Joanna Rada

1. Joanna Rada “Remember the little things in life…for one day they might just be the big things.”

2. This past spring break I had the opportunity to go to Mesa, Arizona with my friend Kari and her family. While down there, we had the chance to visit and help out her Aunt Carol who teaches at an elementary school in a very rough neighborhood. I was very surprised to find that because of the high demand for teachers in this area, they were even accepting adults without teaching degrees. While talking with some of the students, they told us things like, “Daddy got sent back to Mexico last week,” or “We live in my Mom’s car, not a house.” This was normal for the kids of this area, however, I was devastated by the sad stories I heard. Since most of these kids have very tough home lives, school is supposed to be a safe, enjoyable experience for them. For Kari and I to go in and help out one morning was the least we could do at that time to help these kids out, but from the smiles on the children’s faces, we knew that it had made a big impact on them.

3. My friend and I took advantage of the extra credit opportunity to volunteer at a Robotics Club in the Middle School. At first I was apprehensive about doing this because I don’t know a thing about building robots. After talking with the teacher who runs the robotic club, he assured us that we didn’t have to know anything about robots and that we could still come in. All of the kids involved in the robotics club were very smart and seemed to have an idea of what they wanted their robot to look like. I gave the students some input on what I thought would make the car go faster and straighter, but in the end I believe the students taught me more than I taught them. This just goes to show that even as a teacher, you will learn things from your students every day!

4. For my Children’s Literature class we were asked to come up with a creative way to present a children’s book to a class and do a literature extension activity with the students. My partner and I chose the book “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” by Simms Taback. One morning we went into Ms. Seely’s kindergarten class at Madison Elementary. As our literature extension activity for the book, we had the students make the old lady and animals from the book. As you can see, the children can slide the animals back and forth through the old lady’s stomach which allowed for them to retell the story on their own. The kids loved having visitor’s in their classroom and the could not wait to go home and share their story with their families.

5. Gildemeister Hall is where I have spent most of my class time this semester, as it is the building of education. One of my most memorable times in Gildemeister this semester was when we had a guest speaker in a class. Her name was Cindy Gary and she’d been a teacher for many, many years. What she said to our class really inspired me to not only teach the kids things they need to know, but to do it in a fun, out of the ordinary way. She now goes around the country speaking to different audiences, so I’m sure our class was no different, however, her encouraging words really had an impact on me.

6. For one of my classes this semester I got to go into a classroom and read the book, Click Clack Moo…Cow’s That Type. As a literature extension activity I had the students paint a picture of their own farm, or paint one like in the book. It was fun to see how creative the kids were and they all had a lot of fun doing it. It is surprising how much they enjoy having visitors come to the classroom. They were all so respectful and I could just tell that it made their day!

7. Our major project for Children’s Literature this semester was the book file. We were to read forty different children’s books from all different genres. Some of the categories we had to read books from were: Caldecott books, Newberry books, Picture Story books, Poetry books, and many more. When I first began my book file, I though of it as just another school project. However, as I got further and further on it, I realized that this is something I will keep forever. What started out as a simple project, became something that I will use in my classroom as long as I am teaching.

8. My cousin was born last summer with Down’s Syndrome. My Aunt and Uncle knew little about it and wanted to learn more as soon as they found out that Isabella was going to have Down’s Syndrome. They found a group of families in their area who started a “club” and they get together once every month. The families have children of all ages, with all sorts of physical and mental disabilities. I had the chance to volunteer with this group of people and attend one of the meetings. It was really neat to see how helpful all of the parents were to each other. The kids that I worked with in this group were all so fun, happy and excited to have me there. One of the young boys, Trevor, had Autism and his parents said he rarely smiled or got excited about things, he was just in his own world. The kids loved to dance and play to music. While we were playing Trevor wanted me to hold him, so I picked him up and started dancing with him. He immediately got a huge smile on his face and didn’t want me to stop. Just a small thing like this, made a kid who rarely smiles, have an ear to ear grin on his face.

9. This semester I had an opportunity to volunteer at Kids Fist, the Winona Family Community Center. The community center is located in an area where families live under government funding. The center is run all by volunteers who make it a fun, safe place to children to go. Many of the children who come to the community center come from rough home lives, so the community center is a great Place for them to go and have a chance to interact and socialize with other kids. When I volunteered there one day, I noticed how much it really means to the children to have this place in their neighborhood. They loved having different activities to do that they didn’t have at their home and it gave them a chance to just “get away.” Just from the few hours that I spent there, I could tell what a great place it is and how much the families who use it really appreciate it.

10. This is one of the classrooms that I worked in at Goodview Elementary School. My favorite part about my classes this semester is all of the field experience that I was able to partake in. From this semester, I will not remember every assignment that I did from a book or a worksheet, but I can guarantee that I will remember almost every time I went out and taught a lesson at a school. When you go into a classroom, your not just doing work for yourself anymore, you do it to benefit the children and help them learn and have fun at the same time!

11. In my Children’s Literature class we were asked to do a presentation of a children’s book. My partner and I chose the book, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, by Simms Taback. For this project, we made the old lady from the book with a see through stomach. We made the animals and as we recited the book, we dropped them into her. We also had The chance to present this in a classroom at and elementary school. The kids loved it and asked us to do it again once we were done. It is the hands on, interactive projects like this that I will remember throughout my life!