Sight Lesson at Brigham

Last Thursday, I was in the preschool room while Laine and Brittany taught. They taught a lesson on sight to the preschool students, and it was a very well thought out and executed lesson. The students and even the teacher loved it. I really enjoyed being a part of this lesson because it was really fun for the kids and for us teachers! They talked about sight, made binoculars from toilet paper tubes, and then played I spy with their new binoculars. The students all enjoyed making their binoculars and playing I spy with them. I think this was a great way to get them thinking about sight and the fact that they use their eyes to see.

I honestly didn’t feel like I moved towards my goal at all during this lesson because I didn’t even really interact with any of the English language learner students during this lesson. Most of the lesson, I interacted with this one girl, who was definitely not an English language learner. I held the toilet paper roll while she colored it and I helped her take them together. I had a wonderful interaction with her though. We talked the whole time she was coloring her toilet paper tubes, and she really seemed to be getting into the lesson. I’m sure some of the other teachers had opportunities to work with the ELL students in the classroom though.

Next week, when I am in the classroom, I plan on interacting with the ELL students more. Luckily, the next time we are at Brigham, I will be in the kindergarten classroom where there is more opportunity to interact with ELL students. I very much enjoy interacting with these students and I strive to interact with them in the best way for them. When working with these students, I feel like I strive more to work towards my goal of gaining confidence with ELL students. I am lucky to be placed at Brigham right next to that classroom. I am definitely more comfortable with these students because I see them every other day. I think this has helped me gain confidence working with ELL students because I have had so much interaction with them already. I have also talked with the teacher and seen what she does with her students. Because it is a bilingual classroom, she talks and reads to her students in both English and Spanish. I think it is awesome that she does this because it ensures that everyone in the class will understand what she is saying. I know that as a general educator I will not necessarily be able to do this for all of my students, because there could be several different languages in my class, all of which I don’t know. Because of this, I will make sure that I provide extra support to my ELL students. There are many ways I can do this. I can provide lots of visual support for them, I can partner them up with someone who can help them, and I can ask them questions to make sure they are understanding what I am saying.

EXCEEDS: I connected my blog entry to my clinical experience, and I said what I could do to support ELL students in my future class.