Andrew Harrell Senior Project

Wow.  Can’t believe that this is the last day.  I’ve had so many good memories over the last few weeks with these kids and it stinks to have to leave.  This morning the kids and I worked on their set for the play they are performing soon (which I hope to attend).  I built a rocket ship out of cardboard and we painted it red. The kids also brought me some cards, which was so nice of them.  I will definitely hang on to them for a long time. In the afternoon when I went back I had my surprise of cupcakes up my sleeve (which they already had in the morning because it was one of the student’s birthday!).  First I worked with two students on some math corrections and practice (which they did great on) and then we ate cupcakes! The kids really loved them. Afterwards I gave every one there a big hug and promised the kids I would come to their play on June 10th.  It has been an amazing few weeks and I am sad to have to leave the kids behind. I really hope someone does something like this

I can’t believe that this is my last week at AEMS (and my last week every as a student at Proctor!).  Today Ms. Hildebrand’s assistant teacher Ms. H wasn’t at school, so I took over her duties in administering something called a “quick word test” to a bunch of students.  I quickly understood why Ms. Hildebrand doesn’t like these, and why independent reading and teaching interesting content is much cooler. During these tests, kids simply read a list of between 300-600 words, while a teacher (or me) follows along and marks what they got wrong.  It’s tedious for both us and them, and while it is important for teachers to know where their students are in terms of vocabulary, there are a lot of things that could be more fun than that. Regardless, the kids all did a great job for their various levels of reading. We had no phonics today but Lily showed some really cool shells to the class during snack which was cool.  After coming back to school and preparing for my final two math classes

This week was another great week at AEMS.  I’m actually quite disappointed this has been my final complete week at the school because I have really enjoyed the work I have been doing, especially this week.  I started to bring a more silly attitude to the classroom, not one that hinders or distracts them from their learning, but one that tries to make the learning more fun (at the end of the day, the best way to retain information is to have fun doing it.  This actually worked much better than I expected, as the kids laughed a lot and we had a lot of fun together. Just a quick smile or silly face can get the kids to crack up, which instantly strengthened the bond between me and the students. I actually was asked by a few of them if I was having a good day because I seemed so happy (which I was really glad to hear from them!).  At the same time, there were also a couple of challenges this week that we had to deal with. A couple of kids didn’t feel good/got sick, which wasn’t fun. H

Another truly great day as this week (and senior project) come to a close.  I started off the day creating some short stories with several students in the class (which were all extremely funny and creative).  They all are such talented writers and it was fun to experience them work. Afterwards in phonics class we played a game called Sparkle, where we all stood in a circle and spelled different challenging words, letter by letter.  If you made a mistake or were the person standing in line after the word finished, you were out (I got out all three times). Afterwards during snack some of the students presented the stories that they had created earlier in the morning.  Afterwards Lauren and I worked with a couple of 4th graders in learning Chinese, which was a lot of fun. When I went back to AEMS for their math class the kids had a testing activity with double digit addition and subtraction--with 50 problems!  None of the kids finished it but it was really hard so I tried to keep my g

Another really fun day over at AEMS!  Still a lot of silly energy which was great but I felt that everyone was a tad more tired today.  In the morning we started with some independent reading as a few kids took some reading tests with Mrs. Hildebrand.  I read with three different students about earthquakes, a robot that saves the world, and the all time classic One Fish Two Fish.   Afterwards the kids had a phonics class, where I partnered with a couple of kids to spell and “mark” challenging words.  It was a lot of fun to see how well the kids were able to spell most of of the words (and mark them, which I have no idea how to do).  After doing some more research at school on Khan Academy and finding some fun things to do during math, I went back over to AEMS for the 2nd graders math class.  We didn’t have time to do computers after our worksheet due to the fact that we had to due a couple of “Mad Minutes” before heading down to the conference room. The kids did a great job (as alway

It was really good to get back over to AEMS today!  The kids were all excited to see me this morning but they weren’t as excited as I was to see them (finally done with my AP tests!).  I started off reading with Griff, who was reading the second book in a series we had started last week. Then I listened to a group of 3 girls who were practicing a book that they will be reading to a class of first graders next week!  It was about a elementary school girl and her quest to win class president (which she did). Afterwards I sorted out a bunch of worksheets that the kids needed to do over the next few days for math. They are moving on to analyzing and creating graphs which will be a lot of fun.  When I went back for the afternoon I was working with three boys as we did some word problems involving measurement and then moved on to exploring some basic bar and line graphs. After they finished their worksheet we went on the chromebooks and did some work with different kinds of graphs on Kh

