Lesson 5: History of American Education

For this post we are looking at the history of American education. While considering this topic I looked at my service learning placement. I look at Mrs. Nelsons classroom and see such diversity. Children of different races, from Latin American to Asian to White, come together to learn. In the past few weeks I have done some research on Ruby Bridges and Brown vs. the Board of Education. As I look at my Kindergartners (The same age as Ruby was), it is so difficult for me to see a time with out integrated education. All I see are 40 smiling faces, ready to learn. For this I am grateful for Brown vs. the Board of Education for starting something that led to the wonderfully diverse classroom that I have the opportunity to work with.

Lesson 4: Engaging Learners in Today’s Classrooms

Mrs Nelson Uses many ways to engage her students in the classroom.

Active: Mrs. Nelson has her students do jumping jacks as they count to 100 by 10's, also she has them dance to the "Letter Song" The children watch a video about the Letter of the day and get to have a dance party as they make the sound that the letter makes. Activities like this help get the wiggles out of the students as well as using another way to reinforce the information

Hands-on: When doing math Mrs. Nelson uses block cubes to help students with addition. Instead of just looking at numbers they select how many of each color block they want to combine together and then do the addition sentence using that. This gives the kids another way other than written work to reinforce the difficult concepts of math.

Fun: This is probably what Mrs. Nelson is best at. Whether it be using a weather wizard to choose the weather for the day, or puppets to help the students structure sentences properly, most of the lessons in Mrs. Nelsons class are extremely fun for these Kindergartners.  One of my favorite examples of this was during a story time Mrs. Nelson had me conduct. We read The Mitten by Jan Brett. Instead of just reading the story, each student was given an animal mask that related to a character in the book and when their animal climbed in the mitten that student would climb under a white blanket we used. The students had so much fun with this, especially when it came time for the sneeze. The students scattered all over the reading time mat and laughed and giggled.

One area of Mrs. Nelson's class that is not as engaging is during writing time. Students do get to draw a picture to go along with their sentence or word, but it mostly consists of students sitting and working on their own. Perhaps every once in a while during writing time she could have the students collaborate to come up with a sentence, have each student write that sentence down and then draw a picture together, or create a scene acting out their sentence. This would incorporate Collaboration and Active to create a more engaging writing time.

Lesson 3: Creating Productive Learning Environments.

Mrs. Nelson does an incredible job at setting up her classroom to be a productive learning environment. Students feel safe, loved, as well as have structure for what they will be learning in that class time.

Mrs. Nelson starts every class in the same way which offers consistency to students. These clear routines that are established reinforce what is being learned. First the students gather in their assigned "house" or place on the mat and shoot a figurative arrow at their Learning Targets. Then each student recites,

"I can read and write (Capital Daily Letter, Lowercase Daily Letter) 

(Daily Letter) says (Letter Sound)

I can read (two or three Sight words)

I can (math concept)

After the students finish their learning targets, they decide the weather, recite their shapes, sing the days of the week song, and add a day to their "days of school count down". This routine has been in place each class session, and supports a productive learning environment by adding stability and consistency from day to day. Students come to class knowing what they are going to be doing, despite there being small changes in the words, letters and math problems.

I spoke about this in my last post, but with the daily King or Queen Mrs. Nelson makes her students feel loved, safe, promotes a positive classroom community AND recognizes students skills. When she selects a student she describes to the class what skills they have been exhibiting that she has been impressed with, whether it be how the student treats the others in class, or the way they have been neatly practicing their letters. Then when the student is chosen, a random few students are chosen to say what they love about their classmate. The students eyes always light up when it is time to choose the king or queen, and though at times students are disappointed when they are not selected (typical for 5/6-year-old's), they are always supportive of their friend.

Another way that Mrs. Nelson makes her students feel loved is through her end of the day song. She sings to her class at the end of every day thanking them for learning, and telling them that she "loves them so." the students respond by singing thank you for teaching. I can tell that the students love and appreciate Mrs. Nelson and are grateful for her.