Hello!

Sorry it took me so long to post this blog post about the FINAL two weeks of practicum! *cue sad music here*

The whole experience has been so amazing and I am so grateful for this opportunity. I could spend days talking about my class and how much I’ve missed them! (It has been a week and a few days since the end of long practicum) But instead of rambling on, I’ll try to focus on my top five moments, or highlights during the 10 weeks.

1. BUSY TOWN: Planning, preparing and executing Busy Town was challenging but also very fun. I loved how the students were able to be immersed into this very busy town and play a part in the community. I thought it was so cool to see how the entire busy town ran! The students enjoyed it, the parents enjoyed it and the other guests enjoyed it as well. 🙂
2. POLICE VISIT: I was really hoping to do a field trip with my wonderful K/1 class, but time was just not on our side. I had to pick a time that was okay for my S.A. (which basically means a day that she’s in class), and I couldn’t find any date that would work. However, every cloud has its silver lining. I instead got the Delta Police to visit the class (and the other two Kindergarten classes). It was such a cool visit. The officer brought along his police car, a police mascot, and a whole lot of swag (coolness AND goodies).
3. ANIMAL RESEARCH: I did this with my Grade 1s. I was a bit worried at first. How do I teach my students to do an animal research project? But it went really well. The students loved being the “experts” of their own animal and doing their own ‘research’. They were all really engaged in it! Even the students who typically aren’t as engaged in work were super engaged! They had a chance to share their research to their peers afterwards.
4. “T” IS FOR TRUCKS TRACKS AND TIRES: This is something that I did with my Kindergarteners. Honestly, it wasn’t really the activity that was the highlight but more so the students. My Kindergarteners were so happy about the chance to bring trucks to school and to play outside that they all gave me a huge hug and said they loved me! 🙂 My Kindergarteners have never showed their “appreciation” in that way before so I felt like this was the moment wherein it was like, “YES! We have a connection! They like me!!!”. Two of them even drew “I love my teacher” on the ground with chalk for me. Best feeling ever.
5. MY THANK YOU AND GOODBYE SPEECH: I gave my thank-you-for-being-a-great-class-I-will-miss-you-a-lot speech during my last “teaching” day. I teared up a bit and the students did too and we had a great big group hug and it was the best. My students have been so incredible and I really am so lucky to have been placed in this class. I felt like this experience pushed me to be the best teacher that I can be. Saying that I never struggled would be a lie because there were definite struggles during my practicum. I had difficulty with making lessons, class management, “prepping”, etc.  But in the end, all these struggles made me into a better teacher. I feel like the learning that I got out of these 10 weeks are invaluable.

I don’t know how many times I’ve said it throughout this post alone — but this experience has been AWESOME.
I can’t wait to start teaching again! Next step, get hired.

So I have officially finished week 8 out of 10. WHEW.
Time has been just flying by.
This means that I have.. 2 more weeks (or 9 days, because of the long weekend) of practicum left!

This week has been interesting because my S.A. was away for the entire week. I thought it was kind of cool to see how the students responded to me without my S.A..

I felt like they were good for the most part. There were a few times where some students weren’t as obedient and respectful as I would like, but that’s normal. They’re kids after all.

This whole week we were learning about different community helpers — which I thought was a really fun topic because it is something that they can all relate to/get engaged in.

The lesson that was observed for the week was a “What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?” activity. I love talking about community helpers and I love hearing about what the kids think they want to be when they grow up. I got some pretty interesting answers from Olympic Diver to Soccer Player to Scientist to the Prime Minister of Canada! The kids loved thinking about what occupation they might have in the future. I introduced the lesson by reading a book called, “Someday”, which talks about the main character and what she is doing at present vs what she would want to do someday. Afterwards we all talked about different jobs the kids might want to have in the future. I gave them each a lego person template (which they loved!). They had to decorate the lego person to look like them in the future! The Ks had to fill out: “I want to be a _________”, while the Grade 1s sheet to fill out said: “I want to be a _______ because _______”.

Hello!

Firstly, I can’t believe that I have finished SEVEN WEEKS of my long practicum! That to me, is crazy quick! 🙂
I guess it’s true…time does fly by when you’re having fun.

I have been trying my best to work on all the “Areas of Improvement” that my S.A. mentioned during our mid-point meeting… and I do think that I am making progress.

