Lesson #1 Reflection In this lesson, I believe my instructional decisions impacted the class in a positive way.

My objective was to teach the class how to identify words and phrases that suggested feelings. I first did a guided reading of the book The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen. While I was reading the book, I asked the students engaging questions such as What do you think it means to pout? Why do you think the fish says he is wrong? How did the fish show that he was sad? Happy? and Why do you think the fish feels this way? I asked these questions to give the students a good idea of what it sounds like when others write about feelings. I knew that I had a Spanish-speaking student in the class, and I planned to help him if he didnt understand something. However, Francisco is very capable of speaking both English and Spanish, and I didnt need to make any modifications because of this. If I were to teach this lesson again, I think I would keep everything the same. The students seemed to enjoy the shared reading, sharing their feelings, writing about why they were a pout-pout fish, and creating their own fish to hang out in the hallway. They also seemed to enjoy seeing their fish with their writings hanging outside in the hallway. For these reasons, I believe that my instructional decisions had a positive impact on the entire class. The student that was most successful during this lesson was Jayden. He was on top of his game, and actually surprised me with his level of comprehension when I was reading the book. He knew words that most of the class did not know, and was not afraid or shy to explain the meaning of the word to everyone when they had questions. During the writing activity, Jayden shocked me with his speed and accuracy. His entire sentence was perfect, and he was even able to explain to me why he wrote what he did. During the making of his own version of the pout-pout fish, Jayden shocked me yet again with his speed and accuracy. He followed my exact directions and sat quietly in his seat when he was done, without me even instructing him to do so. My least successful student during this lesson was Francisco. Francisco seemed like he was not very interested in participating in the lesson. He didnt even listen during the guided reading. I dont think that he is not smart. I think that Francisco is lazy. He would sit in his chair and not do anything at all during the activities of this lesson. No matter what I did to try to get him to pay attention to what I was saying, he seemed to just zone out. My average student during this lesson was Kemarion. I found that Kemarion was going to be my low student, so I modified my lesson to help him. I encouraged him during the lesson and helped him come up with what he was going to say for the writing prompt. Im pretty confident that this is why Kemarion did so well during this lesson; because I sort of catered to his needs, knowing that he was a little lower than the rest of the class. When I got to the classroom on the day of my first lesson, I was allowed to observe the students in Writers Workshop. I noticed that Kemarion was struggling. When I began to read, I could tell that Kemarion was also struggling understanding parts of what I was reading. This made me decide to help him during the writing activity. This modification proved to be a good one because it helped Kemarion to be an average student. I feel like Kemarion was trying very

hard, he just needed that extra hand pushing him in order for him to do well. I modified my lesson to help Kemarion understand more of what I was trying to get across to the students. I made specific instructional decisions before and during the lesson. Before, I decided to do the reading of The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen because the students were learning how to integrate feelings into their writing in Writers Workshop. I thought it a good idea to do a lesson that complemented what they were doing in class. During the lesson, I noticed a few things that I saw as important. I saw that Francisco was not paying attention. I saw that Kemarion was paying close attention, but he seemed to be struggling. I had to make a decision. Did Francisco need help, or was he just lazy? Was Kemarion trying as hard as he could? Did he need help with understanding the material, or did he just need encouragement? Based on my observations during the course of the lesson, I saw that Francisco was, in fact, just being lazy, and that Kemarion was doing his best, but needed help comprehending the material. I decided based on these observations to focus on helping Kemarion, and just encouraging Francisco to focus. Based on student performance in my assessments, I think that the next time I teach a lesson in this class, I will do my best to help Kemarion from the beginning. It seems like he would do better if I helped him from the beginning of the lesson, as opposed to beginning my assistance in the middle of the lesson when I realized he needed help. As for Francisco, I think that I will do my best to stay close to him, constantly encouraging him to stay on task and do his work instead of just sitting there doing nothing. I engaged the students by asking questions during the reading and providing them with fun activities to do during the lesson. The instructional mode that was employed was whole group instruction at first and individual instruction in the latter part of the lesson. I believe that I used instructional aids pretty well. I used the Smart Board to display the topic, and I brought an example of my own Pout-Pout Fish to show the students what they could model their fish after. I think I could relate the contents of this lesson to the lives of the students in the future. My time allocation for this lesson as noted in my lesson plan was accurate. My two professional development goals for this lesson are to increase the level of active engagement of the students and to avoid over-excitement of the students. I think I could accomplish the first goal by being a little more excited during class. I think I could accomplish the second goal by practicing more classroom management techniques.

