College!

Well it is official! Come 12/13/14 I will be a college graduate!!

This semester has been extremely busy. I have missed blogging like crazy. Now I have some free time so I will be posting more! 

College was difficult and very challenging but the experiences I learned throughout these past couple years I wouldn't trade for the world. Every bump in the road only made me grow more as a person and become ready to enter the real world. 

Now my 'job' is to start job hunting. I have began this process and I am excited. I cannot wait to see which exciting company I get to work with and the people I will meet. =)

Does your brain need a break?

Are your students fidgeting during class? Are you tired of losing the attention of the class? 

Instead of getting frustrated and losing valuable teaching time in the classroom give the children a brain break.  A brain break is when we give the brain an opportunity to take a break. 

During this time the children can stand up and get their sillies out! There are many ways to have a brain break.

 You can have the students:

Stand up 

Take a walk outside or inside if the weather is bad

Do jumping jacks

Play Simon says 

Play a game

Do an activity with the lesson 

Sing a song

Recite a poem 

Etc 

There are many different options that you can try with your students. This will save lots of teaching time and it will also help the students better understand the lessons because they will be concentrating more on the lessons at hand. 

Brain breaks can also be known as physical breaks. This is simply because you are giving the children a chance to take a break and do something physical to get let out some energy and to get the sillies out. 

This activity can and should be used for every age student. As a college student I know that during my classes which are 2 hours and 45 minutes long it is very nice to get a 3-5 minute break every once in a while. This makes the time go a little quicker and allows the students to take a few moments to refocus on the lecture. 

Have you used brain breaks? What worked in your classroom?

Let's write quickly!

A quick write is a very useful tool that teachers from first grade to college can use with their students. I think everyone uses quick writes, they just don't know it. 

A quick write is when you take a topic and write everything that you know about the topic in a given amount of time (example: 1st grade: bugs- 3 min). During the time allowed the students are not allowed to erase or reread what they have written.  This allows them to get all their thoughts out before going back through.

These quick writes can be used as a student's brainstorming activity, a way for the teacher to see what the students already know,  an assessment after a lesson to make sure the students all understand and many more possibilities.

I like quick writes because it is an easy way for me to jot down ideas for my blog when my time is limited.  I think it would be a great idea to use in the classroom when the students finish early.

Even though I am a big supporter of quick writes I do believe that they should not be used every day.  This needs to be an occasional tool that is used. This will keep the children interested in the activity. 

Education or Experience??

Let’s take some time and talk about education and experience. When you begin to apply for jobs some will say Associates or Bachelors degree preferred or 2-5 years experience. Which is better education or experience?

While education is important I feel that experience sometimes triumphs over education. As you know I am currently in school to become an early childhood educator. While in school I have been working in a daycare for around three and a half years. I feel that I have learned so much more while working here than in school.

A lot of professors in college teach to a test rather than teaching what they feel is the most important and what the children will actually use. I feel that the tests should be made off of what the teacher teaches and the class itself.

I have found one teacher who does not just teach to the test and who does not need to read word for word in the book but instead has a passion for what she is teaching. She teaches future teachers and has taught at different schools with these early childhood children.  So when she taught about family involvement she has seen firsthand just what happens in these schools. She is also able to give suggestions that she has seen work at different times. A teacher who has not been inside an early childhood school would not have the same understanding of what happens. Experience shows you that parents can react differently to the same situation. The more experience you have, the better you become at handling these situations. A book cannot teach this.

While working in different day cares I feel that I have gained an enormous amount of experience that will help me throughout my teaching career. I have seen different types of families and children. It is one thing to read a book about families and children but experiencing it firsthand really changes how you think and how you react to different situations with families and their children. Also while working in the day cares I have gotten many ideas that I will use once I have my own classroom. It also allows me to think of various lessons that the children will love!

I believe that experience should go along side education because you really need to make sure that you like what you do before you make it your career.  As a future teacher I have had to do many observation hours with different grades and document what I have seen and done with the children. I will also have to student teach for half of the school year to get more experience in the field. Through experience you learn new ways to do different things and new ways to use materials.