4th grade

When I found out my placement was in fourth grade, I was very nervous. I have never been in anything higher than a first grade classroom. I know how to handle little kids. I was confident in this. But for some reason fourth graders seemed to be to big for my taste. However, this placement proved me completely wrong. I absolutely LOVE fourth graders! They are so much and still eager to please and learn. I was in a math, science, social studies classroom and my teacher was absolutely wonderful. She an excellent teacher and the students respected her very much. I was also pleased to see a teacher who was similar to me teach. She was not an "everywhere at once" teacher but still maintained excellent classroom management and taught well. And the students stayed in engaged, as well. The students who did not finish their work, stayed in during specials or recess. I was able to help the students who stayed in during that time and it was a lot of fun. If we finished early, but not early enough for them to go outside, we played mental math or talked about the water cycle. They LOVED answering questions about anything they were studying and I thought it was a good review. One girl especially loved mental math and wanted to play it all the time. I think she felt especially smart when she got the correct answer. 

During my placement, I taught two lessons. The first lesson was on capacity using the US customary system. We talked about real life examples and then they broke up into groups and found examples in magazines. They really enjoyed it. For my second lesson, we learned about the phases of the moon using an interactive activity I found on the internet, made a moon phase foldable, and finally made the moon phases out of off brand oreos. 

I sat with the teachers in the teachers lounge everyday. My normal responsibilities were making copy runs, helping the students with work they did not understand or when they stayed in, and grading papers. I was able to teach every now and then but it was usually just during my lesson. I had an amazing experience in fourth grade and cannot wait to go back!