Student Teaching-- Week 4

Week 4... it just really doesn't seem like it's only been 4 weeks and that it's already been 4 weeks!!

This week we finished up working on our Texas Indians research project AND we did the presentations. The kids did great and I am so proud of them!

On Thursday, I had to go to Tarleton to an ESP (Effect Schools Project) Conference. The speaker was Spencer Henry (http://www.shenrypie.com/). Spencer Henry was an amazing speaker and I am so lucky I got to hear him speak. He spoke about classroom management and had some great ideas and suggestions for the classroom.

On Friday, I had the chance to implement some of the strategies I had learned and it was fun to see the outcome.

Overall this week was really awesome. The students worked on their Dioramas of their Indian group (I'll post pictures soon). My class is such a hands-on class which is PERFECT because I am such a hands-on person. I don't think I could have been placed with a better class to do my student teaching. There are a few challenges with talking and whatnot (but that's to be expected in every classroom) but the good times outweigh the bad... which is how it should be. I'm exicted every day to go to school and teach those kiddos and I love having fun laughing and joking with them! They have such a great sense of humor!!

Student Teaching-- Week 3

WHAT?!?!?!?!? It doesn't seem like it's only been three weeks. In some ways it seems like I have been doing this A LOT longer than 3 weeks and in some ways I'm thinking "where in the world did the time go???". It has been a great experience and I am sooo excited to get in to my own classroom and get this started!!

Right now, we are in the middle of our Texas Indian Unit and the students are having a BLAST (well.. most of them). This is the first research project the students have ever done, and to be honest some of them are blowing me away with their work ethic and determination and creativity. I put the students in pairs and gave each pair a tribe to research (when they heard they were going to research, they were NOT excited). They had to find 10 characteristics (that blew them away), what environment their tribe lived in, how they used their environment, their social envrionment (chief, interaction with other tribes), and interesting facts. Then they had to take ALL of that information and put it in to a PowerPoint presentation. I had to teach them how to use PowerPoint and they caught on REALLY QUICK. My mentor teacher and I were BOTH super impressed with how quickly the students got it. After the PowerPoint, the students had to make a book with all of their information. In their book they had to put the info from their PowerPoint and draw pictures to go with their pages. This was really fun for some students in the class because there are some pretty talented artists in our class. Tomorrow we are going to start our dioramas of the envrionment. These kids have never seen or heard of a diorama before so they are in for a REAL treat!

Overall, I'm having a BLAST. I start Kindergarten in 6 weeks and I hope it's as fun as 4th grade!

Student Teaching-- Week 2

This week has gone pretty well. The talking is still a little bit of a problem but it is MUCH better than last week. The students are all really funny, and for the most part, get along with each other. There are a few cliques but nothing too bad. This week I taught Social Studies again and I am slowly taking Math as the next subject. This coming week I might teach math everyday... maybe. I have my first observation on the 10th during Math, so I should probably practice.

Teaching isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I expected to be really nervous and not explain things clearly, but the students are getting it and their grades reflect it. Even though most things are review right now, it still feels good to see the 100s on the papers I grade. Yesterday we made thermometers in Science and it was so neat to see the kids get excited about learning. They thought it was so neat to see the thermometers in action (I thought it was pretty neat too!).

Next week I start teaching my unit. I'm doing a Social Studies unit on the Native Texas Indians. I'm really excited about it and I hope the students will be too! I'm going to divide the class in to pairs and each pair will research a tribe then creat a PowerPoint, book and diorama about the tribe and present it to the class. I can't wait to see what the students come up with... I'm sure the dioramas and PowerPoints are going to turn out really neat. We have some really creative and VERY artistic students in our class.

Today all of the student teachers were back at Tarleton for PDAS training. It was a little boring but I learned a lot of GREAT information I need to know for when I become a teacher. After the training, we had a surprise babyshower for one of our fellow student teachers, Sheree. She was so surprised! It was a lot of fun!!

I'm looking forward to next week... I'm anxious to see what stories I will have to post by Friday about the research unit!!