More firsts this week!
As yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there was no school. Last night, I got an email from my CT (classroom teacher) and he and his son are both sick, so he was letting me know that I would be in the classroom with a sub today. On top of that, the school district declared a 2-hour delay this morning because wind chills were in the negatives. I definitely had no complaints with starting school at 10:30 instead of 8:30! Having a sub, though, made me a little nervous. I wasn't sure that I could handle taking over the entire day--this week I was only supposed to take over the chunks of time through 12:20, right before lunch. But, I am happy to report that it went okay! The sub was extremely nice and was very willing to do whatever; we talked in the morning and decided that I would try teaching everything and that if a lesson went to hell (haha), she'd step in. I'm very happy to report that that did not happen!
I'm thinking a lot about teaching math, lately. I can do it, but the kids are SO bored, and I just don't feel like I'm doing it right. Math has never been my strong point, and the day simply does not give me enough time for math. Because of the recent push for literacy and improved reading/writing scores, all of the other subjects are pushed to the side. At least math gets its own time slot, though! We usually have to throw social studies and science into the 90 minute reading block somehow, which is hard to figure out at times. But math...we usually have between 30 and 45 minutes for math. That seems like a lot of time until you actually get started. 15 minutes flies by faster than you can blink and then the math period of over before you know it. So now I'm struggling with exciting and engaging ways to teach math with a limited amount of time. Within the next couple weeks, all of the lesson planning, including math, will be handed over to me, so I need to figure this out!
I still love the kids in this class. They continue to amaze me with their intelligence level and their good behavior. I feel very lucky to have been placed at this school.
Tomorrow the 3rd grade teachers have a professional development thing all day. We'll all be in the building but not in our classrooms. I'm working on sub plans now, hoping that I don't mess anything up! I'm interested to see how the meeting goes tomorrow; I'm not sure what we'll be talking about but hopefully it's helpful!
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Beginning Week Two...
Week One was successful! I am very happy to report that I survived and already have learned a lot.
This week, I will take over mornings, which basically means I go over Bell Work and teach during the language art period, from about 8:45-9:45. The kids have specials after that, so that is a nice time for my classroom teacher (CT from here on out) and I to debrief. Today I did a Sitton paragraph with the students. Like I mentioned before, the kids in my class are fairly advanced for 3rd graders, so I chose to do one of the end-of-the-unit activities with them. Basically, Sitton goes over high frequency words and comes with a lot of helpful activities, worksheets, and mini-lessons. I hadn't ever heard of it before last week, but I really like it. The worksheet we did today was a paragraph with a bunch of blanks. I put a word bank up on the whiteboard, and the kids filled in the blanks with their table groups. Usually, the students work well with each other. We changed their groups around this morning, though, and I could tell that some groups were having a harder time getting along than others. Two boys in particular were practically at each other's throats the whole time; I finally had to stop the lesson a little short to prevent them from getting too frustrated with each other. I thought that the answer was moving them away from each other, but my CT disagreed. I learned that sometimes you have to let kids work out their problems; the reality is that they will have to learn how to work with other students eventually, so why not start early? These two boys are VERY smart, but they are both rather opinionated and don't listen to others well, so I'm hoping that they can learn from being sat next to each other. My CT said that if by mid-week they are still having arguments and disagreements, we will talk to them during some free time during the day. We'll see how that goes!!
Tomorrow I'm going to teach them about adverbs. We're going to do an anchor chart together and then I have a worksheet for them. On Wednesday, my supervisor is coming for her first observation, and I'm going to create an activity that goes over adjectives and adverbs. Hopefully both go well, though I will say that I'm nervous for the lessons...I'm not entirely sure why.
One more thing before I go. We had a team meeting after school today to look at a new textbook program for reading and writing next year. I'm finding that they rely a lot on their textbooks. I feel like a lot of my classes in college have been so insistent on not using textbooks. We've been taught to create our own lessons because textbooks really aren't good. So...I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Are textbooks bad? Should teachers be expected to create their own lessons? Hopefully I'll come up with an answer to those questions by the end of this semester.
Well..I think that's about it for now. Crossing my fingers that tomorrow goes well!!
This week, I will take over mornings, which basically means I go over Bell Work and teach during the language art period, from about 8:45-9:45. The kids have specials after that, so that is a nice time for my classroom teacher (CT from here on out) and I to debrief. Today I did a Sitton paragraph with the students. Like I mentioned before, the kids in my class are fairly advanced for 3rd graders, so I chose to do one of the end-of-the-unit activities with them. Basically, Sitton goes over high frequency words and comes with a lot of helpful activities, worksheets, and mini-lessons. I hadn't ever heard of it before last week, but I really like it. The worksheet we did today was a paragraph with a bunch of blanks. I put a word bank up on the whiteboard, and the kids filled in the blanks with their table groups. Usually, the students work well with each other. We changed their groups around this morning, though, and I could tell that some groups were having a harder time getting along than others. Two boys in particular were practically at each other's throats the whole time; I finally had to stop the lesson a little short to prevent them from getting too frustrated with each other. I thought that the answer was moving them away from each other, but my CT disagreed. I learned that sometimes you have to let kids work out their problems; the reality is that they will have to learn how to work with other students eventually, so why not start early? These two boys are VERY smart, but they are both rather opinionated and don't listen to others well, so I'm hoping that they can learn from being sat next to each other. My CT said that if by mid-week they are still having arguments and disagreements, we will talk to them during some free time during the day. We'll see how that goes!!
