Block 2 Practicum
This fall (2019), I am fortunate to spend 120 hours in Mrs. Cindy Fischer's 1st grade classroom at St. Mary's Grade School. I have been teaching and creating lessons, working one-on-one with struggling students, helping assess students, and assisting wherever needed. At this time, I have taught 3 ELA lessons, 2 math lessons, 2 science lessons, and 1 art lesson (please keep scrolling to view lesson plans). By the end of this practicum experience, I will have taught an additional 2 social studies lessons. I was evaluated by my practicum supervisor, Mr. Tom Conlon.
Evaluations
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Evaluation LessonIn this lesson, I reviewed the concepts of nouns, pronouns, and verbs and introduced adjectives to the students by having them work with a partner to write creative sentences.
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Part-Part-Whole Jenga Lesson
At the beginning of this lesson, students played a human part-part-whole game and turned themselves into number sentences on the floor. We then went over the various strategies that students can use to solve part-part-whole problems, how to pick the best strategy for them, and how to write proper number sentences. Students then played part-part-whole Jenga where they solved problems that were written on each Jenga piece and wrote the number sentence and solution on a separate recording sheet.
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Missing Addend- 10's Frame Lesson
In this lesson, students used the knowledge they already have on "missing part" addition problems to learn a new solving strategy using a 10's frame and play-doh counters.
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Engineering Volcano Shelters Lesson
In this lesson, students learned about the Engineering Design Process by designing and creating shelters out of a limited amount of unconventional materials. Then, we had a pumpkin-volcano simulation and tested the shelters to see if they would protect the Lego people. Next, students wrote about what happened and what improvements they would make to their shelter if they did it again.
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Additional SpEd Opportunity
In my practicum setting, there is another teacher who has a student with Down Syndrome. The teacher and aide do not have special education background, and they were unsure how to work with the student during the day, keep her engaged, and work on compliance. This student is very smart, but she does not respond well to directives and has a consequent tantrum multiple times a day. I offered to help them with an activity box and expected vs. unexpected behavior binder for the student. I am letting them use these tools until they feel like they have gotten on a better track with the student.
Please scroll over the images to see the captions about the activities.