Getting my feet wet
As a UBC teacher candidate I have been placed at Maple Grove Elementary School for my practicum. I am the student teacher in a Montessori grade 1, 2, 3 classroom as well as a Montessori grade 4, 5, 6 classroom. I feel very fortunate to be placed in two classrooms that span 6 grades. Although it is challenging working in two classrooms, with 50 faces and switching gears between grades, I can’t imagine having it any other way. I anticipate the learning and growth in my teaching that will come with this challenge.
During my two week practicum at the beginning of November 2015, I planned a lesson for all 50 of my students. In small groups of 2 or 3 my students were given a picture from the book “Zoom” by Istvan Banyai. This book is a wordless picture book of 30 sequential pictures that zoom further out with every page. The students were required as a group to successfully place the 30 photos in order. This proved to be a very chaotic and loud activity, but they pulled it off! As a group, my 50 students worked together to decipher the sequence. Through this activity, I was able to challenge myself as an educator, see my 2 classes interacting and hopefully introduce the idea of predicting and perspective.