Welcome to my Student Teaching Blog! I am a few weeks behind, so this first post will be a summary of my first two weeks! I have already had such an amazing experience and don't want to leave these students after these 9 weeks. Here's a summary of what's been going on so far!
Week 1:
I started teaching Social Studies. I am teaching the students the history of America, and how our country came to be. I was given a textbook curriculum that I have found to be very boring at times, so I have been making these lessons more exciting through mini projects and engaging worksheets! I have also found that the students like to work together, but they can get off task easily, so I am constantly monitoring their progress on the in-class work. My cooperating teacher pretty much lets me do what I want with these lessons since I am in charge of Social Studies! It's been great so far!
Week 2:
I added on Math and Science to my lesson planning. Math has been easy to add on, since we are given a curriculum with lesson plans in them! I taught the students how to subtract using regrouping (or borrowing). They took the test on it on Friday, and I will be grading them this weekend! For science, we are in the insects unit. We were given live Mealworms and Painted Lady Larvae, yes REAL BUGS! Unpacking them was kind of gross... I just hope I am keeping their environment how it is supposed to be so they don't die! We are observing their life cycle throughout this quarter and the students already love it. My cooperating teacher has given me a lot more freedom this week, and said that I can pretty much teach how I want, as long as I am meeting standards and following the calendar! She as also backed off and let me experience how it would be teaching alone. This has been an interesting transition and I have found myself sometimes struggling with classroom management. I am slowly becoming more strict with the students, so they know where I draw the line on goofing off in the classroom. It's a work in progress!
We also went on a field trip on Tuesday, and saw a performance of Billy Goat's Gruff. It was so cute and my students seemed to love it!
Overall:
I have received multiple notes from my students, and they all make me smile every day :) I will definitely miss these students when I am done! I am loving my time here in second grade, and am learning new things every day! From now on, I will be posting daily blogs (or try to) to keep updated on my day-to-day experiences as a student teacher.