Teaching Reflection: Week 4 (Earth Week: Art/ Buddy)

My students did a lot of Earth Awareness related activities throughout the week. We learned as a class that Earth Day is not just a special day to take care of the Earth, instead we should be helping “our” Earth every day in class, at home, or wherever they are. My students came up with a list of ideas and made connections to our previous activities such as planting, recycling, turning off lights and tap when not in use and more as they think of taking care of our Earth.

I felt my instruction are more clear and succinct for my activities this week, however, I am still working on how to naturally transition them from one place to another and when giving instruction so they don’t have to move around so much without a purpose. For example, they don’t necessary have to sit around the carpet for instruction, I could technically do it all the message white board…etc.. On Friday, I have moved a tall white board that was rarely in use on the side to the front of the classroom. I wanted to experiment if with this tall upright rectangle white board can help students to see more easily as I do large white poster paper activities instead of having it on the ground at a low eye level. I will see how it goes on Monday as I introduce my “letter of the week: Qq.” It was an eventful day on Friday as I prepped an Earth Day activity for my Kinders and their buddy class. I connected with both my SA and my grade 4 buddy class teacher, Mr. E on my activity as this would be my first time working with his class. The finished art product was a Earth Day Promise 2015 Keepsake. My Kinders worked on getting mixing the pre-prepped blue and green salt dough ready as a morning activity. To my surprise, my Kinders really enjoyed the sensory touch of the salt dough and created their own interpretation of the Earth with their own discovery. After lunch, as our grad 5 buddy class joined us, the buddies were given instructions to help the Kinders with the ornament keepsake. After they have completed that task, Buddies and their Kinder partner can each have an extra salt dough to create something together.

It was a lot of work in terms of material preparation on my end, but, as soon as I saw how intrigued and excited my Kinders were, everything was worth it! My feedback from my grade 5 buddy class and their teacher was that it was a lot of fun! It was a bit noisy at times, but Mr. E, the grade 5 teacher said, “it’s learning noise!” I made a visual instruction for my grade 5 buddy class and explained it to them, so they can refer back to any steps at any time. I used both the Kindergarten classroom and the open area for the art collaboration activity as I knew I had more than 45 kids. When I had all 45 plus kids packed in the kindergarten classroom, I felt I was sweating!! It wasn’t actually warm in the classroom, perhaps I was nervous?! I had to wipe sweat from my forehead. This experience was definitely different from the grade 7 social study teaching at Cougar Canyon.  If the weather is nice next Friday, Mr. E suggested that I do an outdoor physical collaboration activity for Buddy time. I will come up with an activity that allows me to get to know his students more and allowing more bonding moments between the two grades.

Goals to Work on:

• Organization of Record Keeping: maintain & keeping track of assessment for my lessons for each student. I am currently working on a template to allow me to do oral tracking of each student’s progress. I am working on how to use subject appropriate assessment, evaluation and navigating strategies for reporting. At the end, I would like to be able to use the data from assessment to help me set future learning goals, adapting my lessons, and see how I can motivate my student’s in their learning interest.
• Having my lesson plans ready for my SA before she leaves at 3:30pm or 4pm. I have been working at the school till around 5:30pm to complete revisions. My lesson plans and preparation for my next day have been ready before I left the school. However, I would like to try to prep in advance in terms of lesson plans at least 2 to 3 days in advance, so my SA can see it before she leaves for the day.