COMPARING GRADE LEVELS | Pocketful of Primary

hello beautiful people it's Michelle and welcome back to my channel for any of you who may be new here I teach fourth grade math science and social studies in Maryland and I just finished out my fourth year of teaching any of you who have been following me for a while know that last summer I actually moved district schools and grade levels all at the same time now before I switch to fourth grade I actually spent three years teaching at second grade and when I made that switch I started getting a lot of questions about the differences between the two grade levels so today's video is going to be all about comparing second grade and fourth grade now just a little bit of background knowledge I did in turn when I was in college in first grade third grade and fifth grade and then I have three years experience teaching second grade and one year experience teaching fourth grade like I just mentioned so that's why I'm choosing to compare second grade and fourth grade just because those are the ones that I have the most experiencing now my plan is to keep this very simple very casual I'm just gonna kind of talk to you all but I have decided to split it into four different sections first I'm gonna talk about differences in the actual student and kind of their behaviors and their mannerisms second I'm going to talk about differences in classroom management third I'm gonna talk about differences in the content and then fourth I'm gonna actually tell you which one I prefer so first let's actually talk about differences between the students obviously when I switch to fourth grade the students were two years older and one of the first things that I noticed is that they were so much more independent they were just able to do a lot more on their own and they didn't ask me as many questions which honestly make my life a lot easier as a teacher because I could spend more time working with the students who needed my help as opposed to just answering questions left to right especially when it came to independent work my fourth graders were able to do a lot more on their own and they didn't ask as many questions which gave me more time to be able to work with the students who really needed my one-on-one support one of the next things that I noticed is that my fourth graders were extremely helpful and actually now that I'm saying that my second graders were helpful to my second graders were every bit as helpful as my fourth graders I think the difference is my fourth graders are just able to do a lot more to help me versus my second graders my fourth graders seriously kept my classroom running and I loved them for that they really got to know me and my organizational style and they would do things with even having to ask them to help and it really took a lot of getting used to for me to kind of relinquish that control to them because with my second graders I did almost everything by myself and I did have kids help me here and there and they had little classroom jobs but they weren't able to do as much to help me as my fourth graders but once I got used to how much my fourth graders could actually help me with I never went back in and from that moment on my fourth graders seriously took control so much in my room and I was so thankful for it fourth graders also understand sarcasm so much better than my second graders I am very sarcastic when I teach it's just kind of my personality and when I would do that with my second graders some of them would get it but some of them would like look at me and they were either really confused or they thought I was being neat and they just didn't get it but my fourth graders get it and they play back into it which I love because they can be just as sarcastic with me as I am with them it makes my teacher hearts so happy I also felt like I could form deeper relationships with my fourth graders anyone who watches my classroom vlogs knows that I talked a lot about forming relationships with students has always been something very very important to me and I did feel like I could form deeper relationships with my fourth graders I did form relationships with my second graders but it was very different from the relationships that I had with my fourth graders I feel like with the older students you're just able to impact them on a more personal level and as they start to get older and they're trying to develop their own personalities more and they're starting to need more advice from older people and I felt like I could really be a role model for them and I loved that I felt like a lot of the things that I talked to my second graders about to form the relationships was a lot more just basic things you know their interests their favorite things to do whereas with my fourth graders I felt like I was really able to like give them advice and they would come to me what they weren't sure about things and they needed to talk to me about something whether was an issue with friends or something at home like I loved being able to be that for them because I think that that is so important as a teacher like yes I'm here to give them an education I'm here to give them content I'm here to help them learn and grow and support them but I also want to be able to be a part of their life and I want to be a positive influence on their life so I just felt like I had more of that power with the older students versus the younger students now a couple of things that I do miss about my second graders is that they get excited so easily about the smallest things and that was just so magical to see I also got a lot more hugs with my second graders which I do miss I do get a lot of clucks for my fourth graders but it's more so from the girls a lot of the boys are like oh it's not cool to love your teacher which is fine you know whatever like I can accept that but I do miss just getting those hugs for my students because it really just makes me feel like I am that positive influence on their life and that they trust me and that they do love and care about me as much as I love and care about them I also felt like second graders kind of like bought into themed activities better so if I was doing a classroom transformation or something like that my fourth graders did buy into it but I had some of the kids who are like if I'm dressed up as a pirate they're like no you're miss 4a and I'm trying to say no like I'm captain Jacquie Sparrow and they just didn't buy into it as much as the younger students do and I do miss that next I wanted to talk about some differences in classroom management between second grade and fourth grade one of the first things I noticed is that fourth graders