Emily Kelley

Professional Development

2nd Grade Team Meeting 10/29/13

2nd grade has started a science lesson on engineering. As part of the engineering outreach, they had the engineer teacher from a local high school come and contribute to conversation on how to have the high school involved with the lower school's lesson. The second's grade objective with engineering is how to improve something. In the meeting they discussed about how they want to examine children's background knowledge and what questions they have and how to answer them. The circle of teachers began collaborating on different ideas. They talked about wanting to do something hands on and possibly have students build things from straws and marshmallows, then challenge them to make something different or to use different materials. This idea came from the book Galimoto. All of the engineering requirements came from the next generation science standard. It was beneficial to see all the teachers come together and form lessons that will better the education of their students.

The main purpose of these meetings are just to talk and plan. It helps to see if all the 2nd grade teachers are on the same page. The principle sat in on

the meeting and help contribute input to the team. One issue they addressed was how to keep the students that get pulled out of class on track with the rest of the students. Students get pulled from class for Title 1, ELL, speech, etc. This often results in those students falling behind in what the rest of the class is doing. The principle suggested that those pulling the students should take a look at the teacher's lesson plans and incorporate them into the time they spend with the student. This way they are getting the extra help while continuing with the same subject as the rest of the class.

School-Wide Events

Read for the Record

Read for the Record was an event at Trace Crossings that helped motivate children to read. The preparation and set up for the event took quite a bit of time. The Samford student got together to turn the Cafeteria into a barn. Who chose the scenery to be barn because the Read for the Record program was based off of the book Otis the Tractor. We made the cafeteria doors the barn doors, made another barn inside the cafeteria, a few trees, clouds, grass, and a mud puddle to help give visuals for the play the students were going to do to Otis the Tractor. The first grade students were the ones that played the biggest role in Read for the Record. They had prepared an entire play and songs to accurately display what the book was about. The teachers were also involved in this event. A

couple of different teachers were actors and actresses in the play. I thought this was cool because it showed that the teachers supported what they were doing and assisted in motivating the students to read. I really enjoyed this event because it involved all of the students and even teachers, the other grades got to come and watch, and it made reading seem so interesting and exciting.

Veteran's Day Program The Veteran's Day Program was held on the Friday before Veteran's Day. This program was put on by the 4th graders and also had participation from the principle. Everyone wore red to support the troops from all of the different branches. I was in Mrs. Pfeiffer's second grade class and we lined up the students to go into the cafeteria. All of the other grades all gathered there too. The parents and grandparents that have been in a branch of military all were invited to attend. The students said the pledge, read monologs, sang songs all to show their patriotism and thankfulness for those who have served. One of my favorite parts of this program was when they went through every branch of the United States Military, showed their flag and played their song, and then the family members who served in that branch stood up and everybody clapped for them. It was incredible to see the connection between a national holiday and a school event.