Student Teaching-- Week 1

This has been a CRAZY and really fun week. 4th graders are so funny and VERY social (lol). The first day of school I was numb to the feeling that I was begining my student teaching adventure. It was so surreal that I didn't feel any kind of emotion... I mean I was excited and nervous but I didn't have the butterflies in my stomache or anything... but I did a few days later. On day 1 all 19 warm bodies were in their chairs ready to begin a new school year. Since I am student teaching at a VERY small school (190 students in the ENTIRE district), the teachers already know EVERY student's name. The atmosphere of the classroom was pretty inviting and comfortable because the students already knew the teacher and the teacher already knew the students. We only had 2 new students and they didn't waste any time jumping in to the class conversations. In our class we only have 7 boys and 12 girls... and by Tuesday, there was a major talking problem... with the BOYS!! Who would have ever thought the boys would be getting in trouble for talking?!? We nipped the talking problem in the bud pretty quick... by Wednesday the class had to write the definition for "chatter" out of the dictionary as punishment for excessive talking. Thursday was MUCH better and Friday was pretty good too.

On Thursday I taught the DOL and Social Studies lessons. I was more nervous teaching the lessons with my mentor teacher, Mrs. Champeau, in the classroom than I was about actually teaching. There's just something about teaching in front of another adult. I kept thinking "am i doing this right?", "is this making any sense?" i guess i did pretty well because DOL went fine and most of the students made a 100 on their Social Studies assignment. The Social Studies lesson was kind of rocky and not as organized as I would have liked it to be but I fixed that for Friday's lesson... which was about latitude and longitude (not my strongest areas). I haven't graded those assignments yet but as I was walking around, everyone seemed to be getting it... so that's a good thing. I guess the first subject I'm going to be taking over is Social Studies and I am totally OK with that. Next week I am teaching a Math lesson on Thursday and I'm a little nervous about it. Luckily it's mostly review AND it is a short lesson. I have my first observation on the 8th with my supervisor and it is during a Math lesson... so I figured I should get some practice before the big show.

My schedule has been pretty crazy... I've been getting up around 6:15 every morning and getting in to bed before 9pm pretty much every night. I feel like such an old lady but by the end of the day I am just exhausted and ready to sleep.

I'm looking forward to this next week of student teaching. Now that we have routines down and we are getting to know our class schedule, hopefully this next week will go smoother than the first!