Lesson #2 Reflection In this lesson, I believe my instructional decisions impacted the class in a positive way. My lesson objective was to teach the students to successfully identify authority figures within their home, school, and community. First, I used an Anecdotal Record Sheet to determine which of the ten authority figures (parents, grandparents, older siblings, teachers, principals, custodians, school bus drivers, policemen, firemen, and postal workers) each student was able to identify. I then showed the students flash cards of each authority position and explained what each one was and what their role in each of the students lives that figure played. Last, we sat down as a class and wrote a letter to Miss Daisy, the classroom custodian, thanking her for all of her hard work. I had each student write the letter we created onto a piece of writing paper for a grade. I feel like this lesson had a very positive impact on each of the students individually because it showed them who to contact if they were ever in any kind of trouble, and how to contact them. It also showed the students that it is important to thank people that do things for you. In our example, Miss Daisy cleans up the classroom every day after we leave the school. She works very hard, but the students only see her wonderful work when they come into school the next day. I taught the students that these people often work behind the scenes, but it is important to say thank you to them for all of their hard work. I didnt have to add anything that wasnt already planned into my lesson. If I were to do this lesson again, I think the only thing I would change would be making a more entertaining activity for the students to do to assess them on which authority figures they knew. The students seemed to like learning about the different authority figures in their lives, and they liked adding to the discussion of what we would put into Miss Daisys letter. I taught them the importance of knowing who to call if they were in trouble, and the importance of thanking those that help us. For these reasons, I believe my lesson had a positive impact on the class as a whole. The student that was most successful for this lesson was Bess. She not only seemed like she knew all of the authority figures before I used the flash cards to explain them, she also knew their jobs. She helped some of the other students to understand which authority figure was which by describing their uniforms and what the vehicles they drive look like. Bess also made a one-hundred on the writing portion of the lesson. She has very neat handwriting, possibly the neatest in the class. The student that had the least success for this lesson was Kemarion. In the assessment, he has a one-hundred percent. However, I only assessed the students on their ability to use capital letters, punctuation, finger spacing, and neat handwriting. Kemarion did very well with the writing portion, but didnt seem to be focused in while we were talking about the different authority figures. He seemed to struggle with understanding which was which. My average student for this lesson was Jermiyah. She got a one-hundred on the writing portion, and understood most of the authority figures. However, for some of the authority figures, she struggled with, even after Bess and I worked to get her to understand them. She seemed to get frustrated that she didnt understand. Even so, she didnt give up. She kept working at it, and eventually seemed to understand all of the authority figures.

I had to make some modifications during this lesson. Right as my lesson began, four students were pulled out of the classroom because they were in RTI reading group. When they got back, I had to modify my lesson. I had to pull these students over to the carpet and help these students to understand what was going on, while still helping the rest of the class move on with the lesson. I made specific instructional decisions before and during the lesson. Before, I decided to do the discussion of authority figures because I know how important it is for young children to know which authority figure does which job. Some students do not know this. Its important for them to know because if they ever are in trouble, they should know exactly what to do, depending on the situation. The sooner they learn that, the better. I observed some things during the lesson that I also saw during the last lesson. Kemarion was trying very hard during this lesson as well, and didnt seem to understand some of the authority figures we were talking about. Knowing that this would probably happen, I stayed close to Kemarion to help him whenever he needed it. Francisco acted almost the same way he did during the first lesson. He didnt seem to be trying very hard. I am convinced that he is a very smart child, but does not use his intelligence to his advantage. I think that the next time I teach a lesson in this class, I will continue to do what I have been doing. I will stay close to Francisco to encourage him to try and stay close to Kemarion to provide him with as much assistance as possible. I engaged the students by relating the lesson to their personal lives by letting them write a letter to Miss Daisy, the classroom custodian. The instructional mode that was employed was whole group/discussion instruction at the beginning of class, and individual instruction at the end. I used instructional aids during this lesson, such as flash cards as manipulatives, the Smart Board for the letter to Miss Daisy, and writing paper to help train the students to write well. I related the contents of this lesson to the students lives by having them each write the letter to Miss Daisy. I told them that I would create a book of all of their letters. I did this, and presented the book of letters to Miss Daisy in front of the class the next day. My time allocation for this lesson as noted in my lesson plan was slightly longer than planned, due to the students that went to resource and came back into class halfway through my lesson. I wouldnt change anything about this, however, due to the fact that the students going to resource is something that I cannot control. My two professional development goals for this lesson are to increase student comprehension levels and to help Francisco to be more excited about learning. I think I could accomplish the first goal by coming up with more than one method of teaching to be used in each lesson every time I write a lesson plan. I think that I could accomplish the second goal by giving Francisco as much encouragement as possible.

