Thank you for visiting my portfolio to discover a little more about me beyond my cover letter and resume. I love what I do, and I love to share my love for teaching with others. This site shows various activities I have done throughout my teaching career in grades K, 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. I hope you enjoy looking at some of the many activities and lessons I have done through the years in my classroom. If you would like to see more of my portfolio and discuss future classroom goals please feel free to contact me at any time.
Thank you,
Kristin Houston
Classroom Management and Home Connection: Parent Workshops and Learning Celebrations
An example of a parent workshop happened at the end of every school year. I would have parents come in for one final workshop where I would show them games and concepts to review with their child throughout the summer to help prepare for the next school year. While at the workshop the parents would help students create their summer games so they could take the tools needed for review home with them already prepared and ready to use. Each game came with written directions, along with a folder to hold it in, a summer reading list, math ideas to do while out and about, websites to visit, and much more. I want to empower parents as much as possible whenever I can. If parents were unable to attend the workshops I would still send home all information discussed so they could review it at home.
I also held a parent workshop on Valentine's Day.
Classroom Management and Home Connection: Family Home Projects
Monthly I would send home fun projects for families to work together on with their child so that their student can present it in the class. Many families expressed the fun they had while bonding as a family around school work. Students benefited because they then had to work on their presentation skills when talking about their projects in class. We did various things such as family jobs chart, Flat Stanley, valentine box, leprechaun trap, and egg drop contraptions.
Egg Drop Contraptions
Flat Stanley
Valentine Boxes
Leprechaun Traps
Classroom Management and Home Connection: Class Celebrity
To work on listening, speaking, and writing skills I have a class celebrity every week. The student who is the celebrity of the week creates his/her own bulletin board which is displayed in the classroom throughout the week. On Friday, this student will sit at the front of the room for an interview and sharing session. During this interview session each student in the class will ask the class celebrity a question. After the question is answered, the interviewer will then write a paragraph pertained to the asked question, make a poem, and draw a picture of the student on the back of the page. At the end of the interview time I collect the papers and created a book for the celebrity to keep.
Technology, Collaboration, and 21st Century Learning: STEM-Science, Technology, Engineering, Math
As part of school STEM week students were able to learn about robots and satellites, how they operate, and were also able to maneuver and operate them. Throughout the week they were reminded of, and exposed to the idea that science, technology, engineering, and math go together as one in many instances.
For St. Patrick's Day students had to design and create a leprechaun trap.
Also during STEM week my students learned about radar technology from the police department, and robot mechanics from the Air Force.
For St. Patrick's Day students had to design and create a leprechaun trap.
For Spring students were challenged to create an egg drop project
Technology, Collaboration, and 21st Century Learning: Famous American Research Project
While collaborating with the school librarian, computer resource specialist, and gifted resource teacher students were given a task to research a famous American of their choice from those studied in kindergarten. Each student researched their famous American using the computer, biographies, and encyclopedias. They were taught to take notes while researching, and then write a report about the information they discovered. Once the report was written, each student had to then create and execute a presentation about their famous American in front of parents and classmates.
Technology, Collaboration, and 21st Century Learning: Presenting Reports through Technology
When the students both in 3rd grade and kindergarten did research reports in class, part of the project was to create a PowerPoint presentation on their report in order to present it to others. This goes beyond the poster board presentations of the past and allows students to learn how to present projects and ideas by using more modern technology.
Technology, Collaboration, and 21st Century Learning: Science and Technology
For a reusing project I teamed with another kindergarten class at another school to do the project simultaneously. After discussing the importance of recycling, reusing, and the effects of too much trash on our Earth students took the collection of recyclables that we had been bringing in from home and created their own new usable creation. They then had to present their project to their classmates and as a class we chose the best project and presentation. With out top projects we then video conferenced with the other class, exchanged ideas, presented our projects, and had conversations about the project and concept being taught.
Technology, Collaboration, and 21st Century Learning: 21st Century Learning Through Science Investigations
Using collaboration, creativity, problem solving, and other aspects incorporated in 21st century learning I like to give performance based tasks for students to learn from, and show understanding of concepts in real world scenarios. In this task I gave each "team" of students the supplies they needed to create a class trees making sure to include all parts of a tree, and also include the things a tree would need to survive. The class was given their instructions and guidance only when necessary while I allowed them to use their skills to make the tree on their own. They created a wonderful class tree, as seen in the picture. As the seasons changed we added foliage, flowers, leaves, or no leaves at all throughout the school year.
Technology, Collaboration, and 21st Century Learning: Teacher Collaboration and 21st Century Skills
I have been trained and am used to working with students on 21st century skills as stated by the city of Virginia Beach. I have continued to think of these skills and teach students them beyond my classroom in Virginia. Below is only an example of a couple of skills the district considered to be 21st century.
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