Oleai Elementary School - - Home of the Turtles!

O = Oleai’s Community Helpers!

L = Lifelong Learners!

E = Energetic Health Promoters!

A = Academic Achievers!

I = Independent Thinkers!

OES Room 15's 3rd Grade Stars!

I have spent 80 days of student teaching in Oleai Elementary School's room 15. Together with my Master Teacher, Mrs. Melisha Barcinas San Nicolas, we had 26 students altogether for SY 07-08. Having this much number of students in one classroom was a great challenge for us. I have learned so much from my students as much as I have taught them during those 80 days. Each day was a learning experience for all of us.

To my students and my Master Teacher: There aren't enough words to fit into this blog in order for me to show my gratitude. I thank and love you all from the bottom of my heart. You have all made this experience a very memorable one.

Thank You once again!

Teaching Methods and Strategies

1. Mini-Lecture: The mini-lecture is a concise way to provide participants with background information, research findings, or motivational examples to spark interest and give them a frame work for discussion or activity to follow. Mini-lectures should be brief and targeted, setting up an activity or discussion.


* 3 Branches of Government Mini-Lecture


2. Experiments and Demonstrations: Demonstrations and experiments can be used to show how something works or why something is important. These activities also provide a way to show the correct process for doing something, like a procedure. They should be carefully planned and conducted. They often involve the use of supporting materials.



* Flubber Experiment

* Demonstration on Mixtures & Solutions



3. Games and Puzzles - Games and puzzles can be used to provide a different environment in which learning can take place. They can also be used in cooperative learning groups. Many types of games and puzzles can be adapted to present and review concepts. Games such as Bingo, Concentration or Jeopardy area easily formatted for different subjects. They can be used for review, reinforcement, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. Watch the competitiveness, as this is a learning tool to be used as for fun.


* Tribe 3 worked well as a team with in this Place Value Activity. Jacob raised his hand to tell the teacher that his group found the answer!



* Our class played numerous Jeopardy games to help the students review for a quiz or test, and to serve as a reinforcement 0f a lesson.



* Vince writes the answer on the board during a game of Round & Round We Go!


4. Simulations: A simulation is an activity structured to feel like a real experience. Participants are asked to image themselves in a situation, or they play a structured game or activity that enables them to experience a feeling that might occur in another setting. The power of a situation is that the students, participants, FEEL the experience. Simulations need to be discussed immediately after the experience.

* The students experienced becoming Paleontologists for a
day during this fossil activity.

5. Creative Writing: This strategy can take many forms, from poems, stories, written play (scripted), journal written reflective thoughts. They can be shared or not. This form gives participants a creative outlet to the subject taught or discussed. One can also see transfer learning happen in this form of expression.


* The students wrote a story about how their dinosaur lived before it became extinct and turned into fossils.


6. Cooperative-group work: Cooperative-group work is a special form of small-group work. All small-group activities are not necessarily cooperative groups. For a group to be cooperative, a "sink or swim together" mentality must be created. Student, participants work in small heterogeneous groups (2-6 members) where each member is accountable not only for his own learning (or task completion) but for helping other members of the group to do the same thing. The success of each individual depends on the success of the entire group. For a group to be cooperative, a sense of positive interdependence among the group members must be established. The leader must help the group establish mutual goals, joint rewards, assign specific roles, and shares materials. Cooperative-learning situations promote the development and practice of high-level reasoning, critical thinking, decision making, problem solving, communication, and interpersonal skills. The leader, teacher manages the activity by setting up the groups, and clearly explaining the tasks that must be accomplished. The teacher also serves as a consultant.


* In this activity, the tribes had to work together to ensure that they figure out the correct answer and show the answer in the right figure using the base ten blocks.



