This week's topic is on Overcoming Procrastination. After reading an article on the topic, I noticed that one of the reasons why I tend to leave everything for the last minute is that I have difficulty concentrating.
I get distracted easily at school and so I decide to put my assignments off and prefer to finish them at home. But then that leaves me with not enough time to finish them.
To overcome my procrastination i will try to discipline myself to use my time wisely. Having my priorities straight should help me get things in order. Also eliminating the noise or distractions such as listening to music or talking to friends while working would be good.
After watching the video of Changing Education Paradigms by Sir Ken Robinson, it made me realize that the way that we are being and have been educated, perhaps hasn't been the best after all.
If I could change education I think I would start off by changing the standardized tests and activities inside the classroom. We all perform differently and therefore cannot all be evaluated and assessed by one standardized test. If testing is not our strong point, it limits our ability to succeed.
I think we could all learn more if we opened up to more options and had more "hands-on" activities. It would be a better learning experience and would get the students to be more engaged in what we are learning. It would also be a lot more interesting if we all learned something that would actually apply to our future lives rather than waste our time on things that we might not ever see again.
Also, rather than separating kids by age groups, I think it would help if we were separated by how much we know. Students with a higher level of intelligence should advance to the grade level they have the potential to be in. Rather than sitting in a class all day with students that don't understand the assignment and a teacher that can't move on because of those students.
I think students would really benefit from this and in the end we could all learn more.
Mrs. Steven's Blog
TEA TEKS for First Grade
This week's blog is about lesson planning and different activities to use for first graders.
Ideas for First Grade TEKS Activities:
1) Put a certain amount of pennies in a cup, take out a few, place them on a table facing up and have the kids count them. Give them the total amount of pennies but don't show them. Have the kids tell you how many were left in the cup by subtracting. (1.3)(A)
2) Have the kids go out to recess and while at it, have them all ask their playmates the same question like "What is your favorite color: blue, pink, or green?" Then when they come back in, discuss the data and create a bar graph with them organizing the results. (1.9)(A&B)
3) Cut out small squares with different amounts of dots on them like a dice would. Give them each a paper with enough space to place the squares. Each paper has different numbers like 15, 19, 10. They must search for a way to add the squares together and get the right amount for each number. (1.5)(D)
