Junior Achievement

On Friday my class was able to go to an elementary school to teach a junior achievement curriculum. My partner and I taught first graders about families and their jobs and how important they are. When we first got there we introduced ourselves to the teacher. It ended up that both have a connection to the teacher. My mom had taught her son in kindergarten. After we talked to the teacher we stated to set up the different posters and things in the Junior Achievement packet while they finished up their rotations. We started off by showing them a map and getting them to point out how the different people are helping out around the neighborhood. Then we gave them a JA booklet called Our Family. They added stickers which matched the questions in the booklet. We also taught them about needs and wants and what the difference between the two is. They learned about different jobs and how all of them are important to our community. Then we showed them a map and showed them how the key works with the different symbols. In the last lesson we played a game where they acted out a job and if they did a good job they got payed and got to "buy" one of the need or want posters we used to demonstrate. The students seemed to enjoy what we were teaching them and liked having us there. I would love to teach the Junior Achievement lesson again it was lots of fun!  

Teacher Website

If I hasd a class and there were laptops readily available there is so much I would be able to do. One thing in particular that would help in the subject of math is the website, Kids' Zone - Create a Graph. I would use this website for the students to make a graph and see how the process works. I would give the students a work sheet with different data sets. They would use this data to plug in and design their own graphs. This would give the students the oppurtunity to make a graph themselves.

Teacher Impact

Teachers have huge impacts on thier students. Children spend a large amount of their time at school. This is time where the teacher is the one they look to as an example. As a role model the teacher influences what the students do and how much they enjoy doing it. For a childs physical development they can encourage children to play outside when they get home and be active with them at recess. They can also tell the students stories of ways they are active outside of school. When it comes to a childs emotional and social development teachers have an impact as well. As they children work throughout the day the teacher could have them work in groups inorder to develop their comunication skills and make them work with another person. The teacher also show them they care emotionally. For example if a student is crying they could take the time to listen to them and find out what is wrong. As for cognitive development they have the most influence on these children. Their whole job is to teach their students. In order to maximize what the students learn they may take in to account the students strengths and weaknesses and the way they learn best and incorporate that into the lesson plans. This is how the teacher impacts a child's development.