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When I had arrived at the school that early, I was very nervous and anxious about meeting my 3rd grade students for the first time. As the students were walking in, I noticed that all of the students were pretty self-sufficient and independent with doing their morning routine and following transitions. My mentor teacher me the first piece of advice for all new teachers. She had told that it is always a good idea to start the school year by setting high expectations and standards for your students, especially since I am wanting to teach 3rd-6th grade. Most of the time, these students already know what is expected of them, so it is vital for the teacher to continue showing that confidence in being a little stricter with following the rules and guidelines of the classroom. Then as the year progresses and you have built those positive relationships with your students, then you can become more lenient and relaxed with your students. All of the students and staff members were so welcoming and supportive to me. The students had even helped me adapt to their classroom environment and showing me their daily school routine.

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To begin teaching, my mentor teacher allowed me to set up a mini small group lesson/activity to do with some of her students. In 3rd grade, all of the teachers are departmentalized so my teacher only teaches math and science. At first, I was a little scared to teach lessons because math has never been my best subject in school. Luckily my students at the time were working on how to find the area of squares and rectangles. So, I found a fun and interactive "Find the Area" Jeopardy Game to do with a small group to test their knowledge of finding the area of squares and rectangles. While I was doing this activity, I did make a few mistakes with learning my students' names, remembering the proper way to solve multiplication, and transitioning to the next subject. My teacher reassured me that it is completely okay to make mistakes as teachers because we are able to show our students that we are human and everyone makes mistakes. This is where building a family-like classroom environment comes into play.

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Getting to know my students more. Jan. 30

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Getting to know my students more. Jan. 30

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One thing that I have learned when it comes to connecting with my students was that I needed to get to know them as people. Since I am at Dyess Elementary, 60% of the children come from military families so a lot of my students have lived in many different places and also have had to move around a bunch as well. 2 of my 3rd graders had told me that sometimes it was hard to see their dad's often because they were always working. The kids have also expressed to me that they loved coming to a school where there are other kids just like them. They're able to tell each other stories and even do "show and tell." with some of the toys and items that their parents that are serving in the military had given them. I admire how my school has built this military community because it shows that the families and children are willing to support and help each other throughout each students' individual journeys. Even though I was not a military child, me and my family had moved around 4 times throughout my childhood because of my dad's job, so I was able to relate to my students a little bit with a few experiences. Moments like being able to connect with my kids hold a special place in my heart.

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As the weeks had built on, I started to learn more about myself as a teacher. During the first couple of weeks when I was only teaching small groups and 1 lesson, I was a bit too nice and lenient. Many times since I was new, most of my students wanted to talk to me about anything other than classwork. My students saw me more as a new friend or a new helper rather than a teacher just yet. My mentor teacher had talked to me about how as teachers, we sometimes have to get stern and bring out our "teacher voice". There had been a couple of times when I had gotten frustrated because my students were coming up to me without raising their hands or they weren't following directions. Luckily, my teacher was able to address this with the whole class and had explained to them that they should always be showing active listening to any adult who is in the room. I remember the first time I tried one of the attention grabbers that my teacher had previously set up with the class. I was finally able to get my students' attention and use my loud teacher's voice. This experience taught me that it is important to have a good balance between teaching using positive aspects and making sure to stay firm with managing behavior.

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At this point, I had figured out all of my students' names, and our class schedules, and I even had figured out some of my student's individual schedules as well. Since my teacher has the Sped class, a big majority of the kids get pulled to work with tutors, speech, and also just for support. One issue about that was that many of the times, those kids who would get pulled 2-3 times in the morning would miss the entire lesson. Sine 3rd grade is compartmentalized, my teacher gets to be with her homeroom kids in the morning teaching math and science, then she switches classes and does math and science again but with her partner teacher's class which did not have any kids who would get pulled except for the Gifted/Talented students. I had to figure out some ways that I could make sure that the students who were getting pulled were also still able to be in class and have the lesson. So my teacher told me that often she would divide the class into two groups and would teach the lesson twice. I had started using this strategy and I realized that this helps a lot for this class because I'll teach the lesson to my group 1 which has the kids who get pulled for several reasons and then once I have finished the lesson with them, then their tutors are able to help them with the problem set and Exit Ticket.

