Learning More in Grade Four! (Yes, I Meant to Make That Rhyme)

Goodness! My last week and a half have been crazy! I haven't had anytime to blog about school or my visit in Greece. At last I have some down time to sit and relax!

I am really enjoying my time student teaching in the fourth grade at Pinewood. I have an incredible group of students that work together really well. You can tell that they have created a sense of community with each other and have really invested in each others' success. All of my students are performing at different academic and English-speaking levels but they don't let their differences hinder their relationships. I love how they try to keep each other accountable and make sure that those around them are following directions before Mrs. Bentioulis or I catch them off task. I see my English-speaking students stop what they are doing to make sure that their international friends know which colored notebook needs to be out and when it is time to line up. My bilingual Russian student jumps up at every opportunity to translate math from English to Russian for my student that doesn't know any English. (I think I have learned more Russian math terms than I have Greek!) I think that it is so important that students support each other through the challenges of being in school and learning a new language. It makes me so sad that I only have a month left with these sweet children before I go to my first grade placement.

I have been teaching more and more independently in these last weeks. Mrs. Bentioulis has been generous enough to let me take over teaching language arts and social studies (my favorites!) while she works with a smaller group of English Language Learners or grades the students' homework. Last week I worked with students on sequencing a story and identifying story elements. We read A Train to Somewhere, a short story about an orphan train taking children from an orphanage in New York to be adopted by farmers in the midwest in the nineteenth century. I realized from the horrified shock on my students' faces that they had never encountered the concept of adoption. I told them about how my own grandmother was adopted as a baby and how my grandfather was raised by his aunt in his teens due to the poor economic climate. The sympathy and sadness on these affluent children's faces were heartbreaking. They had so many questions about when and why children would be given up by their parents. I realized several things: 1. Teaching empathy can be incorporated at any time 2. Sometimes its more important to address a "teachable moment" than finishing the day's content and 3.  Children want to desperately want to change the world.

This week I started series of lessons centered around the book Sarah, Plain and Tall. I have been focusing on building student vocabulary and comprehension. The kids really love the book and have been very enthusiastic about participating in class. I have never seen so many student volunteer to read aloud to their peers. Even my ELLs and struggling readers are some of the first to beg to read! I have restrict how much they read each night so that no one gets too far ahead. I was fortunate that this was the series of lessons that my university supervisor came to observe yesterday. I told my students that I would have visitor that would be coming to watch me, not them, and not to get distracted by her visit. I told them that she would be coming to grade me and that if I got a good grade I could become a teacher when I grow up. Their response was PRECIOUS. "Oh, Miss Elizabeth! We will be extra good!" "Or maybe we should be really bad so she can see that you know how to handle us!" "No, Katerina! We can't be bad! Miss Elizabeth won't get to be a teacher!" Those sweet babies we golden little angels for forty-five minutes. I hardly recognized them. God bless them. After my supervisor had left, my soft-spoken Kiara runs up and whispers, "Did you get a good grade, Miss Elizabeth?! Do you get to be a REAL teacher now?!!" I told her that yes, Miss Soula was pleased with my lesson and Kiara jumped up and hugged me. Then she invited me over for a play date.

Not all of my lessons have gone smoothly, of course. I have been attempting to teach my students how to write a cause and effect essay. When I started teaching, I hadn't realized that my students had never written a paper before. When I was in the fourth grade, we had already been writing letters and informational papers for two years. After teaching what a cause and effect relationship was I jumped right into writing a paper about cause and effect. I didn't think to model a complete paper or show work from a student the previous year. It was a flop. The students didn't understand. I didn't understand that they didn't understand. They didn't know how to indent a paragraph. I wasn't explaining it very well. The whole thing crashed and burned. I took some time to shake it off and the next day we went back into it and did a reteach. I feel like they have some kind of a grasp on what to do now.  I just hope I have more opportunities to teach writing!

Last week was another important first for me--Parent-Teacher Night. On Wednesday, Emily and I stayed at school until 7 to meet and greet parents. Mrs. Bentioulis and I had a presentation about school rules, classroom procedures, and homework. I talked about ClassDojo and how to use it. I have gotten all the parents set up on ClassDojo so that they can monitor their child's behavior, participation, and homework completion each week. Although I didn't think I would, I really enjoyed the face-time with the parents and the opportunity to brag about their children.

I am attaching pictures of the fourth grade classroom to this post so that you can see the size (SMALL) and the environmental print and set up. I'll post later about what I have been up to in and around the city! Also--I am going to ROME this weekend! Yay!