7. Brainstorming: Brainstorming is a technique for generating ideas quickly. When conducted properly, it enables participants to respond creatively, without fear of being judged. It stimulates fresh ideas and helps participants break loose from fixed ways of responding to problems. Brainstorming also helps to vary the pace of the class. It involves everyone, and is an effective way of getting discussion started. Brainstorming also allows the group to acknowledge the wealth of insights, experiences, information, and creative ideas that participants have on a given topic. The technique is simple: State the issue or question and ask for ideas. Be sure to explain this is a brain storm, and all answers are correct. Record ideas where everyone can see them. Keep writing until the group is quiet. Afterward, go back and reconsider the items on the list, adding, deleting, or modifying them as necessary. Brainstorming can be done in small groups, large groups, in a round robin walking session.



8. Clustering: Clustering is a simple visual technique that involves diagramming ideas around a main topic. The main topic is written on the board, overhead, and circled. Other related ideas are then attached to the central idea or to each other with connecting lines. This is also sometimes called webbing. This technique works well with brainstorming.


9. Journal Writing: Journal writing affords the opportunity for thinking and writing. Expressive writing requires that participants become actively involved in the learning process. This process becomes less effective if participants need to worry about spelling or grammar. Students should be encouraged to write freely in their journal without fear of evaluation.

10. Self-Assessment: Personal inventories provide a tool for self-assessment. Providing privacy around personal assessments allows the participants to be honest in their responses. Volunteers can share answers or the questions can be discussed in general, but no participant should have to share answers they would prefer to keep private.



* The students rate themselves after working at the Language Arts Center.


11. Small Groups: Participants working together can help stimulate each other's creativity. Small group activities are cooperative, but have less formal structure than cooperative learning. These activities encourage collective thinking and provide opportunities for participants to work together and increase social skills.

12. Celebrations: Activities that focus on the joy of completion and accomplishment. These activities serve as reminders and markers. It is appropriate to stop and acknowledge and appreciate their accomplishments.


* This picture was taken during our trip to P.I.C. as a reward for collecting the most number of BoxTops in OES.

Lessons, Activities, and School Activities That Demonstrate Value in Diversity

1. Community Circle – Every day, after the tardy bell rings, students would gather in the classroom carpet to discuss issues that arise in the classroom, concerns that students and the teacher want to bring up to the class, to discuss social skills (MegaSkills) that build inclusion and a sense of community in the classroom. The eleven MegaSkills are as follows: 1.) Confidence – feeling able to do it; 2.) Motivation – wanting to do it; 3.) Effort – being willing to work hard; 4.) Responsibility – doing what’s right; 5.) Initiative – moving into action; 6.) Perseverance – completing what you start; 7.) Caring – showing concern for others; 8.) Teamwork – working with others; 9.) Common Sense – using good judgment; 10.) Problem Solving – putting what you know and what you can do into action; 11.) Focus – concentrating with a goal in mind. This time is also spent to discuss and remind the students of the Tribes Learning Community agreements which include the following: Attentive Listening, Appreciation/No Put-Downs, The Right to Pass, and Mutual Respect.

2. Spider Web – This lesson was done during the beginning of the school year. It taught the kids on how to build inclusion, a sense of community, and to respect and accept each others’ differences. The teacher went around with a bundle of string. Each student was to decide how much string they want and tells the teacher where to cut it. Once each student had a string, the teacher discussed how the activity goes. During the activity, each student had an opportunity to share his or her name, something special/unique about himself or herself, what they like and dislike, where they live, and something about their family. The length of string that a student had will determine how much information he/she shared with the class. So the longer the string, the more information will be shared by the student. Each student stood in front of the class and started wrapping the string around their thumb until everything was wrapped around that finger. Until there is more string left hanging, the student had to think of something to special to share about him or herself.

3. Boasters – The objective of this activity was to make statements of appreciation to self and others, build self-esteem, and to build inclusion in the classroom. The students were given cutouts of student profiles and they were to transfer them onto a construction paper. Each student wrote their name in large, colorful letter on the head area of his or her cut-out. The students worked on this activity within their tribes. The tribe members passed the cutouts around the tribes so that each tribe can write a positive statement on each other tribe member’s cutout. At the end of the activity, a discussion was held about complementing oneself and it is different than bragging. Then each student was asked to write a positive statement about himself or herself on his or her own card.

