Hey all! If you've followed me on my blogging journeys, you'll know I suck at keeping up with and finishing them. I never finished my blog from when I went to England and I wasn't gonna finish this one either. I just get so caught up in the semester and what I'm doing and then when I get back it seems like too much of a hassle to finish it. But, I figured I would go back and finish this travel log with another post or two.
My last post was halfway through the semester, so we'll pick up where that left often, focusing on the student teaching aspect.
I thought I'd include some pictures of me with the students, but I don't really have permission to use their photos. Therefore, I added smiling emojis on their heads. It looks a little creepy, but it's the best we can get.
On October 21st, Mrs. Greer put together a pumpkin patch field trip for those who wanted to attend. It was on a Saturday, so it wasn't necessary. On Monday we read Pumpkin Jack and then started our own classroom observation with two pumpkins from the field trip. We carved one into a Jack-o-lantern and then set it in a closed box with an uncarved pumpkin. For the rest of October and well into November we watched as the two pumpkins decomposed. We maybe hypotheses about what the pumpkins would like in 20 days and recorded our observation in science journals.
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| Me, Mrs. Greer, and the kids who went to the pumpkin patch |
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| Our rotten Pumpkin Jack |
Shortly after my last post, we went on a walking field trip to the fire station on base. We had been learning about fire safety and the fire station trip was a lot of fun. The students got to meet firefighters, see where they slept and cooked, and got to see the fire truck. Everyone got to sit in the driver or passenger seat and the back seat. This fire station was only one floor, so no firepoles for our kiddos.
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| Super blurry picture of my kinders at the fire station |
On Halloween, we had a Pumpkin Palozza! There were all sorts of pumpkin/fall themed activities going on in the class (my mentor teacher wouldn't celebrate Halloween). We made pumpkin pancakes, created pumpkin glyphs, had a pumpkin investigation, counted pumpkins, read a pumpkin themed Scholastic magazine, had pumpkins puzzles, did number form matching, "how many more" and had syllable practice activities. A couple of parents came in to help. The day was overall just a lot of fun and an exciting divergence from our typical schedule.
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| Dissecting a pumpkin! |
In November, I started giving control of the classroom back to my mentor teacher. During the second week of November, we had Parent/Teacher Conferences. This was my first time actually being involved in a Parent/Teacher Conference and it was a big learning moment for me. Having to prepare the report and knowing what to talk to the parents about; sharing not just academic progress, but social, emotional, and behavioral observations as well. The students had two days off for PTCs and the conferences were held during the school. I liked that a lot better than trying to schedule parents in before or after school, but I know that schedule probably wouldn't work in most places.
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| Having a student help me find sight words in our morning message |
I was able to go to several IEP (Individual Education Plan) meetings for students who had additional needs in academic, social, and speech areas. It was good to see the process, how to talk to parents and specialists about the students, and share my observations and examples from being the teacher.
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| The students Shape Monsters from our shape unit |
The experiences I got during student teaching really will benefit me and prepare me for my own classroom someday soon. Aside from participating in PTCs and IEP meetings, I was able to go to weekly collaboration meetings with Mrs. Greer's Kinder team that she worked with, monthly whole Kinder teachers meetings, staff meetings, and even a monthly logistics team meeting since Mrs. Greer was the logistic leader for all of the Kinder teachers (there was like 12). All the meetings weren't that much fun at the time, but, looking back, it did provide a really rounded view of what being a teacher is actually like and their obligations outside the direct classroom.
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| Working with students during a math lesson |
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| Listening to students share during a Turn and Talk activity |
In December, I started doing observations in other teacher's classrooms as I gave more of the teaching responsibilities back to Mrs. Greer. Mostly, I observe in the classes of the Kinder teachers who were on our collaboration team, but I also visited the two preschool classes, one of the sped preschool classes, and a few second and first-grade classes.
We did a fun Gingerbread Man unit. We read several retellings of the classic story and compared and contrasted them. Lots of teachers were also reading variations of The Gingerbread Man and making gingerbread or having their students create their own gingerbread man/boy/girl stories.
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Working on graphing with one of my favorite students
(shhh we don't have favorites...) |
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| My alarms to keep me on track all day |
The last day of school was December 15th and we had a Polar Express party. Students wore their pjs and we watched Polar Express while eating popcorn and hot chocolate. We had a little going away party for me where the students all gave me advice on what a new teacher should and shouldn't do. I got lots of "A new teacher should give students candy/cookies" and quite a few "A new teacher should give students hugs." Two students said I needed to get myself a "blue finger," meaning the blue pointer finger that Mrs. Greer used to point at the SMART Board. There was also a lot of "A new teacher should not give students candy/cookies" haha. Overall, it was super cute!
It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to the students that I had spent the last four months getting to know, teaching, and learning from, knowing that I would probably never see them again. I will always be thankful for the amazing opportunity to student teach on a base overseas and for the wonderful students, parents, and staff who guided me as I was learning.
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