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Today in class we went over task 1 from the edtpa and talked about our unit plan. The gifted and talented handbook was extremely interesting to me as I did not know what "gifted and talented" students exactly meant. Something I took away from this reading as well, is that I would keep in mind the effectiveness and importance of adding in open-ended discussions and questions with the gifted children. Also, adding more thought into what we can do for our advanced students when making that part of the lesson plan. Going back to what stood out to me, where gifted children need more emotional assistance, I would keep this in mind and add in more social-emotional learning lessons into our unit plan as well.

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Today for class we all worked together and unpacked the ELA reading and writing standards. I was able to really understand what the purpose of standards are, and how to read them correctly. Unpacking the standards in my classes right now is really helping me understand them and understand what grade is being taught what. It lets me get a further understanding of a general idea in where the students should be at with each grade level.

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Today in class we unpacked more standards. We picked a standard and worked with our group on how we can carry it out. We found a poem, and created a mini lesson based on it. At first, I thought this was extremely challenging and I did not know how to start. However, then me and my group started talking with each other and I was surprised to see how much we know and what we were able to do. It was a successful mini lesson for the time being and I was proud of our work. This showed us that no matter what we are given, we are able to work with each other and with our resources, and make it happen.

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Today in class, we were lucky enough to have a change in scenery and environment. We went to college camp and worked together in pulling apart a student's unit plan.  It was really nice to see someone's unit plan, as we are creating one for this class as well. We pulled out the grows and glows, and looked at what he didn't really do successfully, which was good to see before we started ours.

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Today in class we were given a lot of time to work on our unit plan. We started off class by watching a youtube video on a dad making PB&J sandwiches, based on his kids instructions. The lesson here was to always write in extra detail and be very specific in your writing. We can use this activity in our classroom to show our students how important it is to always add details when you are writing. Then we switched gears and analyzed a student's unit plan. We said how all of the lessons were very similar, and it was way too much to unpack in just one day for one lesson. Also, the unit plan was very "pen and paper" based with little to no engaging activities or integration of technology. It was good to look over this sample unit plan, to make sure we add in fun engaging activities for the students so they want to learn and switch up the lessons each day. Then we were given the rest of class time to work on our unit plan with our partner. I am excited to see how it turns out!

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Today in class, we started with an amazing 5 minute mediation brain break. I really love doing those and I strongly feel that they benefit the classroom environment. I know I will be using these meditation videos with my students, because I really value these brain breaks, as young children physically can't be pushed too hard. They get stressed and need a cool down moment, and I will gladly give them that. I want them to feel relaxed and come ready to learn. Then we talked about the way we will be formatting our unit plan and we got time to work on our individual lesson plans. Me and grace work extremely well together and we both complete our parts of the work. Our unit plan is coming along really well and I know we will successfully finish our unit plan within the next couple weeks.

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College Camp!
For this weeks class, we were lucky enough to have it at college camp! I absolutely love switching up the environment in which class is held at. I used to love in school when we would do activities outdoors, or even my freshmen year one of my professor would hold class outside on the nicer weather days. I feel that going outside and getting that fresh air is so healthy, especially for younger students who sit in a classroom for 6 hours a day. In my classroom, I will be taking advantage of the outdoors- especially with science lessons and try to get them outside as much as I can. I feel that doing this will keep the students more engaged and more inclined to participate and get excited about lessons and activities. One lesson I came across on the other day was an Ecosystem Scavenger Hunt. This would have students go outside and work together to try and find all of the living and nonliving things they can find and see them interacting with each other outside and write about it. It is also nice to get them away from the technology for a little bit as well. Activities like these get your students to explore the nature and habitats around us, just by going out in the yard! I am excited to incorporate lessons like these in my future classroom.

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Bugbee:
Today for this class, we went to Bugbee. Unfortunately, I was very sick this week and was out with the flu. However, I was able to FaceTime a classmate for some of the time there to see what was going on. I was able to see the technology toys in the Teacher Center. In EDTech last semester, our professor brought in new tech toys she uses with her students every week. I would say at this point, I feel very confident in these types of toys and resources to use with our students. I also used to work at Bugbee in 2019 with the preschoolers, so I was already very familiar with this school. As technology is always improving, it is so important to get this type of experience with it before we are in the classroom on our own.

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Today in class we wrapped up the ending  Inchausti's Spitwad Sutras. We did somewhat of a review of the book and we talked about some of our last minute thoughts. I personally enjoyed reading this and I feel that it is very useful and helpful for us preservice teachers to hear about real life teaching experiences and stories, from a teacher. I also feel that having to talk about our thoughts, comments, and what we took from the chapters on Padlet, helped me really understand the book more. I have never submitted an audio or did an assignment like this before, but I really liked the concept of it. For the future, I feel this is a perfect assignment for block students!

We then dove into the edTPA handbook concepts. It is important to see what is expected when student teaching, however, as of April 13th 2022, the edTPA is no longer a requirement for certification!! That is something to be excited about!

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*Snow Storm: No Class*

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Today in class, we are able to meet with the author of Spitwad Sutras, Robert Inchausti. He was a very sweet, talkative person and I found it very interesting to hear him talk about the book we just spent weeks reading and talking about. We were all really lucky to have this experience.

After the zoom call, we did a fun, engaging science activity. We decorated thee tiny clear containers to make them look like rockets. We then filled them with water, put in Alka-selzter, and watched them take off! This was really fun to do, and I know one of our classmates groups did a similar activity with the students last Friday. This shows that activities like this is something that should be incorporated into your classrooms, because especially with the older students, you need to find activities that always keeps them engaged and has them questioning. With working with the older students (5-6), they need be constantly entertained and doing things. They get very bored easily and they aren't interested in too many things. It is so important to incorporate these hands-on engaging activities that relate to their interests or they will give up in your class.