Making samples up for children to see has been pretty successful! At first I wasn’t 100% sure of the idea because I was afraid that they would just “copy” my work. But now that I have been doing samples up, I can see how they are so beneficial in visually showing my expectations.

Mother’s Day Tea (which happened during week 6) was AMAZING. It was soooo much work to get it to where it was, but it was worth it. My S.A. takes Mother’s Day seriously so we had a lot of things planned. The kids performed not one, not two, but THREE songs (with matching actions of course). We prepared iced tea, ‘fancy’ water, chocolate covered strawberry skewers and chocolate lady fingers for refreshments. The students also made a card, a booklet, placemets, personalized hand-printed mason jars, a video AND fingerprint necklaces made out of oven-baked clay. That’s a LOT of stuff and it required a LOT of prep too. But honestly, the looks on the moms’ faces when they saw everything was priceless. Even made ME tear up!

Currently, we are doing a unit on COMMUNITY. Which is a great because it is something that I can teach both the Kindergarteners and Grade 1s. I think the idea of community is so important. My Inquiry Question was actually all about how to build a classroom community! 🙂

One of the activities I planned for the week was a “Build A City” poster activity. I originally planned it as a Big Buddy Activity, thinking that it was too difficult for my kids to work as a group AND create a city out of coloured paper. But, as I have learned, things usually don’t go the way that they’re planned and most of my big buddies weren’t in school for the day due to a track meet. No Big Buddies during Big Buddy time. I decided to go on with the activity anyway (I was crossing my fingers the whole way through). Long story short, it went really well! It was the FIRST time that my students did a shared project as a group, and it went so well! I could not be more proud. They were all so nice to one another. I could hear delegation of tasks, compromising AND complimenting for the whole activity. They worked for an hour straight (and did not even want to stop when I said they could go play outside when they have finished). It was the greatest! They were all so proud of their works afterwards, and I am so proud of them too! Definitely works of art (and also a good learning opportunity as they think about important structures that a city might need).

On Thursday, I also got a police officer to visit the class (and the other two kindergarten classes joined us as well). It was super fun! and the kids were all engaged. The police officer talked to them about safety. “Safety Bear”, the mascot was also there and the kids were all able to get into the back of a police car! Which they loved! I originally planned for it to be a field trip to the police station, however, the police station is currently under repair… thus the police came to us instead! It was a great experience and I could tell that the students loved it.

I am also in the process of planning/prepping for  BUSY TOWN. BusyTown is an event where in the classroom will be transformed into a mini city where the students will be in different stations (or stores)/take on different roles in the community. All the students are very excited for the event — and I am too! I have invited parents, and will probably invite other members of the school community to come as well (other classes/teachers/the principal/ vice principal)

Speaking of vice-principal, I got the vice principal to do an observation on me! AND IT WENT WELL 🙂 I’m very happy! 🙂 I know that it’s important to get the school administration to do observations for me. So I’m hoping to get the principal to do an observation for me soon (and maybe the VP again since she said she would love to!)

I feel like I can go on and on and talk about my practicum experience. There’s really so much to say.
It’s a lot of work, and sometimes things don’t really go as planned.
Sometimes there are students who really seem defiant.
But all in all, they’re sweet kids and I am so grateful for the chance to be here.
I love my K/1 class!

Hello!

I’m at the half point mark and time has just been zoooooming by!
I’m still having such a great time being in Kindergarten/Grade 1, but I definitely cannot dismiss the fact that there are struggles.

Having had the mid-point meeting and all, I’m trying to take in all the feedback to improve myself for the next half of my practicum.

One of the biggest things that came up was my lesson planning (and prepping of materials). I have to admit, the past few days (week 5), I have been a bit messy with my planning and prepping. For weeks 1-4, I have all my materials prepped a week in advance (because I hate the stress of being last minute). But I think that because of all the hullabaloo of Mother’s Day… I just wasn’t on the top of  my A game 🙁 Something I definitely need to work on because my teaching load is just going to get heavier and I need to be able to balance everything that I’m doing + making sure I prep well in advanced like I used to.

As for the flow of my lessons, I think that by focusing on ONE or TWO Big Ideas would really help me focus my activities. My SA brought up how my lessons can be/feel scattered. So that is definitely another thing I need to work on. (Creativity come to me!)

