Miss Zemske Comes to Ashaway

Me ending my time at Ashaway in the Forbidden Forest during Reading Week

The 8 weeks I've spent student teaching at Ashaway have been some of the shortest weeks of my life. Well, I suppose I should say 7 weeks (never let anybody ever tell you that your immune system is strong enough for elementary school hugs or Pneumonia). In that time, I picked up one grade after another until I had stolen all of the students away from Mrs. Mann. Alas, the time has come for me to return my lil peanuts and attempt to be satisfied with a reflection.

Kindergarten

How to trace pigeon and add details to give him emotions

How many Pigeon books are too many Pigeon books? According to my kindergartners, there is no such thing. Kindergarten was the first grade that I picked up and we jumped right into our Mo Willems author study. We practiced with Knuffle Bunny, my helpers making sure I knew how to wake up Bear and do all the voices.

Then we moved on to Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus. We learned about context clues and how to tell what emotion Pigeon was feeling by picking out details. We also learned how to combine pictures with the text to make guesses.

And it was all down Pigeon from there...

Researching questions about Mo Willems

Making Pigeon finger puppets

First Grade

I picked up the first grade next. We learned about the characteristics of a fairy tale by creating a madlib together and read two different versions of Rumpelstiltskin to compare and contrast them.

Second Grade

With the second grade, I picked up where Mrs. Mann left off teaching the students about the difference between fiction and nonfiction and going over how to take notes. They did this by using nonfiction frog book which culminated in the activity "Fiction Frogs" where the students finished the sentence "You'll never see a frog..." and drew their creation. Another project I did was in collaboration with the Spanish teacher wherein I taught the kids how to find images labelled for reuse that we could use in a green screen activity.

Third Grade

I picked up the third graders last and had very little time to work with them during lessons. That didn't stop some of them from asking me to read Harry Potter to them - during recess no less! Far be it from me to say no to a request like that. Who needs food, anyway?

Fourth Grade

While teaching fourth grade, I think I created my personal best lesson. We learned about password safety - the why's and how's of creating a password that is both strong and memorable. I was so happy with the creation of this lesson that I chose it to be the one evaluated by both my professor and The Rhode Island Department of Education.

Replacing letters with symbols

Evaluating our own work

My parting from Ashaway was bitter sweet and surrounded by screaming goodbyes as the students left to board their busses. My hearing may recover but my heart never will. But who knows - maybe I will try to come back for a visit when they least expect it....

Librarians take reading week events very seriously