Busy Busy Busy

It has already been 3 days...and I have been loving every single minute of it! I am so happy with my placement I feel blessed to be in such a wonderful school. Everyone has been extremely welcoming and helpful! I was quickly embraced into the first grade teaching team (6 teachers in total)! The overall staff seems very friendly and eager to strike up conversation! I have been invited to join several teachers for lunch in the lounge or to join them on Fridays when they head out for a quick 'off campus' lunch break.

Day 2: Let's see, on the second day of my placement I continued to observe the main procedures of the classroom. I was able to see reading and writing for the first time as well. With the celebration of Chinese New Year on day one, we did not have time to cover reading and writing in the normal format. My coop. teacher was extremely helpful in explaining her procedure to me. Also, the reading I did before beginning my placement was truly a great help! I had the opportunity to observe a few conferences and strategy groups before trying my own conferences with students. My coop. teacher allows me to work independently and try out conferences without the pressure of her continuous observation. It definitely helps me to feel more relaxed when trying these conferences out for the first time. Day 2 I had a lot of questions about the reading and writing structure and learned a lot of new information about guided reading and writers workshop. I had a meeting after school about an intervention strategy that will begin in our school on Feb. 1st. Basically, the first 25 minutes of every school day ALL the first graders are split into their reading level group and then students move to their specified intervention teachers room. Then, that teacher will work with the selected students to improve on and work on level appropriate material to help the students grow as readers! It is a great opportunity to be a part of something like this. This is the first time the school is doing anything like this and it will be very helpful to have the chance to work with the first grade team on planning and organizing this new strategy.


Day 3: Today, I was mostly all hands on deck. I walked around the room helping out students with whatever help they needed. I was able to do a few reading and writing conferences and work with some of the struggling math students and try to help them understand strategies to find the answer. We are currently working on using our fingers, drawing a picture (sticks and circles) and/or using a math mountain to solve our work problems. I was also introduced to the word wall today and how that is used in our classroom. This was extremely interesting to me, because I will be taking over all the word wall activites next week! Tomorrow, I will be taking over control of some of the morning routines such as lunch choices; lunch count; attendance and interactive read aloud. This is something I am very excited for because it is not your average read aloud. The teacher does not just read a story for fun, rather she reads the story for purpose. While reading, she points out several strategies good readers do while reading. She basically uses a 'think out loud' approach to this and explains to the students her feelings while reading, her predictions, the picture in her mind etc. I am excited to practice this strategy tomorrow and in the future weeks of my placement!

I feel like I have been very busy at home the last few nights with preparing valentine crafts and locker decorations as well as reading some resource books, looking over math lessons and keeping up with University work as well. I am enjoying every minute of this experience and plan to make the most of every opportunity! Tomorrow after school, I have my first meeting with my University Supervisor; I am excited to see the other student teachers and hear how their experience is going. I feel very lucky that I have a great coop. teacher and a well managed classroom to learn in and I feel I will truly benefit immensely from my time in this placement!


“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” -Sarah Caldwell