Tomorrow I'm going to teach them about adverbs. We're going to do an anchor chart together and then I have a worksheet for them. On Wednesday, my supervisor is coming for her first observation, and I'm going to create an activity that goes over adjectives and adverbs. Hopefully both go well, though I will say that I'm nervous for the lessons...I'm not entirely sure why.
One more thing before I go. We had a team meeting after school today to look at a new textbook program for reading and writing next year. I'm finding that they rely a lot on their textbooks. I feel like a lot of my classes in college have been so insistent on not using textbooks. We've been taught to create our own lessons because textbooks really aren't good. So...I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Are textbooks bad? Should teachers be expected to create their own lessons? Hopefully I'll come up with an answer to those questions by the end of this semester.
Well..I think that's about it for now. Crossing my fingers that tomorrow goes well!!
Monday, January 7, 2013
Day One
Yay! I survived the first day! My first impression of the kids was great, I hope I gave them a good first impression too.
One thing that I noticed instantly about this group is that they are so advanced compared to all the other groups of students I've taught! This will be new for me; I feel like all of our classes preached about how we would have classes that were full of low-achieving, poorly behaved hooligans that would need constant stimulation. By the end of my college career, I think I had fallen into a funk: even though I didn't realize it until today, I really was beginning to believe that my life as a teacher was going to be nothing but struggles and hardships, always trying to engage students that, frankly, didn't give a damn. I suppose that today restored some hope in me. Of course there will be classes that are more difficult than others, and no class is perfect...blah blah blah. But today I remembered why I decided to become a teacher in the first place: I LOVE WORKING WITH KIDS!! Just seeing how excited the students were to meet me and learn about my pets and family and likes and dislikes...seeing one student's eyes light up when she finally understood how to divide 12 into 3 equal groups...listening to a group of boys tell me all about their Star Wars Origami...all of those things make my day.
I know that this semester is going to have struggles. There will be days that I'm going to want to pull my hair out. I'm already learning about the politics of the school I'm in, and sometimes it isn't pretty. But I just have to remember that even though those days happen, I joined this profession because it's what I love to do.
Who would have thought I would have learned something on my very first day? I'm pretty excited about that!
We are doing testing tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon, so that will be an interesting experience. I could tell some of the kids were feeling a little anxious about it, but I'm sure they will do just fine.
It's only 8:30, and I'm completely wiped out and ready for bed. So, I'm off for now--more updates later. Here's to a *hopefully* successful day two tomorrow :)
One thing that I noticed instantly about this group is that they are so advanced compared to all the other groups of students I've taught! This will be new for me; I feel like all of our classes preached about how we would have classes that were full of low-achieving, poorly behaved hooligans that would need constant stimulation. By the end of my college career, I think I had fallen into a funk: even though I didn't realize it until today, I really was beginning to believe that my life as a teacher was going to be nothing but struggles and hardships, always trying to engage students that, frankly, didn't give a damn. I suppose that today restored some hope in me. Of course there will be classes that are more difficult than others, and no class is perfect...blah blah blah. But today I remembered why I decided to become a teacher in the first place: I LOVE WORKING WITH KIDS!! Just seeing how excited the students were to meet me and learn about my pets and family and likes and dislikes...seeing one student's eyes light up when she finally understood how to divide 12 into 3 equal groups...listening to a group of boys tell me all about their Star Wars Origami...all of those things make my day.
I know that this semester is going to have struggles. There will be days that I'm going to want to pull my hair out. I'm already learning about the politics of the school I'm in, and sometimes it isn't pretty. But I just have to remember that even though those days happen, I joined this profession because it's what I love to do.
Who would have thought I would have learned something on my very first day? I'm pretty excited about that!
We are doing testing tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon, so that will be an interesting experience. I could tell some of the kids were feeling a little anxious about it, but I'm sure they will do just fine.
It's only 8:30, and I'm completely wiped out and ready for bed. So, I'm off for now--more updates later. Here's to a *hopefully* successful day two tomorrow :)
Sunday, January 6, 2013
The Night Before...
For the last three and a half years, I've been an elementary education major, planning and preparing for the day that I begin student teaching.
Tomorrow is that day.
I'll be in a third grade classroom, and I know that there will be plenty of crazy things that happen; so, I'm blogging about my experiences.
In March, I'll be leaving the States and traveling to Spain to finish my student teaching, something I've also been preparing for for what seems like forever.
Tonight I went out to Barnes and Noble and bought a few books that I'm bringing with me as options to use as a read-aloud with the class. The two I've decided to bring with me are The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo and The Doll People by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin. Kate DiCamillo's book is amazing; a professor read it to our cluster a couple of semesters ago and I thought it was a really great read-aloud chapter book. I haven't read The Doll People yet, but I've heard nothing but great things about it and I hope the kids really enjoy it.
I am nervously excited for tomorrow. Of course, I want all of my students to like me and I want to impress my mentor teacher--all the usual stuff--but what I want most out of this whole experience of student teaching is to learn. Honest to god. I know--it sounds so cliche! But I believe that children know and understand WAY more than we give them credit for, and I am very excited to watch, listen to, and learn from my students. I guarantee that I will look back on my posts this semester and I will have gained more insight from my students than I ever thought possible.
So, here I go--into this world that I've been studying, hearing about, and practicing in for three and a half long years.
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