Last Day At CHAMPS

Today was my last day with the Champs program. Looking back on the experience, I would say that I learned a lot of great teaching techniques as well as the pieces that it takes to build a successful after school program. Through-out the weeks it was gratifying working with my students and helping them grow as students and people. I feel like I also relearned a lot of great teaching techniques such as positive reinforcement, checking for understanding and class room management while observing the grad student that runs the CHAMPS program. She used all the techniques that I already learned and during my teaching blocks but it was good to see them again used flawlessly. I feel like you can never see enough good teaching. Everyday I observed something that she did or said that I can use when I go out for student teaching. Overall, I would say it was a great experience and I am happy to say that I was part of the CHAMPS program.

NYS PE Conference at Turning Stone

This weekend I was giving the opportunity to attend the NYS Physical Education Conference through the PE Club here at Cortland. We arrived at Turning Stone around 9:00 am on Thursday and left around 1:00 pm on Saturday. The experience was unbelievable. I was not able to attend last year but I am very glad I attended this year because the experience was an eye opening one. I would recommend to everyone. The part that I like the most was meeting teachers and administrators outside of their element. I met so many great people that I would not have had the opportunity to meet if I did not attend. I also got a lot of great teaching ideas through the seminars. The one I liked the most was one about incorporating cross content curriculum into an elementary PE class. It was presented by Queens College and was done so through different stations. Each station had a different idea and subject area. I also enjoyed Dr. Columna’s presentation about incorporating Spanish and ASL into PE class. I liked it because I am currently taking sign language and enjoy finding new ways to incorporate ASL into PE. I currently try to teach my classes at observations little things such as how to say understand and don’t understand. They seem to pick it up well and enjoy learning it. I feel like it is a great way to open kid’s minds. Overall the conference was a blast and I can not wait to go back!

Week 7

Today, November 17, 2009 wraps up my 7th week at the CHAMPS after school program. This week I attended 3 hours of observations on Monday and Wednesday. This makes my total hours at CHAMPS 36. I would consider this week a successful one. The children were well behaved on both Monday and Wednesday. Today I saw something interesting. A child with Aspergers disease, who is normally uncontrollable, found something he really enjoyed and got hooked. The child was taught Chess last class from another mentor in the program. Today he came in and all he wanted to do is play Chess. It seemed as if he could have played all day. Now, what was so interesting to me is getting this child to sit still in a chair for more than 5 minutes can be a real challenge, let alone for one full hour. I have actually heard that people with aspergers have the ability to focus on one thing for an extraordinary amount of time but I have never witnessed it. I heard about a surfer named Clay Marzo, who has the disease and is one of the best in the world because he has the disease gives him the ability to practice for as long as 6 straight hours. I think this is great to know because when teaching a child with Aspergers, finding that thing that gets their attending can be life changing. I can not say that Chess is that thing for this particular student but something similar could be it.

Here is the link to the E:60 Story about Clay Marzo

Week 6

This week I was only to attend observations on Monday, November 9th, 2009. This is now my 6th week attending CHAMPS. On this particular day, the theme was music. We started out as we always do. I helped the children with their homework, gave them a healthy snack and then they went to the turf for free time. Today, in the classroom I got to give out 2 CHAMPS All-stars awards to my two children who had an overall great day in the classroom. First they came in and helped me set up the tables and chairs. Then they sat down quietly and completed all their homework. The best thing is when they were done with their homework and had no more work to do they did not just fool around like most of the kids do. They both grabbed books and started reading until it was time for their healthy snack. This was fabulous. I gave them the award in front of the class so all the other children saw what really good behavior is supposed to look like. Afterwards we played on the turf for about an hour. After that we went into the classroom and played a game that I used to love as a kid, 7 up. Overall I would say it was another great day at CHAMPS.

Week 5

I have just completed my 5th week of observations at the CHAMPS complex. I have been going every Monday and Wednesday from 3-6. So far it has been a great experience for my professional development. It is great to see a well ran after school program like the CHAMPS program that I am observing at the J.M. McDonald complex. Being there has given me a lot of great ideas that I can use for when I become a teacher. Things such as their CHAMPS All-Star poster are great behavior rein-forcers and could be used in a classroom as well as an after school program. This is an award given to children when they do something exceptional like when they go out of their way to help another student. They are announced which is great because all the other students get to see what they have to do to be exceptional students. I also love the CHAMPS Promise where every child writes something that they know is expected from them and the rest of the students in the program. I look forward to learning even more things as I continue my observations t at CHAMPS.

Week 4 at CHAMPS

This week I attended observations with the CHAMPS program on Monday and Wednesday. This week was the week before Halloween so both days were themed around Halloween. One day the children painted pumpkins after homework time and the other day the children made Halloween candy bags out of brown lunch bags. Afterwards, the children went on the turf both days and the 201 students had Halloween themed games for them to play. Overall I felt like it was another good week at CHAMPS.

WEEK 3 @ CHAMPS

This week I attended observations with the CHAMPS program on Monday and Wednesday. I felt that both days went well. On Monday, my child and I sat down and did his homework for the entire homework time. This impressed me a lot. Then we ate a healthy snack and had some free time to play on the turf. We played football and had a lot of fun. On Wednesday, my child had no homework but brought an empty poster board with him. He figured he could draw on it during homework time since he had none. At first he was not sure what to draw but then I gave him an idea to make a poster for the CHAMPS program. He loved the idea and worked on it from start to finish. When he was down he gave it to the program and we hung it on the wall. To reward him for his gift, I gave him a sticker to put on his next to his name on the CHAMPS All-star poster. This is a way that CHAMPS rewards the children for doing special things such as going out of their way to help another classmate. I really like it because when we give the awards we announce them to the class which makes the children feel great. It also lets the other children in the program know the type of behavior that we are looking for in the program. For the rest of the day, we had our healthy snack and then the 201 students taught games on the turf. Overall, it was a good week at CHAMPS.