Jordan's First Blog

Oh, lesson planning. This is actually my favorite part of teaching because I love coming up with meaningful, exciting things for my students to do. However, I always seem to get overwhelmed or not know where to start when I'm being graded for my lesson plans. It's like a cloud comes over my creativity and blocks all my ideas. These lesson plans have been particularly hard because of everything going on in my personal life. I sit down and not only is my creativity gone but my will to do anything right now is gone. Pain medicine leaves me sleeping most of the day, which isn't really ideal when you're enrolled in full time college and trying to get caught up on finances and in other classes. I started out my lesson planning by first, choosing my grade. I really enjoy working with the younger students, so I decided to do 1st grade. I would like to student teach in first grade so I thought it would also be nice to become more familiar with the standards. I chose my unit ba...

Jordan Caring, forgiving, loving, and thankful Little sister of Jonathan and Jaymie Lover of God, animals, and people Who feels blessed with the things I have, excited to be a teacher, and ready for the future Who fears heights, spiders, and never carrying children Who would like to see more love and less hate, less judgement, and someday the world Resident of Columbia, Missouri Burford My favorite term introduced this chapter is interdisciplinary instruction. Essentially, this is the act of integrating reading and writing into all other subject areas. I think we should all strive to do this daily. Students gain so much knowledge from reading and writing; they gain empathy, the ability to focus, and improves vocabulary and language skills. There are so many different ways you can incorporate reading and writing into other subject areas. There are the basic ways, such as reading directions and writing down answers to questions. But what are ways you can think of...

During the first class, we went over future assignments and discussed our memories of language arts growing up and books that influenced us.When it comes to memories of language arts in elementary school, all I remember is liking it. I loved reading. I loved writing. I read so much when I got to first grade that my teacher had me start reading those basal reader-textbooks. The big ones with the long stories and comprehension questions afterwards. We never really used them as a class, but boy did I read like 7 different ones from front to back. I just loved reading and would work as fast as I could to finish reading before we moved onto the next thing. I think this is why other subjects came so easily for me, especially writing. I feel like when you read, your brain is able to learn other things easier. This is why I want to be a kindergarten or first grade teacher--I think reading has such a huge impact on how students learn. This last year working in an elementary school, I really t...

Growing up with my mom having an in-home daycare in our basement, I wasn't very nervous to go kindergarten. Take note--this was still when there was AM and PM kindergarten; I went to AM. I remember seeing a bunch of girls and boys crying the first few days and not understanding what the big deal was at all. All of our moms and dads were going to be home when we got there. I just did not get it. Anyways, my teachers. I had the best, most loving , caring , teachers I ever could've asked for. Kindergarten was Mrs. Proctor-she was funny. Every year until I graduated 5th grade and went to middle school, I would go into her room in the morning and put down all her chairs. Every. Single. Day. For five years. When I graduated she gave me a gorgeous silver jewelry container and I still have it on my dresser till this day. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Rutlidge. I don't remember her very much. I think she was nice. Second grade-Mrs. Pemberton. Oh, I loved her. She was so funny. She ...

When I first started looking up different ideas for word walls, I kept getting the same old boring ones. I understand the simple background with the simple words laid out in a specific order for the younger students. However, I came across this and my ideas for word walls blossomed.  Oh. My. Goodness. You can do creative word walls like this for kindergarten, even. Have a smaller word wall bordering one wall of the classroom, and have 3D objects attached where possible. This would be doable for first grade's word walls, as well. I love the idea of having visuals for the older kids, not just the younger ones. This next one I instantly fell in love with! This is exactly the height I was talking about for the word wall in my previous paragraph. This word wall is commonly used in preschool  classrooms, but why not use it kindergarten or first grade classrooms? I feel like having the words more on their level and not so high up in the air, as most word w...