didn't seem to need as many like gimmicks and maybe gimmicks isn't the right word but you know what I mean there's little tips and tricks that you have to use I actually have a video all about classroom management hacks I will link it down in the description it's really old so don't judge me for it but I didn't have to use as many of those things with the older students I really feel like those are more so for primary students and I feel like that really comes down to the fact that fourth graders have more focus whereas second graders you have to do so many like little tasks and you're transitioning so often and you need all of those classroom management strategies to keep them on task whereas the fourth graders they're kind of used to it by now they can sit and do an activity for longer and they just don't need as much to keep them on task I also felt like with my fourth graders it was a lot more individualized and I didn't need as many whole class incentives as I did with my second graders now obviously I did do individualize classroom management strategies for my students in second grade but I just didn't need it as often whereas with the fourth graders most of the time I didn't even really use whole group classroom management strategies I really just had to target those students who needed support in certain areas now at my new school we do use a school-wide incentive system called cut kudos where each student had a computer card and then they could earn stamps when they were on task or focused or doing what they were supposed to be doing and then they could redeem that for different prizes I didn't have to use a lot of other classroom management strategies that worked for a majority of the students and honestly some of them didn't even need it I had students were like now like I don't need stamps I don't need prizes I'm like okay great you're intrinsically motivated for those students who did need extrinsic motivation that usually worked for them but of course there were a couple students who needed a little bit of extra support maybe with paying attention staying on task something like that and I would create a more individualized system for them now as always I believe that forming relationships with your students is the best classroom management strategy that you can ever use that was important in second grade it's still important in fourth grade and it really shows that I did form relationships with my students because when they would fill that cup Kudo card and they would get a prize almost always my students chose a lunch punch which would mean that they would come back to my room and they would eat lunch with me and I loved that number one cuz it doesn't cost any money number two because I get more one-on-one time with my students and number three it just helps to foster that relationship even more but I will add in their fourth graders love dum dum so is always another option for them I didn't have too too many students who chose that most them did choose a Lunch Bunch but Dum Dums also work now one thing I did notice with 2nd graders is that they tended to feed off of each other's behavior a lot more than my fourth graders and what I mean by that was in second grade if I had a couple of kids who kind of got silly and they start laughing and then other kids start laughing at them and they all just feed into each other whereas with my fourth graders if I had a couple of kids who were talking or they were being silly a lot of times the rest of the kids were like no like I'm trying to pay attention now I'm trying to focus so that was just another difference that I noticed between the two grades next I wanted to talk about differences in the content between second grade and fourth grade now one huge difference for me is that this past year teaching fourth grade I was two part metallized which meant that our students switch classes and I just taught math science and social studies and then my students would go to another teacher for ela so we had a homeroom group of kids I had a block one group of kids and a block two group of kids whereas when I taught second grade we were actually self-contained so I had the same group of students all day long and I taught them all the subjects now here soon I am gonna do a video comparing departmentalization versus being self-contained because I have gotten a lot of questions about that and which one I prefer and the differences between the two so don't worry that has come me but in terms of content the biggest difference I noticed is that fourth grade had a lot more content and a lot more difficult content I'll be honest this past year I constantly felt like I was rushed and I felt like I was behind and I felt like I wasn't gonna get in all the content before the testing now part of that probably is because it was my first year teaching at grade level so I didn't really know the progression of the content and we were getting a new math curriculum this past year and there were times where like we could not see what the next unit was because it wasn't available yet so that was a little bit frustrating and it made it more difficult to kind of plan out the units by I've talked to other fourth-grade teachers and they all agree that fourth grade is just very content heavy and it's difficult content and you do always feel like you're behind now I will say that is kind of stressful as a teacher especially in Maryland we do participate in PARCC testing which if you don't know what that is it's a big standardized test that our students take in the spring along with taking district tests throughout the school year and that's a lot especially when you feel like you're not going to be able to get all the content in in time and it takes a big toll on you but I always just have to remind myself I'm doing the best that I can for my students and every single day we're working hard and we're practicing and I'm pulling the students who need extra help and I'm trying to challenge the students who need to be pushed beyond that and ultimately that's all that I can do and it is a lot of content ticket and but if you are teaching an older like intermediate grade level and you feel like that just know that it's okay and your students are gonna be okay and you are doing the best that you can for them I also noticed that fourth grade builds so much on the prior grade levels especially in math and that definitely was true of second grade as well like second grade math skills built so much on first grade math skills and kindergarten math skills but the difference is with fourth grade that's building on kindergarten first grade second grade and third grade so what that means