Service Learning Journal 1

The first thing I noticed as I stepped into Mrs. Berry's second grade class was that she had help already from a student teacher. Ms Carmen was walking around the classroom helping students understand what Mrs. Berry was talking about at the time. It was a bit intimidating at first walking into her classroom because I did not know what to expect, but they made me feel right at home once I put my purse down in the back room. As soon as I looked down at the eager, warm, smiling faces on each second grader I became very excited to help out with this class.

I then noticed both teachers using what seemed to be microphones but were hanging around their necks. At first I wondered why a teacher would have something like that in their classroom. As I thought about it, I realized that it is a good way for the students to be able to hear her clearer since some of them may not speak English well. I glanced around the classroom while waiting for Mrs. Berry to finish her lesson to see if there were any international students who may not speak English. There were only a few students who looked like they were not from America but surpringly almost all the students spoke English.

Right away they had recess. The other service learning student (Marla) and I went outside with the students. One student in our class was eager to show me the playground and explain every little detail about it. I was floored by each detail he was giving because I did not realize how smart kids are now.

Once reces was over the students headed back inside and got right back into their writing workshops. I had to walk around and make sure the students came up with ideas to write about and were actually writing about them. I sat by one student and asked him to explain his idea to me that he was writing about and he read me what he had written already. When I looked at his paper I saw that he had capital letters in the middle of sentences and started a few sentences with lowercase letters. I asked him what type of letters you are supposed to start sentences with and he said capital letters and fixed his mistake. Then I asked him if there are supposed to be capital letters in the middle of sentences and he said no and fixed his mistake. As he continued to write, if he made another mistake, he realized it right away and fixed it. I felt really good about being able to help him determine his mistakes and be able to fix them.

My first day of service learning was a bit of a challenge but as I eased into the classroom I felt more and more at home. Mrs. Berry and Ms. Carmen told us exactly what to do and Marla and I were able to help out without any issues.