leaves of the fall

 

Last week we did an activity for the fall season. I read a story about the weather and then we talked about the fall. We discussed the leaves that fall from trees during that season and the children talked about how it look. I gave each child a magnify and asked them to go out to search for leaves that look like the fall leaves.

The children were so motivated about this and they were showing each other’s what they found. I asked children to smell and feel the leaves and describe that, then I asked them to make a collage of the leaves  they found. I liked how the children were focus in the activity, they were engaged and they w compared their leaves.

I think this activity was good and the children enjoyed it because it was student centered and I tried to let them work independently and choose their partners. Some girls took a big sheet and they told me that they decided to make a collage together. I was glad that they were able to make such decision .

 

Recycling Activity

This week we did a recycling activity because our theme is environment and recycling. I sent letters home to children's parents telling them to send recycling materials like water bottles, tissue boxes etc. the children came with lots of stuff and they were excited about them.

 

 

During the circle time I explained what is recycling and showed them the materials that they brought and asked how can they reuse it and what they can do.. the children came out with great ideas for different materials and then I asked them to move to the table.

 

 

We but everything in one table and the children sat on another table I explained for them that they can use whatever they want from the table and create what they want. I tried to make the activity open so they can create any thing and give them the time they want. The children were really engaged and they spent an hour making different things. I noticed that when they had the time and the materials they showed more creativity. They were independent and they worked cooperatively when they were helping each other cutting tapes and foil.

 

 

 

Everyone was engaged and there were no un appropriate behavior. The teachers also commented that the children need more of such activities were they can express them self freely without directions, models or instructions so I will try to do open ended activities in next lessons. Other teachers also liked the activity and they asked me to print the parents' letter so they can do the activity =)

Outdoor Environment

 

I tried a new thing during this teaching practice which is using the outdoor environment. They have an access from the classroom to back outdoor area where cooperative activities and big projects can done there. The children were very excited about using the outdoor environment and when I took them out for the first time. They were running and playing and it was hard to explain and talk to them. However, after I explain to them that some children will be inside doing other activities and they will have turns to do outdoor activities they started to understand and it was easier to manage inside and outside activities.

 

 

One of the activities i did in the outdoor area was a bus painting activitie. I divided the children into two groups and each group painted a bus.

 

 

 



a child is writting letter u of the word bus



 



the children decided to add their pictures



 

Measurement chart

The children had a lot of fun doing a height measurement chart. The children chose yarn and flower colours and I divided them in pairs so each two children measure each other’s height using yarn and they put it on the wall. I think the activity helped the children to cooperate and talk, they were really interested to see each others height and they were motivated to compare them. I did the activity in two days and the second day I asked the children who did the activity to explain it for other children to reinforce their knowledge and to scaffold each other learning. I tried to step back as much as i could and let them work independently.

You can do this activity for the _mass length and height outcome- it’s really fun =)

here are some pictures

The children brought flash lights from the classroom to investigate others height!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Footprint

I did an activity for letter F. I asked the children to write the letter f on their papers then I let them print their foot on the paper and help each other to print their foot. I gave the children the instructions and I told them that they have to wait for their turn. They were so excited to take their shoes off and do the activity outside.

 

 

children are writting letter F

 

 

I was concerned about the management of the activity because they are not used to such activities and they don’t usually use the outside area. However, the children were really good during the activity. They were waiting for their turn and when some children finished they asked me to help other children. So I tried to step back and let them do the activity independently. I think the activity worked well because the children were really motivated to do it.

 

 

 

 

 
After we finished the children clean up and I choose some children to help me to display their work.

 

 

 

 

 

a child !

I have a boy named Saif in my classroom. He is one of the most missed behavior children in my class. After I did the behavior chart it affected most the children but Saif was not really affective by the chart. It may affect him later if I stay consistent but I really want to try something different with this child. He always refuse to sit on the circle with any teacher, he hit other children and during the small tables activates some times he refuse to do them and choose to go to the computer.

The boy is very smart  and his English also is developed but he is in the low group because of his behavior. I start thinking of his life and the impact of that on his behavior.. His parents are divorced and he live with his older sister who is in grade five and she took care of him he have also two younger brothers. They live with their father and a maid . as I knew from my teacher his father is not always at the house and when the school call the father to come to the school he never showed.

I observed him in the last two days and I noticed the teachers are surrounding him with negative feedback all the time because they are tired off his behavior but that broke my heart and I think this is the place where the teachers should make him feel safe, secure and build his self esteem. I tried to use positive reinforcement by giving him positive feedback whenever he do any good thing ,I also I tried to build a stronger relationship with him by talking with him before the assembly.

