Kolb EDUC 461 Fall 2014

Journal Entries for September 22-September 26

September 22, 2014
This week, the students are learning about their five senses: see, hear, touch, taste, and
smell. Each day is learning about a new sense and doing an activity that goes along with it.
Today the students did the sense of hearing. I read the story My Five Senses by Aliki and taught
the song that goes along with the lessons this whole week. With hearing, we talked about the
different things that you can hear. My teacher had a game from way back called Whats that
Sound? which the students had to listen and guess what made that sound. The students surprised
me when they guessed things I did not think they knew. After the hearing game, we talked to the
students about people who do not have the sense of hearing. I believe it is important for students
to understand that not everyone has all of their five senses. They need to realize that those people
have to rely on their other senses to function.
Today was the first day where open court was added to my agenda to teach as well as
ELA. I felt during the ELA where I introduced the book that we were going to read, that I did not
ask enough comprehension questions. I do think that I need to work on that. Ms. South also
talked to me about the lesson that she observed me do. She said everything was great but I do
need to work on discipline while doing a lesson. She felt that is something that young people let
go of when teaching. I took the criticism because I needed to do so. I told her I would definitely
work on that.
September 23, 2014
Today the sense we worked on was sight. Sight was fun for the students because Ms.
South and I decided to add an extra activity in the mix. I put the students in groups where one
group would go work on the five senses booklet and the others could do a game. They were put
in partners and one person had to have their eyes shut while their partner guided them through
the room. The point of the activity was to trust their partner and show them that they are people
in the world who do not have the sense of sight.
I mentioned to the students that the people who cannot see have a cane to help them
guide through the room or they have a dog that is trained to help them too. Students had fun

doing this activity because it got them to move in the room but to be aware of their surroundings
even with their sight. Students did an art activity with mixing paint and they had to use their
eyesight to guess what color it could turn to. Ms. South read the book called Mouse Paint which
is about three mice who discover mixing paint. The students had to listen how red and blue make
purple, blue and yellow make green, and red and yellow make orange. The art activity was that
each student got a worksheet where they had to put red, yellow, and blue point to make the other
three colors: purple, green, and orange. It was amazing to see that students that could follow
directions because we did have ones that were a disaster. It was a good activity but I believe we
should have done the directions before giving them the paint.
September 24, 2014
Today the students learned about touch. I taught them that touch is associated with
fingers but we really touch with our skin. I read books about touch and talked about how
different things react with our skin such as goose bumps or sunburn. After that the students were
asked what they can touch. The students were asked to keep their answer in their brain and had
to draw what they can touch. After the students did their touch page in their five senses booklet,
each student had a touch and feel book. They were introduced to objects such as cotton balls,
buttons, sandpaper, foam, cardboard, and a toothpick. The students were introduced to new
words that described each of the objects such as soft, hard, rough, smooth, sharp, and bumpy.
Some students would say the foam would be soft but the word we want them to recognize is
smooth. This activity also helps with classifying objects like they will do when they get to more
complex objects like rocks. I taught the whole science and ELA lesson today. Ms. South never
stopped me after open court so I kept going. Next week I will taking over Math and since
Science and Social Studies are integrated, I will be teaching the whole morning.
I am nervous about doing the ELA and asking comprehension questions. I watched Ms.
South do it and she is better at it than me. She said I did fine because I told her that I thought it
was a disaster the first two days I did it. She reassured me that I did fine and it was not a disaster.
I am working on disciplining more with the students as I am teaching. I see what I can tolerate
and it is aggravating to have the students to talk while you are teaching them sometimes. I do let
them talk but I try to make sure they are not calling out or hollering out while I am teaching.

Ms. South told me today that I did something well with a student during computer lab.
This student is very smart but she was having trouble with clicking on the computer. Ms. South
tried to help her but was not getting anywhere. I took it upon myself to help her which worked
because her score was a 95%. I put my hand over hers and did it step by step. I took my hand off
and watched her do it as I said click and let go. She finally caught onto it and she did
exceptionally well.
September 25, 2014
Today Ms. South and I had to go to a meeting for the new test that the K5 and K4
teachers will be using instead of the DIEBLS test for their students. This test is called the
CIRCLE test which has letter recognition, rhyming words, and number of words in a sentence. It
has tests that are called observables which include physical, social, and emotional development.
The scores for each test are emerging, developing, and proficient. Each score is based on the
students knowledge of letters, rhyming, and hearing how many words are in a sentence. These
scores also apply to the observables. The meeting started at eight in the morning and ended at
ten. The students were with the teaching assistants that morning.
When we came back from the meeting, the students sang me Happy Birthday when I
walked into the door with Ms. South. It was sweet of them and it showed that they loved me. Ms.
South did teach the whole day except I did open court for that short time before the math lesson.
Since she and I were gone most of the morning, we did not do morning meeting or calendar. The
students did the sense of the smell today where they had to guess the smell in the canisters. There
were four canisters with four different senses. Some of the senses were good and some were bad.
The day went as smooth and we tried to get most of the plans considering the morning we were
having.
September 26, 2014
Today was my second lesson observation for the subject of math. I was teaching the
students of the different ways to make five. We would talk about the number five and how many
fingers it would represent on our hands. One of the other K5 teachers shared her idea of what she
did for this particular lesson and I decided to go ahead and do the same thing. I had the five girls
and five boys come up to represent the different number sentences of ways to make five. I

believe this was a good tactic because it gets the students involved and to get them to visually see
the different number sentences. I used the Elmo and the SmartBoard for the during assessment
because it was modeling and scaffolding of what I wanted them to do on their own. I had the
some students come up and do it on the Elmo because it would be better for them to actually do
the worksheet with me helping them. The students who did not get a chance to come to the Elmo
had to use their fingers to count along with the student putting the squares down. I knew I would
lose them if they did not do the finger counting along with the student up by the Elmo. After the
lesson, I put them in small groups which was intentional because normally when we do this
lesson, it is as a whole class and it is disastrous. I believed it would be easier to have small
groups that way it is more individualized attention and better monitoring for each of the students.
It also gives me a chance to see who is having trouble with the lesson and how I need to address
it later. I am still having trouble on closing a lesson. I know students need that come together
review of what we just did. I am hoping to get better with that as I go on.
I have worked on many of things that I needed to work for my supervisor and my
cooperating teacher. I have worked on disciplining and making my transitions much smoother. I
have worked on doing small things that I could do for that little time I have. I will now be
teaching full time next week and I am hoping it goes well!