November 22-23rd 2010 Mylan Park Elementary School

This week was a short week at Mylan Park Elementary School due to Thanksgiving being on Thursday. (There was no school on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday which made a two day school week.) I really enjoyed teaching Monday and Tuesday this week due to the fact that we incorporated many activities that were based around the Thanksgiving holiday that consisted of Thanksgiving themed math worksheets, games, learning videos on the Native American Indians, etc. We also had on Tuesday a Thanksgiving feast for the students. At the feast the students were introduced to many fruits and vegetables, as well as educated about what the Indians and Pilgrims ate for dessert which consisted of pudding pies. The students really enjoyed the feast and the celebration that we had within the classroom.


This week was also my sixth week for the implementation of my Action Research project. On Monday and Tuesday the students read “Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving” as well as “I Know An Old Lady That Swallowed a Pie.” For the book, “Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving”, my students read the story out loud, generated their own student led group discussion, had to choose three key words within the story that described the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story. Then, they had to define those key words, illustrate a picture relating the meaning to the story, and choreograph their own dance movement to express the beginning, middle, and end of the story. I feel that all of the students are becoming more confident and comfortable with expressing stories through their illustrations and bodies that they are creating more visual images within their minds helping them comprehend better what is occurring throughout the entire story as they read.


For the book “I Know An Old Lady That Swallowed a Pie”, the students had to read the story out loud, generate their own discussion period, and then were asked to illustrate on paper what they saw was the begging, the middle, and the end of the story. Once they completed this task, they then had to choreograph their own movement segment and perform it to the class. Their final comprehension assessments for this book was for them to place in sequential order all of the events or foods that the old lady took part within. I was impressed with how well the students did this week with reading both stories, expressing the beginning, middle, and end of the stories through the fine arts, and passing the written assessments that all checked on their comprehension skills.


To conclude this week’s implementation of my Action Research, I provided my students with a post test to see if their reading comprehension skills have improved and increased, if they remained the same, or if they at all decreased. I discovered after grading their post-tests that their reading comprehension scores increased a phenomenal amount! On the pretest, one student in particular scored a 38% average, and on the post-test scored a 80% average. I feel that this students’ success was influenced by the implementation of movement and the fine and creative arts; which means that my action research project on a whole turned out to be a success.


I really enjoyed this week; however, am very sad that this was my last week to be full time teaching. I am going to miss Mylan Park Elementary school and sad that my last day, December 15th, is approaching rapidly. I am really looking forward to the next two weeks within my classroom, teaching my students, and being mentored by Ms. Walker!