Monthly Archives: April 2016

04/27/16

Inquiry: Continuing to Build Student Self-Confidence

Hello readers,

It has been a while since I have last updated on my inquiry progress. Practicum has been busy but I have not forgotten about my inquiry project. If you remember my post about my synthesis, I had set up some goals for myself to achieve during my long practicum. I have done many of the goals that were outlined in my post. For example, I make the effort to tell my students when I have seen an improvement in their academics or if I notice that they are working really hard. For many of my students, their reading and writing has come a long way from the first time that I met them. It is so great to see when the students are making progress in school and with that progress, comes newfound confidence in their own skills and learning.

I have also tried, and will continue to try, to give my students options on how they can show their learning. This has been a learning experience for me as well, as I seek to address the diversity of my learners in the classroom. For those who struggle in writing in particular, I allow these students to focus on drawing and telling me their understanding rather than asking them to write it out. This helps to alleviate that stress and anxiety of writing for these students. There are still opportunities for these students to continue to practice their writing, but the fact that they are given options to demonstrate their learning in their own way, allows them to build up confidence in their own abilities. I have done this through my fairytales unit for example. I have refined my story maps to allow students to both draw and, if able to, write about fairytale story elements.

I have noticed that over the past couple of months, the overall confidence of my students is improving. They are more sure of themselves and they are really starting to trust in their own abilities to succeed. For example, I know that many of my students know their letter sounds. Whenever they come up to me to ask how to spell a word, I encourage them to sound out the word by stretching it out and breaking the word down, and to simply write the sounds that they hear in that word. It may not be “book spelling”, but the students can feel confident in themselves that they know all of the letter sounds that they hear in a word without having to rely on the teacher for help. That sense of ownership over knowing that they spelt a hard word all by themselves, helps to build that self-confidence. That is probably one of the great things about being in Grade 1- perfect spelling does not matter!

04/23/16

Weeks 3 & 4: Growing Confidence

It has been a hectic couple of weeks in my classroom. I have been taking on more of the teaching in the classroom, which has been exciting for me because I am finally feeling like a real teacher in this classroom. As a result of my transition into becoming the classroom teacher, I have felt and experienced all of the highs and lows of being a teacher. There were some tough days these past couple weeks. There were days where I questioned whether or not I could really do this job or if teaching was even right for me. But there were also great days where I thought to myself – “Yes! Yes, Sophia, the students are learning and they understand what you are trying to teach them.” Seeing my students learning and understanding drives me to teach and boosts up my own confidence in what I am doing for my students. Am I going to have more bad days in the future? Oh yes, I can guarantee it. But I take those bad days as learning experiences for myself to better my own teaching practice. I also realize that with bad days, always comes good days and I know that I will have more good days than bad.

But moving on, I am going to recap what has been happening in my classroom for the past couple of weeks! For Fairytales, we worked with problem and solution quite a bit. The students sorted and organized problems and solutions of all the fairytales that we have read and they also created their own problem and solution on another day. Both activities were a success. The students are really understanding the key elements in fairytales.

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This week, we had a 2-day project with castles! We studied castles through a cross-curricular lens, by incorporating art, language arts, and math. We began our study on castles at the computer lab where we took a look at some real castles online. The students practiced drawing some castle features on Kidpix, like battlements, towers, doors, windows, etc. Then, we came back to the classroom and the students built 3D castles using different materials such as blocks, legos, and recycled materials. This was a great hands-on activity for the students and most of them did such an amazing job. I was very proud of the Grade 1s and their creations. The next day, we made some 2D castles on black construction paper and used sponges to help decorate the castles. I found the art idea here. The Grade 1s used a ruler to measure the dimensions of their castles, which was a new experience for them! Overall, they did a fabulous job on their castle study. All the teachers have been raving about the castles that the students created!

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We are continuing with our plants unit. Some of the students bean seeds are growing very well! The classroom plants have also bloomed since we first planted them. If you compare the picture from week 2 you will see that there has been a lot of growth happening! It has been exciting for both my students and for myself. Many of my students think that we are also growing an onion – little do they know that it is actually a Halloween flower! Next week, our class will be heading to a honey bee center to learn about the importance of bees to plants and to our food system. It should be quite exciting as this will be my first field trip.

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Until next week.

04/9/16

Week 2: Plants!

Wow, I cannot believe that another week of practicum has gone by! Where is the time going? Before you know it, I’ll be teaching full load!

This week, my class and I began our study on Plants. As a class, we planted some different seeds and bulbs into containers. Over the next coming weeks, we will be watching the different plants as they grow. Our window sill in the classroom has become much fuller with all of the different plants! I will be exciting to watch as the seeds begin to germinate and grow over the next few weeks. We also explored different plants that can grow in different places, such as our friend, the cactus. The students had fun looking (and not touching!) the cactus plant with their magnifying glasses.

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This week’s focus was on teacher presence. Having teacher presence and good classroom management is essential in any classroom – but especially in a Grade 1 classroom. My students love to share stories and to talk, which can be productive, but not during my lessons or when I am giving instructions. Being firm and allowing that “wait time” is something that I am continuing to work on. I am really starting to be more firm in setting those boundaries with my students.

Next week, our class is starting on measurement and drama! It should be another exciting week.

04/2/16

Week 1: Strong Beginnings

Spring break is over which means that not only are elementary and high school students back to school, but also me! Yes, I have begun my 10-week practicum and it has been an exciting learning journey for me. On Tuesday morning, I almost had to pinch myself that I was actually starting my 10-week practicum. It feels just like yesterday that I was anxiously sitting in Scarfe 100 on the first day of the B.Ed program and now we are here!

Regardless, I wanted to reflect on my first week at my practicum school. My Grade 1 class and I did a lot this week! We started on Tuesday with our Wonder Wall for our Plants unit, which will officially begin next week. The students had a lot of wonders that I am excited to explore during our unit, such as “Why do plants need water to grow?” and “Why do plants need roots?”. We also started on our Fairytales unit, reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella. The students are absolutely loving the Fairytales unit and it has been a success so far – I am having a lot of fun with it as well!

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I will be honest and say that there have been little hiccups along the way, which is to be expected. I have also learned how to improve my own teaching practice – namely the importance of scaffolding and the emphasis on I do, we do, you do. This is so, so important in any teaching practice and it is something that I will continue to work on over the next coming weeks.

Next week, we will officially begin our Plants unit. We will be planting some different seeds into our class plant container to watch the different growth rates and structures. We will also hopefully get to one experiment involving plant needs and growth.

Stay tuned for next week!