Post 3: Life as an Undergrad

Ok, this week has been horribly awful. First off, I would like to personally hit the person who thought up midterms. I am so tired from staying up all night with a 3 month old as it is, and this past week I have gotten even less sleep studying for midterms and trying to keep up in this class. I feel so overwhelmed with this class it's not even funny. My work in my other classes is suffering, and I'm so frustrated! Next year, they need to make this class either 6 credits or less work. It's too much!!! Maybe I'm just overstressed, but I want to pull my hair out. On top of that, my laptop (which contains all of my files) is with a friend getting fixed because yesterday as I was going to send post#2, it inexplicably decided to slow down and freeze, then not boot back up. Argh!!!

Melissa's Activity Revision #1

For my activity, I think I'd like to stick with the restaurant idea. I got a lot of good feedback, and a lot of helpful hints as well. I think that one of the problems with my activity before was that it may have been a bit too complicated for elementary students. I am hoping to gear it more toward fifth graders, and as such, I have simplified the requirements a bit. So, bearing all of this in mind, I have come up with my revised activity. To start, the kids will still write a basic five paragraph essay about their favorite restaurant. They will detail why they like it, their favorite dish, and who they go there with. The next task of the assignment will be to have the kids break up into teams. They will brainstorm ideas for a restaurant of their own. They will represent this brainstorm using Inspiration software. At the center of their web will be the name of their restaurant. Each shoot-off of their main idea will be basic information about that restaurant. (i.e. general type of food they will serve, a basic color scheme for the decor, entertainment for their patrons, etc.) Together, they will work to design a floorplan for their restaurant using Microsoft Word. They will use autoshapes and write down actual dimensions. When they submit this, they will need to include the total area in square feet of their restaurant. The kids will also design a menu for their restaurant. They will need to come up with prices for their food, and find the average price of a plate, the median price of a plate, and the price that occurs most frequently (mode). Finally, they will create a commercial for their restaurant to present to the class. They will write a script and assign jobs (actor, director, producer, etc.). To finish the project, the kids will present their commercial to the class. They will be allowed (but not required) to bring in an item from the menu for the whole class to try, provided that an adult has helped them to prepare it. They will complete their "restaurant portfolio" by writing a reflection on the whole experience. This assignment will target basic math skills (area, mean, median, mode) as well as language arts skills (script writing, reflective writing, and five-paragraph essay). With any luck, they'll have some fun doing it as well! All in all, the project should take about three weeks to complete.

Post #2: A-5 reflection

"My grandfather will be ninety years old in March. He is by far the wisest and most intelligent person that I know. One very valuable lesson that he has taught me is that learning is not limited to the classroom. A person learns in everything she does, every place she goes, and from every person she meets. Given this powerful information, I have chosen for this assignment five events that I believe helped to define me as a person and have contributed significantly to my educational growth. The interesting thing about each of these events is the fact that not a single one has taken place in a classroom."

The above paragraph is an excerpt from A-5, my reflection on the digital mapping activity that our class completed. First, we had to create a map in Microsoft Word. Then, we had to create a map related to our learning experiences in a software called Inspiration. I detailed various experiences in my life that I felt were important to my learning experience. At the end, I got to compare and contrast Inspiration and Word. I enjoyed this assignment because it asked me to reflect on moments in my life that I felt were important. I kind of wish that I was able to share the powerpoints we created towards the end of the project, as I was quite proud of everything that I had done! If you would like to see the reflection on this activity, click here.

Post #3: Life as an Undergrad

I feel like my life as an undergrad has been drastically different from the experiences of my peers. When I was a senior in high school, I fell in love. The week I turned 18, he proposed. I said yes, my mom said no. My heart was broken, but I decided that marrying my husband was the right choice for me, no matter what the cost. We struggled a lot. I worked full time for my first two years of college and maintained a 3.5 GPA. Then, I got pregnant with my son. I worked to keep up in school through morning sickness, backaches, and leg cramps. I was even in class on my due date! I'm still working toward my degree, and my life as an undergrad has never been more rewarding. I'm looking forward to graduating and making my family proud.

Melissa's Classroom Activity

An interesting idea for a classroom activity would be to do a restaurant proposal. Kids love going out to eat with their families, so the first step could be to have them type out a description of their favorite restaurant, detailing the reasons why they like it, the decorations, the atmosphere, etc. After that, they would break off into "management teams" to come up with a restaurant of their own. They would write out a proposal to potential investors detailing why they should invest their time and money into the restaurant. The kids would be responsible for naming their restaurant, designing the business cards, and creating flyers in Microsoft Publisher. Once that was done, they would use MS Word to create a menu. Wrapping up the project, each group would present their restaurant as a powerpoint to potential investors (their classmates). Each "investor" would then write up a short essay detailing the positive and negative aspects of each, and whether they would invest and why or why not. Each group would submit one CD with the work of all members, receiving an individual grade as well as a group grade.

Welcome!

Welcome to our classroom, where learning new things is elementary, my dear! You will find two interesting future educators of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades.

Melissa is a junior at FGCU. She just moved to the Naples area from Deerfield Beach. She also has a little boy named Nicholas, who was born in November of 2005. Melissa would like to teach at the fourth or fifth grade level, hopefully somewhere in Collier County!

Lauren is a 19 year old sophomore at FGCU from Boca Raton, FL. She is attending FGCU to become a teacher. She cannot remember a time when she did not want to teach, and would love to be in a fourth, fifth, or sixth grade classroom!