First Day at Aldo

Today was my first day at Aldo. I was there from 9:15-10:45 with Amy. When we got there, the students were all on the reading carpet ready to listen to a story. Some of the students were getting antsy and some were sitting there quietly waiting. Melisa was talking to another teacher and so when we walked in she asked Amy to read the story to the kids. The book was called The Napping House Wakes Up. The students were talking while she was reading but most of the time they were talking about the story with each other or shouting out things for Amy to hear. There were parts of the book where you could pull a little "trigger" and something would move or make noise in the book. The students were very into telling Amy when she should pull them! After the story, Melisa talked about synonyms for sleeping. She didn't tell the students they were called synonyms but she did ask them, "What are some other words for sleeping that we have talked about?" There were a few kids who remembered what they were and some of the students had no idea or didn't want to answer. After this, Melisa talked to the students about their -ing words and how when words ended in -ing it meant they were action words and therefore verbs. The students were supposed to work on their -ing words in their centers.

After reading, the students had center time. I worked with students at the whiteboard and magnets center. They had to use the magnets on the whiteboards to spell out words ending in -ing. This was where I could see a huge difference between the students capability levels. Some of the students were able to come up with words on their own and spell them out perfectly without any help. Other students could think of the words and knew they ended in -ing but needed some guidance on spelling the beginning of the word. There were also students who didn't even seem to understand the concept of the -ing words and couldn't think of any and definitely needed help spelling them out. I tried to sound out examples of -ing words to get the students thinking and still on their own but with some guidance. It was very interesting to see the different levels of development at this center. Not only were there differences in the academic part, but also in the social aspects. Some of the students were very polite and listened to me and behaved correctly in their center and others had no respect for me and definitely wouldn't listen. I wouldn't expect them to have respect for me on the first day they met me, but it was hard to try and get them engaged in the activity since they didn't even know me!

After centers it was snack time. The snack was goldfish and the students seemed very happy about this! Some of the students just started chowing down! Others took the time to sort their goldfish by colors and one table even had a mini discussion about more and less goldfish in the different color categories. I was listening to their conversation because nobody had suggested that they sort them and then talk about which colors have more or less fish, but they took it upon themselves and discussed it among the four of them. Some of the students finished up their snack and then headed back to the carpet like they were asked. There was one girl who was sort of daydreaming and taking her time eating and then Melisa told her that snack time was over and she needed to throw the rest away. Instead of throwing them away, she stuffed them in her pocket! It was funny to watch because she obviously wasn't ready to just throw those goldfish away!

Back on the carpet, Melisa talked to the students about their -ing words. She then gave an example of what she would write in her journal and used a couple words ending in -ing. She was trying to give the students some ideas of what they could possibly write about in their journals. The students objective for journaling for the day was to add -ing words. They took their journal and headed back to their tables. Some of the students got right to writing and were able to sound out words and come up with their own ideas. I was walking around to kind of help the students who needed it. Some of the students didn't even have their name on their paper 5 minutes into journaling time. Again I say a huge difference between the high academic students and the lower end ones. Overall it was a very good first experience with these students. I am looking forward to going back again next week!

Initial Observation

Now that I am about 3 weeks into the semester I have started to look and observe children in the preschool classroom here at St. Norbert. I haven't had a chance to go over to Aldo to observe and work with the kindergarten class but I have been working with the preschool through Miss Bonnie's education class. I have been watching a girl in that class and observing what she does throughout her preschool day. She tends to hang around the reading corner quite often when they have center time. She always wants to tell you what's on her mind and repeats it until she knows that you or someone else was listening. I am excited to go over to Aldo and observe a larger class!