Week 1
My first visit to King Chavez Academy of Arts and Athletics was an orientation on January 28, 2013. At this orientation, I (along with other cohort members placed at this site) listened to a presentation on the school and we were given a tour of the school. The school is a charter school that divided into three sections. There is a primary section where grades K-2 are placed and then there is the arts and athletics section where grades 3-5 are placed. This section is divided into an arts side and athletics side. The classes on the arts side have a focus on the arts, meaning they have art time at least once a day. While the classes on the athletics side have a focus on athletics and they have Physical Education at least once a day. After the tour was over, we met with our master teachers. My master teacher is Carina Hernandez. She teaches a 3rd grade athletics class. After talking to Carina, we decided the best days for me to come into the classroom would be Tuesday 8-3, wednesday 8-1230, and thursday 8-1210. I came into the classroom Wednesday and Thursday of that week. I was impressed to see how organized Ms. Hernandez is and how good of classroom management she has. She uses "whole brain" teaching in her classroom. This is the first time I've seen this style teaching implemented. It is very different then what I am used to seeing in the classroom but the students seem to respond to it well. The biggest adjustment my first week was getting used to the students schedule. The students home classroom is Ms. Hernandez's class but switch classrooms for ELD, Reading, and AR. They placed in different classrooms based on ability levels. For most of this week, I just observed Ms. Hernandez teaching styles, classroom management, and helped individual students if they needed help.