Standards and Accountability

At the beginning of my service learning hours, Mrs. Cunico was teaching her students 2 digit addition and subtraction. Another thing she was having them work on was the hundredth, tenth, and ones place. They were also very familiar with counting by 5's and 10's, every time they would line up for lunch Mrs. Cunico would have them count by 5's or 10's to 100 until they were all in line. Now that the students understand these, Mrs. Cunico likes to still have the students work on them. Every day after lunch is their Math time. They come in and get out there "Math self start". Some of the questions on the self starter are writing the number of the day (how many days they have been in school). They would write the number and then spell out the number as well, they have a space for making tallies of that number, and then there is a question on either the hundreds, tenths, or ones place. There is even money on the board that Mrs. Cunico has them count and there is a question on that, and also a what time does the clock show question. After they have had sometime to fill those out, she has them go to the carpet where she teaches the math lesson. Then the students go work on a math sheet from their books. When they are finished they get to play a math game. Mrs. Cunico has so many games from word and phonics games to spelling games and math games. But after Math she has them choose from the Math games. Now that they have those things down Mrs. Cunico has moved on to the next step in the math standards. She is now working on 3 digit addition and subtraction. Having just learned the 2 digit addition and subtraction going into the 3 digit addition and subtraction is the next step it was a great transition. The things/rules they worked on with the 2 digits they can now use with the 3 digits with a few more rules/strategies. Math is the one I see most in the service learning class that I am in. As I was talking to Mrs. Cunico about common core and standards. She told me that common core doesn't really affect her because they start that when they are in 3rd grade, not 2nd. But she feels like the standards help them get ready for the 3rd grade and common core testing.  Mrs. Cunico follows the standards, she says most of the time it is great, but she did say sometimes it can be time consuming, and if they are behind she feels like they have to rush to catch up. I feel like Mrs. Cunico does a great job in making sure the students are ready to go on to the 3rd grade. 

Diversity in today's schools

Mrs. Cunico has a lot of things in her room that they talked about in a lot of these modules. She has a word wall to help remind students how to spell. She also has multiple libraries in her class, so there are a wide variety of topics for the students to pick to read about. So I talked to Mrs. Cunico about diversity in the classroom. She told me a story of a boy she had in her class years ago. They had just moved here. This boy, his mom, dad, little brother and sister, his aunt, uncle, and grandma were all in the same small house. The boy was going into Mrs. Cunico's then first grade class. He knew quit a bit of English but being the only one in his family he didn't practice English at home. He was put in an English learning class for 40 minutes each day. But Mrs. Cunico also wanted to be a part of it. So she would have a word or phrase, everyday to ask this boy how to say in Spanish.And they would take time out of the daily schedule for the boy to teach the class. I feel this was a great way to get this student involved in his class and get him excited to come to school rather than wanting to stay home because he was scared of failure or of not fitting in. Also it was fun for the other students to learn some Spanish too. I feel it helped them connect to him more so they also saw they were not all that different, and that being different isn't a bad thing. She also told me about how the little boy would get excited and would go home and teach his family some English. The family moved again at the end of that school year. But the little boys mother stays in contact with Mrs. Cunico, she is still working on her English. What a great story it was. That little act can make such a BIG difference in a young kids schooling experience. Now some of the other things I have seen Mrs. Cunico doing is giving clear and understandable instructions. Before they start on anything she gives them instructions on how she wants it done. Then before she dismiss them to start, she asks them if they have any questions. Making sure they completely understand how to do it before she lets them go to start on it. Another thing I like that Mrs. Cunico does is that when they do buddy work, a lot of times she lets them choice their own partner. But she also every once in a while will place certain students together so that they can help each other in different things. Such as if a student was very good at this subject she would pair them with someone that wasn't as good. Mrs. Cunico also has a student of the week. And that week they get to know this student, they see things they have in common with each other and things that they are different in. In one of the modules I remember it saying how teaching about different countries and not just around holidays. I remember one of my first days in the classroom they were being taught about around the world places. Mrs. Cunico had a packet that looked like a suitcase, and each country they visited she would have a sticker to represent that country and they would put it on there passport (that was a paper in there suit case packet) and the students LOVED this each day when they came in from lunch they would be so excited to see what country they would be visiting that day. They would have a picture of the countries flag in the packet to color, and a sheet of some questions that they wanted to find out about the country. I thought that was an awesome idea. And like I said the students LOVED it and I am sure that is something they are always going to remember. 

Engaging Learners in Today’s Classrooms

I feel like Mrs. Cunico uses engaged learning in the class everyday. She always has fun games planned that get the students involved and to get them to remember harder things like math, and spelling. She plays this around the world game, were students sit on there desks, and one student starts and goes around the room to each student and they either have to solve a math problem for the math game, or for the spelling they go around and each say a letter to spell the word. If the student wins the math problem game they go to the next student and the student that doesn't win sits down in that desk. Now with the spelling game if they say the correct letter that was next in the spelling word they get to stay sitting on top of there desk, if they said the wrong letter than they sit down in their chairs. Mrs. Cunico even has a cheer or song for most lessons. She has a couple sets of pom-poms that she lets the kids use to recite cheers to remember math rules. Mrs. Cunico is even known to "dress up" for a lesson. I remember one week they were learning about different kind of workers/heros in the community. So while the kids were at recess Mrs. Cunico dressed up as a police officer. and when the kids came in they all just though how cool it was and she gave her lesson that way. 

One of the activities that I can remember that Mrs. Cunico could have made more engaging, would be the time she was teaching how to tell time. She had a clock that she could change the time and ask the kids what time it showed. But a way I feel would have made it even more engaging, would be to have had the students make a little clock with paper plates and they could use one of those "do-dads" with the hands attached so they could move the hands, and then Mrs. Cunico could have asked the students to show her a certain time. And then they would have a clock they could work on by themselves.