To be honest before arriving to my placement the main emotion that I felt was nervousness. Most of the experience I have working with students is from Kindergarten to 2nd grade but 4th grade this was a whole new crew. After I was introduced to the class and took my seat in the back I began to observe the class.
Right away I knew that this 4th grade class was no different then my own years ago. The two subjects that I was apart of were science and math. One activity that I really liked that the teacher had her students do was a model of a series circuit and a parallel circuit. They formed a circle and held hands demonstrating electricity running through both a series and parallel circuit. I think anytime a hands on model can be done in the classroom it's generally beneficial because many students learn best with a visual representation.
One thing that I thought was interesting was how the teachers choose to do math. Instead of having only their students, the students were transferred to a different 4th grade teacher. At the beginning of the year the students took a pre-test to see where they were in math. They were broken up into about 3 different categories; enrichment, average, and advanced. I think that my teacher taught the average students; the teachers rotate which group they are teaching. The students were learning multiplication and division factor families. One of the activities that they did and seemed to enjoy was a team game. The teacher divided them into groups of 4 or 5; each team received a white board, marker, and eraser. She wrote down three numbers on the board and the objective of the game was for the students to write the factor family on their board while working as a team. I like that the teacher reminded them that the activity was just for fun and that it didn't matter who won or who lost.
A way that my first day applied to Education 203 is that we can learn from our students. Although 4th graders are young and still have a long ways before they're adults; I feel as though I can still learn from them. They know how to be excited and to be goofy, sometimes this gets lost as we become adults but that doesn't mean that it's not important.
The students were very excited to share with me about the books that they were reading. I loved their enthusiasm! It is great that students are excited to read and enjoy talking about books. It seemed as though having class time to read was a treat for them.
I'm excited to go back for day #2 with my 4th grade class!
Amen! We are all life-long learners, and if we choose to learn from our students, we participate in their education more deeply.
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