WOW. a lot of things to work on!
Honestly, it felt a bit overwhelming at first. But I know these are all great feedback for me to improve on and become a better teacher 🙂 — which I do want to become!
Sometimes its difficult to remember all the advice you are given, so I really am thankful for the opportunity to blog about all this. It gives me a chance to look back and to see what exactly I need to work on next. I’m taking things one step at a time 🙂

But apart from all that, I am so glad to hear about some of my strengths and improvements as well! (YAY!)
I do feel like I have a strong relationship with the kids, which is always a great thing. And that my classroom management seems to be okay too. Although I think that classroom management is something I need to continuously work on.

Hello!

I have been so horrible for not posting 🙁 I’m usually pretty good at this … but it has been absolutely crazy tiring! In a good way though.

I’ve been telling my friends that I have been soooo tired lately. Like every night I’m always “complaining” to my family about how tired I am… but at the same time, I’m also the happiest I’ve ever been.

It’s a tiring job,  but I’m happy to do it. It has been an absolute roller coaster of a ride. I feel like I have been learning so much already within the short 4 weeks that I have spent in the classroom.

Many teacher are giving me great suggestions/comments and feedback — which is great! Because I’m in my practicum to learn… and if I have to make a few mistakes to learn, then I’ll make those mistakes.
Based on all these experiences, Here are a few things that I think I need to work on:
* Classroom Management : All teachers tell me that classroom management is the hardest to master, and it seems that no matter how “senior” a teacher is.. classroom management is always something that people struggle with and “work on”. It is definitely something that I need to work on. It is soooo difficult to find that balance between being nice and being firm enough that the students won’t disrespect you/think you’re just “fooling around” or “not a real teacher”. I really am trying. I have been trying different ways to manage the class, which my S.A. says is a good thing. I have been trying the claps, call-outs, counting it out, and just plain waiting. A teacher in my school suggested flicking the light switch. I’m not 100% sure about using that, but I told her that I might try it when I think that the behaviours in the class is getting too much

*My lessons: My SA mentioned to me that my lessons are typically and usually good. But they don’t have a good “flow” to them. Like they aren’t as strong as they hoped they could be in terms of the connections they make with what they’re all learning. I think it’s pretty difficult to make the lessons flow smoothly when I’m only teaching a certain amount of the day. I am hoping that as I take on a greater teaching load, my lessons will flow more smoothly because there will be no more awkward “okay,… so I’ll just pass you off to your teacher now…” moments.

*MYSELF: I am learning to be more flexible. I am learning that not everything I plan will turn out the way that I planned. I’m also trying to be much more creative because when things don’t turn out the way that I planned, then I better have a good way to turn that “Oops” into something Beautiful (Something I’ve learned from the Beautiful Oops!)

But over-all, I really am having a great time teaching K/Grade 1. I understand now when teachers say that teaching a K/1 split is difficult, because it is. I feel like I’m planning for TWO classes sometimes, and in a way, I guess I kind of am. But sticking with my INQUIRY question, I do want to maintain that classroom community within my split class — so I’m really hoping to integrate more SEL-like activities and lessons throughout the school day. It’ll definitely contribute to a more positive classroom climate (not that my SA isn’t already doing an AMAZING job at that!)

I feel like I can type/talk about my practicum experience for days! There’s so much to say and in a way I don’t even know where to begin.

But it’s 10:30pm on a Sunday night and I am currently typing some last minute changes to lessons I have made.
This is me being flexible, but at the same time — this is the reason why I’m tired!
BUT, also really happy! I’m so excited to do the lesson with my students tomorrow 🙂 I think it’ll go great!

6 weeks to go! Time is passing by way too quick!

Hello!

I almost forgot to post my practicum reflection!
2nd week of practicum has been exciting. I feel like I’ve been learning so much — about the students and about myself.

I am currently doing Mind-up, Kindergarten Table Activities & Math.

Math is still sort of a struggle — measurement is definitely difficult to teach. But teaching them >, < and = has been super great! 🙂 WOHOO (FINALLY)

I think I’m sort-of getting a hang of Math.

I really enjoyed planning the K table activities because it allowed me to explore other subject areas (language arts, science, etc). It also makes me wonder what it’d be like if I were in a straight Kindergarten class.

Since it was my first “full” week of practicum. I felt a little more tired than the first week. But I do feel like I’m building up that teacher momentum. So hoping that’ll just keep going!