Reflection Questions: Why is it important to be able to make positive statements about others? How can making positive statements to each other help us work together better?

4. I Like My Neighbors – This activity was done as a whole class reward whenever a task was completed on time or when the class positively maintains the behavior chart. Here, the students get to practice using positive phrases by saying “I Like My Neighbors Who……..” A student would stand in front of the class and say: I like my neighbors who are girls. All the girls would then get up from their seats and move to a different seat. The student who doesn’t get a seat would be the next to say something positive about their neighbors.

5. The Little Rainman – In our class, we have a student with special needs and to introduce the rest of the class to her condition, autism, a book was read in the beginning of the school year to help them understand what she is going through. This book opened the students’ eyes as to why kids with this condition act thy way they do.

6. Culture & Community – During our unit involving perception of people and places, students learned about how the different cultures on the island have shaped the community today. We started by using the examples of the different cultures we have in the classroom such as Chamorro, Carolinian, Filipino, American, Chuukese, Palau, Pohnpeian, Chinese, etc. Students gave examples of how many cultures have contributed to Saipan’s community and examples are through architectures, food, songs, dance, clothing, etc. The class was then divided into groups: Chinese, American, Japanese, Palau, and FSM. The students went home to do more research on how the groups assigned to them have contributed to the community and shared with the class the information that they have gathered.

Activities That Show Relevance/Connection to Student Learning

1. Measurement - In Math, we spent a unit studying Measurement. The students learned about the different tools used to measure different objects. As a hands-on activity to go with Halloween and Measurement, the students worked on creating their own "flubber".

2. Earth's Layers - We had a month long Science unit on Rocks, Minerals and Soil. Students learned about the properties of rocks and minerals, the different types of rocks and minerals, where they can be found, how they form and change, and how we use them in our day to day lives. One activity that the students worked on for this unit is creating a clay model of the 3 layers of the Earth.

3. Fossils: Paleontologists for a Day - In this unit the students learned about what fossils are, the different types of fossils, and the scientists involved in working with fossils. The students were able to experience becoming paleontologists for just a day through an activity that required them to dig up fossils. Using brownies, walnuts, M&Ms, and toothpicks, the students were able to gain a better understanding of what paleontologists do.

4. Round & Round We Go! - Our class spent a month long unit on rounding whole numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds, and thousands. At the end of the unit, the students worked in their tribes using base ten blocks as manipulative to show what they have learned in rounding. I gave the class a set of numbers on the board and tell them to round it either to the nearest ten, hundred, or thousand. The tribes would then find the answer and show me using the base ten blocks on their table. This was also a good review of Place Value which the class was introduced to earlier during the semester.

5. 3 Branches of Government Triorama - Our class spent a very long unit studying the 3 Branches of the United States and CNMI Governments. At the end of this unit, all three 3rd grade classes went on a field trip to the 3 Branches of Government here in Saipan. Another activity that the students worked on was making a "Triorama" of the 3 Branches.

* Cathy Seman shows her final product.

Technology Activities

1. Jeopardy – These activities can be easily be created by the teacher to review what the students have learned from the lessons and also as a culminating activity at the end of a unit. Examples: Map Skills Jeopardy, Rounding Jeopardy, Rocks, Minerals and Fossils Jeopardy, Charlotte’s Web Jeopardy.

2. PowerPoint Presentations – This is a very useful way of presenting ideas or lessons to the class. A very good attention grabber for those who lose focus very fast. The teacher can use his or her creativity to showcase the information that he or she wants to relay to the class. Examples of PowerPoint lessons we had for this semester are The 3 Branches of Government, Charlottes's Web, James and the Giant Peach, Rocks-Minerals-Fossils, Rounding, and Place Value.

* The students enjoying one of our James & the Giant Peach presentations after a chapter read-aloud.

