3.4 Elementary Observations

The past two weeks I have had the wonderful opportunity to observe at Southside Elementary School, in Mrs.Westbrooks Kindergarten class. Observing a kindergarten class was so much fun I really enjoyed seeing all of Mrs.Westbrooks teaching methods I have learned about, just haven't seen them in action quite yet. I have never really considered teaching kindergarten in the past before, but after I observed this class, my perspective changed, to possibly teaching kindergarten one day.

Mrs. Westbrook did an amazing job with group work within her classroom. The both times that I was in this class I noticed that Mrs.Westbrook is very good at this teaching style. The students were going over phonics, which are letters, letter sounds, and the "th-", "ch-", and "wh-". The teacher played a game with the students using flashcards to practice quickly recognizing these things. All of the students were involved and paying attention to Mrs.Westbrook. One of the other things I took away was Mrs.Westbrooks classroom management skills. When I arrived to observe the class the students were at centers or stations, Mrs. Westbrook had a timer set to let students know when to switch centers. Without saying a word to the students, the timer would go off and the students would clean-up and go to the next center. When the final timer went off the clean-up song started playing which singled the kids to clean-up. All of the students participated in singing the song, cleaning-up, and being on the carpet ready to go when the timer went off. 

My greatest take away from observing this class was definitely having very good classroom management skills for my own class one day. It was so cool to see how well these students knew the classroom norms and what exactly Mrs.Westbrook was expecting from them. It is amazing that kids at such a young age know how to follow the rules that are set at the beginning of the year. I only hope that one day that when I become a teacher my students understand the norms and what I expect from them. 

In conclusion, I had so much fun observing this class. Mrs.Westbrook had an amazing classroom layout for her students and it worked really well for that class. The classroom was how you would expect a kindergarten classroom to be, which is fun, colorful, and inviting. I may have not wanted to be a kindergarten teacher before I observed this class, but my perspective has changed. Who knows kindergarten may be what I end up teaching in the future. 

3.3 Preschool Observation

On February 12th, the Education Technology class went down to the Preschool, to observe the teachers. On this day I was not able to go and observe at the Preschool, due to prior commitments. At my school I'm involved in the Student Council, and every year for Valentine's Day we make candy deliveries to every campus. This fundraiser was an all day event so I was not able to observe. I plan on making up this observation some time in the near future. 

3.2 100th Day of School

 In my Education Technology, we are going over the 100th day of school. If you have ever attended a public elementary school, you have probably celebrated the 100th day of school. Schools usually celebrate this day by dressing up as 100 year olds, and the day follows with tons of activities involving the number 100. 

    One of my favorite memories from the 100th day of school, was when I was kindergarten. It was the first 100th day of school celebration and I thought it was so cool that I got to dress up as if I was 100 years old. The day was filled with tons of activities involving the number 100, my favorite one was the cup stacking game where you stack 100 cups into a pyramid as fast as you can. 

    In high school people don't really celebrate the 100th day of school, so after looking at different websites I found one called Teacher Lists and gave some great ideas for the 100th day of school. Some of the ideas included writing down 100 acts of kindness, teachers could have the students pass around a paper and each one write down one act of kindness. English teachers for bellwork could have their students write a paragraph or so about what they think the world will be like and 100 years. Lastly art teachers could have the students make art out of the number 100. 

    In conclusion, these are some of the things I enjoyed doing while celebrating the 100th day of school, and here are some ideas on how to celebrate the 100th day of school now. 

Source: TeachLists

3.1 One Word

Positive 

    All throughout 2025, I learned that it is very important to have a positive outlook on life no matter what the circumstances are. There are so many negative things in our world today that it is hard to stay positive, but I tend to notice people who are always positive no matter what. That is the person I aspire to be everyday. So as the new year begins I want to be that person who is always positive, no matter what is happening in the world. Sometimes all a person needs to see is a smile to brighten the day. So lets be positive in our daily lives, give someone a smile that needs one, and be a happy person. 

Pros and Cons to Canva

 Introduction

    Canva has become one of the most popular online design tools. But there have been many debates about if its a good resource or not. But like any tool, Canva comes with post advantages and its disadvantages. Understanding these can help you decide whether it's the right design solution for your needs.

 Pros to Canva

    Canva's biggest advantage is how simple it is. The drag-and-drop options allow users to create a professional looking presentation. It offers thousands of templates for social media, business, school projects, videos, invitations, and plenty more. Also it has the feature to share projects with other people, which allows multiple individuals to work on something together. 

 Cons to Canva 

    Even though the benefits that Canva provides, it has limitations. Many of the templates that look the most professional users have to pay in order to use the template. Some of these templates are more expensive than others, which eventually adds up. Canva is mostly internet-dependent, so users have to have a stable connection in order for it to work effectively. Lastly, certain professional file formats for printing or advanced work are only available for members, and being a member costs money.

 Conclusion

    Canva is an accessible tool that makes graphic design easy for most people. It's user-friendly options, cute templates, and the sharing tool are great to quickly create visually appealing designs. However, for those who are seeking a cost friendly website, Canva has its limitations.  By weighing Canva's pros and cons, you can be the decider if Canva is a good fit for you or not.

 

Mini Teach 2

 Introduction

    The second lesson was that I had the opportunity to teach Mrs. Kiihnl's fourth-grade Literacy class about Nature's Fury, in a National Geographic magazine. Mrs. Kiihnl had provided me with the students' bellwork, and a copy of Nature's Fury.

Lesson Plan Overview 

    When the students came in they began working on bellwork, and after that I went over the answers with the students. Once that was done the students took out Nature's Fury, and I began reading The Eruption of Vesuvius. When I had finished reading, I had the students go back to the text and underline all the vocabulary words for the week. Then we went over the vocabulary words. 

 Changes to the Lesson

    Some of the changes I could've made to my lesson, was the pronunciation of some of the words in the passage. When I was checking over bellwork with the students, I should've read the answers options to the question. I think that if I did this the students would have a better understanding of the questions. 

Conclusion 

    In conclusion, I had a wonderful time teaching this lesson to Mrs. Kiihnl's class. I have started picking up on some changes I can make in the future, in order to become the best teacher I can be. I have loved getting this opportunity to teach a class, even though I'm not their teacher, it was still so much fun.  

Mini Teach 1

 Introduction

    I had the wonderful opportunity to teach Mrs. Kiihnl's fourth-grade Literacy class. While I was teaching I was able to understand a little bit more about classroom management. 

Lesson Plan Overview 

     The lesson I taught was all about Comparative and  Superlative Adjectives. I taught this lesson with two worksheets, one of which was to demonstrate to the class, and the other for the students to work on.I taught this lesson for the last ten to fifteen minutes of the class period.

Changes to the Lesson

    One of the changes that I could've made to the lesson is to give the students clearer directions during the lesson. At some point the students would ask me what to do after they finished the worksheet. One of the other problems I faced was students thought “gooder” was a word. So I had to tell them that the comparative and superlative adjective was better and best for the adjective good, this is another example of when I should've given the students more directions.

Conclusion

    In conclusion, I had a wonderful time teaching Mrs.Kiihnl's 4th grade class. I learned many things during the short amount of time of teaching. I learned that you need to give clear directions for the students to completely understand what is going on during the lesson. Other than that I had a wonderful time teaching my lesson to students.