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An Activity I had my 3rd graders do after a science lesson. 

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It has now been almost a month since I have been student teaching, and things had started to get a little tougher as I had begun taking over most of my teacher's responsibilities. However, throughout this process, I began to adapt to easier strategy tactics that help teachers stay on top of things. My mentor teacher and other 3rd-grade teachers showed me different ways that they stay on top of things such as setting alarms and timers, adding events and reminders on Google Calendar, and even having a giant calendar near your desk with all important dates. My teacher had also shown me that she creates all of her lessons for math using Canva slides and creates her science lessons on Nearpod. We spend the majority of our time with each class on Math and then we spend only about 30-40 minutes on science. In the beginning, I was struggling with creating math lessons because math is not my strong suit and so I wanted to make sure that my lessons were not only understandable for my students but also to where I understood how to do it as the teacher. To plan my lessons, I first recreated my slideshow presentation on Canva and then I put everything that I was going to do for the lesson on a Google document so that way I would take note of things that I liked about my lessons and things I needed to change. I felt that lesson planning like this was very beneficial for me because I am able to reevaluate myself as a teacher and it'll help me in future lessons as well.

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Some things that I had begun to notice about myself was that as the months progressed, I have started to become more confident in myself. There have been many times where I have made many different mistakes while teaching or helping other students which was hard at first. Initially I felt that the students thought that I was an irresponsible teacher that could not get things done correctly. But it actually turns out my students thought the complete opposite. Since I had begun building relationships with them, a lot of them including my teacher told me that it was perfectly okay to make mistakes. Especially for teachers to make mistakes because then students could see that we are all human and it is okay to make mistakes as long as we own up to them and fix the problem.
I had then started to stop being super hard on myself because at the end of the day, I am a student teacher who is still trying to figure out not only my teaching style, but also gaining resourceful knowledge about the education system as well. Since then, I made sure to always never self-doubt myself and just try my best to do everything I can to ensure that my students are continuing to strive toward their own educational and personal goals. I feel that all teachers and especially 1st year teachers should always be reassured this statement.

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The Challenges and Rewards of Teaching Mar. 7

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The Challenges and Rewards of Teaching Mar. 7

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This week, I had started my 2nd placement in a 2nd grade class. 2nd grade at Dyess was a lot more different than the upper grade levels because it is an all-inclusion class which means it only involves one teacher who teaches all the subjects in the curriculum. Luckily, there are 5 2nd grade teachers so each of them is in charge of creating the lesson or activity for each week and all of the teachers share them together so that way everyone can be learning the same subjects. The classroom environment was also the complete opposite of my first placement because majority of my students are classified as Gifted/Talented. My student's majority of the time where pretty independent when it came to completing classwork, but they still needed he extra reassurance.
One of the most challenging things about coming into any classroom in the middle of the year was earning the respect from the students. That is why I had made it a priority to get to know each of my students during recess, morning meeting and extra free time.
However, one thing has been the biggest rewards that I have gained from this experience was seeing the joy of my students getting creative in their work and aiming high towards what they want. Their excitement has motivated me to keep going and learning to become the best teacher for my future students.

