Preparing the Game Pieces

Down Syndrome Awareness Day

• I thought it was great that the staff got together to celebrate this day. One of the students in the school, the son of one of the top office employees, has down syndrome. The staff had the chance to buy a shirt, I am glad that my teacher surprised me with one. Students were encouraged to wear blue and yellow (the official colors of the cause). Around 2PM, every child who was wearing blue and yellow shirts went down to the gym for a picture. They filled the huge middle section and slightly around it. I helped ut by shifting the students on my end so that they would fit into the picture. The support staff (including myself) got to be in the student picture. After school, the participating employees had their own picture taken. 
• This cause is very near and dear to my heart because my former choir teacher's daughter has down syndrome. I remember watching him cry and blame himself when he found out that she had down syndrome, he explained what down syndrome is and how it could affect her life and set limitations for her. Of all of the parents that she could have, she is so lucky to have him as a father. He tries to keep her life as close to a typical girl's as possible. She is involved in down syndrome organizations and events. Most importantly, she is loved by both of her parents and her brother. 

Personal Narrative

• The students seemed to accept my suggestions to their writing. I look forward to seeing the rough drafts. I worry about the students forgetting their thoughts during the next week and a half. I am really glad that I wrote my comments on the graphic organizers while I was at home because it saved a lot of time. Many of the students were able to add in the details on their own. I was able to answer questions about my comments today without having to spend extra time reading the graphic organizers again. 
• In my future classroom, I would like to create powerpoints with typed instructions and pictures for our activities. I told the students to skip every other line in their rough drafts and many of the students forgot that step. 

Cutting, Labeling, Laminating, and Cutting Again: Equivalent Fraction Game

• My teacher printed the sets on card stock to make the pieces a little more sturdier. We cut the outside off of the cards to save some time when the students cut and so that we would not have to deal with their trash. I would totally do this again.
• She explained the rules of the game and demonstrated it with her pre-cut pieces. The students cut apart their pieces and put them into a plastic bag as they traveled to different parts of the room to play. 
• The teacher and I cut apart and labeled the remaining 3 kits so that they will be ready for when the 4 students who were absent today return. 
• As the students were playing, both teachers walked around and the aid stayed with a specific group. We wanted to use the pictures to have students find equivalent fractions, but some groups couldn't seem to understand that, so I practiced teaching some of the groups how to use math to find out if a set of fractions is equivilent. I used the common denominator and the butterfly method. The butterfly method was much easier to teach. I feel more confident about teaching this lesson after spring break. This activity helped me to decide that in the future, I want to teach equivalent fractions before comparing fractions, although both of the topics intertwine nicely. 
• During SSR time, I labeled the rest of the sets. We decided that children need every card labelled in case they lose one. This was confirmed while we were collecting the sets and a student brought me up a card and said that the card came from their set. This freaked me out because there are so many sets, but luckily the group had a very specific cutting error that they made on a few of their cards, so I was able to locate the correct set with ease. 
• While laminating the sets, I used the paper cutter to fix any cards that looked obviously different from the other cards in the set. It also made the cards look nicer. 
• I am glad that we split the cards into two groups. It is much easier knowing that I only have to trim half of the cards. 
• I would definitely do this activity set up in nearly the same way. I would use the paper cutter to trim the edges. I would write on top of the laminated pieces instead in case I decided change my mind or if I had to combine sets. 

Head Start Babysitting

• The children got along well.
• I got the children to trust me. One of the one-year-olds didn't want to trust me at first.
• The boss accidentally gave us a pineapple pizza instead of the cheese pizza. She had only bought 1 cheese pizza and 2 pieces were already missing. While I was putting 2 pieces of the pineapple pizza (for Mom and me) into the gap, I thought about how I actually had a real story relating adding fractions that actually dealt with pizza.