August Update

It's hard to believe that my LAST first day of high school was almost two weeks ago. (My younger brother, who is turning six in September, told me I was "old" now. Geez, thanks little man...) To be honest, I cannot quite make out what I'm feeling. I'm both ecstatic and blue about this final school year and of the thought of graduating. Senior year isn't going to be easy, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

I found that this homemade sign created a very welcoming atmosphere for parents
visiting their child's elementary school classroom. 

For my summer mentorship, I observed and assisted an elementary school teacher who taught first graders how to become fluent readers. I enjoyed working with this age group, consisting of 5-to-6 year-olds, but I want to take the opportunity of mentoring with someone who instructs upper grade levels. In doing so, I believe that I would be able to find a grade level I'm suited to teach.

My mentor's elementary school has just recently begun their 2014-15 school year, so it has been a challenge to set-up a schedule for me attend mentorship. As mentioned in the previous blog, my mentor Ms. Peterson was once engrossed in the art of fashion designing and now teaches third graders the importance of creativity learned from fashion. I will be meeting with her early this week to discuss when and what I would be doing with her for the month of September. I also plan to interview her for the interview component, because I believe that with her knowledge of teaching multiple grade levels, I could really narrow down my topic to teaching a specific grade level. When I go to see her on Wednesday, I really want to share some ideas I found for her classroom. A couple of the ideas I found on Pinterest are described below.

These personalized boxes are perfect for silent reading time, because it
 allows students to store their books in an organized fashion. 

Vinyl can go a long way and it's easy to use. Applying simple phrases anywhere in 
the classroom would make it more interactive and give it a clean effect.

I'm sure that my mentor has some classroom organizers of her own making, so I look forward to hearing what she thinks about the things I found and came up with. I could learn if they can realistically be applied to a working classroom or not. I will also be posting more classroom organization ideas and about my experiences working at an elementary school. In order to close off this blog post, I'll leave a quote from an iconic children's author.

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." - Dr. Suess, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!