OXFORD MIDDLE SCHOOL -
Week 1
Friday, Jan. 25
Today was supposed to be the first day of my internship but I am out of town on a trip in Florida right now.
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I have been emailing Mrs. Lewis (the principal at Pleasant Ridge Middle School) regarding my Passion Project that I have been working on for the past few months. I met with her on the 13th of January and I am trying to bind my book together for the meeting with the teachers.
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I was not able to be in the classroom today because we had a snow day. Dr. Fry has asked me to organize all my pages of my passion project book into one PDF File so we can send it to the print shop to be bound. I found that it is very difficult to organize 40+ pages and put it all in one PDF File. After a while, I got it taken care of and Dr. Fry is sending it to the print shop to be bounded on Friday! I'm so excited to see how it turns out!
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Today is the first day of my 6-week internship at Oxford Middle School. I started in the 7th grade resource room. As I looked around, I realized that I wasn't in the right place. I was talking to one of the teachers and I asked her if there was more of an intensive resource classroom here, because I was more interested in that. She said yes and gladly took me over to Mrs. Cole's room. I met Mrs. Cole and she was delighted to meet me. I think this will be a great fit for me.
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Once I got settled in, I went to see a few of the special ed students in a science classroom. I met 2 boys that were a part of Mrs. Cole's class. They were so cute. After I was finished with helping them in their science class, the paras and students and I went around the school with the coffee cart and sold coffee to teachers. I later learned that Mrs.Cole and her class have a coffee business where they sell coffee every Friday. The kids get to learn about real-world situations and social skills while talking to teachers.
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Wednesday, Jan. 23
Tuesday, Jan. 22
Week 2
Tuesday, Jan. 29
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Today, I arrived to Mrs. Cole's classroom and I was greeted by a student whom I have not met yet. Easton told me about his Disney World trip that he was soon to be taking, he was so excited.
Today was kind-of a weird day because it was "Career Day" for the students. Some of the kids went to career day but others stayed in the classroom.
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For the first part of the day, I worked with a student and we did some interactive computer games and he learned about different shapes and letters. Although he was unable to sing along, he bounced up and down on the chair to the songs. After that, I walked around with a student to explore what "career day" was. The first session that we went to was a theatre session, it was kind-of interesting.
**Different names have been used for confidentiality**
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We did not have school today because of the weather, so I was unable to go to my internship. Instead, I worked on my passion project. Today, I drafted an email to the math teachers at Pleasant Ridge and I sent it out to them.
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Throughout the day, I received many responses back. Many of the teachers were so excited to see my work and what I have created for them. I can't wait to share it with them on February 5th!
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Today, I started the day with helping in the 6th grade science classrooms. I helped 2 girls with their science quiz and then I bounced from one science class to another while helping 2 other boys.
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After this, we went around the hall with our coffee cart and the kids got to sell the coffee to teachers. I love this so much because all the teachers are so appreciative of them and they are so happy. Each kid also has their own little apron with their name on it too!
Wednesday, Jan. 30
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Friday, Feb. 1
Week 3
Tuesday, Feb. 5
Today I started the day with helping Aidan on the computer. We played a few computer games on HelpKidzLearn.com and TarheelsGamePlay.org. These are neat websites where Aidan can watch videos and about every 30 seconds it will pause and ask him "More?" and he has to touch the screen and click the "yes" or "no" button. It's a fun way for him to learn what these words mean and what can happen when he clicks on a word.
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We watched videos of Moana, Frozen, The Duck Song, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and more. Aidan tries to click what videos he wants but sometimes we can't figure out what he wants. I thought about how he might feel going through this; Imagine knowing what you want but being frustrated with not being able to tell people. He knows what he wants in his mind but he doesn't know how to communicate it to us, which is why I have so much patience with him.
**Different names have been used for confidentiality**
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Today I went to help 2 students in their science class. One of them wasn't really engaged in what was going on, so I had to help him stay on task a little bit. The teacher in the classroom just seems like she doesn't want to be there at all, which makes me sad. I later learned that the teacher is new this semester and she just got out of college last year. But still, in my opinion, I would personally expect more from a 6th grade science teacher.
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After the science class, I helped Mrs. Cole with an online weather game that she found online. I helped her navigate through it and show her how she could present it on her Smartboard.
