Project Reflections
| Date | Place | Reflections |
| 10/01/05 | Harvest Festival | I began my work by preparing tissue to use on the luminaries. I then helped a boy named Dylan with his luminary, and discovered that his mom is in this program and that he attends the school that I work at! It was wonderful to see everyone working together, all damp yet cozy, under the shelter of the barn. It was very exciting to see Dylan at school yesterday, too! |
| 10/09/05 | Gifts | Robin, Liz, and I decided to drive out to the Gifts Garden and take a look around. We had tried to get ahold of Sonja first, but were unsuccessful. When we got there, Sonja was preparing for a private ceremony. Fortunately, we got a better contact number for her, and we got to see how to get there. |
| 10/10/05 | LP Brown | Today was my first observation in Maribeth Simmons' kindergarten classroom. I decided to just sit back and watch today. The children were at centers, which is a choice time where the options included making bead patterns and telling the pattern to Maribeth, drawing with colored markers and pens, games, dollhouse, and cars. Then we did math by sorting leaves into small, medium, and large groups and counting them. |
| 10/11/05 | LP Brown | Centers again today. One table of children made telescopes with paper towel rolls and pens, markers, paper, and glue. I got one as a gift from Tosha. We then worked on left/right by using a paper cutout of Maribeth and placing it to the L/R of the table, chair, etc. |
| 10/13/05 | LP Brown | Today the children were making books titled "My Bus." The pages said "My shoes," "My socks," etc. They colored the pictures then took turns reading their book to Maribeth. Centers after that, with the soil box, insect garden, dolls, and puzzles. |
| 10/15/05 | Home | I took an hour to do some online research to get ideas for my classroom project. I looked at some websites for homeschooled children, including easyfunschool.com, learningtree.com, and others. I also research what the expected educational levels for kindergarteners were in environmental education on the Washington Educators Association and Washington Department of Education websites. |
| 10/17/05 | LP Brown | Today started with centers. Two girls, Tosha and Malina, were sharing one board. They worked together to figure out the first letter of different words: bed, heart, circle, etc. We also worked on the letters M, S, and R. |
| 10/20/05 | LP Brown | Today we began with storytime: "Mother may I have another?" We worked on finding the title, author, and illustrator. We figured out what the book might be about from the title. We read the book, then asked about the characters, what was happening, the setting, etc. |
| 10/21/05 | Gifts | Today I got to see the garden for the first time! I was very excited. We began by having a quick circle time to thank the land and the people who created the garden. We then began working on cutting all of the plants down to six inches from the ground to prepare the garden for winter. It was a wonderful time! |
| 10/24/05 | LP Brown | The children began by writing in their journals. The goal is to allow any pictures/words/sounds to come out onto the paper. The goal is expression, not accuracy. Getting the children to put some sounds down without worrying if they are right or wrong is very important. |
| 10/25/05 | LP Brown | Today we began by breaking into four groups. One group worked with Maribeth on their "My bus" books. One group worked with me playing a game about penguins. We practiced rolling the dice and counting the right number of spaces, taking turns, and keeping track of the rules. It was really fun! |
| 10/27/05 | LP Brown | We began in centers today. One group of three girls were playing on the carpet with cars and airplanes. I began playing with them. They pretended to give me a ride to the fire station, airport, etc. and I would call them when I wanted them to pick me up. We did alot of role playing. |
| 10/31/2005 | LP Brown | Today we used glitter and glue to write out our names or any sounds or words we could think of. The goal was to create a tactile tool to use to learn words and letters. |
| 11/01/2005 | LP Brown | Today we began by going outside with a wooden frame. We were trying to catch a spider to bring into the room. We caught a spider and put it onto the frame so that we could watch it create it's web. The bottom of the frame has water in it so the spider can't get out. We also made a graph showing which people liked spiders and which people didn't like spiders. |
| 11/01/2005 | Home | This evening I worked online researching lesson plans for my classroom work. I found a really good lesson on classification of living and non-living objects that I might consider doing. |
| 11/03/2005 | LP Brown | Today the children worked on their journals. They were focusing on the letter S. They were encouraged to write sounds or words they know that begin with S. |
| 11/03/2005 | Home | I worked on developing a concrete plan for my lesson. I decided I want to work with leaves and photosynthesis. I spent some time developing a draft of what the plan would look like. |