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Today in class, we were all given real currency from around the world to look at and examine. Me and my partner had coins and dollars from United Arab Emirates. Then we made a lesson plan out of it. Traveling is something that really interests me and so this day was enjoyable. I found it so interesting to see all this currency that people use around the world.

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Today in class we started off by introducing each other to the class by sharing what we did over break. We then went over the courses on Blackboard and talked about contact grading in detail. Then we got looked at Jackdaw photo collections as primary sources and documentations of the change in the 1950’s with our table members. We then all worked together with our table and made a group integrated unit plan on the documents we were given.

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*Class on Zoom*
Today we were on Zoom and we dove into some controversial issues that were happening during our current events. Then we spent the majority of our time looking at the Social Studies Framework. I think it is beneficial to get familiar with the frameworks and standards of each grade level and each subject. It is important to have a general idea of what concepts and topics they are learning about in each grade level, and how they go on from there and move on to the next grade and the next and so on.

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*On Zoom*
For this weeks class, we were on Zoom again. We talked about what we got from the C3 Teachers, Inquiry Design Model, & NYS Toolkit and Professional Development reading and has a discussion based on what we learned, found, explored from it. This reading made what inquiry based learning a little easier for me to understand and I was able to really grasp this concept after. I feel that learning from questioning benefits the students so much more, as they are more inclined to keep going and it keeps them engaged and questioning the world around them.

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Today in class, we were finally able to present our mini unit plan on the documents we received on week 1. My group and I worked really hard all together and came up with great, engaging lesson plans that I will want to use when I am a teacher in a classroom. Having these photos to base our lessons off of made it easier, and it was amazing to use these primary sources. I enjoyed this lesson, and I liked seeing the rest of the classes ideas as well. I feel this was a good way to introduce social studies lesson plans to the class and I learned how to incorporate documentations.

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Today in class we started talking about what the word "community" means to us. We filled this worksheet out, and we had to choose whether we strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree to the statements on community. We talked with our groups about our answers and we all actively engaged in this discussion bringing up really good points and ideas. Then we got into a class debate, whether we agreed or disagreed about controversial topics and statements. I really enjoyed this activity, as it let us move around the room, and engage in appropriate discussion on our beliefs and thoughts. My biggest takeaway from today's class was this activity, as I feel I can use this in my own classroom one day. It allows students to understand that there are multiple ways to view a topic, and others might think differently than you. It teaches them to respect their classmate's viewpoints and opinions, and to understand that everyone will think differently, but we take everyone's thoughts into consideration and treat them with respect.

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*No Class*

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*No Class*

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Today in class we were able to share our social emotional learning activities with the class and actually carry out our lesson with our classmates. I think this was by far one of my favorite class days. I have a huge interest in social emotional learning because I am a strong believer that if student's emotional needs aren't met, whether it is at school or at home, they will not be able to learn. Therefore, I know I will be incorporating these types of activities very frequently in my classroom one day. Me and Grace's activity consisted of everyone writing down a compliment they have towards one of their classmates. This was such a nice and warm-feeling activity as everyone smiled and loved hearing what their friends have to say. This is definitely an activity I will want to use again one day.

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Today in class, Grace and I created an integrated lesson of Social Studies and ELA, and we were able to go over our objectives in class. Integrating content in your lesson plans is so important and I learned the importance of that though this semester, especially with having to make this unit plan. This week lesson plan was based off our day when we looked at the currency from the United Arab Emirates. We spent awhile on this lesson and put in hard work to have students create their own brochure. This lesson also includes an art aspect as well. Learning how to integrate content together is so important and I feel that after the experience with the unit plan, I am prepared for doing this in my future.

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*No Class*

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Today in class we did a geography scavenger hunt. This was a fun and engaging activity that incorporated technology and social studies as well. This was the first time we did an activity like this, especially using technology and I learned a lot from it, and it tested our own geography skills. We had to follow clues about where "Gina went" and where he location was. This activity included landmarks, weather and population. This was a fun and I can't wait to do activities like this with my students, as it has them learning without really realizing it.

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Today in class had to create a type of an activity in which we incorporated Social Studies and the Arts! This was such a fun and purposeful thing to do as we will need to be doing these things when we are put into the classroom. For my activity I decided to do a "Me on the Map" project. This is such a cute idea to do with the students as they will draw:

My house

My town/city

My state

My country

My continent

My planet

With this activity, students will be describing their geographic location in different types of ways as they will be drawing these locations on their circle booklets. This is something I want to do definitely incorporate into my classroom, there is also a video and a read aloud that goes along with this activity! I really liked at the end of class when everyone shared their ideas and activities. Students use art to express themselves and it is a perfect way to incorporate Social Studies as well to keep them engaged in your classroom lessons.

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Today was our last week of classes! I can't believe how fast this semester flew by. We had the chance to work on whatever left over work we had while groups waited to get feedback on our Unit Plan. Grace and I had worked so hard on this, and we were a little nervous to hear feedback. One major thing we were told was the alignment between the standards and objectives. That is something not only we struggled with, but so did the rest of the class. Writing out the objectives is a little difficult, but hearing our feedback helped us a lot to see where we maybe missed a word or had to fix up an objective a little bit. Overall, we were told we did an amazing job and the way we presented it, and the pictures we included, I believe we did a really good job on this and it is something we are both very proud of.

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Today we were lucky enough to spend it at Neahwa Park. I absolutely loved this activity, as we were told to go to all the monuments in the park and research them and ask questions about them. This was engaging, and I really liked how we were able to be outdoors for this. My biggest takeaway from today, is that when I have my own students, I will do activities just like this one where they get to go outside and research about important dates and statues and things that has happened in our community.