Lesson #3 Reflection In this lesson, I believe my instructional decisions impacted the class in a positive way. My objective was to teach the class how to successfully identify at least three of the six stages in the life cycle of a pumpkin. First, I allowed the students to touch a large pumpkin that I bought at the grocery store. I asked them to describe it to me. I also asked them questions like What does the pumpkin feel like? and What does the pumpkin look like? I asked these questions because I wanted to see what the students felt like while they were touching the pumpkin. I also feel like these questions helped the students to create a relationship between the pumpkin and other objects that they had already seen before. Lastly, I worked on the students inference skills. I asked if they thought pumpkins had seeds. When we determined that pumpkins did have seeds, I asked them why they thought pumpkins had seeds. I used this question as an introduction into my discussion of the life cycle of a pumpkin. Lastly, we dissected the pumpkin as a class. I allowed the students to touch the goop and the seeds. If I were to do this lesson again, I might use more instructional aides to help the students better understand the life cycle of a pumpkin. The students had a great time touching the pumpkin at the beginning of the class, and were beyond actively engaged when I allowed them to touch the pumpkin. They were using very descriptive words. When we talked about the life cycle of the pumpkin, the students seemed to be attentive and focused in on the lesson. When we were dissecting the pumpkin, the students had many questions as to what was inside the pumpkin. They were very excited to do this part of the lesson. For these reasons, I believe this lesson had a positive impact on the class. The student that was the most successful during this lesson was Bess. Before the lesson, Bess had a basic understanding of how the life cycle of a plant worked. She only needed to apply it to pumpkins to know exactly what she was talking about. Bess had very good explanations as to why a pumpkin has seeds. She was able to accurately identify all six stages of the life cycle of a pumpkin, and was not shy about helping the students in her group that didnt understand after she finished coloring her pumpkin life cycle sheet. The student that had the least success during this lesson was Kemarion. Kemarion didnt seem like he was interested in anything but pulling the goop out of the pumpkin. During my assessment, I asked Kemarion several times what the next stage in the pumpkin life cycle was. Kemarion only was able to identify three stages of the cycle, and even then, it seemed like he struggled with the answers, and gave correct answers with the encouragement of his classmates. The average student for this lesson was Jermiyah. Jermiyah only knew three out of the six stages of the pumpkin life cycle, but she stayed on task the whole time. She seemed to be trying very hard for the entire lesson. Jermiyah didnt seem like she was struggling. She was the average student because she seemed to understand almost everything. For the things she didnt understand, she didnt get frustrated, she asked questions. I feel like Jermiyah is improving in this aspect. She didnt ask too many questions in the other lessons, but in this lesson, she had her hand up to ask a question quite a few times.

I only had to make one modification during this lesson. Towards the end, right after the students found out that they were going to be dissecting a pumpkin, they got very excited. Some of the students got very rambunctious while we were dissecting the pumpkin, and I had to tell them to calm down. I was thinking about having some of the students move to prevent them from talking, but after I got on to those select few students, there were no further disruptions. I made specific instructional decisions before and during this lesson. Before, I decided to do the dissection of a pumpkin. I decided to do this because the lesson was going to be taking place on October twenty-ninth, two days before Halloween. I knew that all of the kids would be excited that I brought something that went along with the festivities of Halloween. I was right. I used this Halloween decoration to create an entertaining lesson. The pumpkin proved to be a great tool for engagement. During the lesson, I watched Francisco and Kemarion, just as I had for the previous two lessons. As usual, Francisco seemed lazy at first. However, when he found out that we would be dissecting a pumpkin midway through the lesson, he seemed to get excited about learning. I was so happy about this. I had been trying to get Francisco interested in my lessons! Kemarion seemed to be trying very hard as usual as well. He did only get three out of six stages correct, but he seemed to understand the lesson more than usual. I am hoping that this is because my continuous helping Kemarion is paying off. I engaged students by bringing a pumpkin to class during Halloween. The students seemed to get very excited when they saw the pumpkin. The instructional mode that was employed was whole group. When the students colored their life cycle worksheets, I utilized individual instruction. I used the pumpkin as a manipulative, and worksheets to help the students understand the life cycle of a pumpkin. I related this lesson to the lives of my students by providing them with knowledge of a pumpkin. They could use this information if they were to carve a pumpkin of their own around Halloween. My time allocation for this lesson as noted in my lesson plan was accurate. My two professional development goals for this lesson are to continue my progress with Kemarion and Francisco and to improve my classroom management skills for the next lesson. I could accomplish the first goal by simply continue what I have been doing for Kemarion and Francisco. I could accomplish the second goal by being just a little stricter on the class while I am teaching.