3. Overhead & LCD Projectors – We used the overhead projector when working on our Daily Oral Language or D.O.L. The LCD was used when watching PowerPoint Presentations or lessons and for Jeopardies.

4. CD Player & Speaker/Amplifier – We use the CD player whenever we have indoor P.E., and for Language Arts Reading time. Before the students take a test on the story that they have read for the week, they will first listen to the story the day before the test using the Audio CD containing the story. This was a very useful tool especially for our special needs student because she prefers to listen to the story on CD.

Behavior Management Strategies

1. Behavior Chart

· In front of the room is what we call our behavior chart. This chart is color coded: Blue – doing great!; Yellow – warning; Orange – loss of recess privilege for 10 minutes; Green – loss of entire recess time, send home a letter to parents. Each pocket on the behavior chart has each student’s number written on it.

· Every Monday the students all have blue cards in their pockets. If during the day a student misbehaves by not playing safe and not being responsible, he or she will be told by the teacher to turn his or her card to the next color listed above. At the end of the day if a student is on green, he or she would fill out a letter explaining to his or her parents/guardian the reasons why he or she got to that color, bring the letter home and have his or her parents sign it, and the next day show it to the teacher. 3 Parental letters would equal a parent conference.

· The next morning, students who stayed on blue during the previous day would receive a ticket as a reward for behaving properly and being responsible in and out of the classroom.

2. Bathroom Procedure

· Beside the door is a string with 26 clothespins attached to it. Each clothespin has the student’s name and number on it. For each day, a student is given a privilege of one restroom break during class time. If a student would like to use that privilege, he or she would have to put his or her pin down on a small basket and cannot put it back up until the following day when the bathroom pins manager has put the pins back up again.

3. Drinking Water Procedure

· Students are given time to drink after the tardy bell, after recess, and after lunch, but only as tribes. On Monday, tribe 1 has the privilege to drink first. Tuesday – tribe 2; Wednesday – tribe 3; Thursday – tribe 4; Friday – tribe 5.

4. Homework Sticks

· Every morning the class homework managers would check if all the students have turned in their homework. If a student does not bring in his homework or does not complete it, the homework managers will write down their names and the reason why they didn’t do it or complete it. On the behavior chart, the homework managers will place the homework sticks only for those students who have completed and turned in their homework. On Friday, if a student has 5 homework sticks, he or she will be given a healthy treat before recess.

5. Quiet Please

· Instead of the usual Give Me Five hand signal, we use a wooden mask with a sign that says “Quiet Please” to grab everyone’s attention. When the students see the teacher holding up this mask, they immediately drop everything and give their “full” attention.

Assessment Tools

1. Accelerated Reader

* Accelerated Reader or AR is a daily progress monitoring software assessment in wide use by primary and secondary schools for monitoring the practice of reading, and it is created by Renaissance Learning, Inc. It is a self-paced, individualized computer assisted reading program used in many schools. Children read books and then take computerized multiple-choice tests that measure their comprehension of the books.

2. Teacher Made Tests & Quizzes

· These are forms written or oral assessments that are not commercially produced or standardized. In other words, a test a teacher designs specifically for his or her students.

3. Rubrics

· Rubrics are scoring guides used to evaluate the quality of students’ written and oral work.

4. Performance Tasks

· Authentic processes, performances, demonstrations, or products by which students demonstrate or apply the knowledge, skills and strategies, and attitudes that they have acquired as a result of instruction and practice.

· A performance assessment consists of two parts, a task and a set of scoring criteria or "rubric." The task may be a product, performance or extended written response to a question that requires the student to apply critical thinking skills. Some examples of Performance Tasks include written compositions, works of art, research projects, open-ended math problems, and analysis and interpretation of a story the student has read.

5. Centers Contracts & Checklists

· Our students spend their Language Arts time working in centers. These centers include Tiger Readers (Orange SRA), Dino Readers (Green SRA), Outer Space Readers (Chapter Book & Book Log), Vocabulary Detectives, and the AR Challengers (Accelerated Reader). The students filled out contracts and checklists that require the students to log in what center they have worked in during the day and rate their performance in each center. The checklist also requires the students to mark whether they have reached the goal for each center that they have worked on.

