Category Archives: Reflections

Week 6 & 7 down! What an adventure. It is bittersweet to think about how close I am till the end.

My class and I had an exciting couple of weeks. Last week we watched a high school performance of Shrek. There was a lot of excitement from the students and at times it was hard to contain during the day. My fellow TCs and I started our mini soccer tournament with our school and it is safe to say that the students love it! All grades are so excited to play at lunch, they keep asking their teachers when its their turn to play. It feels good knowing that we have created an opportunity for the soccer lovers at the school (there is a lot!) to get a taste of some competition and have fun at the same time. We first decided to hold the tournament to every Tuesday, but there are a lot of children from each grade that signed up so we decided to do Friday at lunch as well.

I almost done teaching my butterfly unit and my class really enjoyed having the butterflies be a part of the class. They loved coming into class every morning to check up on them and see if they saw anything different. Having the insect in the class made for a better learning experience.

I have so many more ideas that I would love to include of the last 2 weeks of practicum, but sadly there is not enough time. One of my ideas is for the students in my grade to hold a lemonade sale. As I am teaching them about coins, and the value of the coins, I thought it would be great for them to deal with exchanging coins through a lemonade stand. I also wanted to put the proceeds towards the Alberta Canadian Red Cross to help those affected by the Fort McMurry fires. I need to discuss details with my SA and hopefully I can put this plan in action!! I think it would make for a great learning experience.

The last two weeks of being Ms. Johal have been great learning experiences. I think I am learning more from my students than my students are learning from me! I have noticed how fast time flies by and how little time I have left for everything I have planned.

On April 20 my class and I went to a field trip to the Earthwise Garden. I had recently taught my students about composting so we learned more about what to put into a worm compost bin and the tour guides there even gave our class their own worm compost bin! So currently in my classroom we have a worm compost bin that we take care of together, and we have caterpillars as well. I found field trips to be a little stressful, because you have to constantly be checking if all the kids are there and keep them calm. Students were very excited to be at the garden but there were many times where some of them were mis behaving and I had to pull them aside to talk to them. Some students just cannot contain their excitement!

My midpoint meetings with my SA and FA went very well and I am surprised and excited that they both think so highly of my work so far. It is a good feeling knowing that I am doing something right and that my hard work is paying off. I want to thank them for their support and sharing their wisdom. Things that I can continue to work on from this point on: be a little more firm with the students that disrupt my lessons, be more confident in my story telling and singing in front of the students and take my time on my lessons. Some lessons that I have had I rushed through them so that I could get the full lesson done in the time I was given. This is not always a good idea. If we do not get through it all it is okay, what I should focus on is how well my students are understanding the content. This could be done through personal assessment (asking the student individually during or after the lesson) or as a class (asking the class if they have any other questions or asking them what they have learned so far).

Lots of excitement for the last 4 weeks of practicum! I have so much more to teach and I am really looking forward to it all.

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.

This week my TOC skills were put to test as my SA was absent and the TOC for my class was very new to an elementary class environment. This TOC had only worked in high school classrooms so I got the opportunity to show off my teaching skills. For the most part we worked together to make the day go by as smoothly as possible.

There were a few lessons that I lead such as the calendar, gym and art. However there was a math lesson on area that the TOC was trying to teach the students and as I walked around to help I could tell that they were not understanding the instructions and there was a lot of confusion. So I stopped the lesson and asked everyone to meet me at the carpet. I demonstrated with manipulatives what the objective of the lesson was. The students were to guess how many of the manipulatives were needed to fit on the big hand, after the guess they were to actually add the manipulative to the hand and count out how many fit. After I cleared this up I sent the students back to work on it. It went a little smoother after that but I would do this lesson again just to drive the point home after the spring break.

Overall I had a great learning experience this week. I felt that I was a lot more confident in my teaching when my SA was not there, it felt like I was in charge of my own classroom. The EA in the class also noticed this and thanked me for taking control throughout the day, telling me that I did a fabulous job with the kids. I am glad I ended the month off on a good note and I am really looking forward to long practicum!

It was nice to be back in the classroom this week. Last few weeks have been short days and today was the first full day back. The students are definitely use to having me around now. When I teach my lessons they pay attention, are more responsive and I feel as though I am taking on the teacher role nicely. I taught literacy stations and calendar this week and a little bit of second step. Overall, it was a good day. Since its been a busy week at UBC I caught myself getting very sleepy midday. I am aware of how tired I am getting due to the workload outside of practicum so I am looking forward to the break to relax and re-energize for the 10 week practicum ahead.

I was lucky to have my second observation by SA take place today. I say lucky because it was a very busy day and an activity with the school farmer took longer than expected and cut into our gym time. I did not panic too much but I did forget to change into my gym shoes before my lesson which my SA noted I should in the future. I taught a lesson on soccer skills and I can proudly say I feel great about how it went. Soccer is one of my favourite sports and a favourite among many students in my class.

This was my first PE lesson and I found that the students are generally very eager to participate. My class management was very strong today. I felt as though because the students had some familiarity with the lesson (such as the relay race) there were no surprises that caught them off guard and also no confusion. Taking some very helpful tips from my last observation from my FA I managed to keep myself calm when things were getting a little out of control. I remembered to breathe and told myself….have fun! This is a fun lesson. My thinking changed the negative attitude that wanted to come out from inside me and I really did end up having fun with my students. Some notes for future PE classes: I would split the class into smaller groups so that everyone in the relay was moving quicker and there was less time spent sitting. I would also not encourage loud cheering, as my SA informed me, because it may give students who have behavioural issues a chance to act out and may initiate inappropriate behaviour.

I throughly enjoyed teaching this lesson and was pleased with the outcome. I had felt a little discouraged after my last observation but this week’s observation has given me back the strength and confidence that was fading a little. I am thankful for the wonderful feedback, support and encouragemnt from my experienced advisors.

This week I was observed by my FA for the second time. Going into the classroom on Thursday I was very confident in my lesson and was not as nervous as I was the first time I was observed. I even got some extra practice as I did a literacy lesson in the morning, which went great. It was a good work period for my students, they were focused and got through the lesson with little difficulty. I rotated the students every 10-15 mins between stations where they practiced the letter of the week.

I didn’t realize how much pressure being observed actually puts on you until that afternoon lesson. My frustration crept up on me and it became quite clear to my FA and SA during my lesson. I did not realize how frustrated I actually was until after the lesson was over and the students had moved onto activity time. Sitting down with my FA is when it hit me and I became a little emotional. My lesson did not go as expected and I have taken A LOT out of the experience. Reflecting back on it I have made numerous notes on what I could have done differently. One could say that I definitely learned my lesson on what not to do with K’s and grade 1’s. However, I am happy with the results of the lesson. Looking back at my students’ work almost all of them did grasp the concept of taller than, shorter than, or the same as and I am happy with the classroom management techniques I have become better at over the months. All in all I will take this as  great learning experience. Even though this lesson did not go as expected I have learned more about my students and myself than I have in past lessons.