My Elementary Ed Blog

The fifth grade teacher I work with uses different strategies to engage her classroom in learning. She uses technology, games, and hands on learning with different senses to help her students learn. The teacher uses the smart board and other technology in different ways. For going over parts of speech, she handed out waterfall books and then showed the students several short videos about nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, and prepositions. After the students labeled their books with the different categories, she played and paused the videos as needed so the students could write definitions and examples down. She also has the students use Chromebooks to look up vocabulary words and they're allowed to work with partners so they can figure out the correct definitions. She also used the smart board for editing paragraphs. Students could come up and show the class where commas needed to be added or words needed capitalized. They had a hard copy at their desk...

The fifth grade teacher that I help uses a few clear routines in the classroom that help support a productive learning environment. At the front of the room, she has a voice level poster that is visible to every student labeled 0-4. Level 0 is no talking, 1 is whispering, 2 is normal talking, and 3 is group talking. When the class is doing iReady on their Chromebooks, she sometimes verbally reminds them, "You should be at a level zero right now." When she says this, the class quiets down because they understand that they shouldn't be talking at all so that their classmates can focus. At other times, she might say, "You can ask your table a question but it needs to be at level 1." When I first heard her say a voice level, I was surprised that the class responded so well but it's obvious she had gone over these expectations early in the year and the students had a clear visual reminder of the poster.  Another routine that worked well was the teacher giving t...

I have been helping in a fifth grade classroom during English Language Arts (ELA). The first day I was in the classroom, the teacher mostly used the learning theory Constructivism to help her students learn about story structure. She did use the Smart Board to show the students a slide with the definition of story structure. It was something like "how a story is organized." The students wrote a definition of story structure in their ELA notebooks (that each student keeps in their desk). I walked around to help make sure the students were writing this down in their notebooks. (There are several ELL students in this classroom). She began her lesson with orally retelling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears but only talked about Goldilocks. She then asked the students if her story was very interesting. She asked "Was that a boring or interesting story?" The class answered in unison that it was boring (based on their own experiences with stories). She then wro...

Provost Elementary in Provo, Utah is located across the street from the Provo City Cemetery. It's a brand new school two story school that was completed in 2018 to replace the older school in the same location. The school is considered a walking school because it doesn't bus any of its students. The surrounding neighborhood consists of smaller, older homes built from the 1940s though the 1970s. There are also several apartment buildings in the boundaries. The new school has lots of windows for natural light, wide hallways, and spacious classrooms. The large "cafetorium"serves as an auditorium, gym, and cafeteria. Each story has a large multi purpose room for teachers to do experiments and activities with their students. Copies of famous artworks hang on the walls and the principal's motto is: "I'm going to college. No excuses." Provost is a Title 1 elementary with about 60% of its students considered economically disadvantaged. 445...