 

help me =( any suggestions?

behavior management strategy

 There are no clear rules in the classroom and no specific behavior management techniques that children are familiar with or I can follow during my teaching practice . There are many problems arise from this such as, the  children don’t stop what they doing when the teacher ask them to sit on the carpet, they talk and don’t listen during circle time, some children hit others and sometimes they refuse to do what the teacher asks them to do.

I started a behaviour management technique using children photos. If the children did what the teacher asked them, clean up etc.. they move up until they reach the cloud and then they get a reward. On the other hand if they miss behave they move down. The behaviour chart that I used worked really well with some children but the ones that I was concern about their behaviour it did not affected them a lot.

I tried to be consistent with it but I felt that something is missing but after our discussion about behaviour management on Thursday I figured out that I needed to add a consequences beside the rewards. The children need to understand that there are consequences on their bad behaviour. therefore, I decided to add another column at the bottom of the chart which will be area where the child will miss about 2-4 minutes from play time

I talked with my mentor as well the Arabic teacher about the management system that I am going to use and  they agreed to use it so all of us will be using the same behaviour management technique which I think will make more sense for children and reduce confusion.

We decided to focus on positive behaviour and use prising wards, certificates and gifts as rewards.

Here you can find some certificates =)

http://www.mrprintables.com/printable-certificates-for-kids-good-behavior.html

http://www.rewardcharts4kids.com/good-behavior-printable-certificates/

 

Incident of my first week

During the previous week, the school went through many changes. One of the changes was a different grouping style in all the classroom. Before the change the children were in 5 groups, two groups sit with the teachers while the other groups play freely in the corners. Now, they divided the children into three groups and each group have to sit on a table doing specific activities and swap to other tables. An Arabic table , an English literacy table  and the third table for craft or any activities. So the children have to sit during the circle time for about 15 minutes and then move to the 3 table and sit in each group for 15 minutes!!

The first two days of doing this method I felt that it could make the classroom more arranged and quiet but it was the opposite. The children were trying hard to sit in each table and do the activity but after they finish they start to be so active because they sit for too long.  

This incident took a place because it affects my teaching style negatively. I taught the first week using the same way the school asked the teacher to do. Using flash cards, white board and other stuff during the literacy group. I felt that I was not enjoying the lessons that I was teaching. Moreover, what is the most important thing the children were not having fun. Forcing children to move from one table to another without having any choice or free play made the children restless and a lot of miss behavior appeared. This incident create a negative climate in the school because not all the teachers agreed on this change which may affect their teaching as well.

 

As a trainee teacher I should have asked the teachers to teach the way that I believe and explained for them my point of view. If they did not except other ways of teaching, I should also try to integrate my teaching style and what I believe with any system.

From this I learned that the teacher should not do what she think it’s not beneficial for the students. I should do the lessons the way that I believe will enable children to learn and have fun and not give up on what I believe because a change in the grouping system.

 

Others perspective of the incident

Dr Neil observed my lesson and he said that my teaching moved backward and the grouping strategy affected my teaching and the children’s learning. He added that we should do the lessons the way we believe in. My mentor also did not like the new grouping activity but she said that we can’t change the way of teaching unless they let us change, I told her that I want to use more art and craft for numeracy and she said that she will support me on that. my colleague Reem had the same point of view but the  Arabic head teacher when she knew about that we want to change she said : no way to change the grouping method!

 

Look how the children feel about this!!!

 

 

I’m joking these pictures are from previews feelings lesson =p

Patterned Paper Snakes (Cooperative)



I hanged the snakes outside the classroom with children's help



During this activity I tried to integrate numeracy with literacy, the numeracy target is to complete a  pattern and the literacy is to Identify different letters in  (Snake) word e.g. I say the /s/ sound and the child have to point at the letter. It’s  simple and the children enjoyed it.

Materials needed :

·       Colored card papers

·       Tape

·       Yarn

·       Googly eyes

I did this activity in pairs because through my observations I noticed that most children cooperate better while they work in pairs. I showed the children a model and then I asked them to do it independently each child choose a color and then I started the pattern for them and they have to complete it to create a patterned snake. They were talking and when they finished they had to glue the snake eyes, they decided that each will glue one eye!

 

two children  making a snake



After they finished the task I asked them to play cooperatively with the snake and I added two tales for the snake so they can play with it. During this activity the children were familiar with cooperative activities because they were experiencing it during the three weeks. They cooperate very well and my mentor noticed that too and she add cooperation in her activities too.



   

children playing with the snake togather





   I think  that this activity was good because the children were doing the activity together and they play with it afterwards. This adds to the activity more interaction not just during the task. This activity can be done with the whole class during the circular time by giving each child colored papers and start the pattern and let children complete it and then we can add yarn ends for each child and they can play with it all. It sounds risky but why not !

