Mini Residency Reflection

The past week has been quite the experience; I must say that I highly enjoyed being in the classroom, in charge for full days. It was a very positive experience and I really appreciated the opportunity to go back to full days and teach. Looking back at the past week, I must say that most challenging piece, was time management and trying to fit in all of the lessons in the days that they were originally planned. I realized that the best way for me personally to manage the days activities, is by creating an outline of the days routine and filling the lessons into appropriate time slots. Once I created the outline, I had a visual that was used as a guide for completing the lessons for the week. I enjoyed the feeling of taking charge and I am grateful to find that the children see me as their teacher, because during the week they behaved the same as they normally would for Jean. I was also grateful to have multiple opportunities to reflect on how the lessons went with Jean and discuss what I would have done differently and so on and so forth. Overall, I believe the week went well and I now have a better idea of what life will be like once I take over during January-February.

Preparation

This past week Jean and I have been discussing more and more about the mini residency I will be doing coming up after Thanksgiving break and I'm thinking it's going to be a great time! The theme will be festivals of like starting that week up until winter break, which means I will have the opportunity to participate in a theme change as well as a month change, which is something I haven't been able to view much of, because the change over is usually on Mondays and some changes happen in the afternoon while I am there in the mornings. Either way, I am excited to have the opportunity to get my hands wet and really help to plan the week's activities. In light of this, I must admit that one of the challenges of this planning, is that in the kindergarten class at Chugach, they are not forced to follow any specific curricula. Although there is a kindergarten math program that is used as a guide, and the handwriting program, Jean does most of her planning primarily from looking at the GLEs and planning her lessons around that. Therefore, I will have the chance to really use my talents and knowledge as a student teacher to plan the lessons myself, with Jean's guidance, rather than follow a scripted program. We have already spent time looking through some past lessons for this theme and this past Friday I was able to teach the entire morning, which I have been doing more and more often. whoohoo! :)

First week of November

This week, I had the opportunity to lead a couple of full days worth of lessons. I have continued leading the morning routine and language arts study, but this past week I also led a lesson on map building using the story Pirate Pete by Kim Kennedy. What was especially exciting, was that I chose the story and was able to develop the routine and everything with the guidance of Jean. The lesson extended over three days and was broken into smaller pieces, as a way to introduce the story and ideas as well as revisit them. After the two main portions of lessons, I was thrilled with the results and the children's enthusiasm with the story and activity. :) Jean also said that I did well and the main thing I have to work on is projecting my voice a bit more, or using other techniques to get my message across to everyone, because sometimes I am too soft spoken. One of the most important concepts I have been learning about teaching, are all of the tiny details that are critical for the success of a lesson, such as transitions, what to have children do if they finish quickly, flow, and other details that a regular lesson plan simply cannot address without spending hours on a single lesson. The teaching process is amazing and I am boggled by all of these new experience and enjoying everything!

The first semester is just about over?!?! I can't believe this first portion of the school year is just about over....

Conferences

Although this post is late, I do want to take a few moments and describe how exciting and new it was to be assisting in this portion of teaching. At Chugach, their conferences are more student led and in kindergarten we focus on the social/emotional portion of learning, rather than discussing GLEs. In fact, there are no report cards! Prior to the conference, the children and their families were asked to fill out a questionnaire that would help us understand their views about school, friendships, and their thoughts about the academic subjects they are now being formally exposed to: reading, writing, mathematics, science, and also art. After observing the first couple of conferences, I took over leading the review of the questions and then Jean and I tagged team to learn more information or discuss in depth certain portions. As we went through them, I found it fascinating how many of the children really took the time to understand their intrapersonal selves and discover what they needed to work on and what their strengths are. They really took the time to think about their answers. Overall, it was an experience that I am happy to have gone through, as it gave me more insight into the children's thinking as well as the parents/guardians.

Week of 10/11/10

This past week has been quite eventful! I completed my last yoga class on Wednesday, which means this week I will now be only mornings and will completely be leading the handwriting lesson each morning, which is both exciting and anxious. I think that the main reason that leading the lessons has felt more stressful, is simply because my schedule has been disrupted with my yoga class and other things, so I am happy to now be only on mornings so I can really be a part of the morning routine. :)
We have now really begun the rock, soil, and sand exploration science kit and the children are absolutely enthralled with it! They have an entire wall of rock words that they developed after only a week or so of bringing in rock shares and a couple of science lessons. Even I am excited to bring in a rock to share that I have had since I was about ten years old AND it has a fossil print on it! Very exciting!
Jean and I have been making time to talk more about the 'why things are done the way they are done', so that as I am leading more lessons, I can understand the reasoning behind the lessons or even the group management techniques. We are also preparing for conferences, which are led much differently than the traditional conferences I have heard of or experienced before. (More to come later) I am quite interested to see how they go as well as be a part of this portion of education. Now that it is the second month of school, I am really starting to feel more teacherish and am becoming more aware of all of the responsibilities that come with the job. For example, I always new that there was quite a lot of prep work required of a teacher, however, I had no idea how much extra time Jean has to spend outside of regular work hours to keep the room up to date and ready to go. It's definitely something I will have to start considering and working into my own schedule as the year goes on. So much to do, so little time! :)

Making Family Connections

One of the unique features about Chugach Optional, is all of the family help and volunteerism that we have in our classroom. In fact, there have been times when we have been over flowing with parent participation! In light of this, I am provided with many opportunities where I can interact and chat with families and build positive relationships with them.

While most of the families are very open to communication or have time in the morning or afternoon to talk, we do have some that for whatever reason, are harder to reach. Therefore, one of the ways I try to extend an invitation for building relationships by talking to them about the activities that are happening in the class or talking about the positive experiences their child has been engaged in. This seems to be helping open up the channels and it certainly helps when I am there in the morning during drop off, because I usually see at least one of the parents in the morning, while the afternoon varies. Overall though, I feel as though I have already built several strong connections with several of the families and others are still being worked on.

Mornings

Well I am not going to the classroom in the mornings and boy does my body have to adjust! The other kink is that for the next two Wednesdays I have my yoga class in the mornings, which means I am there in the afternoons instead. Although this throws a wrench into my sleep schedule, I do like being there in the afternoon, because I still feel that connection to the afternoon schedule that I have been helping with for the past month.
Now that we are doing a morning schedule, I have been mostly observing and always interacting with the children, and this week/beginning of next I will begin to lead the lower case letter learning, since we will be finished with the capitals on Tuesday. I look forward to this piece, because leading lessons helps to boost my confidence as well as help me reflect on my skills as a teacher. I mentioned to Jean earlier this week, that I have really taken to heart the positive learning instruction and how she encourages independent learning and thinking amongst the students. After co-teaching with Jean, I realized that at work I have been over directing the children and have taken a few steps back and put the responsibility of learning and problems solving back into their hands, rather than trying to take over and do it for them. I think that as adults sometimes we instinctively want to 'make things right' and since it's quicker for us to lay down the rules, we forget that children do not learn self control or how to think for themselves if we are constantly jumping in. Therefore, I am appreciative of this reminder and have been reminding myself to allow the children at work, as well as at Chugach, time to be responsible for their own actions and giving them that time to take control of the situation or themselves rather than telling them how it needs to be done.
Overall, it has been quite a new week with this new transition and the morning play times have provided me opportunities to observe the children as well as build lasting relationships with them and their families. More and more to come I'm sure!!