First Two Weeks

Well I said I was going to try and keep this alive while student teaching this time but so far I have been failing... miserably! It seems that time has just been flying by. I couldn't believe that I am already done two weeks of student teaching!

Those first two weeks were very trying and telling. I learnt a lot about my students while not having to worry about planning lessons or scrambling to get supplies ready. My cooperating teacher and I have an understanding that I'll help her wrap up everything she had started before spring break and after that I'll start new with my stuff. I thought that was fair to the students as well. There is no way I could expect them to remember any new material after a two week break :).

This time around I am taking on a science unit in simple machines. I'm most excited about planning and executing that one! In the end I'm going to have the students design a Rube Goldberg Machine in the gym. The teacher that I am working with for this isn't actually my cooperating teacher but my students switch with the grade 7/8 so they can have French with my cooperating teacher (for the record my French level is more suited to grade 3/5 and not 7/8, ha ha). Anyways the teacher I am working with for this already had the grade 7/8's build one of those in the gym and it was AWESOME!

My focus will not entirely be science this whole time but also math. In math I will be planning a patterns unit for grade 5/6 as well as working on basic facts. Thankfully Sandy (my math professor from BU) has well equipped me to keep the students busy with fun basic math activities! On the other hand if anyone has any suggestions for patterns in math I am open. I was given a stack of textbooks but I would rather move away from those and find something hands on or fun at least.

For social studies I will be co-teaching a unit that my cooperating teacher already has a package on. We have already started that this week and so far it has been going really good. The focus is to get students thinking about the types of questions that are given to them or that they ask (thin and thick questioning). This is something I'm familiar with from another student teaching placement so I felt comfortable jumping right in.

The focus in ELA is the Daily 5 which is something that I was introduced to in my first year at BU (thank you Donna!). It is actually great to finally see it in action in a real school setting. This is something that I also had no problem jumping right into and I am already planning for after spring break.

Well that is it for now... I'll try not to let weeks pass by before I post again! If you have any recommendations or anything of that sort please leave a comment :)

Final Week At BU

Once again it is time to start my student teaching experience. I look forward to implementing a few of the things that I learnt in this class. One thing I definitely want to get my students to try is making a video. I think it will be quite a process but I feel confident in attempting it in a real classroom setting. I'm going to be in a grade 5/6 class of 18 students so I think this is something that could really work. I'm not too sure either what devices are available for our use, but it is something that I want to look into once there!

Looking back on the last few weeks it is hard to believe how fast time went by. Last year at this time I was hoping to keep this blog alive and document my student teaching experience. I'm hoping to try that again this year (fingers crossed) and really use this as a place to share what worked and what didn't. I'm also hoping to hear back from people on their own experiences and possibly helpful resources.

If that doesn't happen at least this will be a place I can look back fondly and remember the great times I had at BU, which were awesome! I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take Internet for Educators course last year and the ICT course this year with Mike. I felt that I was forced to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. It was great! I want to thank Mike for everything that he has shown and taught me over these past two years. I can't wait to get out in the field and implement what I have learnt :)