TKCnMC!

The Teaching in Context category provides information and examples about how to teach children in context, rather than only teaching them content. Teaching in context is a very important aspect for teachers in all schools because it relates the child’s background and community to classroom learning. This category offers examples of teacher candidates who have the TKCnMC mindset!

Curriculum varies from state to state, of course, but children working at the standard level at the beginning of first grade:

• Name and label objects
• Gather, collect, and share information
• Stay on topic (maintain focus)
• Can write in chronological order
• Incorporate storybook language (for example, “They lived happily ever after”) into their writing
• Think in a more extended fashion than they can write, so some thoughts must be extended orally

By the end of first grade, students working at the standard level:

• Communicate in writing
• Reread their writing to monitor meaning
• Begin to use feedback to change their writing either by adding more text or by making minor revisions
• Revise their writing by inserting text in the middle rather than just at the end
• Make deliberate choices about the language they use
• Use punctuation and capitalization more often than not

Reprinted with permission from “First Grade Success: Everything You Need to Know to Help Your Child Learn” by Amy James (Jossey-Bass 2005)

 

Family Math Nights

What better way to get to know your students and their families than to host a Family Math Night? This event allowed students, families, and teachers to work together to complete various math stations. Our class organized Family Math Nights for the two schools we are working in. Each teaching group created a math station with an activity for K-2 students and an activity for 3-5 students. The students and their families traveled from station to station completing math activities.

African American Authors and Inventors Live Museum

Celebrate the diversity in your classroom and community by learning more about the various cultures and important people from those cultures with your students. Allow the students a chance to explore individual’s lives that might be different then their own. Our third-grade teacher candidates taught a unit over African American Authors and Inventors to their students and completed the unit with a live museum. This allowed the students to learn about a culture that is prominent in their school system and celebrated the people who made a difference in our lives today.