Lesson #4 Reflection In this lesson, I believe my instructional decisions impacted the class in a positive way. My objective was to teach the class how to successfully complete various math problems using a ten frame. I first asked the students if they remembered when we dissected a pumpkin in our last lesson, and informed them that we would be using the seeds from that pumpkin in this lesson. As I passed out a paper with two ten frames on it to each student, I told them that I had counted out how many seeds were in the pumpkin and that there were three hundred and seventy eight. Next, I passed out a small handful of eighteen pumpkin seeds to use as markers on their ten frames. The students seemed excited that we were using pumpkin seeds that they had pulled out of a pumpkin themselves. Next, I pulled up a few number sentences on the Smart Board and allowed the students to do the problems with my help up on the Smart Board. Next, to assess the students, I asked them to complete two number sentences on their own. They were graded on correctness of the number sentence and whether or not they used the ten frames correctly. If I were to do this lesson again, I might ask the students to do more complicated number sentences or have them do more number sentences. The students seemed to be very excited about using the pumpkin seeds that they had pulled out of the pumpkin last time, and they were pretty good at using ten frames. My lesson seemed to be a review for most of the students. I believe some of their excitement was because for the most part, they already knew what I was teaching them. For these reasons, I believe my instructional decisions had a positive impact on the class. The student that was most successful during this lesson was Bess. Bess knew that this lesson was a review. The speed and accuracy that she completed this lesson with was astonishing. Speed isnt everything, but it does show that Bess had a high understanding of the material that I was teaching. She was extremely capable of using the ten frames, and comprehended the use of it better than anybody else in the class. The student that had the least success during this lesson was Kemarion. Kemarion didnt seem to be trying at all this lesson. He didnt know the material before I started teaching it like most of the class did, and this frustrated him a lot. I caught him more than a few times with his head down because he was so frustrated that he didnt understand the material. I tried to encourage Kemarion to pick his head up and try, but he refused to cooperate with me. The average student for this lesson was Jermiyah. Jermiyah understood how to use the ten frames, and used them correctly. Jermiyah seemed to understand how to do the number sentences, but made a few careless errors when completing her individual problems. Jermiyah stayed focused for the whole lesson and had an average level of comprehension. I had to make a few modifications during the teaching of this lesson. Three students had to leave class at the beginning of my lesson for RTI reading group. When they got back midway through class, I had to adjust my lesson plan. I had to help these three students understand what I had gone through at the beginning of the lesson, while helping the rest of the class along with the remainder of the lesson. Due to the fact that I had already experienced this before, I adjusted to it a little more easily. Again, since there is no way for me to control whether or not

the students leave for resource, and for the reason that resource is good for these students, I do not believe I should do anything to prevent this modification from happening. I made specific instructional decisions before and during this lesson. Before, I decided to do this lesson, because it would be a continuation of my last lesson. Another reason I did this lesson is because the students were already learning how to use ten frames in math. I thought that this review would be good for them, since some students have trouble with ten frames and numbers. During the lesson, I continued the supervision of Francisco and the encouragement of Kemarion. Francisco seems to be slightly improving with his laziness, although he still seemed like he didnt want anything to do with completing number sentences using his pumpkin seeds. Francisco still seems to have no interest in the lessons, and refuses to complete his activities. Kemarion is continuously getting better with his comprehension levels. Even though he has backwards steps sometimes, he is steadily pushing forward with his efforts to understand. I can tell that he is trying very hard to understand, but he does struggle, which Is why I continue to help and encourage him as much as I possibly can. I engaged the students by informing them that we would be using pumpkin seeds that they retrieved from the inside of a pumpkin as part of our lesson. The instructional mode that was employed was whole group instruction until we reached the assessment. The assessment was individual instruction. I used the pumpkin seeds as manipulatives, the Smart Board to display number sentences, and the ten frame worksheet to help the students complete the number sentences. I dont think I could relate this lesson to the students lives in the future. I say this because eventually, these students will be able to do this kind of simple math in their heads, and will no longer need ten frames or pumpkin seeds to help them add and subtract. My time allocation for this lesson as noted in my lesson plan was accurate. My two professional development goals for this lesson are to entertain the students more in the future and to try to come up with more ways to encourage students like Francisco. I could accomplish the first goal by planning more activities for this lesson that the students would find fun, to make them more excited about learning. I could accomplish the second goal by maybe requesting that a student like Francisco stay after school with me, or ask his parents to meet with me for a conference to try to convince them of the importance of his education.