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We did not have school today because of the weather, so I was unable to go to my internship. Instead, I worked on my passion project. Today, I put page numbers on my book and then I emailed the teachers a link to my website for my passion project.
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Wednesday, Feb. 6
Friday, Feb. 8
Week 4
Tuesday, Feb. 12
It was a busy day with all the 6th and 7th graders receiving their chormebooks and the teachers helping to assist students who were confused on how to use them. For a while, I was in a general class walking around the room with one of the paras, answering an questions that the students had. Although I was unable to answer a lot of their questions, I think I helped them a little.
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When I got back to Mrs. Cole's room, one of the paras was reading a book with a few of the students and they would go around the table and share reading parts. I sat with Will as he was reading and listening to people read. I helped him stay on task and read words that he didn't know.
**Different names have been used for confidentiality**
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I started off the day with working with Aidan again. Aidan, a para and I sat behind the computer playing Aidan's games. After a little while, the para went to a different room and it was just Aidan and I. We chose a few videos to watch and I tried to find stuff that he would like. We watched Trolls, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Moana. It was on the same website that asks Aidan every 30-40 seconds if he would like to "continue" or "stop," and he would have to click the computer screen.
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After this, we went to the front hallway and started setting up tables for an after school event. As you may have read in my other blog posts, Mrs. Cole's class has a coffee business where they sell coffee to teachers on Fridays. But today after school, they are having parents and teachers come to their coffee shop so they can show off their skills!
**Different names have been used for confidentiality**
Today, we didn't have school. I have been thinking a researching a possible project idea that I would like to pursue this semester. My idea is "Bitmoji's" in the classroom. Bitmojis are personalized cartoon characters that represent your personal emoji. Bitmojis are available in a variety of expressions that can be used in the classroom. My idea is to create posters, stickers, classroom labels and more with Bitmojis.
Wednesday, Feb. 13
Friday, Feb. 15
Week 5
Tuesday, Feb. 19
Thursday, Feb. 21
We didn't have school today due to President's Day and conferences. So I brainstormed more ideas for my next project for this semester. I looked on Pinterest and other teacher blog websites. I made lots of notes on paper from several different websites and looked at several examples of how other teachers have done this around the country.
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Today, we were at CAPS working on projects. Next week, some of us are going to the state conference in Wichita, KS to present our presentation. I got together with Hannah, Sean and Madilyn and we reviewed our presentation and assigned slides to certain people. I am going to present my slide on peer tutors in the special ed classroom and I will lead the "campfire activity."
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For this specific conference, we came up with a new activity to interact with the crowd. Hannah and I found a beach ball in the storage closet. The beach ball was covered with different questions written on it. Our idea is that we could start off our presentation with tossing the ball out into the crowd and have them answer the question that they touch. I'm super excited for this conference and I think it will go really well!
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Today was a pretty easygoing day. I started off the day with visiting with one of the substitutes and she was very interested in the caps program because she did not know what it was. Afterwards, 4 of the students in the science classes came back to Mrs. Cole's room and we worked on a comic strip project for their science class. Although I couldn't remember much about the rock cycle, I helped them figure out their comic strip.
Friday, Feb. 22
Week 6
Tuesday, Feb. 26
Today, a lot of the kids were gone for various reasons but, we started off the day with organizing the orders for the coffee shop on Friday. The teachers at OMS can submit their orders so we can go around with the cart to their specific classroom on Friday. We have a lot of coffee orders that we need to deliver on Friday!
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For 2nd hour, I went to Will's science class to help him out with some things. They worked on getting familiar with their new chrome books and then we took notes on a section of the book. After that hour was over, we begun creating more cards for their coffee shop.
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Today, we were supposed to leave at 5:45am for our state conference in Wichita, but unfortunately, it was cancelled because of the icy road conditions. For this conference, we were going to present our building relationships presentation and do some activities following that.
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Preparing for this presentation, I made a slide about my new project idea with Bitmojis. Unfortunately, I didn't get to present it!
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My last day was hard. I had to say goodbye to all the kids and paras. For my last day, I worked 1-on-1 with a Mikayla and Sophie. We worked on their science notes and filled them out together as we read the textbook. It took a while to get through it because Sophie and Mikayla were both slow readers. It was super cute though because they're so innocent and I helped them with all the big words!
