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.