Our Classroom Giving Tree

Our classroom Giving tree on display in the Kindergarten hallway!

Pet Rocks

Today we started making our pet rocks. As a fun and creative way to introduce rocks, the children painted their rocks that they collected over the weekend. Tomorrow we will add details (googly eyes, hair, and the children will have the opportunity to create a habitat for their rock. The children will also answer observational and descriptive questions about their pet rock.

Study of Rocks!

This week we are learning about Rocks! I am excited because I was able to gain access to some of the other teacher's rocks and relating materials in the school. On Friday, we read Everyone Needs a Rock, by Byrd Baylor to give the children fun and creative ideas of how and where they can find the "perfect" rock. The fictional and humorous story is a great way to introduce rocks to kindergartners because the story ends with the intention and hope that the audience will go on a search for their own rock. In response to this ending, the children were asked to go on a rock search to find their own "unique and special" rock.

As a suggestion from a retiring first grade teacher, introducing new topics to young children with a fun and interesting book gets the children thinking and predicting ideas about the topic. Further, from a previous course on teaching literacy to young children, I remember my professor stressing how important and effective reading responses can be across all instructional periods of the day. Learning and practicing how to incorporate literature into science, social studies and math is an authentic way for incorporating literacy into a variety of subjects. Exposing children to literacy in areas besides just language arts seems to be a reoccurring value that I have observed in many classrooms.

Reflection on The Giving Tree activity

The Giving Tree activity went great! I feel like the children were really engaged with this activity which proves their interest and ability to understand the topic. I heard relevant table conversations and observed several children relating the Giving Tree story to their own lives. One child stated " I climb trees!" and further wrote "David climbs trees" on his leaf. This let me know that he was able to extend the topic (how plants help people and how people help plants) to his own life. The parapro in our classroom guided the child by explaining that "yes, you climb trees, so trees give people limbs to climb on". This was an awesome connection for this student!

The Giving Tree

Today we read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I love this book! As an reading extension on our plant unit we are going to create our own classroom Giving Tree. The purpose of this activity is for the children to learn about ways that plants help people and animals as well as ways that people help plants.

After our read aloud today we discussed various ways that we help plants as well as ways that plants help people and animals. The children made great connections from the boy and the tree in the story to their own life experiences.
Some ideas we came up with:
1) Ways that plants help people
-plants give us food
-trees give us wood for making houses and boats
-plants give us shade
-plants give us oxygen so we can live
-plants give animals food and materials to make habitats
-We can use tree branches to climb
-Trees give us wood to make play sets and tree houses

2)Ways that people help plants
-people give plants water so they can grow
-people plant seeds so more plants can grow
-people give plants rich soil

Tomorrow the class will write sentences on individual leaf cut-outs about the discussion above. After we write on our leaves we will add the leaves to our classroom Giving Tree (made out of butcher paper) and then put it on display in the hallway for other students to see!

Positive Atitude!

This is my first post! I am excited to share my teaching experiences and ideas with you. Currently I am student teaching in a Kindergarten classroom at Colham Ferry Elementary. This school is a rural public school in Oconee County. My experience as a student teacher has been filled with amazing and hard working experiences!

My favorite part about student teaching has been meeting and working with a team of early childhood professionals to learn and better become aware of how to teach and guide Kindergarteners. I have come to not only admire my fellow team members but also to consider as role models and life long friends.

Other areas that I have focused on during my student teaching include:
-Teaching and guiding 18 Kindergarten students in an inclusive/collaborative setting
-Planning and conducting lessons and activities with an emphasis on differentiated instruction
-Collaborating with Kindergarten team members to plan lessons, modify classroom setup, provide appropriate behavior management, and gain experience in communicating with families
-Embedding Individualized Education Plan (IEP) goals and objectives into daily lessons using Activity Based Intervention (ABI) Plans
-Utilizing Functional Behavior Analysis (FBA) to identify challenging behaviors in order to modify and implement interventions using Positive Behavior Support (PBS) Plans
Assessing student knowledge and comprehension using standards based education in correspondence with the Georgia Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (GKDIS)
-Collecting and graphing data on students entering the Response to Intervention (RTI) tiers