6. Journals

· Journals are usually written in narrative form, are subjective, and deal more with feelings, opinions, or personal experiences. Journal entries are usually more descriptive, longer, open-ended, and freer flowing than logs. They are often used to respond to pieces of literature, describe events, comment on reactions to events, reflect on personal experiences and feelings, and connect what is being studied in one class with another class or with life outside the classroom.

7. Reading Logs – students are required to read both a chapter book from the classroom library and an Accelerated Reader book from the school library.

· Book Logs – the students use this reading log with the chapter books that they read from the classroom library. The book logs ask the students to identify the title of the book, author, illustrator, genre, what they liked most about the book, how they can relate the story with their life, and also rate the book.

· Reading Partnership Logs – students bring home these reading logs to have their parents acknowledge that they have read either the chapter book or the AR book. Parents are asked to sit and listen to their child read the book and then sign the log.

8. Standardized Tests

· Standardized tests are tests on which all students answer the same questions, usually in multiple-choice format, and each question has only one correct answer.

· In the beginning of the school year, all the students are required to take the STAR Math and STAR Reading to determine their math and reading levels. The student’s reading result from the test will determine what level of book he or she can borrow from the school library’s AR selection.

· 3^rd grade students are also required to take the Reading First Assessment. This tests the students’ phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Professional Growth Activities

1. Statewide Professional Development

· A Statewide Professional Development was held during the beginning of the SY 07-08. August 9 and 10 were set aside to provide trainings to faculty and staff. A general assembly was held at Marians High School and the rest of the workshops were assigned at Oleai and William S. Reyes Elementary School. I was able to attend the following workshops at both schools respectively: “What Great Teachers Do Differently”, K-3^rd Math, and the 4-12^th Writer’s Workshop.

2. School-Level Professional Development

· These monthly PDs are conducted by the learning community participants of OES. I was able to attend the following workshops during the school-level PDs: Easy Grade Pro, Read-Alouds, Content Vocabulary, Accelerated Reader, and Letters & Sounds Workshop.

· This picture was taken during one of the energizers in our school-level PD.

3. Turtle Learning Community/Staff Meetings

· Every other Wednesdays, teachers and staffs of the Turtle Learning Community are required to attend these meetings. Discussions during these meetings include administration reports, upcoming events and activities, and other important matters that need to be discussed. At the end of the meetings, a sharing of ideas about a specific article takes place and has been called the “fishbowl”. During this part of the meeting, representatives from different groups move into the center of the room to share their groups’ insights about the topic.

4. In-Service Meetings

· These meetings alternate with the Staff Meetings and are held in the school cafeteria from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. The topics that have been discussed during these meetings include Differentiated Instruction, Accommodation of Students with Special Needs, and Accreditation.

5. Open Court Training (K-3)

· I was able to attend this training at Saipan Southern High School. The first part of the workshop was a general assembly at the school’s cafeteria where presentations about reading and fluency were given. The next part of the workshop required each school to move to a different room where a presentation about their school’s reading program was discussed in depth. OES happened to be using the Open Court Program and more books were handed to our school that day.

6. K-3^rd Math Workshop

· I was able to attend this workshop with my Master Teacher in Oleai Elementary School. I was able to work with different Math activities such as the “Leaping Frog” (Measurement, Data & Statistics); “What’s In the Bag?” (Probability).

7. SPARK Training

· On November 9, I was able to attend a SPARK (Sports, Play and Active Recreation for Kids) at Garapan Elementary School. I learned a lot of new ways to get kids actively involved in Physical Education.

8. Health & Wellness Workshop

· This workshop was held at Pacific Islands Club. The whole group that attended this workshop actively participated in conversations regarding personal issues and concerns about their health and their students’ health. The workshop also involved high school students sharing their experiences and expectations about their health.