Another unique day today, although basically the same thing as yesterday.  I took another AP Exam this morning (AP Calculus) that was much harder than the one I took yesterday.  I felt good on the sections with calculator but I felt really bad on the sections without a calculator.  Oh well. I was hoping to get some credit for college from these tests but we will see. In the afternoon I continued my research on Khan Academy, and also did some other research online about teach strategies for students that have a harder time paying attention.  There are some kids in the class who are really smart but just have a harder time staying focused. It’s been great teaching kids of all abilities these last few weeks. Can’t wait to get back over there tomorrow! Today’s Hours: 1 Total Hours:  36

Today was certainly a unique day in senior project.  I was taking an AP Exam (AP Biology) in the morning so unfortunately I was unable to go over to AEMS.  The test was super hard and I was very outer-body after. However I did get a bit of work done today. After I ate lunch in the afternoon I did some more research on Khan Academy for the 2nd Graders next unit.  I think we will continue to do word problems because they often have a hard time with those. We will also do a lot of substitution because they really dislike substitution and need to work more on it. Looking forward to heading over to AEMS on Wednesday! Today's Hours: 0.5 Total Hours: 35

This week at AEMS was another super productive week.  I would say that once again I learned many things this week.  My understanding of each of the students definitely continued to develop which was super helpful for me to develop different strategies to help them.  I also am proud to say that I finally learned all of their names this week (a huge accomplishment for someone like me who is absolutely horrendous with names).  Something new I learned this week was that 2nd graders are much more similar to adults/high schoolers than I realized. Even though they seem to have an abundant sources of energy, they too can get tired and certainly lose some of their productivity (which is very similar to.. Just about everyone).  And, just like adults, sometimes the kids just have bad days where things don’t go their way and they don’t have the energy to be as productive as usual. And that’s ok! When I began to witness this at first I was a bit frustrated, but the more I thought, the more I rea

Today at AEMS was one of the most fun days so far in senior project.  Today was Share Day, which only happens once a year at the school. No one has classes, and instead, people from around the community come in and share special skills they have to the students.  The 2nd and 1st graders were combined and broken up into 5 groups, who each went to 5 different very fun stations. I worked at the tye-dye station, where kids colored with sharpie on white t-shirts and then used rubbing alcohol to spread the sharpie out.  All the kids did an awesome job and I was really surprised by how creative and artistic some of the students are. Two that stood out to me were Leo and Finn. The two boys used some amazing colors and patterns to create some wonderful shirts. I will be AP testing Monday and Tuesday but can’t wait to get back in on Wednesday! Today’s Hours: 3 Total Hours: 34.5    

Today was certainly a unique and fun day over at AEMS.  We switched things up a bit and started with math in the morning instead of the afternoon, where I took a group of four to do some challenge problems.  They reminded me a bit of some Perplexors that I do, where there are several clues given and you have to match the numbers to the names based on the clues that are given.  Despite the challenge, all four of the kids did a great job and were able to solve both problems in under 45 minutes. Afterwards we went back to the classroom where Finn led us in a game of hangman (the word was Dance Tonight).  Then we had phonics class, were the kids continued to work on practicing compound subjects where the subject was something besides people. Later in the day after their PE/Technology classes, I worked with several kids during independent/group reading time.  The group I read with was one I have worked with before and they did a great job, as always. The 2 individuals I worked with w

Another awesome day at AEMS!  Today I started off reading with Finn about animals that burrow under the ground.  Afterwards we took a quiz on the book and he got a 5 out of 5 on it, so we were both psyched about that.  I then switched it up and read a fun book about an evil mosquito monster (named Mr. Mosquito) and a hero mouse that saves the world with Griff.  It was really funny and we were able to finish the entire back half of the story before phonics started. During phonics we did some work on compound subjects in the beginning of sentences. The kids did great when the subjects of the sentences were people, but definitely struggled when they switched to the subjects being other things.  That is where the class is going to pick it up tomorrow during phonics. During math in the afternoon I took the same great group from yesterday and worked with them on Khan Academy doing measurement word problems, which eventually they mastered and moved on to some tough adding and subtracting p

