Service Learning#3

This past Wednesday was my third visit to service learning at Red Cedar. When I walked into class and was told that I was going to be assisting the teacher in a lesson I was thrilled. It was a science lesson on the different seasons of the year and how to record times of the sun rising and setting. My job was to draw the diagrams on the board and the teacher, Ms. Byrd-good would explain what season had the shortest days and the longest days of the year. After that, we went into detail about the other continents and how their season differs from ours. I found this to be fairly challenging for third graders to know because I did not learn this material until fifth grade, but about half class knew that Australia was always the opposite season of North America.
Following the lesson, I walked several students over to get their vision and hearing checked. They were just frantically freaking out that they were going to fail the test and be forced to wear glasses. I had never seen anything like it before. However, a shy child named Brandon from our class did fail the vision test and I had to escort him to the office so they could contact his parents. When the class finally joined together again it was time for recess, but today there was something new at recess in the gym called jump club, which was run by our teacher. This was optional for third and fourth grade students and about 25% out of the 120 showed up for the opening debut. First, I witnessed jump club for about ten minutes and then moved outside for the last ten minutes. When the bell rang to come back inside the ground was rather slick from a misty rain and a third grade student from our class named Javan slid on the pavement when coming in because he was running within five feet of the building. I was the first to see this horrifying fall. His knees were completely skinned and bloody. So, I walked him over to the clinic for treatment and later his mom picked him up. At first he was in tears, but as he left his spirits were much improved.
During my final few minutes at the third service learning, I talked with my teacher as the students were eating lunch(had my lunch duty off today)in the classroom about the most effective ways to teach third graders. She was telling me how important it is to reinforce things. Another effective thing I learned is how she likes to distribute sticky or post its notes for third graders, which is something that I just learned this year. Her following comment was that you cannot teach them everything. Therefore, let them do some of the work on their own. Which I found interesting because I always had thought the opposite of that statement. We also created an agenda for next week and made some realistic goals for a few students that are struggling in the class. She said that holding kids back was one of her worst fears and is going to everything she can do to prevent that from happening.
This concludes my third visit and now I actually feel like a real teacher with a purpose. I learned a few new things today including how important it is to reinforce things in which students are having trouble with. Another is how important and helpful post its really are.