Last Day of Student Teaching

Sadly it is the last day of student teaching. It is such a bittersweet feeling. I feel excited that I had this opportunity to work in such a fantastic district where I felt I learned and grew SO much! I learned how to personalize learning, meet the needs of all of my students, how to be firm, strict, being consistent, I learned how to be creative with my lessons, learned community circles and how to build a community in my classroom. I truly could go on and on!!! I had such an incredible experience and built strong relationships with my students. I really loved each and every student so saying goodbye was the hardest thing :( I was definitely very sad, hugging each of them made me tear up. But like I said I had a GREAT experience and learned SO much! :) I feel this experience has prepared me and made me into a stronger and more confident educator :) I cannot wait for my own classroom someday :) 

Warm Up Questions and Tribes

Each and every morning I create a questions for my students to write down in their notebook. At this same time I check assignment notebooks for signatures and notes from parents. 

I found this activity while reading my cooperating teachers book about tribes and building a community. Each morning I find a question that all students should be able to share (my students LOVE this). It is a GREAT way for students to connect with one another and learn that we all have things in common yet were all unique. Or it is another great way to learn something new about someone in class. I do questions like "What do you like to do when it rains?" "I am bigger than?" "I am smaller than?" "My favorite place is....." and so on. You can be very creative and again students love these activities :) 

Timelines of the Civil War

Recently doing Inquiry we have been focusing on timelines. Talking about how timelines can be used for a persons life span, wars, specific battles, certain eras, a presidency etc. We created as a whole group a big timeline of my life. This was very fun for students to make events in my life, they thought it was funny and made up I would have 12 kids but, this was memorable and they did understand.

Then we did a timeline in groups for the Civil War. For when it first started and when it ended.
I used sticky tape and made loops and connected them to show that the timeline is a sequence of events that happens. Then on the loops I tried to make the loops even when I  spaced the dates out. Then i hung the events from a piece of string to show where they fell on the timeline. Students in small groups collaborated together and put the same dates in order. Then after each group put the dates in order we discussed as a group and put my sticky tape timeline together! We then discussed some of the events and why they would be on the timeline and why they are important!

After we practiced timelines and discussed what they are used for I had each person choose a person during the civil war, it could be Abraham Lincoln, Stonewall Jackson, a slave, a union solider, plantation owner and so on. The person my students were choosing would then be used for our final project which is creating a book from the perspective of that person. So students choose their person and began researching them and creating a timeline. Once students created a hard copy of their timeline we then created a virtual timeline on the website timetoast.com Timetoast is so great because you can research about any timeline because people make timelines and then make them public, but you could also create a timeline. So my stuents created their own timeline of the person. I wanted them to know how to draw the line and space out the dates so I had them do a hard copy then get the practice with timetoast. Once everyone finished their timelines on timetoast we presented them to the class to share information about each person. This was such a GREAT learning experience for students! :)

Book Club Groups

This is something that is so unique and different BUT so beneficial to students! I love it! 

So Book Club Groups is similar to doing Lit Circles but, instead of the teacher running the groups and assigning discussions and assignments, the students are the leaders. For weeks my teacher and I worked with groups and modeled good discussions and when to stop and discuss or vocabulary to pay attention to. Then after modeling this behavior for so long we started transitioning students into holding discussions and the teachers sitting back and observing. We still participated and lead some discussion but, not the whole thing. We choose a leader and the leader lead discussions, keeps students on task, helps with finding readings and helps assign work. 

Here are examples of the names my students use for the Book Club Groups.... the names needed to relate to reading or the books were reading. 

Compare and Contrast of the Civil War

I taught my students about compare and contrast. This was an easy concept for them to learn because we have already done SO much of this. 

This time we compared The North and The South during the Civil War. I wanted my students to compare the two so then it will help understand the differences and some of the causes of the war. 

I gave students different articles and books to look at to help compare and learn about the two sides. Then they filled out their own charts. After they filled out their own charts we came together as a group to fill out a group chart, that way we could discuss each idea and sort out any misconceptions. 

Important people during the Civil War

I always like to build off of each of my lessons and have them connect with one another. So a week ago we did our mapping of the United States during 1861. Then I decided we should learn about important people and how they affected the war and where they came from. 

I took the map I created and then printed off pictures of people that affected the civil war minus Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth, those are still coming ;) I then used ribbon to show which state each person is from. Then I sat with my students and had a discussion about how where they came from affected their mind side and what side they would side with. I have 28 students so I rounded and divided students into groups of about 5. In their groups students researched the person using books from the inquiry cart and the computer. Then as a group and colloborating with one another they wrote up a small report to present to the class and teach the class about the person! This was such a fun lesson and to let students have the opportunity to work with one another and learn how to research on their own :) my students really enjoyed doing this lesson :) 

More Civil War Inquiry

The best part about inquiry is the freedom students get with their learning. Yes this is a challenge to keep students on task and to not abuse this freedom but, most of my students love the freedom and learn so much more! One of my students wrote me a little report on the Civil War after watching a clip from MOODLE about the Civil War. She was so proud of her work (as she should be) and presented it to the class and informed them about the new things she learned :) 

I love seeing students so excited about learning! I loved her little report and had to share it with everyone :)