Senior Seminar Week 7

This week was my last week of this placement.  Going in to the week, it was hard to believe that it went so quickly!  We wrapped up the Ancient Greece unit in the sixth grade and began the unit on Ancient Rome that they will be working on after I leave. I was very impressed with all that they remembered and absorbed on Ancient Greece! They really enjoyed learning about the gods and goddesses, and some of the students told me they had been researching them on their own at home.
On Monday I had a writing day after lunch and Tuesday I had my last observation at this school.  The writing day could have been more productive, as I spent most of my time finishing up lesson plans rather than working on my project, but I thought the observation went well.  I was able to ask some questions and received some helpful feedback as well.
In the fifth grade we worked on the beginning of America.  They have been a challenge throughout this placement, but as starting to wind down a little (of course, just as I'm leaving) and we were able to accomplish a lot of the things I had planned.  I did have to adjust a few of my lessons because even though the text I was using was at grade level, it was hard for them to grasp at times.
I think the best part of my week though was on Tuesday morning.  There is a student in the fifth grade that I have been working with to help him improve his behavior. The third week of school I had to take away his new deck of Pokemon cards, as they aren't allowed in the classroom.  He was upset and asked what he could do to get them back. I told him that if he could go a whole week without getting any strikes (a consequence of bad behavior) then I would give him back his cards. Typically, he would have several warnings and between one and three strikes in a week.  So, starting the next week he worked at following directions and procedures and I helped keep him on task when I could, but still received two strikes and multiple warnings, and couldn't get his cards back.  The next week he worked even harder and participated in class a lot more, and only had one warning and one strike! So, while I couldn't give him his cards back, I did give him some of them as an incentive to keep up all his hard work.  His smile and profuse thank-you's were so heartwarming! Last week he kept improving and participating, and even started to remind his classmates to follow directions.  He went through the whole week and didn't get a strike, and only received one warning, so he was able to get back his cards.  I told him how proud I was of him and that he should be proud of himself for being such a good student, and he was so thankful and happy.  He told me he liked "being better" and thanked me for helping him.  Then, when I came to school on Tuesday (I didn't really see the fifth grade other than homeroom on Monday due to my writing day) this student had brought me flowers!  He ran up to me and said he got them for me "to thank [me] for helping him to be better and now [he] wants to do 'gooder' and better!" It took everything I had not to cry! It was just the sweetest thing.  If someone had told me this particular student would be giving me flowers and that his behavior would have improved so much by the end of my placement I would have called you crazy.  I'm just so proud of all his hard work and really hope he keeps up with it even though I'm not going to be there to remind and coach him.
The rest of the classes were all very sweet on my last day and wrote me cards.  Some of them made me pictures, and one dear student wanted me to have their new mini tree eraser that was only half used.  What sweethearts they all were!  While they were all a new challenge for me, I'm going miss them very much.  Maybe someday I can substitute one of their classes or go back and observe there later this year.

On Monday, I'll be starting my new placement with first graders.  I'm excited to start fresh at a new school, and am really interested to see how different the content that I'll be teaching will be.  I'm going to set a goal start my lesson planning from day one and to ask more questions, so as not to get behind or confused on anything.