Hansen Elementary- Level Two Field Experience

I just finished my level two field experience at Hansen Elementary School in Cedar Falls. For 5 weeks, I was in Mrs. Bauer's kindergarten classroom. I am an Early Childhood Education major with a minor in literacy, so being at this age level was a great experience under my belt! In my 5 weeks that I spent there I got to work one on one with students doing baggy books and math assessments, and got to see what teaching kindergarten was like by joining them in their everyday schedule of specials and classroom lessons. I also got to teach two lessons myself!
My mentor teacher was very helpful, and I was able to ask questions about lesson planning, behavior management in a classroom, and overall, get helpful tips that I will be taking with me into the future. I was able to go every Tuesday and Thursday from 12:40-3:00, giving me a lot to observe and help out with in that time. The first day I went, I was able to introduce myself to the class and tell them a few interesting facts about myself. This helped the students get to know me, and I was able to start learning the kids' names right away too. A typical afternoon for the kindergartners would be, after rest time, get up and start math. The math lesson typically revolved around addition and subtraction number sentences, decomposing, and counting in groups of 10. Next, they would go to math centers and work with 2 to 3 other peers in their class in these centers. The kids loved going to specials, these were music, art, gym, and library. Each kid had their own that they looked forward to each time, but going to all of these at least once allowed me to see how other teachers run a classroom and what different methods I could use that would work for that. After their special, they would come back and do another part of their math lesson, but towards the end of the time I was there, they started a handwriting unit. Then it was on to recess and then snack.
Throughout these weeks, I was put into a couple situations where I had to jump right in and help out the teacher. Doing this, I was able to read aloud to the class, and finish up one of their math lessons. I really enjoyed working with the kids one on one in the hallway and helping them read. It was very cool to see each kid at a different level and it helped me to get to know them better individually in order to know how to differentiate in my two lessons I needed to teach.
My first lesson was over decomposing number sentences. I started by reading the book Animals on Board by Stuart J. Murphy. I had the students sitting at the carpet with their white boards and we went through each page there was an addition problem. I wrote on the board as they followed along in the book and wrote on their boards. Afterwards, we made our own class book of our animals on board of animals they drew themselves. They all seemed to love this lesson and were all very excited about the book they were going to be a part of making!


The second lesson was all about shapes. The kindergartners loved the song I used to introduce the shapes and were singing along because it was so catchy. You can find that below!
Overall, I loved this field experience and would love to make it back to Hansen Elementary again! Hopefully in the near future! Thanks to my mentor teacher and professor, I have successfully completed my level two field experience.