Week Three in Field Experience

Wow, time has flown by. I can't believe my field experience has come to an end. This was the most beneficial thing for me. I loved working in the classroom. Hands on experiences always help me more. This week we did our last two lessons. The first one was on Thursday and we talked about the U.S. and Mexican governments but our power point didn't work because the tech cart wasn't working right so we had to come up with something else. We ended up talking about the American Pledge and Mexican Pledge and we did similarities and differences with them. Ms. Schwaiger helped us with asking the students what the pledge meant. It turned out to be an alright lesson for us. Friday was our last lesson and we had a review game on what we learned throughout the three weeks we were there. It turned out great! We also had a fiesta and La Casita donated some beans, rice, salsa, and chips for it. The students had a blast and it turned out excellent.

Week 2 in Field Experience

Wow, this week has flown! I can't beleive we go back to school next Monday. This field experience has been great so far. I have learned so much from my cooperating teacher Ms. Schwaiger. This week we started our unit on Mexico vs. the U.S. Our lesson was on Thursday and we were observed. We were teaching the students about Mexico and having them make a brochure. We tried having them do Jigsaw; it worked alright but it could have been more organized. I'm glad we experimented with it because I know how we will do it differently next time. On Friday we did our second lesson plan and this one was on things they loved about the United States. The students were in groups and did a colage. I thought it turned out really well. The students learned a lot. They finally grasped what culture meant and they are starting to understand the differences in the Mexican vs. American cultures. This experience has been great.

First Week of Field Experience

We are currently at Westside Elementary School, in Ms. Schwaiger's fifth grade classroom. The diverse lessons we have learned are really helping us out with our class. This week we had elections and we were able to put together the voting boothes' for the fifth grade mock election. Ms. Schwaiger asked us to design and decorate some voting ballot boxes for the elections. We had the honor of reorganizing and categorizing by genre the two very large book shelves in her classroom. We have helped with different math groups, and had the opportunity to observe a sixth grade class. We also completed our first lesson plan and taught it on Friday. We used our digital story on Lewis and Clark and then took our class on an exploration. The lesson went extremely well. Ms. Schwaiger gave us feed back on it and expressed her feelings on how the lesson went. She said it was 110 percent. We learned we say SHHHHH to much and this doesn't help the students be quite because they have learned to block the request out. We have learned a lot of great classroom management skills and how to incorporate them while teaching.

Lewis and Clark Digital Story