 

Finger Paint

Another pattern activity that I did was the finger paint cooperative activity. I started the activity by asking two children to work together in one paper. Each have to choose one color and they have to make a pattern by finger painting, they have to take turns in order to complete their pattern.

After each pair finished their pattern, I asked them all to do a finger paint pattern in one paper. Each choose their favorite color. My target was to encourage cooperative learning and review pattern. The children cooperated well, they were taking turns in order to complete the pattern the activity was very simple and they knew how to work with each others. It was more challengeable when I asked the whole group to work together in one paper and they missed the pattern however, they were excited about doing this activity together.

 I could take this activity a step further by differentiating it. The low ability children choose one color but the high ability children choose two or more colors because I noticed that the activity was easy for the high ability children so by differentiating it  would  be more challengeable.

Cooperative Handprint Flag

Another activity that I did for my action research and it was observed by my mentor teacher was the UAE's flag hand print. First of all I thought of doing it on the ordinary way were each child put paint on his hand and then print it on the sheet but I felt there will be no   cooperation and interaction between students. Therefore, I decided to do it in pairs, I called two children and each child had to paint the UAE flag colors on his friend's hand and then the other child paint for that child. I did this activity outside and children were very happy to do it there.  I was amazed how the children were talking and when a child put a wrong color on his friend's hand he was correcting for him and then they saw a house in front of the school were the flag was on the roof, they were looking and copying the colors.

  They were discussing and talking about the colors. The activity went smoothly and I think the reason is that they had clear instructions, I modeled the activity with one child and showed them how they should work with each other's and be good friends and the new place played effective element in this activity.  Another reason why I think the children cooperate well in this activity because the activity cannot be done individually they understood that they have to paint each other's hands and help each others to put the colors in the right place and print their hands.

 In future lessons I may do pairs activities in the same way and link it with numeracy or literacy. In my opinion, for this age group children we should not just provide activities and expect them to work cooperatively, they should have clear activities that encourages cooperative learning.

Hide and Seek !

There wasn't enough time to do whole lessons during this week so I did some activities during play time. I suggested for children to play hide and seek so that I can observe them and they were very excited. I asked two children to hide their eyes while other should hide together.

It was a very fun game children enjoyed playing it and they were playing cooperatively. The girls who were searching for others were talking and making plan of how not to let the other children  win. Also the children who were hiding they decided to hide in one place and they were talking all together where to hide.

I noticed that this kind of games which encourage children to play cooperatively and it has physical movements seems to be more effective with this age group. Such games children cannot play it individually they have to interact and cooperate to play. Whereas, other activities that I encouraged children to do it in pairs while it can be done individually most prefer to do it individually. I will try to do such games and include some learning with it.

Numeracy Cooperative Activity

The activity is about putting the UAE’s flag colors in a pattern.  There were three children in the group. I asked them to work together to put all the colored balls in a pattern.

I did this activity for two groups one group did the  activity very good they cooperate and when one of them put a wrong color they were correcting for her maybe this activity worked for them because they were close friends and they accept each other’s help. On the other group  one of the children was a high ability child she played the role of the teacher where she was stopping them and showing them the pattern when they put a wrong color. However, the lower ability children did not accept the high ability child to explain for them and they told her that they want to do it the way they want!

It would be better if I introduce the activity by giving each child a role. It will also will be more affective if I put a  reward children who cooperate well during the activity. Children need more cooperative activities and instructions to be able to do cooperative activities independently

The Weekend with Tutu the Turtle




Afra with Tutu during the weekend



I started a project with the children where they can take a toy home for the weekend and take pictures with it. Children present these pictures during the circle time and talk about their photos. When I  started the project the letter of the week was/t/ therefore, I brought a turtle. I asked the children to give it a name that starts with the letter t, and they named it Tutu.

since then every weekend one child take Tutu home and play with it and bring it back on Sunday for show and tell activity during the circle time.

 

I tried to integrate this project with my action research which is (cooperative learning) I tried to add to it a sense of cooperation by asking children to ask the child who had the toy about their weekend with the turtle. The children are very excited about this project and Tutu became an important member of the class. It also affected children's behaviour positively because the good behaved child get it. I label children's photos on the wall and I noticed that it trigger their curiosity and they go and look at the photos and ask that child more questions about them. They also discuss what they will do with Tutu if they got it.

In the future lessons I will make it more cooperative by putting Tutu in the home area and I will choose three children to play there cooperatively. I will observe them and see how well they cooperate. It will be also good to teach children cooperative manners during play time.

Letter for children's parents send home with Tutu