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During both of my placements in 3rd and 2nd grade. I was given the opportunity to work with other teachers and my 2 mentor teachers on lesson plans and activities. I have attended PLC meetings and other meetings with the teacher and the educational coordinator to make sure that we had enough time in our schedule to cover everything we needed to do for the students and also making sure that the students who have to be pulled out also receive time in the classroom an outside of the classroom as well. My 3rd grade mentor teacher outlined all of the vital pieces in each of my math lessons such as using math manipulatives and teaching the kids using songs about certain math concepts. She had told me that both of her classes loved to learn songs that would help them remember certain concepts on the STAAR test. I had found this super catchy fraction number line song that has helped all of my students on how to set up a number line with fractions. Not only did all my students enjoy singing it, but teacher loved it as well and saved it to use with her students next year.
In my 2nd grade placement, I got to work with my mentor teacher on making the morning meeting slides for all of 2nd grade. It was a lot easier to do because the slideshow was already set up, I just had to fill in the focus of the week and find some read aloud books, jokes, an exercise video and steps onto understanding the topic. I chose the focus of the week to be on "Apologizing" because I felt that children needed to learn how to handle conflicts and situations that may occur with a classmate or a friend.

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Fractions on a Number Line Song | 3rd Grade & 4th Grade

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My 3rd grade students performing their 3rd grade program.

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I have now been student teaching for almost 3 months. Throughout these 3 long months, I have gained so much knowledge and strategies that have supported me during lesson planning and managing a classroom. I figured out that I like to teach my students where they can contribute to their own learning by being in small groups for activities. I built a mini system where the students are able to work either with a partner or independently if they choose as long as they are following directions and are getting the work done in a timely manner.
I had to teach the kids all about the different genres of poetry. First, I introduced the type of poem to the students as a whole group using a Google slideshow and a video. Then we annotated a poem together as a class by highlighting the stanzas, rhyming words, and why the poem was classified as this type of poetry. Lastly, I put the students into groups of 3-4 to work on annotating a poem as a small group to gain a better understanding. It was hard at first because some students were wanting to take over all of the responsibilities, but I and my mentor teacher made sure to highlight the importance of cooperation and making sure everyone has a role in this assignment.
As the teacher, it is important to make sure that you know all of your students well so that way you can plan ahead to see which students can work best with each other during these types of assignments.

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A thankful note from one of my 3rd graders. 

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In both of my student-teacher placements, I gained the opportunity to go on 3 field trips with my students. One field trip that I went on with my 3rd graders was to "Safety City". Prior to going on the field trip, I had never heard of "Safety City" until one of my students mentioned it. It was so cool and unique to see my students learning about driving and fire safety, especially at this young age. The people who worked there did not sugarcoat anything when it came to teaching my students the importance of being cautious on the roads and on the sidewalks. This made me realize that nowadays we have to be 100% honest and real to our students about topics like this because it could affect them for the rest of their lives. Luckily, the day we take this field trip was the last day I was going to be with my 3rd graders so I made sure to spend lots of bonding and quality time with each of them.
Another fun memory that I had was when I participated with my 2nd graders in playing a game at recess. It was so much fun to feel a little bit like a kid again and explore the new perspective of what kids tend to lean towards more when it comes to playing physical activities

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At this time, I take this last journal entry as an opportunity to reflect on how much I have grown not only as a future teacher but also as a young adult. Both my 3rd and 2nd-grade students have made me realize the importance of how fast time really does fly and that I needed to cherish every moment that I have during my time at both HSU and Dyess Elementary. Some of the staff members that I have gotten to know very well had been supporting me and giving me valuable advice to use in the near future as an educator. Being here with this amazing school community has expanded my mindset more toward Growth than I thought. Going into student teaching, I knew that I needed to prioritize coming into this school with an open mind and take advantage of the many opportunities that I have gained. Not only have both of my teachers shown me the right steps in being a motivational teacher but also my students as well. Seeing my students continuing to strive for success even when the pressure is high has shown me that I can still continue to do so as well once I have officially graduated and earned my first teaching position. I truly will miss the time that I have spent here at Dyess Elementary, but luckily I have all of these pictures, notes, and gifts from my teachers and staff to remember this quality time I have spent as a student teacher.

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I got to go on a field trip with my 3rd grade students to the NCCIL on Valentine's Day. I had realized that having a Valentine's party and a Field Trip on the same day was exciting but it was also a little crazy as well.