CFE Location: Star of the Sea
The first week of my CFE experience was a whirlwind of exciting new learning experiences, nerves, and a lot of fun! Though my CFE advisor had originally told me that I would be in the same classroom for the first week, and then differing classrooms for the following two weeks, it turned out that I would jump right in and move from classroom to classroom right off the bat.
For the first 2 days of the practicum I was in a grade 5 classroom. The teacher I taught under was in her first year of her education career and had quiet a few interesting ways of teaching. For instance she taught from the carpet and the students would bring their books etc. It seemed very primary, but the students seemed to enjoy it and were engaged for the most part. On my first day the teacher had me teach a science lesson and then the rest of the day was spent observing and marking the students work. Tuesday I was still in the grade 5 room, the teacher had informed me the day before that I would be teaching the full day so I came ready and prepared to teach the day. It all went very well, the teacher was impressed and raved about my teaching style J. A couple challenges of the day were teaching religion for the first time and having to stay after school for almost an hour to create a rubric for the teacher and to do her filing.
Wednesday was an interesting day as I was subbing for the librarian (who doubles as the computers teacher as well as the PE instructor). I met with the librarian on Tuesday after school and she informed me that she would be attending the track meet and that I would be TTOCing for her. She went through the day plan with me and gave me specific instructions for each block- I would be teaching computers, library and PE… yikes! The day actually went quiet well. Apparently the library has 2 parent volunteers in to help throughout the whole school day, so when I arrived in the morning and started to prep for the day, a mother volunteer arrived and told me that I was doing her job and that I had a prep until my first block. It was sort of nice to have all of that extra help, but left me with nothing to do for 20 minutes. The rest of the day was very much like this- people helping and me not really getting the opportunity to do much. Even when I went down to teach gym the PE specialist said she would forgo her prep to ‘help out’ as her daughter was in that class. Again, it was very nice and helpful but left me with very little to do!
Thursday was great- I was in a kindergarten classroom. The students were great, the teacher was amazing, and all in all the day was great! It ended off with an afternoon filled with music as we all went down to watch the schools music program showcase which turned out to be amazing!
Friday was the schools annual “Fun Day”. I was in a grade 2 classroom and basically just followed my class around as they did their cheers and went around to the different game stations. On top of this, it was also an early dismissal day so the kids were dismissed at 12:30. I stayed around an extra hour helping the fun day clean-up crew and then headed home for an early weekend! Woohoo!
All in all it was a great first week. The people are all very kind and helpful and I think that it will be a great fit for me!