Observation In Middle School

During my first round of practicum, I went to a kindergarten classroom with around 20 to 25 students in the classroom. I went to Miller Elementary and Mrs. Schuchard was my cooperative teacher. I walked in and was immediately placed with students to work with. In the morning the students were working on their daily five and phonics. One thing that I observed that I found very interesting is that the teacher had two rug areas for meetings. When she needed to teach the children for a longer period of time, she would tell them to move over to the other area in order to make them have a brain break and then refocus. It was very interesting to see how effective just a little amount of movement was for these kindergarteners. I got there around 9:30 in the morning and left around 1:30. I was able to see the students perform daily 5, phonics, math, and writing. The students seemed to be really interested in the phonics work. They really knew their letters and if they
were having trouble they would always try to help each other out. Some students had trouble between the letters b,d, and p. If the students mixed the letters up when they were sounding out words, she wouldn’t sound out the letters correctly. She would allow the children to resound them but would just say if they were correct. After lunch, the students were working on math.
First we went to the rug area and did the calendar. At first I thought it was different to do the calendar later in the day but on the calendar there were patterns and they talked about those and the angels that the shapes have. Once I realized how she incorporated so much math into the calendar time, it made sense to do it at that time of day. Then the students worked as a group to add and subtract numbers that were on the flashcards. The teacher held up a card and it had an equation, for example six minus three, and the students would wait to say their answer for about ten seconds and then she collected their answers. The students did well in this area and when the teacher asked for some more equations one student wanted to work on 20-17. According to North Dakota Content standards, K.OA.5, students need to “fluently add and subtract within 5.” All of the students were able to work on this problem and they went above the standard that they needed to
meet. Overall, this observation was very interesting and a lot of skills were shown. The students had a wide range of skills and I hope the next visit I am able to work with students that sometimes struggle a little more. This classrooms teacher provides a lot of information and will even teach me, when she is also teaching her own students. This observation really set the tone for the rest of the time I am in this classroom, and there will be a lot to learn throughout this month.