Reflection from field experience on March 11

I learned a lot in my kindergarten classroom this week since I was able to observe different subjects. Usually we observe the same schedule every Wednesday, which consists of journal writing, weather, calendar, phonics and center time. This week the schedule was different because all the kindergarten classes were meeting in the auditorium to practice songs that they will be performing together. The schedule was also different because some of the grades were taking the PASS tests, and the whole school’s scheduling was off. I was able to see the students go to art class and I observed my teacher doing a math lesson. I was really interested in seeing math, because soon I will have to teach a math lesson and I am very curious about how my teacher teaches math to her students (whether she teaches in centers, small-groups or whole-class). She did a very short math lesson about addition and she did it with the whole class sitting on the carpet. For part of the lesson my teacher demonstrated on the board, and then she passed out a packet for each student and they all worked together doing addition and subtraction. In art class, the students created pinch pots out of playdoh. They made the pots while watching a video on nature. I thought the art lesson was interesting, but I did not think that creating the pinch pots kept the students interested for very long. During art, one of the students sitting near me starting getting really upset because he could not made his pinch pot as big as he wanted. He started crying and put his head down. It was really difficult to cheer him up, but I tried to help, although I am not sure I got through to him since he still seemed upset when we left art. I wish that the students had been doing something more engaging in art, since I saw many students lose interest fast. When the classes met up in the auditorium to practice singing, we went with them and observed. It was so cute! They sang songs that we have heard them sing and dance along to in the classroom. I am not sure when or where they are performing these songs, but it was so cute and I hope I can see their performance. Overall this week’s experience was very different from most weeks, but I really enjoyed being able to see art, math and the song performance.