Monthly Archives: April 2016

This week my class started their cooking classes. Every Tuesday afternoon we will be baking or cooking a treat for the class. This gives students in small groups an opportunity to be part of the cooking process, help measure ingredients and feel proud of what they have accomplished. Each week a parent volunteer and I will be taking a group of students and baking or cooking something of the class. I look forward to the learning that will take place along this process.

On Thursday I started a unit on coins. I did not realize how hard it would be to explain the different value of each coin to students. The first lesson was a coin sorting activity but I learned that the students need lots more practice recognizing the coins so I will have stations planned for them next week so that they will get more information about each coin and I can have more one-on-one time with them.

My SA invited me to a workshop at the Delta Manor on Thursday night, it was a workshop on oral language in the primary grades sponsored by the Barbra Jarvis Foundation. I am glad that I tagged along because I learned some very useful information and great activities to use in the classroom. This was one of the more practical workshops I have been in thus far and I am already going to use what I learned next week! It was nice to discuss my new learnings with my SA because she has so much advice that she can give me when I am teaching these new ideas.

It was another eventful and fun week in my kindergarten/ grade 1 class. I taught a lot more this week and I am really enjoying it thus far. I am also in charge of track and field practices with the intermediate students, specifically sprints. Since I have been working with primary students a lot I look forward to getting to know the intermediate students at this school. Hopefully at the end of my practicum I can sneak in a lesson with the intermediate grades. I think I would enjoy working with those age groups as well. Overall I have been having lots of positive feedback from my SA and others in the school which is pushing me to keep working hard throughout these 10 weeks. Next week I will be starting my earth day unit which I am looking forward to because I really want to teach my students about recycling, reusing and reducing so that they can start thinking about keeping our environment safe. My classroom management skills have gotten a lot stronger so this week I hope to focus more on the content I am teaching and try not to forget to leave any important information out.

Week one of practicum down! Lots of learning took place this week for me and my students. I am excited and confident for the weeks ahead. Although it is a lot of prep work to keep up with the lessons, I am enjoying the teaching thus far. This week I was observed by my SA first and then followed by my FA. My SA had some good feedback on my Spring brainstorm lesson. She liked that the students were engaged but suggested I be firmer with them when they are not following class expectations. This is something that I have been working on and will continue to work on so that the students respect me when I am speaking. In my upcoming lessons I also hope to give students more time to think about the questions, I am finding that I sometimes am rushed for time and try to do everything quickly. This does not give students enough time to think about what they are going to write about/ draw about in writing periods.

My FA was pleased with my lesson which was very uplifting and encouraging. I am still working on how to assess my students when they are finished their work, so I plan to create a checklist that will help me better identify which students are getting the lesson and which are not. I do keep track right now but I think the checklist would be much more helpful in the future. This week I hope to encourage more discussion by asking more open ended questions when doing my lessons. I look forward to another week of practicum.