is if a student has kind of started to fall behind it's only gonna show more and more as they go up and the grade levels if they don't get caught back up and because of that I felt like it was a lot harder to kind of break down there's preconceived ideas of intelligence within my students and here's what I mean by that in second grade I had some students who are like oh I'm bad at math or I'm bad at reading but I felt like it was a lot easier to show them like no look you really can grow you can learn you're getting better at it and you're not bad at math you're not bad at reading and you can be really good at it whereas by fourth grade some of the students have been behind in math for several years now were behind in reading for several years and they catch on to that a lot more in the older grades so I felt like it was a lot more difficult to kind of help some of those students who would constantly break down with math skills or would constantly break down with reading because they felt like weren't good at it because they hadn't been good at it for so many years and I really kind of tried to make that my mission throughout the school year was these students who thought that they weren't good at something to show them that they can be and sometimes they need more time than another student but that's not a bad thing I just think that it's so important because when I was in first second third grade I was really struggling with reading I was in reading intervention programs that I needed a lot of help and I kind of gotten to the point where I hated reading I didn't think I was good at it my sister was way better at it than me so like I didn't even want to try and it was something I really had to work on and I needed a lot of support and to get better but by the time I got to middle school in high school I was above reading level I was getting all A's I had a 4.2 GPA but I didn't start that way so I just think it's important to be able to spread that message to our students now on the other side of this when I was in second grade I did feel like I had a lot more time to spend on particular topics and if my students were really struggling with something like let's say three digit subtraction I could spend a lot more time on it whereas with fourth grade I feel like I'm constantly just moving on and I don't have an entire week to spend practicing a skill I have two or three days and then I have to move on to the next thing and looking at the standards overall there's a lot less content in second grade than there is fourth grade so it makes total sense but it's difficult because in fourth grade the topics do get more difficult and like you want to spend more time on them but you just can't because there's so much to cover so now what some of you have probably been waiting for all the time I get asked which grade level do you prefer teaching second grade or fourth grade so drumroll please I never thought that I would say this ever ever ever but I actually do prefer teaching fourth grade now hear me out I always thought that I was meant to teach second grade when I got my first teaching job in second grade I was ecstatic I was like I'm never gonna leave sang be great I'm good teach second grade the rest of my life I just felt like that's where I was destined to be and I'll be honest when I got the call for the interview for my current teaching job and I went in and they said fourth grade I was like oh I don't know how I feel about that I was actually scared like I didn't want to teach fourth grade I wasn't optimistic about it but it wasn't until I actually got in the classroom started working with the fourth-grade students that I realized I loved it personally I just loved the combination of their increased independence I love the fact that they understand sarcasm and the fact that I can form deeper relationships with them and looking back on it I think it makes a lot of sense to me I've never been like the typical primary type teacher we're like you sit down the carpet you're like great friends we're gonna read a book today like that is not me whatsoever like I said I'm super sarcastic I love to joke around with my students and how to give them a hard time and that just works so much better for intermediate grades and it does primary grades so that being said I just want the overall message of this video to be don't be afraid to change at grade levels I know it's scary and I know it's overwhelming and sometimes you don't always have a choice your administrator may move you to a different grade level and sometimes you're scared cuz you're like no this is the crazy level supposed to be in but don't write anything off until you try it because you never know what grade level you may actually fall in love with that is all that I have for you all today so I really hope that this video was helpful for you and just give you a little bit of insight between some of the differences between grade levels if you did enjoy this video please give it a thumbs up it really helps me out and it helps this video be able to reach more teachers share this video out if you have teacher friends or you know someone who's wanting to become a teacher and they don't know what grade level they want to teach give it to them maybe it can help them out as well also make sure you hit that subscribe button and hit the notification bell so that you are notified every time I post a new video as always thank you so so much for watching and love you all so so much don't forget to think positive and I'll catch you guys in the next one thank you so much for watching all the way to the end of this video and for supporting my youtube channel if you want to check out any of my older videos you can use the two links right down here if you want to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss any future videos you can use like right up here the links to all of my social media sites my teachers pay teacher's store my work to die store my amazon store are in the description box and I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Pocketful of Primary

Views: 53,903

Rating: 4.9276547 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, classroom, vlog, 4th grade, teacherspayteachers, teachers pay teachers, tpt, pocketful of primary, tips for new teachers, tips for teachers, new teacher tips, teacher tips, classroom vlog, vlogger, teacher vlog, teacher vlogger, classroom tour, a day in the life of a teacher, a week in the life of a teacher, comparing grade levels, which grade is best to teach, comparing grades, 2nd grade or 4th grade, best grade to teach

Id: 9iZnHn5CBqM

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 01 2018