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! :)