First Year of Teaching 4th Grade

As the summer break begins and my first year of teaching in the classroom closes, I am reflecting on all the experiences I’ve had and the opportunities I’ve gained in the past year. With a goal of a healthy school environment in mind, I have implemented a lot of strategies in order to ensure the most nurturing and structured classroom that I could provide. Summarized below are some of my greatest successes during my first year as a 4^th grade teacher.

Attention Getters

• “If you can hear me clap once” or “If you can hear me say”
• Clicking together two sticks to get their attention allowed me to use my music background to introduce different beats. This also worked on their muscle coordination and sense of timing!

Table Points

At the end of the week, the table with the most points would each get a sticker and select a classroom plushie for the group desk. Tables with the most points often were:

• First to give me their attention.
• First to clean their desks.
• On task all together.

Tables would lose points if they were off task, not being collaborative, or respectful. However, they all had chances to gain these points back. Class points earned through collective teamwork would gain a free choice period on Friday.

Bathroom Use

• Students received a reminder to use the bathroom before school, at recess, after completing the daily mile, and during lunch.
• Two tickets a day were initially distributed to students needed to use the restroom during class instruction.
• Bathroom partners for outside door access were monitored by the teacher.

Tutoring Methods to Reinforce Differentiated Instruction

• More advanced students helped others once they finished their own work.
• Other teachers used these advanced students to guide challenged students to complete their assignments before working on their own assignment.
• Students who needed more support would sit at a semicircle desk and tutor each other as I worked with an individual student.

Students with Behavior Challenges

• I engaged the staff for assistance and evaluation. The school principal and school psychologist were instrumental in providing added support and resources.
• It is important to take the time to understand what motivates each student to feel empowered. One emotionally challenged student found that poetry provided the outlet to self-regulate and for self-expression.
• I established respectful relationships with families so that students felt safe with consistent expectations. Some teachers established relationships with families prior to the start of the school year through phone calls.
• Follow-up with parents continued with Back to School Nights and Goal-Setting Conferences.

Keeping the Students Engaged

As the school year progressed, students became more motivated to work together as a team when I consciously created units of learning that were project based and loaded with creative crafts and activities. Some activities included:

• Collaborative social studies units were created with poster summaries and student illustrations.
• Nature scene painting was developed by making paints with natural resources such as grass crushed from rocks, turmeric, charcoal powder, fresh roses, and butterfly pea flower tea.
• A ruler and protractor were used to showcase knowledge of lines and angles as students designed an abstract piece of art.
• A narrative story was written by each student that was inspired by a standards aligned historical fiction book.
• Comics were created by students based on a reading assignment. A sample comic picture was projected on the screen and the students would collectively summarize what the passage picture represented. Then the students would create their own comic picture with their own summaries.

As I reflect on my first year of teaching, I am excited about how much I learned along with the students as they mastered their reading, writing, math, science, and social studies projects.