Kathryn Weathers

March 23, 2015

ELED 3226
Overall Reflection

My overall experience at Community School of Davidson was

fantastic! I truly enjoyed my time there and made many wonderful
relationships with the students and my CT. I took many things away
that I hope to use one day in my future classroom. The first thing that I
really loved was the daybooks that Mrs. Belnap used. In our class we
have been talking about using daybooks and use them in our class at
UNCC. Being able to look at some and seeing how they work with
second grade was great. Mrs. Belnap used two daybooks; one for
Reading/Writing and one for Math. This is where the students did their
writing and where students taped in worksheets. Another thing I hope
to use one day is what they call their Someday books. I really loved
the idea of this. During their writing time they wrote about what they
wanted to be someday. Students wrote things like a famous football
player or a legendary baker. Students loved writing about this because
they were able to write about whatever they wanted to be. It was
structured but still gave students the opportunity to write about what
they wanted. Mrs. Belnap really focused on writing, which I have not
seen in any of my clinical experiences thus far. I taught a lesson while I

was there on adjectives and then had students go back to their

someday writings and add adjectives to make them more descriptive.
Other things I hope to use in the future are how they got the attention
of the students. Mrs. Belnap used either a wind chime that she had in
her classroom or a sound that students would respond to. This worked
well and she did not have to yell over them to get their attention.
Many classrooms I have been in the teacher will yell to get the
students attention and I do not think that is affective. Mrs. Belnap
also used centers a lot, which I love. For literacy, math, and social
studies/science centers were used. Occasionally she would teach a
whole group lesson and then send students into centers if she was
teaching a new thing otherwise students would go straight to the
center they were assigned. It took about a week for every student to
get to every center. This allowed students to work at their own pace. I
think sometimes it could be embarrassing for students if they are
pulled to do one-on-one or small group if they are behind, but working
in centers other students dont know. Mrs. Belnap seemed to be
extremely lucky with parent volunteers. Every day she had a parent
come in to help with centers. I know not all parents are able to do that,
but she had great support from the parents of her students. Mrs.
Belnap uses an online sign up for parents to volunteer when they can.
I learned so much from my two weeks in Mrs. Belnaps classroom at

Community School of Davidson. I cant wait to take some of these

things and use them in my future classroom.