Field Blog Post 5

Today I was at Gesu in Mrs. Schetter's third grade class again. Today the kids were working on editing their reports on Native American tribes. Mrs. Schetter gave them each their own "editing checklist" worksheet and walked them through it step by step. I thought this was a good idea because it helped the kids practice their grammar and be more independent while doing so. I was also able to help some of the kids practice their cursive letters as they were working on the reports; one girl was struggling to make a capital 'S', and so I walked her through it step by step until she got it, and she was very proud of herself when she could finally make it. One new thing I got to see in the classroom today was a "bridge." Mrs. Schetter put a long board between two desks with a puppet on one end of it, and whenever the kids were quiet and well behaved the puppet got moved down the bridge a little bit. I thought this was a very smart idea on her part because the kids wanted to see the puppet move, and so they were motivated to stay quiet and listen. I got to see some Halloween poems that the kids wrote on ghost paper; I think that this was a fun activity for the kids to do since they are excited for Halloween, and it also forced them to use their brains and be creative. I think that festive projects like this help the kids a lot because it takes something that they are excited about and interested in and helps them to learn at the same time. I will definitely use the holidays to make school work more exciting for my students someday, and thanks to Mrs. Schetter I will have plenty of good ideas on how to motivate my students to learn and listen.