Brigham Kindergarten Classroom

This was my first week in the Kindergarten classroom at Brigham Elementary School. The classroom includes around twenty bilingual students. Most of the students’ first language is Spanish. Katie and Kristie taught their lesson on living and non-living things. It was a very engaging lesson for this group of students. I think it was a great idea to have the students go outside and pick out things to determine whether they were living or non-living. I could see many students in my small group who didn’t seem very comfortable raising their hand to talk during class, yet when we went outside they were very excited to show me things and then tell me whether it was living or non-living.

            Looking back at the goals I have set for myself while being at Brigham I have feel that I have started to move closer to them. One of the goals I set for myself was to determine how to more effectively convey the material to a group of diverse students. I saw a couple of great examples during the lesson I observed this past week. One example I saw was the use of a video that included a well-known character and subtitles on the screen. The students reacted very well to this video and seemed to retain what it was telling them. Another example I saw was when they let the students find physical items to determine what things were living and non-living. The second goal I set for myself was to gain experience working with a group of diverse students. Every time I get the opportunity to work in either the preschool room or the kindergarten room I gain valuable experience with a group of diverse students. Both rooms include students form diverse backgrounds and provide me with a great experience to learn from.

            Last time I was in the classroom at Brigham I set some steps to help myself reach the goals I had previously set for myself. These steps included getting to know the students and their learning habits better and getting involved in the classroom. Since this as my first time in the Kindergarten classroom I just began getting to know the students. I felt that I was very involved with the students while I was in the classroom this week. After the large group intro each of the teachers got a small group of children to work with. As I already talked about, I did learn from my small group that they reacted well to the video and the hands-on activity. Next time I hope to get to know more of the students in the classroom. Each of the upcoming times I am in the classroom I hope to continue learning more about these groups of children.

There are many methods used when working with a group of diverse learners. Here is a link to some tips for teachers who work with a group of culturally diverse students. https://www.teachervision.com/teaching-methods/resource/6039.html

Exceeds: I included a link to tips for teachers who work with a group of culturally diverse students.