Lesson #5 Reflection In this lesson, my objective was to have students successfully complete the Im glad Im me because paper. First, I did a shared reading of the book The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle. The students seemed to be interested in the book, and were giggling at all of the things that the chameleon turned into. After I read the book, I talked to the students about the Im glad Im me because paper. I told them what I wanted in the paper, and showed them an example of the activity on the Smart Board. After the writing was complete, I allowed the students to color their chameleon. When they were done coloring, I asked them to explain to me why they are glad they are who they are. If I were to do this lesson again, which I definitely will, I will not change a thing about it. This lesson is full of very entertaining activities, and teaches the students a valuable lesson in the process. The students obviously enjoyed the story; it kept them laughing all the way to the end. The students always seem to like sharing their thoughts, so I know that they enjoyed doing the Im glad Im me because paper. The coloring activity was probably the most fun part of the lesson for the students. I think it is safe to say that almost all children in the first grade love to color. For these reasons, I believe that this lesson had a positive impact on the students. The student that was the most successful during this lesson was Jayden. He focused on me for the entire reading of the book, and seemed to understand the lesson at the end of the book. Jayden completed the writing with almost one hundred percent accuracy. He displayed all the aspects of writing that I was looking for- capital letters, punctuation, finger spacing, and neat handwriting in his writing, and gave a very thorough explanation of why he was glad to be who he is. When he got to the coloring, Jayden completed his chameleon and waited quietly in his seat for further instruction, something I had not even instructed the students to do before the lesson. The student that was the least successful in this lesson was Kemarion. Kemarion actually completely shut down during the writing portion of this lesson. He didnt even act like he wanted to understand. Even after the teacher pulled him out into the hall to talk to him, he came back and put his head right down on his desk. He would not contribute to the lesson, and he would not pick his head up when I tried to help him with his writing. I believe that Kemarion got very frustrated and just decided to give up. The average student for this lesson was Jermiyah. I could tell that she was trying very hard to understand what she was supposed to write about in her paper. After I explained to her individually what she needed to do, she understood, and completed her paper. Jermiyah was quiet during the reading and was focused in on the lesson for the entire time. I had to make a couple of modifications during this lesson. Kemarion completely shut down, and I struggled with how to deal with this. Eventually, Mrs. Clark took Kemarion outside and talked to him. However, he wasnt much better when he returned. I took it upon myself to talk to him when they got back, and he seemed to get a little better, but not much. I had to modify my lesson to allow time to talk to Kemarion about his attitude. Another modification I made to the lesson was at the beginning of the reading of the book. The students were laughing out loud at what the chameleon was turning into. Knowing that this must be very funny for the

students, I told them it was okay to laugh, but they needed to put their hands over their mouths so that the laughing wouldnt be so loud during the reading. I told them that laughing loudly wasnt nice because it distracted other students, making it hard for them to hear. I made specific instructional decisions before and during the lesson. Before, I decided to do a shared reading of The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle because Eric Carle is one of my favorite writers. I think that this particular book contains a very valuable lesson for anyone, especially younger children. I think its important for them to understand that its important to be glad that you are who you are, to be proud that you are who you are, and not wish that you were anything else. This book shows the students that it is silly to think that they can be anything other than who they are. During the lesson, I had to deal with Kemarion shutting down. I had to make a decision on how to deal with it. Should I get mad and frustrated and fuss at him? Or should I be understanding and encouraging? I chose the second option, and it proved to be the best choice. Kemarion seemed to open up just a little bit after I told him to keep trying his best, and that it was okay to not understand sometimes. I engaged the students by reading them a funny, interesting story. The instructional mode that was employed was group instruction at the beginning during the reading and then individual instruction for the writing and coloring portions of the lesson. This lesson related to the students lives because they can use the valuable lesson they learned in the book to show their friends and family how glad they are to be who they are. I used the book to provide the students with entertainment, the Smart Board to show the students an example of the writing, and the picture of the chameleon to integrate fine arts into my lesson. My two professional development goals for this less are to help Kemarion to not shut down like that again and to do my best to create lessons that have valuable lessons in them like this one more often. I think I could accomplish the first goal by continuing my relentless encouragement to Kemarion. I might request a parent-teacher conference with Kemarions parents to try to understand more about his home life. I could accomplish the second goal by finding more books to read to the students that have valuable life lessons in them like the one I used for this lesson. Eric Carle has some great options!