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After this, we had our regular "Coffee Crew" business. William handled the register and Mikayla was in charge of pouring the coffee. All of the kids had special jobs that fit what they were capable of, and they would switch jobs each week.
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I will miss all the people I met throughout my time at Oxford Middle School and I value all the relationships I made. After this internship, I know I want to teach special education for sure.
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**Different names have been used for confidentiality**
Wednesday, Feb. 27
Friday, March 1
BV HILLTOP EARLY LEARNING CENTER -
Week 1
**Different names have been used for confidentiality**
Tuesday, March 26
Today is the first day of my second internship. I am at the Hilltop Early Learning Center in Mrs. Brockman's Class. She has a number of students who have IEP's and a few students with some learning disabilities. She started off the day with having the students trace some shapes and then when they were done they could play with toys. Once everyone was done, they did their morning circle. In their morning circle, they sang songs while dancing, they watched a puppet video, and lastly, Mrs. Brockman read a book aloud to the students.
After the morning circle, they all went outside on the playground for 20 minutes. I walked around with Eli and pushed him on the swing for a little. Eli is completely blind along with other learning disabilities. While walking around with him, I told him where we were, what we were walking on and what was in front and behind him.
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Today I started with Eli and we worked on a toy that challenged him to put coins into a piggy. The piggy would make a noise when Eli dropped a coin into the slot on the top of the pig. The OT had to help him a lot with finding the slot and would have to reiterate his task every time. After morning play, Mrs. Brockman put on the "clean up" song and every student would have to clean up their toys. Eli had some difficulty with switching tasks as it is very frustrating for him to switch tasks.
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Then we had our morning circle. In our morning circle, we sang songs and did some dancing, then we played freeze dance.
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On Fridays Mrs.Brockman doesn't have students in her class, but I went to her classroom and helped out with organizing and picking new games to play. First we organized the storage closet and she showed me all the different things she switches out for activities and games. Then she showed me all the Easter activities that she planned to do and we got out some of the eggs from the closet and put them around the room for students to find.
Wednesday, March 27
Friday, March 29
Week 2
I started today with walking Eli to Mrs.Brockman's classroom. As we walked to her classroom, I told him the things that were around him as we walked down the hallway. He likes to feel the furnace and then after that comes the water fountain that he always likes to turn on when we walk by.
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The first thing we did when we got their was play with the piggy bank again. Then we had circle time. We sang lots of songs and did some dance moves along with it. We sang a fun ABC's song and then we read a book about dinosaurs. After circle time, we went outside and I pushed Eli on the swing.
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Today we had the same schedule as we did last Wednesday. We started off with circle group and then we went to "Motor Group." For circle group today, we read a new book about dinosaurs and then we sang a fun ABC's song. During Motor Group today, we sang 2 songs together. After singing, we went over the classroom rules. Then we played bowling with dodgeballs and bowling pins.
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We did something different during circle time today. We had a chicka chicka boom boom tree on the smart board and the kids came up to the board and dragged different letters onto the tree after Mrs. Brockman told them the sound of the letter.
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The kids weren't in the classroom today again, as they don't have school on Fridays. I talked a lot with Mrs. Brockman and her para and we discussed my lesson plan that I was creating. For the last hour that I was there, I helped around the classroom. We cut out some papers that she had laminated for various activities. Next, we put sod into egg cartons as seen in the picture below. The kids are going to plant their own flowers next week!
Tuesday, April 2
Wednesday, April 3
Friday, April 5
Week 3
Today we were not in our classrooms today. I went to CAPS and we worked on projects and then we had a guest speaker for the last hour. The speaker was very interesting and had a great story about education all around the Kansas City area. He has worked at several schools and he has lots of experience working in urban schools. He is now working at Baker University as a professor of several education classes. I really liked his message and his things he had to share.
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Today at Hilltop, I helped Mrs. Brockman with her IEP's. During morning circle, she just doesn't have time to watch every kid and observe their actions. I watched a kid named Oscar today during morning circle and wrote down some negative and positive notes. I watched whether he was listening and whether he was participating with the class.
After morning circle, we had motor group. I decided to get some things done and I checked out the email that she sent me of their morning circle powerpoint and I made my own from her template.
