This was my first week in front of the class…and a mixed experience that has been. I started taking over the morning “Target” activity and spelling. This is the first time in all my experiences that I’ve asked students to do something and they look at me and keep on doing what they are doing…so this will definitely be a challenging time for me. After the first day I was a little shaky and asking myself what I was thinking, but an e-mail from my dad really helped (here's an exerpt):
"It’s encouraging to see individuals reach out and live their life going after their dreams. What makes your journey especially encouraging is that you are my daughter. I’m proud that you are living your dreams. As I have stated before “it’s magical to have dreams and then to experience them.”...In the middle is where you’ll face the self-doubt every day, doubting your future, spending many nights alone thinking why you ever started such a journey; however, it’s those middle moments that are your boot camps, launch pads, and ashrams. These middle moments are anything but useless, empty, or ordinary. The middle of things is where you incubate and change takes place. One day you will look back at this time and realize this is what made your life authentic. Celebrate yourself; right now as though you are the biggest winner of all time, because you are! You are sticking with the wonderful and terrible confusion of creating an authentic life. (Yea, it did take your life savings, but one-hundred years from now it won’t make any difference.)...I want you to know that I celebrate you in my heart everyday. I am moved by your dogged steps forward, and your shaky new belief in your new destination. Sarah, you are the brave one, the alive one, and the one who deserves the medal. "
How do parents always know when you need "words of wisdom" :). Luckily, it has gotten better as the week progressed, so hopefully things will keep on that upward swing as I start to teach new material. In our class this we week we started awarding groups of tables points for behavior and good work. At the end of the week, the group with the most points will get a prize that they have predetermined. This seems to work wonders for them and already more participation has occurred since this started. Alfie would be rolling, but it seems to be the way at Swanson...and at this point, if it makes them listen, I'm in. I feel like at this point, with only 7 weeks of school left till summer, I'm not going to make much headway changing routine.
This was also the first week that I saw real math going on. The three classrooms of the same age levels are all split according to ability. Lucky me, our room is the advanced room working on algebra J. Last week was a holiday and a lot was going on so we didn’t move to different rooms, but this week we did. It is great to see what Mrs. Thompson has the students working on in math. For once in my life, I’ve seen a classroom that is direct instruction and working out a textbook and that is going to give me many ideas for spicing up math when/if I teach it back home. This week she had the room divided into four teams. They start the day by reviewing functions and playing a game. Each day they face off against a different team. Mrs. Thompson writes a function on the board (ex. 2x+ 5), then she calls out a number for ‘x’ and the two people who are at the board from the teams have to figure out the answer. Whomever writes the correct answer on the board gets a point. At the end of the week, the group with the most points will win “hot chips” or French fries as we call them. After that as a warmup, the groups are working on different packets so that Mrs. Thompson can teach them linear equations in small groups. I thought this was a great idea for a difficult topic. I know as a student I would never ask questions in a large group in math, and these small group learning sessions are perfect to combat this. Then the others are working on a packet that reviews a previous concept. This will take us to Monday to complete, but the students should get better exposure to this topic and Mrs. Thompson gets a better idea of who does and doesn’t understand. It was my job to follow-up with the groups the day after their lesson to answer any questions in their follow-up packet that they had.
It is also interesting that in New Zealand they don’t have special teachers that teach art, gym, etc. They do go on Tuesdays for some specials, but the teachers of New Zealand are expected to also teach art and gym. So today we went out and played a game and in art, which is on Thursdays, we started making this aboriginal art like people of Australia. This goes along with our country studies.
Next week I will start to take over our persuasive and advertising unit. Maybe my three years at the Yellow Pages advertising won’t have all been in vain…
This was also the first week that I saw real math going on. The three classrooms of the same age levels are all split according to ability. Lucky me, our room is the advanced room working on algebra J. Last week was a holiday and a lot was going on so we didn’t move to different rooms, but this week we did. It is great to see what Mrs. Thompson has the students working on in math. For once in my life, I’ve seen a classroom that is direct instruction and working out a textbook and that is going to give me many ideas for spicing up math when/if I teach it back home. This week she had the room divided into four teams. They start the day by reviewing functions and playing a game. Each day they face off against a different team. Mrs. Thompson writes a function on the board (ex. 2x+ 5), then she calls out a number for ‘x’ and the two people who are at the board from the teams have to figure out the answer. Whomever writes the correct answer on the board gets a point. At the end of the week, the group with the most points will win “hot chips” or French fries as we call them. After that as a warmup, the groups are working on different packets so that Mrs. Thompson can teach them linear equations in small groups. I thought this was a great idea for a difficult topic. I know as a student I would never ask questions in a large group in math, and these small group learning sessions are perfect to combat this. Then the others are working on a packet that reviews a previous concept. This will take us to Monday to complete, but the students should get better exposure to this topic and Mrs. Thompson gets a better idea of who does and doesn’t understand. It was my job to follow-up with the groups the day after their lesson to answer any questions in their follow-up packet that they had.
It is also interesting that in New Zealand they don’t have special teachers that teach art, gym, etc. They do go on Tuesdays for some specials, but the teachers of New Zealand are expected to also teach art and gym. So today we went out and played a game and in art, which is on Thursdays, we started making this aboriginal art like people of Australia. This goes along with our country studies.
Next week I will start to take over our persuasive and advertising unit. Maybe my three years at the Yellow Pages advertising won’t have all been in vain…
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