Week 2: Reflection

This week I again spent 4 days in New London and 1 day in Springfield. At the beginning of the week we talked a lot about families. Not just our families, but word families as well. There was some recess, snack, stations, arts and crafts, lots of sharing, starting subtraction, building with blocks, and even an assembly.

This week what I learned built of last weeks lesson on every child learning at different speeds. The most prevalent thing I learned about this week was differentiated learning. When we work in stations, the groups are established by where the kids are in the learning process. While each group is working with the same general concept, wether it be math, language arts, or spatial reasoning, the activity varies slightly for each group. This week I spent station time working on pattern recognition and spatial reasoning using colored cubes. With the most advanced group I was having them copy 3d stacked designs with hidden blocks. I even had a hard time coming up with patterns that would be hard enough. In the next group we did stacked patterns, but hidden blocks were a bit of a struggle. In the third group, we did line patterns and wrote our names using the blocks. The activity needed to be tailored so that each group would get the most out of it as possible.
In addition this week, one of the best words of wisdom I heard was from Dr. Johnson. One student was really struggling to be a good friend so I joined Mrs. James and him on a trip to the principal. We talked about what had happened and events and consequences from the past to discuss a solution that might have a better effect. I got to observe Mrs. James and Dr. J as they talked with the boy. They showed him respect and maintained a conversation feel to the meeting, rather than an angry feel. At the end of the meeting Dr. J told the boy it is easier to be a good friend than a bad friend. If you are a good friend, people will want to be around you and all you have to do is be kind. If you are a bad friend you wil have to work really hard to be friends and end up doing a lot of work.
My favorite parts of the week were costume workshop in Springfield on Wednesday, and scenery painting in New London on Friday. These arts and craft times really allowed me to learn about who the kids are creatively. Who has a huge imagination, and who might need to remember to turn their imagination on. These activities also gave me a time to talk to and play with the kids to learn more about them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this week in the kindergarten with Mrs. James. Next week I look forward to sharing my lesson on symmetry. I am thinking about using cut outs of the letters for the students to fold as I teach the lesson. I am not sure wether it will become a station or not, but in a station I would start with having the students use paint to trace half of one letter and then fold it to create the other half. After that, I would have them looking at one half draw the other. Next week is also production week for our play the Enchanted Egg, which will be a lot of fun.