Technically, this week was supposed to be the last week where I teach full time but my SA and I decided that I would continue teaching full time until the last day of practicum especially because I have not wrapped up all my lessons so this gives me one extra week. There are a lot of exciting yet nerve-racking events that occurred this week. First of all, we had our TOC day this week! We had to pretend that we were a Teacher-On-Call and switched classrooms and schools with other UBC teacher candidates. Thankfully we were given our school and grade a couple days before just to get us mentally prepared for what we were going into. I had a kindergarten class and I was actually quite excited because I had really wanted to try teaching kindergarten. Although I was still in a primary grade, it was quite different than being in a grade 3 class. Because it was nearing the end of school, the kindergartners had already gained a lot of routine and management practice which made my job a lot easier. It was a completely different environment than what I was used to but it was great to experience it and overall I had a blast! The kids were so kind and helpful if I didn’t know the routine very well and they treated me as if I was their teacher instead of just a stranger taking over. I was glad that the teacher left me alone to help me get the full experience. I think it’s great to be able to be a TOC for a while as a beginning teacher because it really gives us exposure to all the different grades that we hadn’t gotten a chance to teach and perhaps we would find another grade more appealing than our practicum grade.

We also went on a field trip this week to Burns Bog which was a lot of fun and educational! It was my first time going there so I really enjoyed it and learned a lot about plants and animals and history behind the bog itself. It was unfortunate that one of the students accidentally fell into one of the creeks but other than that, the students all had a wonderful time despite having been there in the previous years.