Teach Dailey

As this new year approaches I have been reflecting on this past year. I have met so many wonderful people and learned so much about my craft. During my vacation I have spent some time with my family and had some fun with paint. Here are some pictures of what I did to a $15 Ikea easel. This will serve as a nice greeting to my students each day. I will be able to post messages to them and have them add their thoughts as well. I hope you all have a wonderful new year and are filled with joy and wonder. Before: After:

Does an alligator have a butt? We ended our last official class for our first quarter in the student teaching program at UCD today. Our amazing professor included some read aloud excerpts from the book 3 2 Third Graders and One Class Bunny  that captures the experiences that a teacher may encounter. A student quote that stands out was the question, "Does an alligator have a butt?". I can't wait to read this book now that I am immersed in the classroom. Our professor modeled some class meeting activities that really showed me how important a morning meeting can be in building community in the classroom. She asked us to think of our happy place. As all 70ish of us thought, smiles spread throughout the room and the mood shifted. Then our professor pulled out a ball of yarn and told us to say : "hello  ______ (person's name) from ________ (fill in your happy place), and then to throw the yarn to them. This process repeated until there was a string that would ev...

If you keep looking you can see beauty anywhere: Today, I was lucky enough to be carpooling with a colleague that pointed out a beautiful rainbow. It stretched across the sky and added a sense of wonder to the day. I could have just as easily missed it, but because we had built a sense of community, she wanted to share it with the other people in the car. I think teaching is like that. We have to strive to build community, so that our students want to share learning and experiences with each other. We have to care that the other person doesn't miss the rainbow, and go out of our way to share these experiences. Books, bingo, and Simon says:  Today, in our 1st grade classroom, students were rotating in small groups and I was running the bingo table. This idea of bingo was so clever! My resident teacher had written words on 3x5 cards and made her own bingo sheet. Students would listen to a word that was read, and then find it on their bingo sheet. When they won, they could c...

Today, in 1st grade, we were working on story structure. We read the "Three Little Pigs", and talked about what the beginning, middle, and end of the story are. Students learned about how to add an "s" to the end of a word to make it plural. They ate bright red cupcakes, and it rained. It rained a lot. Here are some pictures of the playground. So much needed rain! This tree looks happy my own personal waterfall I explored a 3rd grade room before school started and found a beautiful display of rocks, a music station that has been collected from all over the world, and a very interesting pumpkin. What a great display! Selenite My favorite was the thunder drum Ghost pumpkin and me This classroom has a reading goal, just like the 1st grade a wonderful way to share about interests

Going On An Adventure In The Rain: At UC Davis for student teaching we have a great opportunity to have a temporary placement in a grade different than the one we are in for the rest of the school year. For me that means leaving the 5th grade that feels like home, and venturing into a 1st grade at a different school site. Today was my first day in a first grade classroom. It was so different than the fifth grade! I was finally the tallest one in the room! Besides feeling like I was 10 feet tall, I really enjoyed listening to student explanations about how they would define a slug and what the word "then" really means. As the question of what a slug is hung in the air, I began thinking of all the complicated ways that one might explain it. Just as I was thinking how hard this question is, one student said "it's a snail with no shell." Why didn't I think of that? These 1st graders are pretty sharp. I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring. Learni...