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No kids today! We worked on preparing the classroom for the spring season as we put out some flower pots by the windows, created a gardening activity and more! I cut out pieces of yarn for Mrs. Brockman. She plans to use them for an activity next week where each kid will have their own flower made out of coffee filters that will hang on the windows! I really admire a lot of her activities and hands-on crafts that she implements into her classroom. She works so hard to make sure that every kid is happy and also having fun!
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After we were done with some of the classroom prep, I showed her my morning circle powerpoint that I had been creating for my lesson plan. I used some of her songs that she has the kids sing in the morning and I also used her classroom rules slide. I added a video of freeze dance and an activity with the chicka chicka boom boom tree! I can't wait to present it to the kids!
Tuesday, April 9
Wednesday, April 10
Friday, April 12
Week 4
Today at 7:30am, I was at the district office with Dr.Fry, Taylor Falker and Sean Suchma. We presented about our Educators Rising Program that we are apart of. We proposed that we need to spread this program to high schools and create a club for future educators. We had 6 administrators from different schools and they gave their input at the end of our presentation!
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After our presentation, I headed over to hilltop for my internship. I was 30 minutes early so I talked with my teacher as well as the paras about various things. They are so nice and friendly to me and I love being in this positive environment! When the kids arrived, we did morning circle like normal. I took notes for Mrs. Brockman for her IEP's and then we went outside! I played with Eli and we swung on the swing.
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Today I presented my lesson plan to the class! It was so much fun!! I taught morning circle with a powerpoint I created. I introduced a new song - Chicka Chicka Boom Boom - to the kids and we did an activity that went along with it! During morning circle, I read a book to the kids, we sang our morning song, our rules song and our listening rules song. After we sang, we did our counting cheer and then our "ABC Blues".
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I loved the experience of being in front of the class and I got so many compliments from different paras and teachers in the room. Here are a few pictures from my lesson:
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Tuesday, April 16
Wednesday, April 17
Friday, April 19
Today at Hilltop, there were no kids today. I helped Mrs. Brockman with cutting some papers for her. We also put painting tape on construction paper that the kids were going to paint over, remove the tape and then they would end up with a picture! After we prepared for classes for next week, we read through an IEP for a kid that is joining our class next Tuesday. His name is Dawson and he has pretty high needs.
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Week 5
Today we had our new student in the classroom! It was a little hectic today because Eli was working with a para on a new toy. He gets really frustrated and starts screaming if he doesn't want to play with that toy, so it was super loud in the classroom today. Dawson, the new student, was also running around the room and being loud. I tried so hard to calm him down but he couldn't focus on what I was trying to say.
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During circle time, we sang a new song called "Shoo Fly." Dawson caught on to the songs and dance moves pretty well but when we started doing our counting cheer, he would say the numbers so loud that we couldn't hear the other kids. When Mrs. Brockman was reading the book to the class, I sat behind him and showed him a picture of quiet voices. He would be quiet for about 3 seconds and then start talking about random things again. It's going to take a lot of getting used to the class for him but eventually he will learn the rules. :)
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It was day 2 with the new student. I was with Ms. Pat, one of the paras, before class today and I talked to her about how Dawson's behavior was for the rest of the day after I left. She said he did a little better but still off task a lot! During circle time today, I felt like everyone was just distracted and unfocused. I tried to get students to sing the songs and listen to the teacher but they just weren't interested. Mrs. Brockman told me that some days are just more difficult than others.
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After circle time, it was time for motor group. Mrs. Brockman told students to line up at the door according to what color they were wearing. Students who had blue on their clothes were to line up first, then green, red, and so on. Dawson, however, had some trouble with this. She hadn't said his color yet and he was the last to line up. He threw a fit that he didn't get to line up with the rest of the kids wearing the colors and screamed very loud. All of the other students and paras went to Motor Group and Dawson and Mrs. Brockman stayed while Dawson had a tantrum. He was extremely upset.
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Wednesday was my last day with the kids! Today, I helped Mrs. Brockman with preparing her classroom and cleaning up. I really enjoyed my experience for this internship and I loved working with everyone here! On Monday, we wrote thank you cards for our teacher and I wrote one for one of the paras with whom I worked closely with. I am so thankful for the wonderful people that I have worked with and all of the amazing kids that I met.