What is really important!

My grandma passed away on Monday! At the end of August I lost my grandpa and grandma within three days of each other. My mom's dad and dad's mom. And then this last week I lost my grandma, my mom's mom. It has been a sad couple of months. I was talking to my sister this week and it hard because we have had grandparents for so long and then to lose all of them so quickly. As I have processed my grandma's death I have begun to ask myself, what is really important. I have looked at my life and all that I am involved it but it has also transferred into my action research.

This last week we ready an article called, Window on our classroom. In our groups we have discussed what we found to be important. The thing that stuck out to me was assessments. Getting back to my question, what is really important about assessment. The article talked about authentic assessment. I stopped and thought about my own assessments for my action research and the assessments that I use in my classroom. Are they really important? Am I using them because I have been told to or are they authentic and showing accurate data that his helping guide my instruction? I don't have all the answers. One of the areas that I have been looking over this week for my action research is my assessment. I am assessing to see whether or not they are accurately assessing information that is important to my action research.

If you are reading my blog, I challenge you to look at your own action research and find what really matters. I really think that we need to be looking at our assessments. We are constantly assessing our kids but are these assessments necessary and do they better our instruction. I don't have all the answers but I believe that my action research will be more powerful is my assessments are authentic.

Through a student's eyes

Before we started our blogs we researched and looked at different blogs. One of the things that stuck out to me was different voices. I liked it when the blogger told stories through different eyes. In one that I looked at the mom talked about her sons and used life experiences from her sons. In another the dad actually let his daughters dictate to him and he wrote what they were experiencing. In my group I told them that I was going to use the new ideas that we found. So here we go...

One of my students is named Daniel. He is very bright. I asked him how he liked to learn. He said that he liked when we did games and projects. He is a very high student but hates to write. His favorite math activities were the hands-on. He really enjoyed when we pretended to have an ocean and we put sea creatures in it. I found that with Daniel paid more attention during the hands-on activities. When pencil and paper are given to him he flies through it. He just wants to get it done. I believe that for him, he learned best through the activities and he agrees.

I also spoke to Daniel's mom. She talked about how it is a challenge to get him to do his homework. She has a hard time getting him to sit down and do the work. He would rather be playing outside or in his room. She believes that he is such a good student because he has been in school since he was 3. He has learned appropriate behavior and abides by the rules. She uses positive reinforcement at home to encourage him to do his homework.

Overwhelmed

I'm a little overwhelmed this week. I started at a new school, district, and grade level. My new school has different requirements than my last school district. We have evening in-services and weekend in-services so needless to say I have been busy. Adjusting to being a new teacher again is hard as well. I have more meetings to go to and I am new which is an adjustment. I am lucky to have supportive administration and teachers to work with. But it is still an adjustment. I am in a new grade level and I have state testing which I have not had before. All I can say is that I am overwhelmed. I am trying to take it one day at a time in order to keep myself going. Last week was hard because I really didn't have the weekend because I had an in-service. I don't know about you but I need the weekend to regroup and get ready for the next week.

As far as my project this week I have been working on how I would implement into my classroom. I am creating a timeline of what I would like to do. I am aware that every year will be different because the kids will dictate how fast or slow I would need to go. I am creating the best case scenario. My hope is that for the first two week I would focus on numbers 1-5. The third week would be a review of numbers 1-5. The following fourth and fifth weeks would be focusing on numbers 6-10. My sixth and final week would be a review of numbers 1-10. I have also been creating my template for my lessons. I want it to be uniform so that it is easy for the reader to follow and use in his/her classroom.

On top of my stressful week my son got pink eye from preschool on Friday. Friday afternoon I am in the doctor's office and the doctor tells me that I will be giving my son one drop in each eye three times a day. My son is like the Energizer bunny he doesn't stop at all. Needless to say it has been a challenging weekend. I am looking forward to Wednesday morning it will be our last day of drops. Knock on wood that he doesn't get it again. I can always hope! I am off to another exciting week in Mrs. Martinez's 3rd grade classroom!

Working Together

I met with another Kindergarten teacher this week to pick her brain about math in the classroom. She teaches in a different school district and only has 20 kids so, her classroom make-up is a little different than mine. She has 20 plus years of experience and a master's degree in math so I think that she is an expert in the area of mathematics. One of the challenges of this program is to work together. I have enjoyed working in groups. Although at times coordinating schedules has been a bit challenging.

A key component of her math program is hands-on activities. She believes that this is the best way for small children to learn. It gets their whole body involved. She agrees that doing the state adopted curriculum is important but you need to supplement. She teaches at a PI school so she is mandated to teach the state adopted curriculum. She has to have 30 minutes of math a day. She does more than this because math is integrated into her morning routine. She also believes that repetition is good. Her kids are counting several times during the day. Practice, practice, practice is her big idea!!!