| 11/04/2005 | LP Brown | This morning I had a meeting with Maribeth to discuss my work in her classroom. She gave me some good insight about the level of independence most of the students function at. It was really helpful to me, because in the classroom in which I work I have to be very present in all the activities the kids do for safety. |
| 11/04/2005 | LP Brown | Today we started with centers. I worked with two girls in particular on a puzzle of the United States. I was surprised at how much they knew about the names of the states, capitals, etc. |
| 11/07/2005 | LP Brown | We began by talking about salmon today. Maribeth talked about the spawning of the salmon, and about how the salmon migrate. The children really enjoyed it! |
| 11/09/2005 | Evergreen | I came to class early today to help setup and clean up after the Diwali Celebration. I really enjoyed the celebration, and the activities we did. I organized and worked at the rangoli table. It was really interesting to hear the women from India talk about their country and it's festivals. |
| 11/11/2005 | Gifts | Today Stacy, Robin, and I drove out to the garden to do some work. It was pouring down rain the whole time, but we made some real progress trimming the plants down for winter. The project still seems so huge, but it felt really nice to make some headway. I really feel like I need a lot more information on what stays and what goes in the beds. |
| 11/14/2005 | LP Brown | I really enjoy having regular meetings with Maribeth about my work in her room, and what I can do to help more effectively. She asked me to do more time in her room as the year progresses. I was really flattered that she liked having me in her room! We also made a plan for when my lesson will happen. |
| 11/15/2005 | Home | Today I spent time organizing some of my project presentation, and brainstorming ideas and elements of my work that were important to me. It helped me gain some perspective on what I have accomplished in this program, and what is lacking. |
| 11/20/2005 | Home | This afternoon is spent time gathering the leaves that I will use for my lesson tomorrow. My two cousins, Mark and Shaun, were at my house so they helped me collect the leaves. We talked a lot about the different colors. We also searched for mushrooms, and tried to find a flower to give to their mom. It was really fun. |
| 11/21/2005 | LP Brown | This afternoon I did my lesson plan in Maribeth's room. I decided to talk about leaves, most notably how leaves and people depend on each other to breath. We discussed photosynthesis, and different parts of the leaves. Then each child got a leaf and wrote or drew about it in their tree journals. We talked about the letter L and what sounds make the word leaf. It went pretty well. |
| 11/22/2005 | Gifts | I drove out to Gifts right after work to take some photos for my presentation. I hope I was able to get some good shots, though it was raining. |
| 11/23/2005 | LP Brown | Maribeth and I had a quick meeting to discuss the lesson I did in her room on Monday. She was pleased with my work, and suggested that I remember that I can do alot more and be much more flexible in a general ed classroom than I am used to in my Autism classroom. It was a good experience for me to see that diversity. |
| 11/27/2005 | Home | I spent some time today looking up some information on mugwort and wormwood, which are two medicinal herbs that I harvested during my work at the Gifts Garden. I found that both contain a volatile oil and have fairly serious cautions. I spent some time brainstorming about things I could make to share during my presentation about these herbs. |
| 11/28/2005 | Evergreen | I spent time at Evergreen today working on putting my presentation page together. I have to say it did not go that well. First of all, I went to pick up the pictures I had taken of the Gifts Garden and the store had overexposed the roll and ruined all the pictures. Then I couldn't get onto a computer with a scanner because a class was using the room. Overall, it was a little frustrating. |
| 11/30/2005 | TESC Computer Lab | Today I came to the computer center to scan pictures taken of my lesson plan. I have never used a scanner before, so it was a learning experience. I also worked on the photos in Photoshop for a bit, and learned how to save the photos. |
| 12/1/2005 | Home | I spent some time developing my Powerpoint presentation. I worked on putting pictures on slides, and general organization of the presentation. This was definitely a first draft session. |
| 12/2/2005 | TESC Computer Lab | I came to the computer center to finish up the rest of my power point presentation. I also worked on writing out some notecards and rehearsing them for about an hour. I feel as ready as I can be! |
| 12/5/2005 | LP Brown | Today I spent my last hour in Maribeth Simmons' classroom. The children were at art stations. They were doing drawings with colored pens, colored pencils, crayons, markers, or watercolors. It was very open and freestyle. I really enjoyed walking around and checking out all of their artwork, and have conversations with them. |
