April 21st

     Thursday at Westwood the Kindergarten teachers were doing an Easter Egg Hunt for the students. The activity was supposed to take place at 1:00 but the plans changed unexpectedly last minute. When I walked in the classroom around 8, the teacher was frantic and obviously stressing. The Easter egg hunt was moved from 1pm to 9am, meaning she only had an hour or so to get everything together. Kids were told to bring baskets and eggs filled with candy but a majority of them didn't bring their baskets and would feel left out if they couldn't carry their eggs. So online we found a cut out of a bunny that could be made into an Easter basket, made out of construction paper. While the teacher was trying to keep the students busy, I was tracing the cut out and folding the paper and stapling their baskets. I had to quickly make 18 baskets and in an effort to keep the kids busy, when I would finish one basket I would give it to a student to color and decorate and that way the teacher could help me instead of trying to keep the students busy. After a stressful hour and a half we finished everything and the kids lined up for their Easter activity.
     Another type of assessment used in Kindergarten is when the kids first get there in the morning they choose one person to do the calender. They change the date and count the number of days left of school. This is another way of testing all the students on a daily bases, whether than taking a test on the days of the week and counting.

April 15

In Kindergarten today I did the same thing I did last week. I had to finish giving the kids their verbal test in counting 1-100. This test was important so they teacher can see what level everyone is on and what she needs to do in class to improve their scores. While I was doing this, the teacher was inside testing the kids on their reading skills. This test also is to asses the kids level of reading. Kindergarten is a crucial grade because the students come in knowing none of the basics and now they are starting show what they have learned. In kinder they learn to count, write, spell and read. This is crucial for their education and they learn the basics that they'll use for the rest of their school careers. By doing an assessment teachers see the rate at which their students are learning and what they need to do to help their students. The most popular assessment used by teachers is testing. There are verbal tests, non-verbal tests or essays. Assessments are important to the teachers and to the students, because if the student isn't tested on what they've learned then the teacher can't reassure that the student is learning what they need to be.

April 7th

Yesterday in Kindergarten the substitute asked me to take each students out of class one at a time and test how well thye know their numbers. They had to count from 1 to 100 while I marked each number they got correct or if they needed extra help. Some students you could tell would have no problem when they started but a majority of students had trouble once they got to 60 and on. I had to show them the chart and count with a few of them. The substitue warned me of this and so I wrote a note on the papers that I had to do this for. I did this so the sub would know which kids need the most help and which area they needed help in. It was a productive day and it was good to see the different rates kids learn even though they are in the same class.

April 1

Yesterday I went back to my kindergarten class. When I walked in they were reading books at their tables and they were so excited to show me how good they can read and the level of difficulties on their books. All the students are on different reading levels but the teacher still teaches them on the same level. The kids that don't really understand or are slower than the rest act out more than the faster kids I've noticed. The sub yesterday had me take about six kids out in the hall and play a spelling game with them. I noticed that if they don't know how to spell something they start acting out or just shut down completely. I tried to keep this from happening by helping the kids that needed a little more help than the rest. This helped and we all had fun and it really helped them with their spelling. I haven't experienced any other kinds of disabilities in the classroom, but if I were a teacher and I had a special ed student I would have to make certain accommodations and tweak the lesson plans for them. I think its fair to have special ed kids and regular students together just so they all get the same experience and get to be social.