Lesson Planning

Journal Entry: Lesson Planning

            I have noticed that my mentor teacher is always very prepared before the school day begins. She has the materials she needs for the lesson before she starts the lesson and usually has enough time to teach and allow the students to work. Since her kindergarteners are working on a lot of reading and learning sight words she has a lot of ways to incorporate that into her lesson. She has the schedule for the day in short sentences on a special board. For math and reading lessons she usually has large pieces of paper that she uses to write the activity on and points to the words as she reads it aloud to the class.

            My mentor teacher is very organized and teaches her lessons with a lot of enthusiasm. She collaborates with other kindergarten and lower elementary teachers to enhance the curriculum and come up with new ways to improve the student’s education. The kindergarten teachers are working on a new math curriculum that involves a lot of new material. Instead of having a lot of hands on activities with the students they also have workbook pages that the students must complete. My mentor teacher is not sure if they will continue to use this math curriculum next year or if they will go back to the previous curriculum. I think she prefers having the students learn using hands on activities rather than worksheets but I suppose a lot of teaching can begin with a great deal of trial and error.