In Physical Education...
This week I focused my personal goals on grasping student attention. Teaching in the gymnasium is so much more difficult than I imagined it being and I now have a stronger respect for those who teach physical education multiple times in a day. I found myself really struggling to make the students listen to me and then I got to a point where I didn't even care anymore about yelling over them. If they wouldn't listen to me, they could go sit out in the hallway. I took a moment to give myself a little pep talk because I needed the reminder that I was in charge and the students were not going to walk all over me. October 3rd was Picture Day! I have been waiting so long to have a class picture taken where I was no longer the student. The day finally came! It will of course be much more surreal when I have my own classroom, but Picture Day in Raymore was exciting none-the-less. Due to the gym being used for pictures, the grade 6's had to have gym class in the classroom. We did 2 body breaks and the kids thoroughly enjoyed dancing to Just Dance- Rasputin. We created personal fitness plans with goals specifically related to how the students performed during fitness testing the previous week. We also did an activity on heart rate. We recorded our resting heart rate, did a body break, and then recorded our active heart rate. We also discussed how athletes have lower active heart rates than non-athletes and we talked about why that is. In Science... In science, I focused on circulating around the classroom and being responsive to the students that struggle and become off-task easily. I planned an experiment for the students to do on Monday and it went surprisingly well. The students viewed micro-organisms (that I collected from a swamp back home) under a microscope. They loved seeing the snails and fresh-water shrimp. The shrimp were swimming in the bucket along with what looked like swimming centipedes. We called those organisms the "weird large bug things." The students recorded their data on an experiment handout that I provided to them and the activity seemed to be popular amongst the students. I was worried all weekend that the lesson would be a flop. I tried yet again to let go of my perfectionist habits. For the remainder of the week we started talking about classification, taxonomy, and why we use Latin when we classify things. The students were introduced to a classification trees on Friday and we created one as a class using an example from their science textbooks. On Monday, the students will be attempting classification trees on their own for the first time. They will be categorizing various pictures of fruits and vegetables Hopefully that goes off without a hitch! Next week is a short week, and I'm so thankful for that!
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This week I focused my teaching goals around classroom management and classroom circulation to the kids that need my help the most. Even though I've only been in Raymore for one month, I can already see so much personal growth in myself since my pre-internship.
I feel more confident with giving direction, but find myself still lacking confidence in regards to curricular content. I have an experiment planned for Monday in science and I am so nervous that it will be a flop. One of my biggest issues is that I'm such a perfectionist. The other day in the staffroom, one of the teachers told me that I need to "let my perfectionist thoughts go so that I can be more efficient and less stressed." I am going to do my best to take her advice. My lack of confidence could be stemming from my stress to be "the perfect intern." Next week I take on teaching another subject. I will no longer be teaching only science, but will now be teaching science and physical education. I have never taught PE and I'm actually excited for it. I would say that my favourite subject growing up was PE so I'm hoping my confidence will show. I am so excited to spend the month of October doing the basketball unit that I have planned. This week was spirit week and our classroom showed some great school spirit! Next week we are recognizing Reconciliation and will be wearing orange shirts on Monday. Welcome Back!
I am so happy to say that I am back in the groove of teaching and enjoying my time in grade 6 at Raymore School! In my first two weeks, I spent my time observing my cooperating teacher Andrea Dufault and learning her classroom routine. She has 5 classroom rules that we discuss each day. The rules are that all students will Listen Attentively, Follow Directions, Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Act Safely. We evaluate ourselves on how well we've followed these rules after each period of the day. I have learned that there should be a university class specifically on setting up bulletin boards. Bulletin boards are not as easy to set up as they seem to be and I definitely spent more than an hour setting up a single one! They take talent! I have a newfound respect for teachers who make elaborate bulletin boards each year! There are 21 energetic students in our classroom and I've been spending my time getting to know them better so that I can better plan for their academic success! I have learned that the students absolutely LOVE body breaks and they look forward to them every time that I teach them a lesson! The subject that I am continuously teaching throughout internship is Science! We have started off with the unit "Diversity of Living Things" and we are only 5 lessons into our unit. I have noticed that the students prefer hands-on activities and my goal with this science unit is to plan as many hands-on activities as I can! We have covered the Characteristics of Living Things as well as the terms "Biotic," "Abiotic," and "Ecosystem." We explored nature through a nature walk and we reflected on how we can show respect to nature in our daily lives. We also spent some time learning how to write descriptive sentences and use them to form a paragraph. I am looking forward to next week and meeting with my Faculty Advisor again. |
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