did cater to a different type of learner.  In the listening center they listened to an audio book which would be auditory.  In writing they would actually pick popcicle sticks out of a cup and write the letter and that was more of a hands on approach.  I really enjoyed seeing these students do these different activities and actually realize why the teacher had chosen them.  I noticed that some children were more focused in some center's than others and that just reenforced the fact that not everyone learns in the same style.