Again, I am challenged to have my project include hands-on activities as well as portions of the adopted curriculum. I appreciated that she took time to meet with me. I like to meet with veteran teachers to see what works. They have been at it a long time and have found success in their classrooms. It is good to work together!!!

A great activity!!!

I did a great activity with my class. I gave each child a piece of blue construction paper. We pretended that it was the ocean. Each of the unfix cubes was a different sea creature. We put one green octopus in our ocean. Two red crabs, etc. I was working on review of colors and number quantity. I only worked on numbers one through five. This is what I am focusing on at this time. At the beginning of the activity I just said what to put in their ocean. Then together as a group we counted the objects. Towards the end of the activity I wrote the number on a dry erase board, to show them the number that corresponded with the quantity.

My students loved the activity. The loved to pretend that the paper was the ocean. As a follow up activity the next day I gave them a blue piece of paper and they drew sea creatures on it. Each child got to decide what they wanted to draw. At the bottom I had typed a sentence, I drew __ _____ in my ocean. The child wrote the number and then I had printed out the name of the sea creature and they glued the name of the sea creature in the sentence. I worked one-on-one and we pointed and read their sentence together. My students are beginning to learn numbers one through five.

What kind of learner are you?

A couple of weeks ago I had parent teacher conferences. I was able to meet with some of the parents of the kindergarten students. I asked them about their child's number sense knowledge. Most of them said that they practiced numbers at home but were not consistent about it. I asked them how their child learned best and most of them said that their child was a visual learner. I had a couple of parents that said that their child was an auditory learner. All the parents agreed that the kindergarten classroom was very effective for their child to learn in. At my school the kindergarten students stay all day. The parents really like this learning environment. Many of them are thankful for the teacher and the academic support of the classroom.



I have a lot of ideas for my project. Kindergarten students are really active and have a short attention span. As I design my lessons I want them to get their whole body involved. I have found that this helps them retain new knowledge. I want to use manipulatives to help them connect the actual number to the quantity. I also want to have them practice writing the number. I think something that stuck out to me from the parents was that they were not consistent. My challenge is to be consistent in my project so that my students are able to have a strong foundation in numbers one through ten.

Wow, a new adventure has begun!!!

I can not believe that we are beginning our sixth week of school! It has flown by. I have begun a new adventure, teaching 3rd grade. For the last eight years I have taught Kindergarten and I loved it. I can tell you, I LOVE 3rd GRADE!!! My kids are independent and I only have 20 kids. I love teaching 3rd grade. It has it's own challenges but I love the new adventure that I am on. My project will continue to focus on Kindergarten students. My eight years of experience is in Kindergarten and last year I did all my research in my Kindergarten classroom. I also completed my Review of Literature last semester so, I will continue to write my project focusing on number sense in Kindergarten.

What is the context for your action research? What are your research questions and why did you decide to investigate them?

The context of my action research is number sense specifically numbers one through ten. I want to develop a manual for teaching numbers one through ten. My hope is that the manual will be hands-on. I have seen that kids remember more when their whole body is involved. The research question that I would like to investigate is, How can I effectively teach numbers one through ten in a Kindergarten classroom? I am passionate about teaching mathematics. I have seen that math is quickly taught and many times it is taught with the textbook and worksheets and teachers do not utilize hands-on activities. I want to change the teaching methods and focus on hands-on. Last semester I took a look at the standardized test scores for my school and I was disappointed to see that my school scored poorly in the area of mathematics. I also did research about the United States and teaching mathematics and found that the United States was poor in this area. My passion for writing my project in the area of number sense grew as I researched more.

The MAT focuses on social justice and multicultural curriculum. How is your research related to these?

This is one of the things that I am working on. I believe that part of the focus of my project is to provide equal opportunity to all students which would be social justice. How can I present numbers utilizing multicultural focus. I believe that this is one of the areas that I need to do more research and also look deeper into what I am trying to provide for my students.

What results have you found from your study? Did they surprise you? What do you think they did or didn't?

My study has proved that mathematics is an area of weakness in the United States. I also have found that at my school mathematical retention is low. I was surprised at the results of our school. Math is universal in all languages so I thought that the scores would be higher. Although the focus of our school has been in Language Arts so maybe our test results are showing that we need to focus more in the area of mathematics.

How will your study influence your future practice?

I love teaching. I believe that my study makes me a more well rounded teacher. I have seen what is effective and what is not. I also have seen the power of multicultural curriculum and the positive influence that it has on students. But I have also seen how it takes time and effort to make it effective in the classroom. Change takes time and also I need to be sensitive to those that I work with. They may or may not be willing to change. I need to make positive changes in my classroom and hope that others will make the same changes.

I know that this is the just the beginning of my project. I have more research to do and a lot of refining and designing. I am confident that this is going to be a great adventure!