First Attepmt at Centers and Small Groups

I realized I haven't blogged anything about my actual lessons yet! Well, within the last few weeks I've been getting my toes wet with trying out different lesson styles to see what I can do with the kiddos. Here is my first encounter with Centers and Small Groups.

Centers:
We have a handwriting program that teachers the letters to the kids based on their "easiness" and "similarity" of writing. It presents two or three letters together on one large card, and has a story with it, and puts those letters into a "lesson". The letters for that week/lesson were C, G, ans S. While I am teaching the children how to write the letters, I also want to teach them the sounds of the letters, which is what the story that goes with the letter is supposed to do. I set-up three centers, one on each table, one for each letter.
C Center - Making C's with Cotton Balls. They used glue and cotton to make a C, and then thought of a word that started with the letter C.
G Center - Making G's (and things that start with G) with green Wiki Sticks (these are like pipe cleaners, but made with wax)
S Center - Making S's (and things that start with S) with playdough

I have so many boys in my class (15!) so I try to get as much kinesthetic learning is as possible. It helps when they can actually feel the letters rising from the table/paper. What I was really trying to see with this was how well they could transition from table to table. While on the carpet, I explained the centers, how we would move, and that I would set a timer. When they heard the timer ring, they would put what was in their hands down, freeze, and wait for me to tell them to move. It was a simple center change. For the most part, I think they did well. Of course I had a few students who went to the wrong table, but I think it went pretty well for our first time trying rotating centers.

Small Groups
We've been working on categorizing/sorting objects by different properties.  We started with color, and one category (things that are blue, things that are not blue) and moved on to two category (things that are red, things that are pink). Then we talked about shape, and size - the next simplest.  We talked about sometimes the teacher gives you the different "titles" or "category" or sometimes you have to make them up yourself. For the activity, I had the students in groups of three or four at their table. I had cut out three different shapes (circle, square, triangle) in three different sizes, in three different colors. This is a really, really hard task, since they have the option of sorting by three factors.  I explained that I wanted them to work together as a team to make groups of their shapes. They can group the shapes however they want to, since I didn't give them a category.  I handed out the shapes first, and they immediately split up the shapes between themselves. Then, I gave them the large colored paper (each small group with a different color) and put the shapes one that. Once I put the paper down, the kids were able to concretely see that they didn't have space to work by themselves, since the paper was so big and they had to work together.  It's so interesting how visual and spatially limited they are. Most of the groups did well. There were a few who surprisingly struggled, because two of my brightest students were in that group!

Support

Through the past few months, it has been great to see the support I have gotten from my friends and family :) Before school started, Matt, Eleanor, and Henish came and helped me set-up my classroom! Henish came again a few weeks later to help me go through the crazy mess that were books stored on two HUGE bookshelves left from my previous teacher. My sister came and hung out when she had a conference in town. Lynn, a teacher, mentor, and Director of the UMSL University Child Development Center came to visit me too. I sent her this email after she came to visit, which really sums up what I've been feeling:

"Honestly, I'm sure you know this, but teaching is a whole different world than practicums and internships. I feel like I've forgotten all that I learned :/ I have to sit, think, and re-teach myself strategies and ways to teach concepts. Its so different when its your own classroom and you're actually accountable for the learning happening. I know this is my first year and I'm definitely not going to be where I would like to in terms of my own teaching, so I am taking this time to really figure out my style."

She replied:

"You will be fine….just keep reflecting on how, what and why of teaching."

Guess that's what I'll be doing A LOT of!