Today was a great day at AEMS!  This morning I got in and the kids were working on their research projects again.  I worked with Griff on his project about World War II. We read a couple of books with lots of great pictures and found some great facts about the factors leading up to, during, and after the war and their effects on different countries.  Afterwards the kids had phonics, where we working in pairs coming up with unique sentences and then identifying the subject and predicates of other people sentences. After the kids had PE/Library I came back well prepared to take my normal group to the conference room to do a little Khan Academy.  However, I was a bit caught off guard after discovering that the 3 kids I had had very little energy and really didn’t want to do any math (possibly due to a PE/recess combination in the morning). So, in response, I took them back up to Mrs. Hildebrand’s room and got a new group of three, who I found to be much more determined and made really

Another great (although certainly unique) start of the week at AEMS!  In the morning when I showed up I found out that the 6th graders had a science fair (officially called the “Space Expo”) in the gym for the whole morning and that our class would get to go down and look at the projects the students had created!  It was super cool to see all of the great projects that the 6th graders did (some were really quite detailed and well presented). The 2nd graders were very interested in all of the projects which was great to see. Afterwards they had a phonics quiz.  While they took it I did research on Khan Academy for some new activities related to math for the kids and continued this research at school after they had headed off to their specials (Music/Library). In the afternoon when I went back in for their math class I proctored a test for some more advanced students who were wrapping up their inches and feet/cm and m unit.  It was interesting to see their brains work and process dif

This first week I have had working at AEMS has been extremely productive, tiring, and lots of fun.  I have started to learn many things both about specific students in the class and how the learn best (some are more visual, some are more auditory, some are much more independent, and some respond best when given lots of help).  I’ve also learned plenty about teaching the class in general and what second graders are really capable of. When teaching in groups it can be very difficult to get everyone to listen to you because they are all so curious and have so many questions.  And that’s just when I’m working with 4-5 students! My respect for all teachers, partially in elementary education, has already started to skyrocket due to how hard it can be to convince 20+ second graders to settle down and listen. Despite some of the challenges that I have faced, I have loved every second of working with Ms. Hildebrand’s class.  It can be tricky, but seeing the students have that “a-ha!” mo

Although I love heading over to AEMS every day, it will be good for me to get a break from all of the high-explosive level energy that the kids possess.  TGIF! That being said, today was another awesome day! In the morning I worked with Mason on her research project on Harriet Tubman, where we wrote down some facts we found on the internet.  We made a lot of progress and she did a great job! After that we played a couple games in phonics that involved spelling some tough words on a whiteboard in groups. During snack the kids decided to name a stuffed animal after me (Andrew-Randrew the Dog) which beat out the name George Washington by one vote.  Afterwards Lauren Ho and I taught some Mandarin to a small group of 4th graders who also did a great job. After doing some research at school about teaching math to kids I headed back over to AEMS for the student’s math class. There, I worked with a group on centimeters and meters. After, because it is a Friday, the kids practiced singi

Another great day with the students over at AEMS.  We started with a creative reading/writing workshop, where I read with a few kids and helped others write some creative short stories.  Although reading their handwriting and their words can be challenging, they all came up with very creative stories. Some had good endings, like Finn’s, where the seed that fell from heaven turned into a massive tree with eyes that scared off all of the squirrels (his words, not mine).  Others were a bit more sinister, but they were all very creative. Afterwords I worked with kids during their phonics class while they wrote sentences with -ur, -er, -ir (which are all very challenging). Then I came back to school while they had PE and recess and prepared for math class, where they were beginning to measure in centimeters and meters as opposed to inches and feet.  I went on Brainpop and found some good “conversion” exercises for helping them determine how many centimeters were in different amounts of i

Today was a ton of fun at AEMS!  We started off the day with some independent reading.  I went around and worked with several different students that were all in various different levels of reading skill.  What amazed me the most was that many of students, after correcting them on a word, never got that word incorrect again.  Afterwards while they were doing phonics I was able to hunt down a batch of chromebooks to use in the afternoon for math, which will work way better than the iPads.  After they finished phonics the students began picking out topics for their research projects, and some of the topics blew my mind: World War II, The Great Depression, Influential Women, etc.  Ms. Hildebrand and I remarked how the kids often don’t get enough credit for being as creative as they are, as they think about many more deep subjects than we think. I continued to do go through BrainPop to find helpful activities to do with the kids during math, and then came back after they ate lunch to g