My Third Grade Experience

I decided to write some about my own personal experience of being in third grade, since this past Monday we were unable to do our fieldwork because of a teacher development day. I figure it might be helpful to try and remember activities that I enjoyed that I could alter or incorporate pieces of into my lesson plans...

I went to pre-school in West Granby CT, and then my family moved to Orinda, CA (northern) right before I started kindergarten. I went to school there from Kindergarten through high school. I was very lucky because it had a great public school system, but at the same time, very aggressive and demanding parents, so I am sure it is a difficult district in which to teach. I went to elementary school at Glorietta Elementary School, which was one of three elementary schools in our town. I have very fond memories of both my pre-school and elementary school experience, especially specifically the third grade.

For me, third grade was when everything I had learned and was learning, started to "click." A huge part of this was because of my teacher, Mrs. Lowery. She was very personable and very creative in her methods of teaching. Art has always been something I love and I consider myself a very visual learner and therefore her style of teaching really worked with me and I was able to relate to her. However, she was an amazing teacher because she somehow found a way to connect with every student. I honestly do not know one student who didn't like her. She challenged us, was kind, we did interesting and fun projects, and most importantly we learned a ton!

Some of my favorite projects in the third grade where the crayfish study we did, where we observed crayfish and make observations of their habitat, their physical changes, and their behavior/interaction with others. We did this by drawing and writing about them. In math I believe we did long division and multiplication and I can literally remember and picture the day and where I was sitting on the carpet, when the light bulb went on for me in math. From that point on, I felt like math was strength. It's strange how one day you can be learning but not entirely confident with yourself about yourself in a subject matter, and then the next be very comfortable and start to enjoy a subject. I think that was another great thing about this teacher, in that she made the things we did really fun, and made us enjoy learning and everyone was more motivated and wanted to learn. We were much more self-motivated.

Strangely, I can also remember every book that Mrs. Lowery read out loud to us and to this day many of them remain my favorites. Some of the books included: “Witches”, “Matilda”, and the “Wolves of Willaby Chase”. Mrs. Lowery would read to us out loud every day for about a half hour to 45 minutes, while we all sat on the carpet. She was a great story-teller because really spoke with enthusiasm, energy, enunciated, and even incorporated character voices. In third grade I struggled with reading and it was my third grade teacher who took action with about 3 or four of us who had been with a brand new teacher in the first grade and the school believed we had not been prepared, or sufficiently taught what we needed for a strong foundation. She was so nice to me and really careful with how she handled the situation. She made it very private and made sure not to embarrass any of us. We all improved because of a special tutoring session we did after school. I think I went from a 2nd grade reading level to a 4th/5th grade reading level by the time I was done. It is amazing how simple skills you learn in reading can make a huge impact on the overall level. For example simple decoding skills, and reading comprehension. And all of these can affect the students self confidence in reading, and in learning in general.

I think the teacher's role is most important in enjoying one grade from the next and in shaping your future success as a student, especially early on. I can remember more about my favorite teachers in elementary school (Kindergarten: Mrs. Burch, Third Grade: Mrs. Lowery, and 5th grade: Mr. Roberts) than any of the actual projects we did, and why I specifically liked those grades so much. To me this infers that the teacher and the things they do to "hook a child" onto learning, and to get them engaged in what they are learning is by far the most important aspect of learning.

We also did many art projects that were related to the things we did in other subjects, which was a nice way to tie art in. Every Friday afternoon she took us outside, with a separate PE time (other than the one we had twice a week with the specified PE teacher. We also had a music teacher we went to twice a week, a drama teacher once a week, and art was taught by the main teacher.) It was fun for us to get to do something outside the classroom with our teacher that involved gross motor skills and moving around, especially on a Friday afternoon. We played games like capture the flag, dodge ball, kickball, etc. I remember that Mr. Lowery would even get involved when we played games like dodge ball.

 

And besides the fact that I am aware that I have gotten too carried away with this post, I am also aware that plenty of things have changed since I was in third grade, not to mention the fact that I went to school across the country in the west and up north. I look forward to seeing what things may be similar and what things are different through my field work. I think the teacher's role is most important in enjoying one grade from the next and in shaping your future success as a student, especially early on. It's quite apparent to me as to why I chose early childhood education, and one of those reasons in because it was my personal favorite time that I spent in school, where with the right teacher a child will come to class every day looking forward to learning and being part of the classroom community. In fact, the two grades I think I might want to teach (as of this point, with the little experience I have) happen to be kindergarten and third grade, two grades in which I had amazing teachers. I can remember more about my favorite teachers in elementary school (Kindergarten: Mrs. Burch, Third Grade: Mrs. Lowery, and 5th grade: Mr. Roberts) than any of the actual projects we did, and why I specifically liked those grades so much. To me this infers that the teacher and the things they do to "hook a child" onto learning, and to get them engaged in what they are learning is by far the most important aspect of learning. And the word, "hook" may not be appropriate, but I feel like once a child is excited about the idea of learning and has realized what they can accomplish, that child has got a pretty good foundation set, and is much more likely to have a positive learning attitude toward learning throughout the remainder of their education.

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