October 20th 2015:
For my observation hours I was assigned to go to Hathaway-Brown in a 1st grade classroom. When I arrived at the school I was amazed by how giant it was. I walked up to the class room, noticing how decorated and colorful the school was. I found my room and saw there was no teacher there, but a classroom full of first grade girls all working silently. I introduced myself to them and they immediately started hugging me or asking lots of questions. The girls explained to me that they were supposed to be working silently and alone on a craft, card games, or reading a book.
The teacher, Alaina McCourt, came back to the room and told the girls they were being too loud and had to work in complete silence - I was impressed by how quiet they were when I walked in, especially without having a teacher there, but I suppose Mrs. McCourt was not. The class continued to work in silence for a few more minutes before they headed off to dance class.
After silent activity was over, everybody lined up to go downstairs for dance. I thought this was so cool because at any of my schools there was never a class specifically made for dancing, besides the occasional ballet lesson in Physical Education. A lot of the girls told me that this was their favorite class to go to. The teacher who taught dance was very down to earth and soft spoken. She played a type of African Tribal musical that all the girls seemed to enjoy very much. Today's dance lesson was going to be about water and movement she explained. She emphasized the idea of "shrinking and growing" or "closing and opening". After discussing this idea, every girl was told they had to come up with their own move that portrayed that idea. She went around the room asking for their dance to be shown and I was amazed how different everybody had interpreted that idea, not one person had the same move as some one else.
When dance class was over we headed back to the room for snack and reading. Everybody got a snack from the refrigerator outside the class and then silently headed into the room, awaiting Mrs. McCourt to read their story. I was surprised how attentive all the girls were while she was reading, there was barely any side chatter.
The next activity the class had was art. Again everyone silently lined up and we walked across the building to art. The art class room was painted with a mural of an under water environment, which a group of students had done. In art the first graders were working on making a paper doll that had a moveable head to convey three different emotions and were allowed to style it however they choose. I couldn't stay for long during art, because I had class but it seemed like something I would have enjoyed.
I really liked this visit, because I got to see a lot of cool classes the school offered. I also felt so welcome by the students and staff there - it definitely seems like a great school and I am excited to visit again.
November 3rd:
Today at my observation hours the majority of the time was used for reading. From 12:00 to 12:40 the students came back to class from recess and lunch they each got into their labeled spot on the carpet for reading time. The topic for today's class was making connection from the book Mrs. McCourt was reading to either life, another book, or the world. While Mrs. McCourt read a lot of the kids raised their hands and were able to make connection from the story to their own life - something Bill Ayers strives for (building bridges). I thought this was a really good exercise and the kids seemed to be genuinely interested in paying attention.
After the class reading all the kids did reading on their own. Mrs. McCourt put on soothing music that truly created a very relaxed and peaceful class environment. Once every student was done reading their own books they got into partners, to share their own connections with one another.
Once reading time was over, it was time for quiet hour. During quiet hour every student was bale to choose coloring, making clay, reading or doing homework. A majority of the class choose coloring and sat at a table in the back of the room together. Mrs. McCourt again put on soothing music, and surprisingly all the kids were very cooperative and focused on their task.
November 10th:
At my observation hours this week I was able to observe quiet time, sharing time, music class, and art class.
During quiet time, the girls had just gotten back from lunch so they were still a bit riled up, but when Mrs. McCourt turned on the relaxing music, she usually does, they knew to settle down and get to work. The majority of the girls spent this time coloring, reading, or doing their homework. It lasted for about 20 or so minutes until it was sharing time.
During sharing time, four of the students were able to present their kindness squares. The squares were sheets of paper with a patterned border that the girls drew and made themselves. They each represented an act of kindness they performed such as - washing dishes, playing with their dog, sweeping the floor, doing laundry, or taking out the trash. These pictures were going to be later added to the kindness quilt hung up in the room showing everyones random acts of kindness.
After we went to music class where the girls were working on the upcoming play in December. They seemed to be very distracted and not attentive during this class because the teacher had to spend most of the time going over rules and behavior issues. It was not until the last five minutes of class they began to work on the play, which was about a hardworking girl who is going to be tricked into giving away her prized jewelry.
The last class I saw was art. There was a substitute teacher there today so most of the class was spent telling the teacher the kids names and re-going over the project they were working on, which was making an animal out of different patterned and textured papers.
As I continue to go, I feel myself liking the school more and making a better connection with the kids!
November 17th:
During today's visit I got to see the teacher and students work in Social Studies class, which is a subject I hadn't yet seen them work on. I was never a fan of Social Studies growing up so I didn't think it was going to be that fun to observe, but I was wrong! The topic of the Social Studies's class was about Thanksgiving. Ms. McCourt had planned for the students to share what they knew about Thanksgiving, what they wondered, and what they learned after reading the book. I thought this was a good way to start off the activity, because everyone was able to see/share information that they didn't know, but would eventually know after Ms. McCourt had read the book.
As Ms. McCourt was reading a lot of the kids seemed to be paying very close attention so that they could figure out the questions they had wondered before. There was a lot of "Ohhhhh!" and "That's what we were wondering!" whispers while she had read the story.
Once the book was finished everyone seemed to fully understand answers to the questions they had asked before, which were like - Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? Who decided we should celebrate it? and Why is it in Thanksgiving? I thought these were all good questions, since I didn't know the answer to some of them myself. I found out that first Abraham Lincoln declared that America should celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt switched it to the 4th Thursday of November. I thought that this was pretty interesting facts, since I had never any idea this is how what day we celebrated was decided.
After they read and discussed, they got to play a bingo game. The bingo board involved the kids cutting on symbols of Thanksgiving and then placing them on their board. I liked this because it also helped them learn why certain elements were important to this holiday.
I thought that observing today was more fun than usual and I am excited, but somewhat sad to be going back for my last time this Thursday.
November 19th:
During today's observation I was able to talk to more of the students and really get to know them better. The first class they had was reading, where they were learning about non-ficitonal books. Ms. McCourt read aloud a book about animals who are going extinct. Personally, I thought it was interesting since I am a huge animal lover and so did many of the kids in the class. When she reads aloud the kids all sit on their carpet squares together, where they sometimes are tempted to talk to each other, but today everyone was very interested in what Ms. McCourt had to tell them. After she read the short non-fictional story, everyone was told to go find a quiet place in the room and read their own non-fictional story that they would later share what they had learned with the class. While the students were reading quietly a few of them approached me asking for help on pronouncing words and if I would listen to them to make sure they were doing okay. I was so happy when they came up and talked to me! I have talked to the students before here and there but never ongoing conversations because they usually have to being doing work in silence or we are at a special. I was able to talk to about 5 students that were ecstatic to tell me about their book. It brought me so much joy to see how interested and excited they were. This made me even more set on wanting to teach early childhood, because I love how all the kids find happiness in the littlest of things.
After the reading lesson they had snack and quiet time. During quiet time a lot of the girls worked on their letter to future students. I thought this was a fun activity Ms.McCourt came up with.. the girls all had to write a letter to a person in the future about what schools are like now and how they thought they would be in the future. One of the girls shared with me she thought there would be robots who would do your homework and take your tests for you, cause she hates doing boring work but likes doing art, music, and dance class. I took this opinion into consideration and thought about how when I become a teacher I want to organize lesson plans revolving around all the children's passions that can be connected to the outside community. A few of the other girls I were talking with were drawing and made me cards since it was my last day, which was really nice.
After this I had to leave but I am so happy I was able to have this experience at Hathaway-Brown, and will definitely utilize all the knowledge I gained from Ms.McCourt and her students in the future.
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