Seattle without clouds, but we need cloud today!

My third day at Bailey Gatzert turned out to be a very fun and remarkable memory today. I don't know whether it is because of Halloween was coming or the weather was too beautiful for Seattle:) During daily class hours, we learned about clouds. The kids were asked to tell everything they knew about clouds, what ever it was. This task interested the kids most since I had been here because they could combine their imagination and real life. "Cloud makes snow!", "Cloud is black when you are sad", "The Sun hides beside the clouds so that we can not see it", ... They had so many ideas that amazed me. They also was going to see real clouds outside the classroom, but well, today Seattle was too beautiful that there was no single cloud:) I believe this task fully applied Gee's balance between learning and acquisition. The kids had chance to apply what they thought, what they received from their family and surrounding environment into learning process at school. They got really excited and enjoyed the lesson. After doing well their task of drawing clouds and making sentences about them, the first kids students continued their mask making for the Halloween. How lovely they were saying that they did the masks for their brothers and sisters:) What a lovely and beautiful Thursday afternoon for me.

The classroom where I work during daily class hour.

My kid wrote this one in the reading section.

The second part of my work going well too. The kids in Brain Train now remembered my name and waved me warmly and enthusiastically when ever they saw me. I was really happy. Three sections today ran smoothly and enjoyably with games and real life related tasks. Reading required kids to use chalk board to practice forming sentences and using vocabulary. My kids did them well. The science section today was less challenging than the previous one and containing games for the kids to to additional formula. They rolled dices and add/subtract the numbers appearing on the dices. They also played cards to recognize shapes, numbers and colors. The last section was computer lab and today I really saw the improvement. My kids had to add numbers and compare the equation with number provided by the computer. However, there was a problem that the computer automatically provided numbers that sometimes the result got over 10. And my kids can not count over 10 because she counted by her fingers. Hence, the instructor told me to give her clues and answers and then let her do the comparison. Well, maybe it was still good when the kid had chance to do some mathematical comparison but I think the program should be fixed so that the kid can do all the task herself.

All in all, after the third day at Bailey Gatzert, I now got to know people and kids here. There are obviously a gap between their real lives and the class room environment they have. The most important purpose, I believe, is to make the transition more easily for the kids by providing them good opportunities to apply what they already have to what they learn. Helping children and teachers here, after all, really brightens my day and makes me feel more confident and supportive.