First Week - Done and Done!

I felt the first week of my Block went really well ... I taught about 2 lessons per day in language arts and math, and also did several fiction and non-fiction read alouds. The biggest challenge I felt this week was class management. I am finding that I am concentrating so much on my lesson and what I am saying that I am not paying enough attention to the class' behaviour. I found Friday's lessons to be the toughest because I think the students are just tired, restless, and anticipate the weekend. One thing I noticed was the amount of distractions throughout the day and how they really affect the students' attention. I now realize why my teacher gets so stressed with the constant phone calls, pages over the PA, or EA's talking/moving throughout the classroom. Tomorrow I will be introducing my own classroom management strategies so that the students have a clear idea of my expectations of them. Overall, I felt that my first week was successful and I am excited to take on more responsibility this week!

Tomorrow it begins.....

Tomorrow is the first day of Block...I can sense a lot of nervousness from people in our group... I am more excited then nervous right now...tonight I will spend prepping, I have to go buy some coloured ink, stickers, coloured highlighters to colour coat everything... I will definitely be in the mood for some drinks however! Anyway, tomorrow I am just doing a read aloud because literacy and math centres began today, so I will be actually starting teaching on Wednesday... I am actually sad to say that I will be missing my fellow peers who are at different schools them me... I am hoping that we can all get together a few times throughout the block to rehash our stories! I wish everyone all the best...lets go CG7!

Microteaching

On Friday, 7 of us at St. Vincent de Paul School did our microteaching. Although it took all day, it was exciting to watch what my peers had come up with. I really enjoyed all of the lessons; I felt that each one of us was so unique with our lessons and the outcomes really showed how much time and effort we put into the planning. I was very nervous and had to wait until the afternoon to present. One of my biggest fears was that the grade one students I had chosen would be either too shy to participate or too hyper. Despite my fears, I felt my lesson went really well. I managed to teach everything within the time frame allotted and my students were extremely receptive. A weakness that I had, however, was that I was quiet throughout the whole lesson. I felt that I had an appropriate tone when teaching my students, however my peers and counsellors had difficulty hearing me. I tried to create a calming atmosphere, which my associate teacher suggested, considering it was Friday afternoon at 1:30. Despite my tone of voice, I was very happy with my first time teaching and am really looking forward to being in the classroom everyday in November!