Student Teaching Reflection

Week 2
Monday, August 22ndToday began with more review from last week. We began the day with our
alphabet and numbers, like normal. This has started to be a routine the kids are
getting into, and it works out well because they automatically know to put their bag
up and get their pencil out first thing. Ive learned fast that routine and repetition
are extremely important at this age. The kids like routine and it makes things flow a
lot better.
The first lesson I taught was the /s/ sound and the letter s. We reviewed and
talked about the sounds the letter s made. After some review, we then began to
write them; we wrote upper case and lower case. After s, we worked with the letter
m. This took a big longer because they were confused with m and ns. We wrote our
ms just like we did the ss, and we also did another m sheet aloud. The second
sheet had picture on it, and they identified the words that began with m and then
wrote it on the line.
I also did a lesson on the book Chrysanthemum. We read the book aloud, and
then talked about why bullying was bad and what consequences it caused. We then
wrote out name on a band aid and taped them to a big heart that we displayed in
the room. I enjoyed both lessons, and they were definitely something the children
liked as well.

TuesdayThe main lesson I taught was on characters. We talked a lot about what a
character was and what role they played in stories and such. We also discussed
what stories, books, movies, etc. would be without characters. After only a short
discussion time, they already knew exactly what a character was. I even tried to
trick them by asking if a make believe talking dog could be a main character, and
they knew it could be as well.
After discussion, we read the book A Tidy Room, and the students listened for
characters while I was reading the story. After they had listened to the story, we
discussed what characters were in the story and what they did. Then, we did a cut
and paste activity to go along with it. The students had to agree on what characters
went under the Character in the story box or NOT A character in the story box.
They would cut the name out, and then glue it in whatever category we decided on.
I was skeptical about how this activity would work out, but my mentor
teacher and I both thought it turned out great! Not only did they surprise us with
their gluing, but their cutting was out of this world for six year olds; we could tell
they had practice in Kindergarten with scissors. This is an activity that I would like to
incorporate into different lessons just so they get to use their scissors and glue
more, because they showed us that they are very capable of doing a more complex
lesson/activity.

WednesdayTodays schedule was a bit different from the normal. We had to do Star
Testing to see exactly where the students in our class rank. It was interesting to see
this test and how it worked, and it was even more interesting to see where the
students ranked. Although, some surprised me, most of them I was able to pick out
in the first few days. I could see who was behind and who was ahead of others, but
for the most part, about of the class was on level.
The first thing we did when we got back into the classroom was an alphabet
activity. We drew upper case letters on white boards and discussed each letter as
we did so. After reviewing upper case letters for a few minutes, they got an ABC
sheet to work on. The object of this was to find the hidden letters on the body of
animals, and then to color the animals. Ive learned that its important for first
graders to review basic letters, number and color every day.
The second activity I did was a sight word lesson. We talked about the site
words and asked around the room if any of them knew their sight words without us
telling them. I was surprised at just how many of them they knew! After reading all
the sight words, they could volunteer to come to the Elmo and type a sight word
on the play keyboard displayed on the board. Once they typed the word, they
would then write it in their writing journal two times. We did this awhile and then
once everyone had all the sight words written down, they had to color the back

rainbow colors according to directions. My mentor teacher and I both agreed that a
keyboard lesson was definitely in the works; you could tell they hadnt had any
keyboard experience at all.

ThursdayThe main lesson I taught today was dealing with Phonemic Awareness. I had a
list of words along with sentences to match them. On the magnetic board were the
letters A, S, N, T and D. I would read a sentence, for example, I like apples and
peanut butter and tell them to make the word and. A student would raise their
hand, go to the board, and make the word I tell them out of the letters. There were
around 10 words they could make, so it took about 20 minutes or so to do the
activity, but they really enjoyed it and it kept their attention the whole time. Dr.
Steenken was able to see this lesson and how much they enjoyed it, but learned at
the same time.
Another one of the main lessons I taught was high frequency and decodable
words. We discussed decodable words for awhile and came up with some examples
until I thought they understood. Next, we used tiles letter tiles and changed the
beginning or ending of a word around. The thing they liked the most about this one
was that they had their own tiles on their desk. Some of the words were like sat,
pat, mat, man, pan, can, etc. I would tell them to keep the at, remove the letter s,

and add a p to the beginning of the word. I found out this was another one of their
favorites so far!
The next thing we did was take a test on the high frequency words that we
have been practicing. We gave them all a paper, and I had a list of the words to
read them. I would tell them to circle the word and, green, I, we, etc. The results
from this test really shocked me! I graded these tests and all but three of them
made 100s, and those three only missed one or two. I think we have a pretty smart
class

FridayToday I did lessons on Phonemic Awareness, Comprehension and Phonics. All

three of them went extremely well, I would do them again in a heartbeat. For
phonemic awareness, we worked with the hard C sound. We discussed and came up
with words that began with the /c/ sound, such as carrot. One of the points for me to
mention was how many of them rhymed, but of course, one of the students picked
up on that before I could get to it! So, then we talked about how they rhyme and
why you only have to move one letter for that to happen.
For this we would sound out a word, say the word, and then sound it out
again. Then we would decide if it rhymed with any we previously did, and if it

rhymed, the children placed the index card with the word on it in a certain category.
They enjoyed this because they liked sounding out the words, and they also enjoyed
getting up and doing something as well. It kept them engaged and learning all at
the same time. Ive found the key to their minds is to let them get up and have
some interaction or hands on stuff about every 20 minutes!
For comprehension, we went over a picture in their reading book that had
the /c/ sound. The picture was in a street with many things in it that made that
sound, so we picked them out. Students would find things and raise their hand, then
come to the board and point to it on the projector. Some examples of the things in
the picture were cans, cat, canoe, neck, cap, etc. Lastly, for phonics, I passed out
cards with /c/ words on them. Most of them were the same words we used to our
phonemic awareness activity, so for the most part they were familiar with the
words. The students got their index card and placed it face down on their desk so
others couldnt see it. I then called on each student and let them come to the board
and spell out their word with the magnetic letters. After they found their letters and
spelled their word, we segmented and blended the words together to read the word.
Once we read the word, everyone then wrote it in their writing journal. They wrote
every word we did, so they had a total of 21 words! I was surprised, but they kept
up so good and really enjoyed this lesson!